Talk:WikiMusic

Organizational goals of this project

First of all, thank you for trying to help make Wikimedia projects a better place. I'm going to warn you, however, that trying to create a new project is going to be a very difficult and uphill battle that will meet with a lot of resistance from a great many people. Don't take this personally, but instead take that as a challenge and try to move forward, refining your ideas and removing the cruft from your proposal to make it something that would make it unique and original. There are so many projects going on right now in all of the Wikimedia servers that it is sometimes hard to even keep track of what is going on at any one time, and it is encouraged to avoid duplication of effort.

Please make sure you read closely Proposals for new projects#Doing Research and Starting a New Project as it talks about things to strongly consider with a new proposal.

Topic focused wikis

These have yet to be approved with the Wikimedia Foundation. Also called a macropedia, essentially a smaller Wikipedia that is organized around a specific topic like Music. One that I point out routinely when something like this is discussed is Memory Alpha, a wiki that is focused on Star Trek related trivia. If you are trying to get something like this accomplished, it really is better to stay within Wikipedia like the Wikipedia Music Portal.

It should also be emphasized strongly that user reviews, political opinions, or editorials are discouraged and generally don't have a place with Wikimedia projects. Giving opinions of what music groups are hot and what ones are not would also fit as something that would not be generally allowed on a Wikimedia server.

Also keep in mind that each one of the "sister projects" really has a very different emphasis on what it specializes in that requires unique policies due to the nature of the content on each seperate wiki. They also tend to be complimentary to each other (when best done), offering services that can also be used in the other sister project wikis. If you could come up with something that could enhance the current Wikipedia articles rather than demanding that they get moved to another server, you would have a better chance of getting this to be accepted for approval.

Copyright licensing issues

This is something that is very straight forward: Keep to the GFDL on all content, or at least public domain, copyleft content, and permission granted works that are compatable with the GFDL. Actual music should be archived with Wikicommons so it can be available for all projects to access. Wikicommons already has policies in place that would offer you legal protection from copyright violations, and you will never have to worry about the RIAA going after you as long as the content is free to use (unless they get the case of the stupids, which there are several lawyers that would love to take a case like this on pro-bono).

I'm getting long here with my comments, but I hope you are successful. Also see my post on Foundation-l regarding this proposal at: http://mail.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2005-August/003849.html

--Roberth 12:43, 10 August 2005 (UTC)

Linking to Wikipedia articles

This is an excellent idea that has been proposed. I would like to stress how beneficial it would be were this info to be linked to appropriate Wikipedia pages. Additionally, the resources of public domain sheet music (classical, piano, orchestral) are vast, but I have yet to find a single space on the internet where all of this information is available. (This project alone could take on a life of its own...)

Free music only

I am brainstorming with some people about a Wikimusic as well, but then restricted to free music. Personnely I would like to make of this (probably most PD) music a page with the score, the music and the tekst. I am talking with other wiki-like projects about coöporation. See for the brainstorming etc: my userspace at nl.wp. (however at nl.wp, most of the discussion is in English) I hope to see the discussion grow. Effeietsanders 15:14, 1 November 2005 (UTC)

I see three main purposes:

• Preservation of old PD music
• Collection of todays free music (either PD or under certain licenses)
• Creation of new free music by utilising the wiki

The music can be presented in different ways:

• Lyrics only
• Sheet music (There is a lilypond-plugin available for this)
• Recordings (*.ogg)
• Computer music files (*.xm, *.mid)

I would also like to make Tracker music directly in a wiki, but apparently the technology is not there yet. -- Sloyment 06:50, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

Identical proposal

It seems that this proposal is identical or at least very similar to the WikiScores proposal. Merge? -- Sloyment 08:29, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

I think all the elements are in the idea in my userspace I linked already. I think in a few weeks a proposal will follow, and both will be in it. Maybe it's more usefull to help enhancing that proposal then to merge the two existing? I think anyway that bots scores as lyrics have to be in one wiki. Better to find, more possibilities to search. Effeietsanders 12:19, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

copyright issues

Please read this for an account in the 1990's of an effort perhaps similar to this one. You also might find the fair use guide talk page in Wikipedia interesting. 4.250.201.20 18:27, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

Portal for buying music

Another suggestion

I sometime like a music and would like to give people a like of where to buy it, but I don't to favour any store. For books, Wikimedia already uses the ISBN system, could it be possible to include a « common ground » for redirect music buyers? The goal would not be to sell thing just to be an neutral ground. ✒ Reply to David Latapie 00:41, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

Existent

There is a wiki only for songs lyrics: Lyriki

—Nethac DIU, siempre dispuesto a hablar aquí—
22:00, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

A database of the whole popular music?

I'm thinking about making this place a wiki database and reference site of the whole popular music. Articles about genres, artists, discographies, albums, single songs (the lyrics, where to f}ind this sing and the music charts record information), relations of one song to another or simmilarities, focus on a given topic, the history, etc. It might seem simmilar to some articles in Wikipedia, though this would be a project devoted only to music. People would have no need to search for info about the songs they heard or want to recall, they would have the ultimate source here.

Since this site is called WikiMusic, it should be related to music. This can not only be a source to the lyrics.

Wikipedia is more than 6 years old and look how popular it is. Music is a very important thing in the lives of many people. Some are even devoted to it. John Miles sang "Music was my first love and it will be my last". This place would be like a library to them.

Who is with me? Come on, people. Let's make the best site about music in the world!— The preceding unsigned comment was added by 83.22.19.205 (talk)

Need for Encyclopedic Music Information

As an avid wikipedia user, more often than not of late band pages will have been deleted because they're not big enough or culturally important enough. This itself seems to contradict the purpose of wikipedia as an encyclopedia with an information base wide enough to encompass as many subjects as possible. Specifically, the wiki format seems ideal for providing information on geographically local bands.

It's understandable why lots of articles on small, relatively-unknown bands and artists isn't desireable for wikipedia itself - but a project devoted to providing basic information on geographically-specific artists would be useful for the internet to have. Wikipedia is the ideal location for a project meant to expand the amount of easily-accessed information on the web.

Comments from Proposals for new projects

• Should be part of Wikisource. Pcu123456789 03:57, 3 February 2007 (UTC)
• I would like to mention that this is a perennial suggestion to have some project related to the formation and distribution of musical content, with suggestions to have different markup systems within the MediaWiki software and to even be able to edit MIDI files or musical scores. There certainly are some interesting things that could be done with music in a collaborative fashion, and this particular project should not be completely dismissed. --Roberth 17:56, 25 March 2007 (UTC)
• (In response to Pcu123456789) This should not be part of Wikisource. When people think of a library, they generally think of books, not sheet music. Putting this at Wikisource would cause it to be neglected. This should be it's own project. Galanskov 21:51, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

  Actually, my public library has a whole wing filled with sheet music, scores and scripts. Perfectly reasonable contents for a source repository, although it is probably true that having this as a separate project would probably guarantee more traffic and more care.--starfarmer*comm 10:34, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

  Although it is going in a slightly different direction, you might want to take a look at [1] Topic is "Facebook choir/band/something like" in the Facebook group "Join this if you've played music with someone in it..." The group of ~35,000 members is looking into ways to collaboratively record (and potentially write) music. I think it could be tremendous if som:eone familiar with how to organize such a project got in touch with this group! Cmadler 16:31, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

• IMSLP is a wiki based on the free sheet music on the internet with tremendous coverage, having extremely obscure pieces and most if not all of the main composers' works. The subject is not narrow, in my opinion, but many people could not participate without knowledge of notation or composition. Alton 04:18, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
• IMSLP has some problems now. Maybe Wikimedia should help? Kj 19:45, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

Since IMSLP still has problem, may be it is time to revive the discussion on this project? see Wikimusic_II and WikiScores 82.124.131.76 21:16, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

• It would be nice to have an easy way to make sheet music and MIDI files (maybe even with the same code). I've never heard of IMSLP, but I was using [2], which seems somewhat similar, recently, I found some music on it that I wished to play, but it was formated wrong for my instrument. It would have been nice have an easy way to change this, such as a wiki. Jkasd 01:01, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
• I love this project. Composition by all people. --Szawatschenski 01:00, 26 August 2008 (UTC)
• Since IMSLP is up again, I think it would be an even more interesting prospect to try to convince IMSLP to join the Wikimedia foundation as WikiMusic.Theunixgeek 11:48, 5 February 2009 (UTC)
• I've been doing a lot of work lately transcribing out-of-copyright music, and this would be great, to be able to upload my transcriptions somehow and save others the trouble. I think this makes sense as a some sort of sub-project of Wikisource. cmadler 20:19, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

wikia already has this

[3] its purpose has already been filled. (however, it culd be just moved)

Public domain music

I would like to see a comprehensive repository of public domain music in Wikipedia form. This actually break down into two separate collections:

• Music

• Provides one or more versions of published PD music in sheet music format (possibly multiple formats).
• Comprehensive data about the origins of the music, the author(s), inspirations for the tune, derivative works, and other relevant historical data would be very nice. (This amounts to a "biography" for each tune.)
• Searchable index of melodies, particularly the first few bars of each tune. There probably exist standard notations for this. For example, it would be nice to be able to locate all of the tunes having a particular note progression, or bass line, or rhythm line, etc.
• Standard MIDI versions of tunes.

• Lyrics

• Provides published versions of songs. Should also provide common variations to standard songs.
• Historical data about the origins of the song, the author(s), and a history of major variations made would be very nice.
• Common translations of songs into other languages.

— Loadmaster (talk) 16:39, 8 December 2013 (UTC)

I love this. I would add to it "music performances", including recordings of performances released under free licenses. For example, a specific choir performance of a music play.

Some of the aforementioned parts can be stored in already existing sister projects:

* sheet music (or other forms of notation) could be stored in Wikisource. We would just need some MediaWiki extensions able to represent (view and visually edit) different forms of music notation.

* lyrics may also be stored in Wikisource. They could just be part of the music notation above.

* performances may be stored in Commons

* music metadata may be stored in Wikidata

* encyclopedic information about the music, composers, performers, etc, in Wikipedia.

--Diegodlh (talk) 00:23, 28 May 2022 (UTC)