Happy 1 Year Old Birthday to Interesting Music Stuff

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO INTERESTING MUSIC STUFF!

Take a second and listen to the 1 minute composition by Igor Stravinsky called the Greeting Prelude (1955) performed by the Radio Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Reinbert de Leeuw. This concert on 6 June 2009 was to celebrate Louis Andriessen on the occasion of his 70th birthday, and with this selection pays proper hommage to a composer who has been deeply influenced by Stravinsky and whose writings can be found in his book, The Apollonian Clockwork. Just as this concert celebrates Andriessen, Stravinsky's work celebrates the reknown conductor Pierre Monteux by dedicating the work to him as a gift for his 80th birthday. Monteux had conducted among others, the premieres of Stravinsky's Petrushka and Le Sacre du Printemps. Like little burning embers which crackle in a fireplace, the listener hears permutations and fragments of 'Happy Birthday' emerging from the sonic texture, scattered throughout the orchestration and resolution of voice-leading across registers and between instruments.

I wanted to start with this short clip because it is the birthday of this blog and it has now been a year since I started this endeavour and wanted to take stock for a moment. When I began I was attempting to bring together data and other resources which were available amidst the flat world of e-mail and flat websites. RSS has changed much of our approach towards information retrieval and discovery and I wanted this information to be easily findable and searchable.

Initially there were only visitors from the UK and then at the 4 month marker there were visitors from just over 50 countries. Now at the 1 year mark, I can now see that there are now over 90 countries which is incidentally around the same number who participate in the Miss Universe Pageant. Although not a swimsuit or analytical competition to save world hunger, I do appreciate that the information and its usefulness is growing and getting more disseminated into the online world.

From the onset I've interconnected resources I've tagged through Delicious into the blog. As the number of posts have grown, so too have issues of findability and browsability. To organise tags, I added a tag cloud and later, a Google search function. Each of these has added more functionality to the blog and served the moment. Usability and friends have said that the tag cloud has been looking a little murky and in the name of better usability, I've finally uploaded a better script which keeps the list (sorted alphabetically) hidden until needed, providing less clutter but optimal and easier browsability. (As murky as that cloud gets, I just love the way it spins around so don't want to axe it.)

So here's to Year number 2. Let's see where this adventure takes us and what further improvements need to be made to keep searchability and retrieval as efficient as possible whilst the scales keep on growing. I love learning new things - whether they are new resources, java, or code - and if there is anything that this year's adventure has taught me, it is that 1) I have a lot to learn and 2) that I can still learn.

CFP: Pop Culture Tools in the Music Classroom (publication)

POP CULTURE TOOLS IN THE MUSIC CLASSROOM

CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS

DEADLINE: 1 AUGUST 2009

Authors are invited to submit potential contributions to an essay collection on using popular culture in undergraduate- and graduate-level music courses. The essays should focus on teaching and learning tools derived from popular culture, and may also include generalized considerations of popular-culture texts. The collection is intended to serve as a framework for course design or as a supplementary text in either pedagogy or music classes. Approaches concerning methods of using popular culture to address either art or vernacular musics, from the disciplines of musicology, ethnomusicology, music theory and analysis, and performance studies are welcome. Topics may include, but are not limited to:

· electronic media such as mp3s and other digital audio; Ipod culture;streamed radio

· multimedia sources, including YouTube, music videos, television shows,movies, soundtracks

· videogames such as Guitar Hero, Rock Band, Dance Dance Revolution, and others

· online environments such as Second Life

· covers, versioning, parodies, mashups

**Essays should be 6,000-10,000 words in length and conform to /Chicago Manual of Style/ guidelines. Authors will be responsible for acquiring any necessary permissions for copyrighted materials included in their works. Text should be submitted as Word files (.doc or .rtf format),with musical examples in .tif, .pdf, .jpg, .gif, or .bmp format (.tifs are preferred).

The collection will be published by Scarecrow Press in 2010. Materials should be submitted electronically to Nicole Biamonte at (nbiamonte@gmail.com) by *August 1, 2009*. Please include:

1) a cover letter or message, including the author’s name and essay title

2) an abstract of approximately 200 words

3) the proposed contribution, with author’s name and other identifying information omitted

4) a brief biography (50 to 100 words)

5) a current cv

Elliott Carter at 100

The iconoclast of American music, Elliott Carter recently turned 100. The celebration of his centenary has been marked with various interviews, performances and other online exhibitions.

One interview was conducted on the NPR radio programme "All Things Considered:" http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=98081089 (8:20)

Elliott Carter discussing his new piece, Caténaires, for pianist Pierre-Laurent Aimard and the Ensemble Contemporaine (26 October interview from New York): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bp95zFUPEj0&feature=related (9:58)



He was also interviewed on NPR (National Public Radio, US) on the Charlie Rose Show (PBS) alongside pianist/conductors James Levine and Daniel Barenboim. The Youtube clip is an excerpt from the interview and contains Barenboim's recollections of his late friend, Edward Said, and his reminiscenses on the 'late style.'
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qiDd4JVN9Vo  Alternatively, one can watch the entire interview at http://www.charlierose.com/

Other recent interviews include one with Frank Oteri (American Music Center - New Music Box) from mid-2008: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zzs8Ov2p-Rc (5:08)



Also in celebration of Carter's 100th birthday, the Library of Congress has digitised the manuscript sketches of his Sonata for Cello and Piano and the String Quartet no. 1. http://lcweb2.loc.gov/diglib/ihas/loc.natlib.ihas.200155900/default.html Lastly, they have put up a digitised version of The Musical Languages of Elliott Carter (1984) by Charles Rosen which operates in a manner similar to the British Library 'Turning the Page'.

A detail from p. 68 of the manuscript sketches of Carter's Cello Sonata from the Library of Congress.

Thanks to the Library of Congress for digitising these invaluable sketches and Happy Birthday to Mr Carter, may your next century be as prolific as your first!

Flickr, Creative Commons and Copyright 2.0

Flickr is a fabulous resource. Not only can you share your photos with others, it serves as a large repository for stock photos which can be used for academic presentations, etc. In terms of licensed academic resources there is ArtStor, but having digested the license for ease of re-use, 2 words come to mind: not friendly. There are other sites which have stock photos (Phil Bradley has a summary of these.) I've experimented with a bunch of these sites testing keywords and usability and range of stock and bookmarked my favourites under the 'stock_photos' tag in my Delicious feed.

In particular, Flickr epitomises the spirit of Web 2.0 and how copyright (and inherent intellectual property) has evolved for the web. In addition to social networking by sharing your creative ideas, endeavours, Flickr also allows you to share your content with as many or as few restrictions as possible via a Creative Commons license. (Another aspect of Web 2.0 is that you can follow the addition of new content and developments uploaded (by individual) via RSS feeds at the bottom of that individual's page.)

From the main page (above) click on search, then click through to the Advanced search button.

Scroll on down until you see the following filters:

From this point, you can restrict your search to photos whose owners will allow re-use or adaptability of content (most just asking for a citation back to the original on Flickr), some allowing adaptability but for non-commercial purposes. It is this variance which allows a Creative Commons license to sit in the middle of a continuum ranging from copyright (where permission must be sought for any modifications) to public domain (do with it what you will).

From www.creativecommons.org

At a time when MEPs are debating extension to existing copyright laws, creativity in this new medium will be stifled as the editors of the Guardian eloquently put yesterday in their tribute to Creative Commons co-founder Lawrence Lessig.

"[Lessig] regards extension of copyright as anathema to the YouTube generation and a brake on economic growth. He also thinks it is against the US constitution, which states that copyright should be "limited". The original limit has been extended from 14 to 70 years after the death of the creator, and Prof Lessig points out that one of the main corporations that lobbied for this, Disney, cut its creative teeth by raiding the public domain for works from Snow White to the Hunchback of Notre Dame. If the current term for copyright had existed then, it might have suffocated Mickey Mouse at birth." http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/oct/22/intellectualproperty-copyright

Speaking of Disney, it is only apropos that I highlight the following Youtube clip which covers issues of copyright, in particular, the fair use (US) / fair dealing (UK) doctrine using snippets of Disney's own cartoon characters.

Whilst this clip is very entertaining and outlines the general principle of fair use, there are some differences with fair dealing (UK) albeit both operate from a common ideology which balances the market value (i.e. what an author could potentially lose) against a reasonable amount of time for the author to enjoy those royalties. (To this end, I think it's about time Steamboat Willie passed into public domain! I'm not including the famous Mickey Mouse clip which first synchronised sound with animation in this posting but here is the link to the 1928 clip.) To learn a bit more about Creative Commons licensing and how you can use it and adapt materials for your research, this clip is a nice introduction. (Because it is hosted on Revver, small annoying text ads appear like super-titles, once they appear they can be immediately minimised which I HIGHLY recommend!)

With all of the discussion on copyright I would be remiss if I did not mention Eduserv's new Copyright Tutorial which was brought to my attention in a recent posting by Sheila Webber. Although I am not a (big) fan of Eduserv, I give credit where credit is due and they've done a good job here. The Copyright Toolkit (http://www.copyrighttoolkit.com/) is a good resource with a UK focus for those wishing to ensure compliance. It has exercises to work through different scenarios and will serve as a nice reference as it contains relevant bits of case law to illustrate their points.

From Homo singularis to Homo socialis

As I've been preparing Inductions for this autumn's masses, I've accumulated quite a bit of information on Web 2.0 applications but it has occurred to me that I need to lay the foundation of conveying Web 1.0 in the course of these discussions. For me there's no way better to accomplish this endeavour than by articulating my thoughts 'on paper' (or by sketching out a series of all intervallic chords but those are ensconced in my Moleskine stave sketchbook.) Thus, our evolutionary tale of man's use of the web commences.

Whilst the Web itself may be nearly 30 years old (if one uses as a marker those old SMTP operations which sent email between various government research labs and academic institutions in the early 80s), it wasn't until Netscape launched its Mosaic browser in 1994 that the nascent web took off with users gaining a visual experience from what previously had been a text based application. Although Netscape no longer exists having been eviscerated by Microsoft, it represented the fundamental feature of the web at the time - access via a GUI (graphic user interface).

How far the web has come since then! One need only realise that as ubiquitous as Google is now, it is only just celebrating its 10th birthday. John Naughton wrote in Sunday's Observer on the beta release of Google's new browser, Chrome, highlighting the fact that the 'company is aiming to redefine the browser as an operating system.' In real terms this represents another potential shift as the battle-of-the-browser circle comes full turn. What IE destroyed has emerged in an open source phoenix and fully outlines the strategic direction (at least where from Google's perspective) where it thinks the future of the web lies. That it has been released in open source truly underscores the power and impact of Web 2.0 philosophy.

What is that philosophy? Basically, I would sum it up as collaborative democracy. Much like the Linux operating system and Mozilla's Firefox browser, open sourceware powered by collective intelligence will outperform and outcreate even the billions invested in Microsoft's R&D division. Collaborative democracy outlines a dynamic shift of authoritarian control represented by Web 1.0. When the visual web connected the world anew, the creation, editing and development of web pages were limited to those who knew html and/or had sufficient administrative permissions to implement these changes. (I'm not saying that pages couldn't be created without knowledge of Front Page or having ftp permissions - God knows Geocities hosted its own prescient form of Youtube with the Dancing Jesus back in the late 90s!) However, control of access was (and for most institutions which haven't evolved to 2.0) and still is, centrally managed, slow to change and (from a user perspective) unidirectional. In Web 1.0 software applications must be loaded by an Administrator and are maintained similarly.

Web 2.0 manifests itself in a virtual desktop and operating system which has its software applications scattered across the web. You are the Systems administrator customising what is needed. Further, the applications themselves draw together communities not only socially, but also to solve problems, or advocate issues with others of similar disposition. It is participative and open - inviting comments and criticisms to improve the product or test arguments. Imagine the power of this group intelligence! Without the stringent controls of Web 1.0 - entities such as wikis can accomplish what many web content management systems have tried to do but failed, engagement! The individual is more willing to participate because they have as much voice as the person next to them or up the ladder. Democracy at work.

I recently had a conversation about some of these Web 2.0 applications with a librarian who said to me, 'why do we need to do these Web 2 stuff? It's just blogs and wikis. We update our web pages enough.' With all due respect, it misses the underlying message of facilitating democratic participation. Do organisations truly put all comments out that they receive, I wonder? Is there any censoring (other than profanity or pornography) which is taking place? I can imagine that some CEOs would be cringing at the lack of a hierarchical structure insofar as some clerk in the mail room has as much voice as members of the Board of Trustees, but that in essence, is the power of Web 2.0

I think I'll close out this post with two final thoughts. First, that the world at large is truly taking up Web 2.0. Its applications generate far more content than those flat and static Web 1.0 web pages. (By which I mean, their text can not be syndicated elsewhere.) To bring this home, one need only look at Youtube's output alone. In its 3 years of existence its user generated content has surpassed over half a century of cummulative TV broadcasting in the United States with all of its networks (Wesch,Portal to Media Literacy,2008). Secondly, collaboration is key. Digg, Reddit, Stumbleupon, Facebook, Bebo, Myspace, Delicious, Technorati, Twitter, Flickr (and 100s more) derive their power from the community - 'from the people by the people to the people' (Abraham Lincoln) evolving from the individual (homo singularis) to the collaborative man (homo socialis).

Web 2.0 and Libraries - Synergy or Consignment to the Dustbin of History?

When I worked at the MIT Libraries, I remember Ann Wolpert's axiom (the Director) of libraries always being 'relevant, excellent and adaptable'. I'd heard from colleagues that over the years the selection of these particular attributes might vary slightly, but the first one 'relevant' was always omnipresent serving as the nucleus of qualities essential for decision and policy making. Against the evolving landscape of the web, never has relevance been more central to the positioning of libraries to support their continued viability and vitality.

Whilst it's been some 3 years since I first took Phil Bradley's blog course at TFPL, the recent expansion of my subject portfolio to include Film, Media and Theatre has motivated me to explore likewise the expansion of resources available in Web technologies to support these subjects. It's been my goal to integrate these Web 2.0 developments into the research training and reader inductions I provide. If the vast quantity of applications seem daunting to folks I can only say that you've just got to 'do it' (as the old Nike campaign used to exhort). After doing a bit of digestion on the results of a cursory literature review, the bulk of the past few weeks have been spent testing these softwares and social networking services. So if I can do it, anyone can.

The use of these applications are endless and their use has been exponential. Libraries can not ignore these trends. Further, we must fully integrate what we do best in information management and the development of information literacy skills with what we can learn from these technologies so that we can remain relevant for years to come.

Over the course of the next few weeks, I'll be blogging on some of the applications I've investigated and how I think they can support and supplement research endeavours. For now, I leave you with a clip I just made and loaded up to Youtube.
Its title is Web 2.0 - An Information Literacy Trailer.



All of the elements needed to create this clip, including resource discovery, production and implementation, draw on these Web2.0 applications: Zoho,Reddit, Digg, Technorati, Delicious, Furl, Diigo, Slideshare, Rsizr, FotoFlexer,Flickr, Filebig and Youtube.