Music
Welcome to the OLPC Music portal. The following information relate to music-related projects associated with the XO, including both software and content.
Getting involved
We are always interested in getting in touch and collaborating with people who share our passion with music. There are no particular requirements for participating in our project. Your inclination to music and your desire to learn more and share your knowledge make you a perfect contributor to our cause.
If you are interested in these projects, please add your name below:
Participants
Recent updates
Please, include in this section any known recent updates regarding the music-related projects.
Music teams
Music content
Music available in relation to the XOs can be found in a number of formats.
Sound samples
- Sound samples: There is a large collection of new and original samples that have been donated to Dr. Richard Boulanger - one of the CSounders - specifically to support the OLPC developers, students and XO users. These are sounds for the children of the world. They are free and available for downloading and use in your music and activities.
Spreading the music
Below you can find a list of music that could be included in our libraries. We are willing to find freely licensed copies of this music to be included in the XOs and the school server. Feel free to recommend music, which could be associated with the OLPC project and its educational mission.
- Classical
Western:
- Britten : Young People's Guide to the Orchestra
- Prokoviev: Peter and the Wolf : with narration. music is available (us/sr split)
- Saint-Saens : Le Carnaval des Animaux, words by Ogden Nash
- Schumann: Kinderszenen
- Debussy: Children's corner
- Bizet: Jeux d'enfants
- Other:
- Jacque Hibert : Divertissement
- Gershwin : An American in Paris
- Mozart : Eine Kleine Nachtmusik
- Aaron Copland : El Salon Mexico
- contact @ sony (cf joel & martin)
Indian:
- Sounds of Starkness
- Modern
Music sharing
- Jamendo
Remixed
- DJ Spooky
Music Education and Theory
Music education is not only about listening to or playing music.
- It is also about studying the fundaments of music - that is music theory, harmonies and chords, or about music notation.
- It is about learning how to compose your own music.
- It is about exercising your ears and finding ways to improve your improvisation skills and being able to enjoy the music you like whenever and wherever you like.
- It is about studying the history of music and learning more about the differences in the music cultures of nations worldwide.
- This is why there is even greater space for all of you to contribute to our project. Please, everyone, who is interested in resources, which could be useful in this field, take the initiative and list them below.
Music curators
Free Music Project
The Free Music Project, sponsored by the Free Culture society, is putting together a collection of iconic music from cultures and genres around the world. Their initial target is the OLPC audience of children and teachers; see freemusic.freeculture.org for details.
This group is working with Antenna Alliance and Jamendo to curate global collections for children.
Antenna Alliance
The Antenna Alliance is helping produce and record free music by offering free recording space and technical support to groups that record freely licensed music. See their site for further details.
Tempostand
TempoStand is a group testing out using CC-BY-SA music for all of their remixes and as backgrounds for other productions, out of India. All the music on their site is cc-by-sa: Tempostand.com
Other sources of curated music
- DJ C
- Miss Fairchild
- DJ Spooky / Paul D. Miller
- The Juan Maclean
- Wayne&Wax
- DJ/Rupture -- Maga Bo / Filastine
- Astronaut
- FGV Brazil -- Axial / Luisa Manda Um Beijo
- Tempostand (various groups)
- ApniDhun (various groups)
Music software
TamTam
- TamTam is a suite of four music and sound related activities for the XO. TamTam is written in python with some C functions for speed-critical services. The audio engine for TamTam is Csound.
Music Jigsaw
- The Music Jigsaw is a cultural activity, the purpose of which is to make the child recognize music, both popular and classical. The game uses musical sections, as if they were pieces of a broken head, where the child puts these parts, in order to get the temporal full stretch.
Public Csound
- Csound is the music and audio signal processing language developed by MIT's Barry Vercoe. Csound provides audio services for the XO laptops.
- Available Interfaces
There are a variety of interfaces to Csound. There is a C based API, a Python API and a Csound Server that currently allows for communication via TCP/IP. The Csound Server is the recommended method for interacting with Csound on the XO. Csound can also be run from the command-line.
More Information on the Csound Server can be found at http://rhythmicdesign.com/CsoundXO/
Sources are available at http://dev.laptop.org/git?p=projects/csoundserver;a=tree
For more information on Csound you can check http://www.csounds.com/
- Audio Applications
- FMSynth: a basic FM synthesis emulator built using Csound and the Csound Server. Sources with regard to the emulator are available at http://dev.laptop.org/git?p=projects/olpcmusic;a=tree