A Music-Sharing Network For the Unconnected 66
An anonymous reader writes: Operating as personal offline versions of iTunes and Spotify, the téléchargeurs, or downloaders, of Mali are filling the online music void for many in the country. For less than a dime a song, a téléchargeur will transfer playlists to memory cards or directly onto cellphones. Even though there are 120,000 landlines for 15 million people in Mali, there are enough cellphones in service for every person in the country. The spread of cell phones and the music-sharing network that has followed is the subject of this New York Times piece. From the article: "They know what their regulars might like, from the latest Jay Z album to the obscurest songs of Malian music pioneers like Ali Farka Touré. Savvy musicians take their new material to Fankélé Diarra Street and press the téléchargeurs to give it a listen and recommend it to their customers....This was the scene Christopher Kirkley found in 2009. A musicologist, he traveled to Mali hoping to record the haunting desert blues he loved. But every time he asked people to perform a favorite folk song or ballad, they pulled out their cellphones to play it for him; every time he set up his gear to capture a live performance, he says, 'five other kids will be holding their cellphones recording the same thing — as an archivist, it kind of takes you down a couple of notches.'”
You're holding it wrong. (Score:2)
You're holding it wrong.
Téléchargeurs
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This guy is teaching them to pirate music. He must be killed immediately. The RIAA has a contractor on speed-dial.
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It doesn't matter who wrote or performed it, they want their cut.
Radio. (Score:2)
What I would like is the phone manufactures to enable the FM receivers in their devices so I can listen to the Radio from my phone, without a data plan, or having to be in Wi-Fi.
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A station wagon full of 4TB harddrives. (Score:4, Insightful)
Frankly I've given up on the whole giant music collection thing. I've lost interest in it. It's not that music sucks, it's just that I barely have time to spend on it. Once your personal collection busts a couple hundred gigs you hardly know what you have anyway.
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Once your personal collection busts a couple hundred gigs you hardly know what you have anyway.
I understand your sentiment here, but if you lose track of what you have after only a couple hundred gigs I can't help thinking you might be doing it wrong.
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Back in the way we had things called Swap Parties. People would meet up somewhere with their computers and a stack of floppy disks, and spend all day copying and chatting. It was one of the primary ways that things were distributed in the "scene", e.g. demos, disk magazines and of course cracked games.
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Yeah, and more interesting people were having more interesting swap parties. I understand, though. You couldn't find girls to come to have one of those. Me neither.
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Actually there was a "wives and grilfriends" group that would organize stuff to do on the day, or sometimes even participate. I seem to recall one couple who ran a PD library, but most were pretty young. There were games to play and stuff like that.
You would think something filling... (Score:2)
You would think something filling "the online music void" would be, you know, filling it online?
Otherwise, there's still an "online music void", and what these guys are doing is "Download MP3's to your device for you to play locally, just like any other MP3 player". So they may be filling the "get MP3's onto my phone void", but they are certainly not filling the online void, because it's still a void.
Also... I assume they aren't paying the original copyright holders for this, they're just pirating the musi
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. I assume they aren't paying the original copyright holders for this, they're just pirating the music, right? There's no way you are legally getting music for $0.10, unless it's being locally produced and distributed.
No, they are just making large volumes of pirated music, and selling it by the song. Somehow it is glorified by this author as some type of wonderful musical sociocultural phenomena, but the only difference between here and anywhere else is that in most places large volumes of music are given away freely.
It once was (Score:1)
Why, I wondered, would anyone need a cellphone without a network connection? It was a question as dumb as my simple Nokia phone. A cellphone is a digital Swiss Army knife: flashlight, calculator, camera and, yes, audio player.
It now is a giant android turd screen whose only use is to make money .. for others.
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It's not sharing if you are paying for it. (Score:2)
You are NOT sharing music if you are paying for it. The summary clearly states that songs cost a dime or less.
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The music in question (Score:5, Informative)
The article seems to have neglected to mention what kind of music Kirkley actually found. He released a few volumes of "Music from Saharan Cellphones", which can be purchased here: https://sahelsounds.bandcamp.c... [bandcamp.com]
I quite like some of it, and the hipster cachet it conveys is pretty considerable as well.
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"the acoustic space in which one hears a concert directly affects the likelihood of the emergence of his sought-after transcendent experience. The acoustic space within which one hears a recording of one of his performances, on the other hand, has no impact on the performance, as it is impossible for the acoustic features of that space to stimulate musicians to play slower or fas
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Sounds in melodic or harmonic combination, whether produced by voice or instruments.
I scanned the entire article "music" in the OED. It does not even contain the word "record" or "recording". The youngest quote in the article being from 1975, when the possibility to record sound/music had already been extant for many decades, this clearly indicates the OED makes a sharp distinction between music and records thereof. QED.
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'It does not even contain the word "record" or "recording"'
Therefore that definition cannot reject recordings as being music and you have disproven your own claim.
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Actually, since it doesn't make the distinction as to the medium said music is delivered in it actually invalidates your point instead of supporting it.
You will note that your quote also does not specify that an audience even be present, or even that it has to be in the audible range, just that the sounds must be produced by voice or instruments. This means that a computer with no persistent storage can make music, if it is played to an empty area. It also means a computer with no speakers can make music as
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Re:Recordings, NOT music (Score:4, Insightful)
Shall we have an argument about what makes art or not now?
Faffing about over the context of a word (which all evolve anyway) which millions of people use to refer to recorded music in the same way as live music is really just pontificating.
Music is the thing. Whether you saw it live or recorded it, it was music. It's pretentious to pretend that you can change a definition of a word based on digging up a quote to suit your personal use of it.
And to suggest there's something otherwise undetectable or irreproducible in the air to distinguish between live music and a sufficiently good recording of that music played back to you, it's gold-plated oxygen-free cable territory.
Sure, you probably enjoy the live one more. It's the difference between going to a theatre to see a play or watching it on TV. There's nothing quite like people coughing throughout, treading on your toes, rustling their pockets behind your ear, clapping too early or too vigorously or trying to join in from the seat next to you.
But to suggest that ONLY live music can be music is... just silly in this day and age.
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Shall we have an argument about what makes art or not now?
Yes, please - if it can be done without insults, trolling and ad hominem attacks. It is then called "a discussion", and not only are - AFAIK - discussions the very purposing of Slashdot comments, discussions can be fruitful and interesting.
But to suggest that ONLY live music can be music is... just silly in this day and age.
Disagree, strongly so. Let me illustrate this with an example. Could you pretend you had a talk with another person, whenever all you'd had was a telephone conversation with that person ? No, you couldn't. Having an actual talk implies the visibility of hand gestures, fa
Re: Recordings, NOT music (Score:3)
you're implying if I close my eyes during a conversation I am no longer having a talk. that is just silly.
you are confusing a performance with music. if it is just a recording, then of what is it a recording? music
if you wish to differentiate between live music and recorded music that is fine, but to say recorded music isn't music is just wrong. you are splitting a hair that doesn't exist.
music may sound differentl coming from my home audio equipment than from the live performance due to the acoustics of my
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I personally do not enjoy listening to live music. I do enjoy going to concerts, but when I go, it's not really about the music. You are not in the same acoustical environment as the musician when you are in the middle of the floor, or 300 feet away in the nose bleed section. The musician is on stage, with ear pieces, so they can actually hear what they are playing. It's hard to really appreciate the music in a building filled with fans singing along to the music and bad arena acoustics. Doubly bad is rec
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Still has the sounds of the crowd that interfere with listening to the music. Perhaps going to hear a rendition of a symphony in a concert hall would be nice, because people going to those things don't generally let out hoots, hollers, and whistles throughout the performance. Nirvana's Unplugged in New York which is generally considered by many to be a great album, I find, is ruined by the guy asking "what song is it" at the end of two tracks in a row, when he's talking about how he's going to screw up the
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Only music performed live is music to the full extent.
And only cheeseburgers with brie are truly cheeseburgers to the full extent.
Re: Recordings, NOT music (Score:2)
are you perchance a Scotsman?
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Could you pretend you had a talk with another person, whenever all you'd had was a telephone conversation with that person ? No, you couldn't. Having an actual talk implies the visibility of hand gestures, facial expressions and body language, as well as the two of you being in the same acoustical environment, something even a very good video & audio recording can not provide. Hence, having an actual talk requires physical presence.
Assuming that to be true....
I am saying
No, you're not. Because we're not physically present, so you're not talking.
Either way, I'm not listening.
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I generally agree with your premise, but I'd have to say that it's rare that I get marijuana smoke wafting into my face while I'm sitting in my car listening to the radio. Granted, that's just anecdotal evidence, but...
A pony (Score:3)
Music, by definition, is a pony, because I have just defined it so.
That is not a useful definition since no one else will use it. However, it more entertaining that a tautology like "music is live music".
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I'm sorry, but you appear to be randomly making shit up and passing it off as a fact.
There is literally a century of precedent for people to refer to recordings of music as music. You don't get to suddenly decide it isn't music now just because you throw in a bit of latin.
Yeah, like that jerk next to me who spills into my seat, the little bored brat behind me kicking my chair, or lots