astronomy

Musopen

Musopen is a astronomy topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Musopen rather than just read about it. In short: Musopen is an organization which creates, produces and disseminates Western classical music, via public domain recordings, sheet music and educational resources. It has been favorably compared to IMSLP and stands with ChoralWiki and the Wind Repertory Project as among the most prominent online music databases.

Key takeaways

Musopen belongs to astronomy; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Musopen to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Musopen from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Musopen is an organization which creates, produces and disseminates Western classical music, via public domain recordings, sheet music and educational resources. It has been favorably compared to IMSLP and stands with ChoralWiki and the Wind Repertory Project as among the most prominent online music databases. Founded by Aaron Dunn in 2006, the site operates out of Palo Alto, California as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization. It rose to prominence amid a viral crowdfunding Kickstarter campaign in 2010, which raised US$68,359 to record a wide variety of orchestral and chamber works. Other commissioning projects include the complete Beethoven piano sonatas and the complete works of Frédéric Chopin.

Overview Musopen, under the URL musopen.org, is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization which prioritizes "improving access and exposure to music by creating free resources and educational materials". The website creates, produces and disseminates public domain music via recordings, sheet music and educational resources concerning Western classical music. It currently operates out of Palo Alto, California, although is also maintains an address in Tarzana, Los Angeles, CA. It describes its mission as "to set music free". Although much Western classical music—particularly before the 20th century—is in public domain, most recordings are copyrighted. This causes a variety of limitations: reduced transmission and sharing; few opportunities to create remixes or mashups; and difficulty in use for the soundtracks of films and videos. The alternative use of early 20th-century recordings, which have passed their copyright expiration, is often not ideal since the sound is often low-quality. Music education scholar Evan S. Tobias noted that "Musopen's initiative of recording music and making it available with creative commons licensing speaks to an era in which people wish to interact, engage, and participate with music beyond its consumption. Furthermore it serves as a model for musicians and ensembles with the means to do the same". Musopen operates under a freemium model, in that some content is available free of charge, but premium downloads (HD) require a subscription. Non-paying users can download music recordings but are restricted to 5 downloads per day; members paying $55 per year receive unlimited downloads of losslessly encoded music. Music from the site has since found its way into a wide variety of media, including TV shows, films, Wikipedia articles, and use in the One Laptop per Child project.

History Musopen was created by music producer Aaron Dunn (born 1983), then a bassoonist attending Skidmore College of Saratoga Springs, New York. After witnessing that the school "janitors would take trash bags filled with the recordings we’d made and throw them out", he researched domain law and concluded that an online repository for public domain classical music was feasible. Dun founded the site in May 2006, although he noted that initially "it went nowhere". The site attracted more attention in 2008, when it commissioned recordings of Ludwig van Beethoven's 32 piano sonatas for public domain release. By May 2008, the site included 100 pieces and a now-obsolete "bidding system", where users could pay money towards the recording of specific works. In 2010, Musopen received considerably more attention; the music critic Jim Farber remarked that it became an "overwhelming hit (literally and figuratively)". It attracted significant media coverage, amid its organization of a major fundraiser via Kickstarter to commission recordings of a larger repertoire. The fundraiser looked to record the symphonies by Beethoven, Brahms, Tchaikovsky and Sibelius, alongside a plethora of chamber music for public domain dissemination. The project raised a total of US$68,359, more than six times their initial target of US$11,000. The Czech Philharmonic was commissioned to record the works; in July 2012, Musopen announced that the editing of the recordings was finished, after which the audio files were uploaded both to its website and Archive.org. The final list of music was announced in August 2012, and included Beethoven's 3rd Symphony, the piano sonatas of Franz Schubert, Brahms's four symphonies, string quartets by Mozart, and a variety of other orchestral and chamber works. In September 2013, a second Kickstarter fundraiser was launched by Musopen to record the complete works of Frédéric Chopin. The fundraiser was successful, exceeding the funding goal of US$75,000 by over US$15,000. Musopen stands with ChoralWiki and the Wind Repertory Project as among the most prominent online music repertoire databases. It has been compared favorably to both Wikipedia and IMSLP. It has also been likened to the Open Goldberg Variations, a crowdfunded project by Robert Douglass and pianist Kimiko Douglass-Ishizaka, to create a copyright-free recording of J.S. Bach's complete Goldberg Variations. In 2022, Business Insider ranked it among the "5 best websites for downloading public domain music", alongside FreePD, Free Music Archive, Open Music Archive and Mubert Render.

References

Citations Primary

Secondary

Sources Janvey, Alexandra (July–August 2013). "Learning about music on the Web: Online resources". College & Research Libraries News. 74 (7): 370–373. Tobias, Evan S. (2014). "21st Century Musicianship through Digital Media and Participatory Culture". In Kaschub, Michele; Smith, Janice (eds.). Promising Practices in 21st Century Music Teacher Education. New York: Oxford University Press. pp. 205–230. ISBN 978-0-19-020615-4.

External links

Official website Live recordings by Musopen at the Internet Archive Interview with Musopen founder on the Marketplace radio program

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Musopen

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Musopen claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In astronomy, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Musopen before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Musopen ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Musopen

In research: Musopen appears in astronomy research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Musopen in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Musopen is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 2006 establishments in California, 501(c)(3) organizations, Free-content websites, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Musopen outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Musopen in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Musopen means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Musopen out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Musopen in simple terms?

Why does Musopen matter?

Because it connects several astronomy ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Musopen?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Musopen.