Music on the XO
Jean Piché
jean at piche.com
Sun Oct 28 12:14:32 EDT 2007
Hi SJ,
Thank you for responding and first, a word of apology for words that
came out harsher than I intended. I make amends further down.
> Free music, like free culture, is not simply a great concept -- it
> is a reminder and affirmation of the inherent right to cultivate
> and share cultural artefacts.
Leaving aside monetary questions for a moment, free culture is an
illusion and a potentially dangerous one. Not everything created is
worthy. Culture is largely based on historical canonical values
without which it cant evolve. This is true in all cultures. Like
language and grammars. Without canons, nothing can be shared except
self-referential and empty expression. (My Aunt Irene was never very
good at the piano, no matter how heartfelt her renditions were).
The XO is a nice package to fabricate and share cultural artifacts.
Combined with the web, the "tools and access" issue is largely
solved. Every Aunt Irene now has a violin and a blowhorn to play it
through. What i am concerned with is what, in context, gets presented
as worthy to be listened to and, as the case may be, emulated.
> If as you say choice of music is of fundamental importance in the
> education and socialisation of a child, I hope you will agree that
> the right to educate and socialize a child 'properly' should not be
> owned
> by a small group of individuals who can choose whether or not to
> license said music to you.
Precisely. This is why I talked about OLPC's "curatorial" and
"examplary" powers in setting up a core music library. Whether this
comes by way of Jamendo, another community or is self-appointed, it
leads to the same situation. Who arbitrates? What is arbitrated?
When decisions are made to form a core library on school servers and
individual machines, the choices made will be, by definition, "what's
worthy" to children who access the library. I am not against a core
library. I am against a core library constructed on licensing issues
as opposed to one constructed on historical and cultural relevance.
OLPC should never put itself in the position of suggesting what is
good for a child outside the accepted cultural norm of a given
culture. This decision belongs to local communities. Serious
backfiring is almost guaranteed to happen otherwise. Consider that
music will perhaps be the activity most often done on the XO.
> It should go without saying that old yet beautiful recordings of
> canonical works which have been enjoyed and revisited for centuries
> should be available for anyone (such as OLPC) to share with millions
> of children throughout the world. That there is a legal sense in
> which this is not possible is a testament to deep failings in our
> conception of how and where culture is created.
I dont know enough about licencing to be on solid footing. But I
would think, on the contrary, that obtaining the appropriate licences
is entirely possible for our endeavour. There must be thousands of
recordings of Bach's Partitas and hundreds of the Gumboot music of
South Africa. I understand it is difficult to make a careful picking
of everything under the sun but it is not impossible. Its a project
that has to be taken on if the OLPC is to be considered culturally
informed.
I woudl argue a core library should *only* contain multicultural
canonical works (styles unrestricted) and shoudl be curated
independently, not through community polling. If you poll across the
world, you'll get Celine Dion. A contemporary canon is not western;
all cultures have ways and means.
> To your implied criticism of the Jamendo collections: If there are
> particular pieces you find of poor quality, not merely distasteful,
> please let me know which they are. The collections posted were
> selected
> with care, and none would suggest that low quality works have a place
> there. If you link to the Jamendo collection, your comments will
> appear
> directly on that page[1].
I was unduly harsh to the Jamendo project and I apologise. I know
they do great and generous work and i personally do like much of
their selection. But I live in the west and I have a sophisticated
understanding of musical trends. When you say "selected with care", I
have no reason to doubt the sincerity and dedication of those who
made the selection. But, alas, the music world is a big place. A few
million kids would have the right to know who took the decision to
give them the music, why they did and why they consider it "better"
than, say, Aunt Irene doing Moonlight Tango after a few drinks. Kids
will believe the weirdest things in the absence of explanations.
> I would like nothing better than to see those collections become
> better rounded. While we must start somewhere, that is not because
> we philosophically privilege the first entries over others. I would
> likewise love to see our collection of sounds grow to include
> samples from every family of the animal kingdom.
Why not get ethnomusicologists involved? Musicologists from
purchasing countries?Contemporary musicology is no more about
Beethoven than it is about Gamelan music. A world-wide canon is a
pretty serious endeavour, akin to the selection of Voyager audio
tracks in 1977 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voyager_Golden_Record).
I am certain It would be a welcome project in their community. And
yes, sounds do have the benefit of being more culturally neutral.
> You are in a position to help ensure this. Your input, and
> suggestions of specific works and collections, is most welcome.
> While we are careful about the licensing of collections we
> distribute, we can be more flexible about the collections we link to.
I am concerned because I feel quality is subservient to licencing
issues.
On the other hand, I think "sharing and playing" is really very
different than quality-based learning. We have to have both.
jp (ethrop)
>
>> SJ,
>>
>> Two things.
>>
>> More important:
>>
>> Free music is a great concept... for people who have global access
>> to ineternet-based music pools. Given enough "community mass" and
>> discernment on the part of the listener, one can get to the
>> subjective and elusive concepts of "quality" and
>> "exemplariness". The problem here is that OLPC, by the very fact
>> it will include collections of music by "curated" artists out of
>> the free music ethos, gives a value imprimatur where perhaps none
>> is warranted. We dont need a discussion about music's influence on
>> culture but I think everyone will agree its serious business in
>> the education and socialising of a child, increasing manyfold in
>> adolescence. Alas, much of the music that is presently included in
>> the Jamendo collection is, to be honest, dreadful in style and of
>> rather poor quality in production. I am perhaps not in a position
>> to be an arbitrer any more than the undoutedly generous and sharp
>> young minds at Jamendo but I suggest OLPC thread VERY carefully
>> here. Even when there is quality, I am not certain what to think
>> of Nigerian children being fed a diet of DJ Spooky, no matter how
>> much I personally enjoy his work...
>>
>> We should be discerning about what we wish for. "Open System" ia
>> not "Open Culture".
>>
>>
>>
>> Less important:
>>
>> A head's up on the XO audio subsystem: The speakers have a
>> severely biased frequency response. We have recently performed a
>> thorough analysis of the audio response curve of the machine and
>> there is a spectacular 12dB peak between 3000 and 4500 Hz, this on
>> all models. I suspect these are mobile phone speakers designed
>> for voice clarity. What this means is kids will likely crank up
>> the volume so that they can hear some of the lower frequencies.
>> Since the physical size of the speakers prohibits any frequencies
>> below 350 HZ, as they try to get a decent bandwidth, they will
>> get the "membrane-against-the-casing" distortion (which has the
>> merit of making the kids lower the volume but risks killing the
>> speakers if done routinely). Someone on the hardware side really
>> should look at the long term prospects for audio hardware failure
>> and see what correction we can bring, by limiting signal output
>> and/or equalising the output of the AD1888 (we dont know what can
>> be done on chip...)
>>
>> The solution we have implemented in TamTam is to simply apply a
>> reverse notch filter on the audio signals we send to the speakers.
>> This works well and provides a more pleasant listening experience,
>> but inevitably reduces the dynamic range. It does nothing per se
>> to protect the speakers becasue you can still crank up the volume
>> to casing distortion. Furthermore, our solution only works with
>> the speakers of course, since the line out/headphone output
>> produces an acceptably neutral signal. Thus, to make it sound good
>> in the speakers, we make it sound bad in the earphones. Unless
>> there is a signal we can access that tells us when the line out
>> jack is connected.... Anyone know?
>>
>>
>> jp (ethrop)
>>
>>
>>
>> _________________________________
>> http://jeanpiche.com
>>
>> On 26-Oct-07, at 9:33 PM, Samuel Klein wrote:
>>
>>> Jamendo has been hard at work compiling albums of music and
>>> confirmations
>>> from their artists, coordinating the work of dozens of curators and
>>> smaller partner sites. You can see some of the results of their
>>> work
>>> here:
>>> http://www.jamendo.com/fr/olpc
>>> There will be a "contribute music" interface soon; for now, you
>>> can send
>>> albums and interested artists to Romain directly (cc:ed here).
>>> And there
>>> will be more information put up about the artists involved.
>>> This has come together thanks to many people, but especially the
>>> crews at
>>> Jamendo, Free Culture, and the Antenna Alliance. You all rock.
>>> If you have contributed music in other formats that doesn't
>>> currently show
>>> up on the page listed above, let us know; and make sure that you
>>> have
>>> confirmed the license of your works.
>>> Cheers,
>>> SJ
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> Library mailing list
>>> Library at lists.laptop.org
>>> http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/library
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