Free Music Archive - Oddio Overplay Blog

Better World Through Collaboration

2013-05-18T13:49:30-04:00

Creative Commons licensing has opened a new world for collaboration. Most artists with works in the Free Music Archive share their copyrighted work with some rights reserved. Depending on the chosen license for the work, this often allows others to incorporate the work into something new without the use of lawyers and other middle men.

An avenue of collaboration that the Free Music Archive has actively promoted is the reuse of recordings in film and video. The FMA Music for Video selections offer filmmakers a sampling of the variety of music available for reuse. The FMA also has a partnership with Vimeo, the video host, helping filmmakers find just the right music to fit the setting of the film.

The collaborative music+video results have been remarkable around the world. In fact, in some cases this collaboration even benefits the world. Nonprofit organizations, not typically known for having large promotional budgets, can benefit greatly by re-purposing Creative Commons recordings licensed for reuse.

One FMA success story is the union of a recording by American artist Aaron Ximm with a public service message for sustainability organization Redress. Ximm's track is used in a promo video for the EcoChic Design Award.

Redress is a Hong Kong based NGO with a mission to promote environmental sustainability in Asia's fashion industry by reducing textile waste, pollution, water and energy consumption. We achieve this via educational sustainable fashion shows, exhibitions, competitions, seminars, research and media outreach. Our unique profile allows us to collaborate with a wide range of stakeholders. We work with multiple fashion designers, textile and garment manufacturers, retailers, schools and universities, multilateral organizations, governments, NGOs, financial institutions and media organizations.

The EcoChic Design Award is a sustainable fashion design competition inspiring emerging fashion designers and students to create mainstream clothing with minimal textile waste. Apply now.

Redress Website | YouTube | Facebook | EcoChic Design Award

Ma Mère l'Oye

2013-04-23T19:15:17-04:00

Saturday, April 20th is the anniversary of the 1910 premiere of Ravel's Ma Mère l'Oye in Paris, France. Ma Mère l'Oye: Cinq Pièces Enfantines (Mother Goose: Five Children's Pieces) was originally composed for two pianos, a duet for Mimi and Jean Godebski, ages 6 and 7. Later the same year, the work was transcribed for solo piano by Ravel's friend Jacques Charlot. In 1911, Ravel orchestrated the work for a full orchestra, and in 1912, he expanded it into a ballet. It was recently arranged for a string quartet, as well.

The solo work is performed on the Free Music Archive by Felipe Sarro in a collection of Ravel compositions for single piano.

The five pieces of both the duet and the solo piano suites of Ma Mère l'Oye are:

1. Courtly Dance of Sleeping Beauty (Pavane de la belle au bois dormant)
2. Little Tom Thumb (Petit Poucet)
3. Little Ugly Girl, Empress of the Pagodas (Laideronnette, impératrice des pagodes)
4. Conversation of Beauty and the Beast (Les entretiens de la belle et de la bête)
5. The Fairy Garden (Le jardin féerique)

18th Century Chamber Music by Danzi

2013-04-04T11:44:36-04:00

Franz Ignaz Danzi (1763 – 1826) was a cellist, composer, and conductor in the royal courts of Mannheim, Munich, Stuttgart and Karlsruhe. His greatest contribution to music was establishing the quintet for bassoon, clarinet, flute, horn and oboe as a significant chamber music form.

Danzi lived during an important time in the history of European classical music. His career spanned the transition from the late Classical to the early Romantic periods. As a young man he knew Mozart. He was a contemporary of Beethoven and a mentor to young Carl Maria von Weber.

Soni Ventorum Wind Quintet performed the Wind Quintet Opus 67, Nos. 2-3 of Franz Danzi made available by Pandora Records and now appearing on the Free Music Archive. Soni Ventorum was officially founded in 1962 when Pablo Casals asked them to become the woodwind faculty of his newly founded Conservatory of Music of Puerto Rico. Members of the ensemble were on faculty at the Conservatory of Music of Puerto Rico and members of the Puerto Rico Symphony. After leaving Puerto Rico, the members were reunited as faculty of and as the resident wind quintet of the University of Washington the next 30 years. Through their concerts, tours, and recordings, the Soni Ventorum Wind Quintet established an international reputation. See the group's official website for more of the history of this highly regarded quintet.

Battleship Potemkin Revisited

2013-04-04T11:41:46-04:00

Members of the international avant-garde collective Apskaft worked together to create a soundtrack for Battleship Potemkin, one of the most important films of all time. The soundtrack is now hosted by the Free Music Archive.

Battleship Potemkin (Russian: Броненосец «Потёмкин», Bronenosets Potyomkin) is a 1925 silent film directed by genius filmmaker Sergei Eisenstein and produced by Mosfilm. It presents a dramatized version of the 1905 mutiny when the crew of the Russian battleship Prince Potemkin rebelled against their Tsarist regime officers. Battleship Potemkin [IMDB] is considered one of the most important silent films and one of the most influential propaganda films. It was named the greatest film of all time at the Brussels World's Fair in 1958. The film continues to be a standard in film courses for Eisenstein's emphasis on montage, his depictions of violence, his stress of intellectual contact, and his treatment of the masses rather than the individual as protagonist.

Each scene of the film was scored by Apskaft artists and can be viewed with the full-length film after the jump and at the Internet Archive. An Apskafters e-magazine also accompanies the release of this soundtrack.

Happy Day of the Dead

2012-11-01T19:06:52-04:00

The Day of the Dead is here! It is time to celebrate the lives of those from generations before and celebrate life. Party and procession music from around the world are great accompaniment to the celebrations. In preparation for Rancho Oddio events, we have put together three Día de los Muertos 2012 mixes you might enjoy. To our ancestors and to those who went before!

Día de los Muertos 2012 Vol 1 A-N || Vol 2 O-Z || Vol 3 Later Additions

52 Horror Releases

2012-11-01T18:25:31-04:00

Gearing up for your Halloween soundtrack? Whether you are looking to terrify, make mischief, or fill the dance floor, the FMA has got you covered. Here are 52 FMA albums and compilations for your ghoulish celebration.

Calling All Fiends	Sounds of Halloween	Fangdango Halloween	Music for Vampires
Trick Or Treat	Dr. Phibes Carmina...	Messer Chups	Damnatio
Ga'an	Ekleipsi Halloween	Shadow Creatures	Behold The Living...

Advent Chamber Orchestra

2012-10-13T11:31:30-04:00

The Advent Chamber Orchestra is a conductorless orchestra, based in Bolingbrook, Illinois and usually performing in the Chicago metropolitan area. This non-profit orchestra is composed of five violins, two violas, two cellos, a bass, and an harpsichord. The group specializes in Baroque period classical music.

Three collections of their performances are now available on the Free Music Archive.

The Advent Chamber Orchestra began in 2003 when Roxana Pavel Goldstein and Elias Goldstein, who had met studying and performing at DePaul’s School of Music, worked together in chamber music ensembles. The orchestra functioned primarily as a chamber music collaborative until 2005 when they performed their first concert as the Advent Chamber Orchestra. The ensemble is generally led by concertmaster and music director Roxana Pavel Goldstein, but artistic decisions are made democratically by the group.

Lemon Beats

2012-09-27T12:05:38-04:00

Lemon Beats is a collection by Zeste netlabel artists of electronic dance music ranging across breakbeat, alternative hip-hop, drums n bass, downtempo, jungle, chip, and chill downtempo. It is licensed for non-commercial reuse, and might work well as a backdrop to your next video project.

Walla Walla Walla

2012-08-20T15:06:55-04:00

Walla walla is the American term for atmospheric crowd background sounds in film and radio. In Japan, it is known as gaya, rhubarb the UK, rhabarber in Germany, and rabarbar in the Belguim, Netherlands, and Scandinavia.

Film Sound describes it in this way:

A sound effect for the murmur of a crowd in the background. Walla is often use as subliminal aural communication and sets a mood or a tone.

The word walla was created in the old radio days when they needed the sound of a crowd in the background. They found if several people simply repeated "walla, walla, walla, walla" it sounded like people talking. The audience did not really hear the words, just the buzz of voices.

Walla may be field recordings of crowds or staged by actors. This collection, Walla Walla Walla, features actual groups and crowds recorded all over the world and generously donated for reuse at Freesound.org. Such recordings may be helpful to and appreciated by FMA visitors creating audio and video productions. The recordings have been normalized, standardized for bitrates, tagged, and converted to mp3s from various other formats for this Free Music Archive collection. Please see individual tracks for licensing. (total time: 1:24:06)

From the International Festival of Improvisation

2012-11-01T18:50:23-04:00

Contenido was recorded at the ninth International Festival of Improvisation, Hurta Cordel. Successful improvisation demonstrates musical and technical skills, abilities to work closely leading and following fellow musicians, and high levels of experimental creativity.

Jazz and classical musicians F. Pelayo Arrizabalaga, Antonio Bravo, Merran Laginestra, Baldo Martínez (Arrizabalaga, Bravo, Laginestra, Martinez) achieve all three in Contenido, now available on the Free Music Archive.

For Human Consumption

2012-08-20T14:32:05-04:00

Musician and composer Ant Neely made the release of his first solo album, Not Fit For Human Consumption, a global experiment by leaving copies of the CD in public locations for people to find, copy, and then leave someplace else. He originally tracked the movement of his album on his site with help from those who copied and distributed it. One copy of this album traveled all over the United Kingdom then moved on to Africa, and another hopped from England to Brazil.

Neely's bandmate from Los Angeles-based experimental jazz trio Subthunk, singer Lisa Moore, performs vocals on the first track "with a mixture of funky beats, bleeps, old public domain voice recordings and orchestral textures." Not Fit For Human Consumption covers multiple genres of electronica and incorporates samples from the Prelinger Archives.

Sound of Summer Days

2012-07-16T15:49:55-04:00

Cricket and bird songs, ice clinking in glasses, block parties, kids in the sprinkler, ice cream truck jingles, wind against paper kites, "cloop" sounds in the creek, bicycle chains, and all those other musical sounds of summer have their places in our hearts. There is still space for new sounds of summer days, and the Free Music Archive is here for your summer soundtrack. Here's one I put together for a summer evening party featuring 18 tracks across the spectrum of genres. Let's hear yours!

2011 Top 11 Songs Sung at Oddio Headquarters

2011-12-22T14:49:18-05:00

These are the eleven songs added to FMA in 2011 sung most this year at Oddio Headquarters.

Production Music from TSS Tortue Super Sonic

2011-11-20T16:02:36-05:00

TSS Tortue Super Sonic has released, exclusively at the Free Music Archive, a deluxe version of his album B with a few new titles. B was originally released last year as a gift to a limited audience of TSS fans.

This new 17-track album, B 2.0, is made up of production music, also known as stock music or library music, and is pre-cleared for use in video, radio and other media under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike license. The range of these TSS instrumental tracks includes spy movies, blaxploitation flicks, action scenes, and Westerns.

Give the album a listen to see how it might work for your A/V project. Enjoy the entire exclusive release here at the FMA, where you can also contact TSS for commercial use inquiries. A sampler of tracks from B 2.0 follows.

The Four Seasons of Vivaldi

2011-11-04T10:00:49-04:00

Composed in 1723, The Four Seasons (Le quattro stagioni) is a set of four violin concerti by Antonio Vivaldi. Some of the most beautiful music ever written, The Four Seasons is Vivaldi's most famous work, and is among the most popular pieces of Baroque music. Brilliant violinist John Harrison performs on this gorgeous performance of Vivaldi's classic here at the Free Music Archive.

Carmina Burana

2011-06-06T18:41:44-04:00

Any fan of Hollywood soundtracks should know composer Carl Orff's Carmina Burana (album). Countless films and trailers employ it, especially the ominous first movement, "O Fortuna."

The Carmina Burana, or Codex Buranus, is a medieval manuscript of 254 poems and dramatic texts dating to about 1230 AD. Several more pages were bound with it into a small folder in the Late Middle Ages.

The authors were theological students who worked within and satirized the Catholic Church. They protested through song, poetry, and performance the growing contradictions within the Church, such as financial abuses and the failure of the Crusades. Pieces also address everyday subjects such as the "fickleness of fortune and wealth, the ephemeral nature of life, the joy of the return of Spring, and the pleasures and perils of drinking, gluttony, gambling and lust."

Juanitos Deliver Newest Party

2011-04-06T21:02:41-04:00

Every album by the French group The Juanitos is a party. The newest release, Welcome in the House of F.U.N., lives up to the band's party standards. Welcome in the House of F.U.N. delivers a sonic soul party, a vacation in the tropics, and time travel back to the swingingest '60s hot spots! There are even tips of the hat to the Chambers Brothers and Jimi Hendrix. Enjoy!

The Voice and Calm Power of Dr. Martin Luther King

2011-01-18T15:39:55-05:00

Today the U.S. nation celebrates the life and work of prominent civil rights activist, Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King. Here are three speeches by Dr. King hosted by the Free Music Archive. The first is King's infamous "I Have a Dream" speech delivered on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. on August 28, 1963.

The second is a speech given January 14, 1968, at a demonstration supporting anti-war activitists, including singer Joan Baez, imprisoned at the Santa Rita Prison in California. The recording of Dr. King's speech was produced by Colin Edwards for KPFA radio the day after the demonstration. (BB1460 Pacifica Radio Archives, CC by-nc-sa)

The third of King's speeches presented here is from March 16, 1968 at the event "Men and women in the arts concerned with Vietnam" in Los Angeles, California. The speech is prefaced by a six-minute introduction by novelist, playwright, and poet James Baldwin. The recording was made in the audience and aired on KPFK on April 4, 1968. (BB4661 Pacifica Radio Archives, CC by-nc-sa)

The Underappreciated Kinderklavier

2012-07-17T19:35:51-04:00

The toy piano is historically more than just a plaything. Quality toy pianos stay in tune, because they do not employ strings. Toy pianos offer a unique timbre unlike a piano and more like a celesta or a member of the harpsichord family. It is this unusual sound that has been the key appeal to a small number of composers and performers through the centuries.

Voices of Christmas Past

2011-04-27T14:26:57-04:00

Twelve years ago, the vintage recordings website Dawn of Sound released a compact disc collection of public domain early recording artifacts called Voices of Christmas Past. The recordings were cylinders and acetates from 1898 to 1922. Every year after the release, the website was inundated with requests for the CD. Once it was out of print, Dawn of Sound released it online for free.

Apart from the religious material, there are some fun winter-themed treats, two pieces from Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker, and some spoken old time radio theatre selections.

Dawn of Sound writes:

The artists featured here were pioneer recordings artists whose names were well known in the era they lived. They helped start what is now known today as the record industry. They were popular artist in their time, and their records sold well in an era when movies were silent and radio and television did not yet exist.

Of all things Christmas nothing is more traditional than the singing of carols and songs....