Violinist To Release Record For Free Online

from the power-of-free dept

Wed, Jan 9th 2008 11:36am — Dennis Yang

Top British Violinist, Tasmin Little, has announced plans to release her next album Naked Violin for free online next week. Although fairly well known within classical music circles, Tasmin wanted to grow her fanbase, so her solution was to use the power of free. The classical music genre has seen a huge rebound as a result of the internet, so perhaps it's not surprising to see more classical musicians embracing its power more quickly. Seems like they're finally starting to realize that the actual problem isn't that people were "stealing" their music, but rather that not many people actually cared enough to bother.

Filed Under: classical, free, music

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Anonymous Coward, 9 Jan 2008 @ 12:03pm

Who has ever stole, I mean downloaded, classical music? Most of that music is public domain.
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- CHL Instructor, 9 Jan 2008 @ 12:54pm
  
  Re: public domain
  The original written music is all in the public domain, but the actual performances can be copyrighted. Nice to see current classical albums available in the public domain.
  
  There is a very nice collection of JS Bach MP3s that was just released to the public domain at http://www.blockmrecords.org/bach/
  
  I'm not as much a Bach fan as a Mozart fan, though.
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  - Anonymous Coward, 9 Jan 2008 @ 12:59pm
    
    Re: Re: public domain
    The arrangements of the work can be copyrighted, but not a note for note recording.
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    - Anonymous Coward, 10 Jan 2008 @ 2:01pm
      
      Re: Re: Re: public domain
      Um... that's not true. I used to work as an editor in a music publishing house. For pieces with sheet music that is in the public domain, the producers and/or performers can copyright their performance of it.
      
      Also, a newly-published edition of a piece of sheet music gets a brand-new copyright. Even if the music is exactly the same as an older public-domain manuscript, the new edition has been typeset and printed differently, and the editor may have made changes to piano fingerings and other details.
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Bored, 9 Jan 2008 @ 12:13pm

Re
I for one applaud her. Who knows, if she comes to the States to play, I might attend her concert.
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- Anonymous Coward, 9 Jan 2008 @ 12:18pm
  
  Re: Re
  You probably could not appreciate or afford it, so please do not act like you could.
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Able-X, 9 Jan 2008 @ 12:49pm

classical music
Most of the music itself is public domain, however individual performances of the works are still protected by Copyright. I look forward to it :).
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Anonymous Coward, 9 Jan 2008 @ 1:01pm

I would be interested in this if she actually played naked.
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- ChurchHatesTucker, 9 Jan 2008 @ 3:07pm
  
  Re:
  Pix or GTFO.
  
  Seriously though, here's my prediction: She puts the album up, a bunch of people download it, and a small percentage of them pay for it. Every idiot reporter will be talking about how it was a failure, purely by looking at the percentages, and ignoring whether or not she actually increased her exposure and grew her fan base. (That's assuming she's asking for payment, TFA isn't clear on that.)
  
  As I've said before, if you looked at the percentage of people who hear a song on the radio that actually buy the song, you'd get some pretty dismal numbers. (Sadly, the recording industry has lately been acting like they took that advice seriously.)
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  - Carlos, 9 Jan 2008 @ 3:26pm
    
    Re: Re:
    As far as I know, the music is totally free (as in free beer). She is not asking for any payment.
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Howard Lee Harkness, 9 Jan 2008 @ 7:38pm

Something similar
I plan to do a concert late next Spring with another violin teacher and a pianist, of some of the popular student concertos, and I plan to record and post it on my website. I will also encourage my students to come and record it. It's rather difficult to find professional recordings of the Seitz and other student concertos, possibly because the accomplished players aren't interested in doing them.
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Music, 9 Jan 2008 @ 9:09pm

Free
I'll give away my recorded music for free, but you'll have to pay big time to see me live in concert = the future biz model for musical artists.
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Norm, 10 Jan 2008 @ 7:39am

Great idea
Unlike ChurchHatesTucker I think this is a winner and has proven to be so for many non-mainstream musicians/artist. While certainly not a boon and no one expects that, she will sell more albums because of it. And the ostensible purpose is to widen the fan base of classical music which is different than sell more records.

Most people are not going to pay for that album but a good amount will buy some of her other releases.
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4-80-sicks, 10 Jan 2008 @ 8:58am

I'll check it out. I like the violin as an instrument in combination with others, (see: Pig) and if it can stand on its own in my taste, I'll pay for it; if not, I won't listen to it again.

Like ChurchHatesTucker says, a lot of analysts will take anything they can to point to this as a failure. 5000 people download and only 1000 pay? It works now but when everybody does this it won't? Only big name artists are known enough to make this work? Only small, up and coming acts can take this kind of risk?

Fortunately, this is a much better model than the radio. I don't buy what I hear on the radio (not that I listen to the radio any more. You ever hear of Pig?) because I was burned so many times when I was younger. Hear a good song on the radio, go buy the CD for $16, and only two tracks are worthwhile. This model is much better--I can preview the album, decide if a significant portion is worthwhile, and if so, buy it. If I only like one track, maybe I'll pay a fraction of the requested price and keep that one track. Better for them than not receiving anything.

And here is the crux of the "record labels treating their customers like criminals" scenario. If I can't hear this album for free first, I'm not going to outlay cash for it. Since I can, I may. It requires trust.
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