Rootmap & ccMixter

Following on from last month's conundrum over what to do for my MA practical project, I made my mind up quite quickly in the end and decided to go with the Lessig/ccMixter option. Given time constraints, etc, it seemed to make sense to go for something where the content had already been created rather than trying to also get a whole raft of new stuff made. On top of that, as a main theoretical component of the project will be drawn from Lessig's writing on remixes, a sound map of remixes of works that build on his words seemed like a pretty cool way forward.

It took weeks of trying to figure out how to get an audio player into a Google Map, but eventually I got there via the fantastic Map Maker tool at Donkey Magic (so simple too). However, I've also ended up having to skill-up on bits of HTML, CSS and Javascript to style the placemarks as I'd want them to be, which has added to the prep time.

Below is a sample of a couple of styled placemarks. Click on the lower one to hear Lessig's original spoken word file, which was used to launch this particular remix contest. Click on the higher one to hear one ccMixter community response to that file, a blues take from Admiral Bob. My project, which I've titled Rootmap, will be mapping the journey that the idea took - from one spoken word file on a website to around 70 full songs from several different countries.

The submission deadline for this piece of work is about a month away, so I do still have some time on my side. However, I'd expect that to go quite quickly and there's also another essay to be getting on with at the same time.

In the meantime (and something that I'd been meaning to do for a long time anyway), I've signed up to ccMixter and uploaded a few files to offer up for remix. The files are all mono vocal recordings/acappellas of a handful of lyric sets I've written over the past few years. There are no effects on them (nor music around them), as that is the format requested for the submission, leaving choices like that up to the producers.

It can make you feel somewhat naked from a musicianly point of view to publish such a part of a song without it being clothed in any of the rest of what might ultimately constitute a song! Still, I'm taking from others' work to create this project, and although the Creative Commons licences that the works are released under give me the right to do that, as with any community there needs to be some sort of balance between laws and practices. In other words, I'm getting so I think I should also give.

Going to each page of an artist that contributed a remix and clicking through on whatever links they've put on their profiles, I've managed to get something resembling locational data for most of them. I'm not looking for anything particularly detailed like full GPS co-ordinates as that's not the point of the project and I wouldn't want to plot uploads that closely (others may also not want their location published either). However, I'm aiming to at least have a city as a means of locating where the original remix contributor is from, in order to gain a sense of how far this particular idea spread and the scale of that journey.

The next major step is getting in touch with the handful of ccMixter members that I couldn't find any form of locational data for and asking them if they're willing to provide anything towards that. I'm also planning to let all contributors know about the project once I've got a bit more to show for it. As Rootmap is a kind of re-imagining of a series of remixes, it would be great to involve that community a little more in the final work than just presenting their music in a different way. Still, I didn't want to start approaching anyone at ccMixter until I had a little something to give too (thus the pella uploads).

Really intrigued to see how this project's going to turn out (as well as what might happen to my tracks)!

Making my mind up on a SoundMap...

I've not written about anything I've been doing for my MA yet here on this blog. This is partly because since I started the course, back in September 2011 (around the same time as a new job), I've been so busy in trying to keep up with both the job and things like the reading list that it's been very difficult to find the space for it. However, I think I've reached a point where a post has become necessary.

I'm sat here in a Mac suite at Sussex University, running Chrome stuffed with open tabs. My research trails, thoughts and ideas seem to be tripping over themselves as I try to solidify them into something that is going to actually be achievable in the time I have. A plan is needed, and sometimes plans only become clear when they're written down (or in this case typed out).

This term, I am taking a course called 'New Developments in Digital Media'. It's a blend of theory and practical work, and has been quite a fascinating journey so far. The practical side of it involves a couple of projects that utilise existing web technologies to come up with something new - basically, a web mash-up.

The first project was about learning how to do stuff in Google Maps. I put together a map that showed places around the world that I have visited, with a bit of content (mostly pictures) from each visit. The results of that are below:

View Visited Places in a larger map

Now it's come to the second one, which means ramping things up a little. I'm interested in soundmaps. I'm interested in remixes. What I'd really like to do is to offer a track up for remixing, and plot the results on a map.

Trouble is, this is way more difficult that just adding a bit of HTML embed code to a Google Maps placemark (which is essentially all the above is). 

I've got an old Shelf Life song which I have all the stems for. It would be fascinating to offer that one up and see what journey it took. Thing is, I'd probably need to dive in to an existing remix community and build up some relationships to get anything out of it, which would also involve putting a 'campaign' together around it along with having a load of extra stuff to write to go with it. That would take time I don't really have, even if the longer term benefits would be great (more engaging content for the project, people to work with on stuff in the future).

I really want to be able to create something like the Edinburgh Fringe map below, where the placemarks are clickable and will play an audio track when clicked. So far, I've not been able to find out how something like this could be done. It seems quite simple for people to contribute their recordings to the map (instructions here), by adding content via SoundCloud that has Fringe in the title and a location in the metadata. I fear though that getting it sorted out via the backend would mean having to get to grips with SoundCloud's API, and I'm not sure I'm ready (or got the headspace) to start getting to grips with deeper programming knowledge.

SoundCloud would be a fantastic platform to work with on this project. It seems that AudioBoo would also work well, and it also has a relatively easy means of getting audio content mapped by pasting an RSS feed URL from a user's account into a Google Maps page and changing the .rss extension to a .kml extension (being a form of geocoding that Google Maps understands), as in the Hong Kong sound map below:

View Larger Map

Trouble with that one is that it doesn't seem to have the audio player element. Setting up some kind of RSS feed that people could submit tracks to a page connected with that feed which populates on the map would be ideal. All my research so far suggests that this would be far more difficult than it initially sounds.

I'll be leaning on Lawrence Lessig's 'Remix' for some of the theory that will be needed to back this project up. Lessig also donated a spoken word piece to the ccMixter community to launch his 'Strike The Root' project, which resulted in something like 100 tracks being created in a month. Mapping where those tracks were made would tie in very nicely with the theory element, but there is quite a bit of digging to find out the locations of a bunch of the contributors, and I still need to figure out how to embed audio in a Google Maps placemark (anyone know how to do this?).

All I know now is that I'll have to come to some decisions soon and start putting the work in, otherwise I'll get overwhelmed with yet another project that I take on which is too big to manage!

Any thoughts, comments, or help on the above will be gratefully received. Anyone interested in more cool sites where maps and sounds meet should check out the British Library's sound maps collections, Tracks On A Map, SoundSeeker or even CitySounds (not strictly a map, but cool all the same).