Christmas Album Collaberation

[TygerTung]

OK, so I like Christmas, and Christmas music. But there is so much bad Christmas music!

On Libravox every year they have a Carol Collection where people record old carols and they put it on their website. This is good apart from two issues:

1. There is usually a large amount of non-musicians recording carols with very low production values. Good on them for getting out there and doing it, but they would do better with more practice.

2. It is only released in 64 kbps which is a major drawback as it really sucks the life out of the music.

I would propose that an open source Christmas album be produced. There is to be no quality control, it is to be a non-judgmental album. I would suggest that it be limited to proper carols/hymns, there is a lot out there to work with. This is due to two reasons:

1. I am Christian and this is my personal preference.

2. There is enough terrible "Christmas" music out there.

I guess original music saying how Christmas makes you feel would be alright, just no rubbish about Santa please! And modern hymns/carols would be fine too of course!

It might be getting a bit tight to have anything ready for this Christmas, but it would be good to think about for next year. I guess a rough enough approach might be good enough for this year, why not if you have time.

A couple of years ago, here in New Zealand, on the national public radio station, Radio New Zealand National there was a Christmas song writing competition. There were almost three hundred entries of people who had written original songs, but unfortunately they all disappeared into a void and only a few were ever heard. It was such a pity that the ones which were not selected to play on the radio were never heard and there was no way to hear them.

So I propose an open source album.

What would be the best way to collate all the music? There must be some website where all the people collaborating cab upload their songs, and then anyone can play them on Christmas day?

[milo]

I've been recording Christmas music for years, and I would love to contribute my tracks. They are free as in beer and speech, although I haven't always been careful to declare a license. I am happy to go along with whatever license you prefer for the project.

Here is where I post my Christmas tracks: https://sanderson.band/albums/dawn-of-redeeming-grace/

Note that I do one recording every year as an annual tradition, and that my skills in performance, arrangement, recording, mixing, and mastering have been a moving target for the past few years. The older tracks are a little rough around the edges. Also, any time you get kids involved there will be some sloppiness in the final product.

[TygerTung]

My eldest child is now almost 6 and he can sing in tune, so he might be getting to the stage where I can include him in a recording.
With regards to the arrangements, recordings etc., well we are all learning. What I've heard so far sounds very good.

With regards to the license, I am not sure which is the best to use? Would it be better to have the songs free for any use, or would it be better to have them free for personal use, but a royalty to be paid for commercial use, for example in the unlikely case in which some company wants to use it in a movie? I mean most people just make music for the art, but it would be nice to get some money for it. I have a friend at church who is a professional musician with his wife and he told me that they got one of their songs used in a Brad Pitt movie and that set them up for a whole year!

But maybe just full on free use is better?

For the hosting of the songs, would you be keen to host them on your website?

[milo]

Sure, I'd be willing to host a collection of Christmas songs. My site doesn't get a lot of traffic, and is not exactly discoverable. I also don't have a way to monetize traffic, if that is the goal. It may be better to host on places where listeners are more likely to be, like SoundCloud/BandCamp/YouTube/etc. But like I said, I'm willing.

I like the Creative Commons licenses, and tend to favor the CC-BY license as striking a good balance between freedom for the listener and giving me the props I deserve. It is basically like a BSD-style license. CC-BY-SA is also a reasonable license, although maybe a little too restrictive if your goal is to get the music and your name out there. It is basically a GPL-style copyleft license. There are also noncommercial flags in the CC licenses (CC-BY-NC, CC-BY-SA-NC, etc). If someone thinks they can make money off of something that I'm willing to put out there for free, then I say let them try! I'd like to see them do it. And if someone can build a paying audience for my work, then surely that ends up being a good thing for me at the end of the day.

Yes, by all means get your kid into the home studio and see what he can do with a microphone in his face. My kids are getting used to it, and have really warmed up to it over the years. Some of them are pretty comfortable in the studio now.