Kickstarting free, open recordings of Bach's "Well-Tempered Clavier, Book 1"

[Robert_Douglass]

@PatRx2

if you are basing something on them for extension by the public, you had better add real value.

Is there no real value in having a cleanly typeset edition that is also digital? And public domain? Most of the public domain scans are of horrible editions, or composer manuscripts that are good for academics but impossible to read in performance.

@PatRx2

Finale, Igor and Sibelius were doing the same thing years ago, albeit with proprietary formats.

That cuts pretty much to the core of the matter. All the people who invested their life’s work into Sibelius files, only to learn that the product is (or is close to) end of life, with no recourse to continue; that’s the beauty of open source and standardized formats. That’s the message we’re promoting.

@PatRx2

and read them back by loading a freely available browser plug-in (state of the art back then)

So MuseScore already kicks their butts there … completely HTML5 based embedding with no browser plugin needed.

@PatRx2

Heck, I recall a Web-based programme that allowed for collaborating on scores - it hasn’t gone very far either.

Because it is proprietary and not based on open standards that can leverage large libraries of public goods - the exactly libraries that we’re building =)

@PatRx2

MuseScore may or may not have a better run than the big commercial programmes in this regard, but I don’t expect to see the leap in magnitude you’d need for native browser support for, say, MusicXML.

That’s because the underlying programs - the browsers - haven’t made music notation a native thing. And that is, in part, because there is no huge library of must-have scores for them to draw upon. Thus our motivation for making said libraries.

@s2redux

I’d like to send a few bucks your way for this; is Kickstarter the only route? (As in, I’d rather send a check so that you guys get all the money; plus, don’t want/need any premiums.)

Cool! robert@opengoldbergvariations.org via PayPal works. It goes into the the Open Goldberg Project (EIN 27-3992022) bank account, and all of it will finance the creation of public domain goods.

@s2redux

I’d like to go to the Ann Arbor performance (fingers crossed for the visa), but can’t tell from the Google+ page how to get tickets. How do I get tickets?

It’s free! Just show up, and say “Hi!” after the gig =)

@s2redux

And, out of curiosity, why is there no 16-bit/44.1K lossless file on offer? For folks who burn files to CD, or stream using old-fart solutions like AirPlay or Sonos, the 24-bit downloads seem like unnecessary bandwidth.

It’s easier to offer higher bitrate files and let people convert them down than the other way around. I actually had make such files for iTunes and Spotify, but never knew anyone would prefer them.