Your Music House
2006/12/18
Okay, it's been a while since either of us updated, I know.
I just spoke to S. on the phone, and I think it's going to be pretty busy, these next few months.
A quick overview, again, of what we want to offer:
-mp3s free for download, with the option of purchasing an audio CD (with higher-quality sound). A CD wouldn't have to be one album from the same artist - one could pick-and-mix tracks.
-sheet music free for download, with the option of purchasing a high-quality printed hardcopy.
I don't want to offer anything for sale on the website that isn't also available in some format for free. I do want all contributing artists to be reimbursed for every bit of work we sell for them, and also to receive a share of donations made to the site.
Unfortunately, none of this can be started off for free. The following things are going to cost us:
-domain name registration
-web server space rental
-database design/coding? I can update things by hand to start with but eventually we will need something more sophisticated than what I can write
-also eventually website design, although to start with I can put something up
-publicity materials - we can get business cards for free or close to it, but we'll need a bit for things like flyers at some point.
-some money upfront for materials (CDs, jackets for them, good paper for printing sheet music, or possibly a good printer as well, or possibly both, or possibly getting it printed elsewhere, professionally)
We get a total of £200 from Trinity for the entire project.
That button goes to my PayPal account, but it is a unique button to this project and all funds will go toward the project. Eventually we will replace it with our very own PayPal account, or some other sort of online money transfer thing if PayPal is too evil.
Recommendations for webspace and domain registration gratefully invited.
Additionally, we're thinking about publicity. We'll need quite a few artists to contribute in order for this to work - but why should they contribute if there is not a substantial audience? And how will we have any audience if there is little or no content? For a while, we'll have to pimp this out everywhere. I'm tentatively considering a tour of Canada (and possibly the US? but would have to look into visa issues, eep scary) this summer, to record music and spread the word, but this will require some fairly major funding - travel isn't cheap, and I still have to pay rent back in London. First things first, let's get the website up and running.
K. ¶ 12:44 1 comments
I just spoke to S. on the phone, and I think it's going to be pretty busy, these next few months.
A quick overview, again, of what we want to offer:
-mp3s free for download, with the option of purchasing an audio CD (with higher-quality sound). A CD wouldn't have to be one album from the same artist - one could pick-and-mix tracks.
-sheet music free for download, with the option of purchasing a high-quality printed hardcopy.
I don't want to offer anything for sale on the website that isn't also available in some format for free. I do want all contributing artists to be reimbursed for every bit of work we sell for them, and also to receive a share of donations made to the site.
Unfortunately, none of this can be started off for free. The following things are going to cost us:
-domain name registration
-web server space rental
-database design/coding? I can update things by hand to start with but eventually we will need something more sophisticated than what I can write
-also eventually website design, although to start with I can put something up
-publicity materials - we can get business cards for free or close to it, but we'll need a bit for things like flyers at some point.
-some money upfront for materials (CDs, jackets for them, good paper for printing sheet music, or possibly a good printer as well, or possibly both, or possibly getting it printed elsewhere, professionally)
We get a total of £200 from Trinity for the entire project.
That button goes to my PayPal account, but it is a unique button to this project and all funds will go toward the project. Eventually we will replace it with our very own PayPal account, or some other sort of online money transfer thing if PayPal is too evil.
Recommendations for webspace and domain registration gratefully invited.
Additionally, we're thinking about publicity. We'll need quite a few artists to contribute in order for this to work - but why should they contribute if there is not a substantial audience? And how will we have any audience if there is little or no content? For a while, we'll have to pimp this out everywhere. I'm tentatively considering a tour of Canada (and possibly the US? but would have to look into visa issues, eep scary) this summer, to record music and spread the word, but this will require some fairly major funding - travel isn't cheap, and I still have to pay rent back in London. First things first, let's get the website up and running.
K. ¶ 12:44 1 comments
2006/10/05
charity
some charities put on regular events each month to raise money, i think it would be a good idea to approach these charities to see if they will let us collaberate with their events and let us help them to raise money.
it would be nice if the charities shared the values that we are encouraging with this project and that we hold within ourselves such as freedom of speech and press, fair accesss to cultural and artistic material, fair compensation for composers and performers.
s. ¶ 12:19 1 comments
it would be nice if the charities shared the values that we are encouraging with this project and that we hold within ourselves such as freedom of speech and press, fair accesss to cultural and artistic material, fair compensation for composers and performers.
s. ¶ 12:19 1 comments
2006/09/30
Still more miscellany and a plug for someone else
Thoughts:
-ask various people about DJ collaboration between horn and piano (I've started writing some music that might work for this, already)
-see about getting Ickle Brother on board; okay, he lives on another continent and the 8-hour time difference will be an inconvenience, but he knows a lot of musicians - ones that I don't, so there'll be very little duplication of effort - and he's saving up to study at a recording school thingum. He has knowledge and resources that some of the rest of us may not. He's seven years younger than I am, but not much younger than S. and most of the other people working on these projects at Trinity. And it would be wonderful, really very happymaking, to be able to work with him on something we both love. I don't think we've done that since snowfort-building days.
-write a post about what it's all about, already!
-S. and I need some sort of database for contacts etc that we can both access easily. Online is one reasonable option. It has to be reasonably secure (because Data Protection Act etc and because spamming all our participants is not the way to go!), and it has to be easy to use, and I don't want to code it myself damnit - learning those skills would be an unnecessary distraction. I'd rather use something open-source, as well, in keeping with the ethos of this project.
This project is eating my brain. I approve.
In slightly unrelated news, if you're into sci-fi things do go read Tikuka Station. Yes, it's released under a Creative Commons licence. You can read more about why it's been released this way at her journal, but what it basically boils down to is that as a relatively unknown writer, the publicity is worth more to her than the rights to the story.
That's pretty much the principle we'll be operating on here.
K. ¶ 07:39 0 comments
-ask various people about DJ collaboration between horn and piano (I've started writing some music that might work for this, already)
-see about getting Ickle Brother on board; okay, he lives on another continent and the 8-hour time difference will be an inconvenience, but he knows a lot of musicians - ones that I don't, so there'll be very little duplication of effort - and he's saving up to study at a recording school thingum. He has knowledge and resources that some of the rest of us may not. He's seven years younger than I am, but not much younger than S. and most of the other people working on these projects at Trinity. And it would be wonderful, really very happymaking, to be able to work with him on something we both love. I don't think we've done that since snowfort-building days.
-write a post about what it's all about, already!
-S. and I need some sort of database for contacts etc that we can both access easily. Online is one reasonable option. It has to be reasonably secure (because Data Protection Act etc and because spamming all our participants is not the way to go!), and it has to be easy to use, and I don't want to code it myself damnit - learning those skills would be an unnecessary distraction. I'd rather use something open-source, as well, in keeping with the ethos of this project.
This project is eating my brain. I approve.
In slightly unrelated news, if you're into sci-fi things do go read Tikuka Station. Yes, it's released under a Creative Commons licence. You can read more about why it's been released this way at her journal, but what it basically boils down to is that as a relatively unknown writer, the publicity is worth more to her than the rights to the story.
That's pretty much the principle we'll be operating on here.
K. ¶ 07:39 0 comments
2006/09/29
Okay, it worked this time, there was a problem with the .jpg is all. Go Photoshop!K. ¶ 19:31 1 comments
Logo goodness
Yes, one of us will do a big long explanation post soon. Honest. Until then, please bear with us.
Had a play around with Photoslop and designed some logo-y stuff. This is far from final, but I think it could work.
For whatever reason, Blogger doesn't want to upload the thumbnail. I've tried a few times now. For something written by Google I'm starting to get a little upset with the capabilities of this; might give up and try LJ, which I know how to use, except that I can't actually access LJ properly from Trinity because of Janet offensive materials filters.
Maybe I can only do one per post or something. I'll have to have a try. Anyway, let us know what you think of this logo.
What else today? Oh yes, I talked to my horn teacher. He had some interesting suggestions. He thinks that for venues for the launch concerts it's worth talking to the Quakers about using a Friends Meeting House in exchange for organising the event ourselves (which we have to do anyway) and donation to charity. This is certainly worth looking into, and makes a nice alternative to the usual "use a church" option.
Do you have any good London concert venues in mind?
K. ¶ 19:14 1 comments
Yes, one of us will do a big long explanation post soon. Honest. Until then, please bear with us.Had a play around with Photoslop and designed some logo-y stuff. This is far from final, but I think it could work.
For whatever reason, Blogger doesn't want to upload the thumbnail. I've tried a few times now. For something written by Google I'm starting to get a little upset with the capabilities of this; might give up and try LJ, which I know how to use, except that I can't actually access LJ properly from Trinity because of Janet offensive materials filters.
Maybe I can only do one per post or something. I'll have to have a try. Anyway, let us know what you think of this logo.
What else today? Oh yes, I talked to my horn teacher. He had some interesting suggestions. He thinks that for venues for the launch concerts it's worth talking to the Quakers about using a Friends Meeting House in exchange for organising the event ourselves (which we have to do anyway) and donation to charity. This is certainly worth looking into, and makes a nice alternative to the usual "use a church" option.
Do you have any good London concert venues in mind?
K. ¶ 19:14 1 comments
2006/09/28
IDEA - Alpenhorn
We should get some contemporary alpenhorn stuff on the first CD and launch concerts.
K. ¶ 19:40 0 comments
K. ¶ 19:40 0 comments
Miscellany
I found the old rubber stamp my father used for his Music House over twenty years ago. It's a little worse for wear but we should be able to use it to design a proper logo. Here's a really bad ASCII version:
^
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It's a music note in the outline of a house. I don't think we'll be going for the ASCII option, folks.
We were thinking of putting words around the bottom three sides. Also maybe change some other stuff; can we get a CD or a speaker in there somehow? I don't want anything too complicated, because logo recognition is important and keeping it simple will keep our costs down, but it certainly deserves playing around with.
And, oh, colours. Colours are difficult. I mean, we want something that will be easy to read, easy to co-ordinate with... Bright pink is lovely but it's right out. I personally dislike green and orange. Purple is a real difficult thing as far as webpages go. Yellow is too hard to read, brown won't look quite right. Black is good but on a website we should have at least some colour. So we were thinking of CC0066, which is a purply red. I like the colour but I'm not sure how easy it will be to co-ordinate with. We're going to be looking at a colour for the logo and headings, a colour for links, a colour for visited links, possibly a mouseover colour for links (do people still do this?) and perhaps a background colour for menus and the like. I'm not sure there are that many colours that work well with purply red.
I'll need to get some webspace set up for design purposes, probably as soon as we've finished our project proposal. I have a personal, recreational website, but for the moment I don't want that site and this site associated too much. It's difficult to know how much space and bandwidth we'll need, but for now I guess it's probably best to start quite small and scale up when we need to.
S. mentioned to me that one option for printing music would be to offer to print it on coloured paper for dyslexics. I'm not sure this will have a huge market niche, but it works very well with the accessibility requirements for the project.
Things to do, in no particular order:
K. ¶ 17:15 2 comments
^
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It's a music note in the outline of a house. I don't think we'll be going for the ASCII option, folks.
We were thinking of putting words around the bottom three sides. Also maybe change some other stuff; can we get a CD or a speaker in there somehow? I don't want anything too complicated, because logo recognition is important and keeping it simple will keep our costs down, but it certainly deserves playing around with.
And, oh, colours. Colours are difficult. I mean, we want something that will be easy to read, easy to co-ordinate with... Bright pink is lovely but it's right out. I personally dislike green and orange. Purple is a real difficult thing as far as webpages go. Yellow is too hard to read, brown won't look quite right. Black is good but on a website we should have at least some colour. So we were thinking of CC0066, which is a purply red. I like the colour but I'm not sure how easy it will be to co-ordinate with. We're going to be looking at a colour for the logo and headings, a colour for links, a colour for visited links, possibly a mouseover colour for links (do people still do this?) and perhaps a background colour for menus and the like. I'm not sure there are that many colours that work well with purply red.
I'll need to get some webspace set up for design purposes, probably as soon as we've finished our project proposal. I have a personal, recreational website, but for the moment I don't want that site and this site associated too much. It's difficult to know how much space and bandwidth we'll need, but for now I guess it's probably best to start quite small and scale up when we need to.
S. mentioned to me that one option for printing music would be to offer to print it on coloured paper for dyslexics. I'm not sure this will have a huge market niche, but it works very well with the accessibility requirements for the project.
Things to do, in no particular order:
- Find out whether we can use Your Music House as a company name.
- Scan in the old Music House logo and make a preliminary design. Upload it so there's a profile picture here. Ask a graphic designer or two that I know to comment on said design.
- Research some free webspace and register it (blag it off a geek?)
- Talk to composers and bands about writing music for the site - people I know, and also communities over on EllJay... just get people used to the idea, don't make any specific requests yet
- Write some of my own music for the site
- Talk to A. S. about Specialist Skills Projects
- Write a post explaining just what it is we want to do with the site, since this blog sortof starts mid-assumption
K. ¶ 17:15 2 comments
Test Post
This is a test post.
We'll be using this blog to talk about our Performance Skills Project, which will be a music sharing site of sorts, with initial launch concerts featuring horn music. We'll be fleshing out ideas, making plans, and asking for feedback.
K. and S. ¶ 14:48 2 comments
We'll be using this blog to talk about our Performance Skills Project, which will be a music sharing site of sorts, with initial launch concerts featuring horn music. We'll be fleshing out ideas, making plans, and asking for feedback.
K. and S. ¶ 14:48 2 comments
