If you consider yourself “tech” savvy and are a musician/composer/educator and haven’t heard of www.classicalarchives.com then maybe you need to re-evaluate the state of your “savvyness”. The Classical Archives, incorporated in 2000, is the largest classical music site on the web. It currently boasts over 40,000 full length classical music files by over 2,000 composers!
~GetDef(savvy)~
The most amazing thing about the archives is that you can access almost all of it for free (with some small limitations). Registered Free Users may access up to 5 unrestricted files per day (over 1,000 per year!). For a meager $25.00, Subscribers may access 100 files per day!
When you get into the “nitty gritty” of the Classical Archive’s copyright policy, you will find that they freely allow you copy a certain number of files to be used for both commercial and non-commercial reasons within certain limitations.
The copyrights (if any) of the work (the score or composition) performed in the media file. These belong to the composer, his/her publisher, estate, or other appropriate copyright holder. As a rule, the compositions represented in the CMA are now in the public domain (composed before 1923) or the contributor of a performance of a non-public domain composition must have received the express permission to make the media file from the appropriate copyright holder. Otherwise the media file is not allowed in the CMA.
That statement makes great news for arrangers! MIDI files from almost any composer may be found on this site. As midi files are easily read into any notational program you may easily “view” the scores of what you are listening too! In addition, you can easily pull notation to arrange your the composition for your own ensemble requirements, etc. with programs like Sibelius and Finale.
TEN REALLY COOL THINGS YOU CAN DO FROM CLASSICALARCHIVES.COM, THAT YOU PROBABLY DIDN’T KNOW ABOUT!!!
- Stream HI-FI classical radio stations:
http://www.classicalarchives.com/radio/ - Research detailed biographies of composers, conductors and famous musicians. As classicalarchives employs their own musicologist(s), you can be sure that the materials have been reviewed and have an authoritative weight to them:
http://www.classicalarchives.com/artists/indexo.html#comp - View the Timeline of Composers:
http://www.classicalarchives.com/timeline.html - Watch Videos from the “Screening Room”:
http://www.classicalarchives.com/videos.html - View the list of all Women Composers:
http://www.classicalarchives.com/women.html - Get Classical Archive free ringtones:
http://www.classicalarchives.com/mobile/midi.html - View the crossover “liberties taken” collection of classical music:
http://www.classicalarchives.com/mp3_x.html - Read GREAT articles and editorials by great minds:
http://www.classicalarchives.com/articles/ - Watch the music as it plays (midi files). Download the FREEWARE NoteWorthy Player (Another Great Freeware from NoteWorthy Software Inc.) from here:
http://www.noteworthysoftware.com/player/, then open the .mid files with it! - Start a conversation with the people at CMA:
http://forum.classicalarchives.com/cgi-bin/discus.cgi; if you have a technical question, START A CONVERSATION with us!
https://www.mustech.net/tech-forum/
ANOTHER GREAT IDEA FOR MUSIC TEACHERS FOR THEIR SCHOOLS:
As you know, I am a FAN of using the schools libraries and Internet labs for music purposes; after all, WHY SHOULDN’T YOU HAVE ACCESS TO IT LIKE ALL THE OTHER SUBJECT TEACHERS!
That’s worth repeating; AFTER ALL, WHY SHOULDN’T YOU HAVE ACCESS TO IT LIKE ALL THE OTHER SUBJECT TEACHERS! :D
Have your school LIBRARY purchase a library purchase an ANNUAL subscription for only $750.00 per year (at least PROPOSE IT)! They have more money for the budgets than music programs, let them spend it on you- FOR ONCE!
If that’s not an option, have them bookmark the Classical Archives anyway, list it with their subject lists for MUSIC. Then, you can still use it, but each student will have to have register for the FREE version… Still a GREAT idea!
Let US know what you are doing or using The Classical Archives for or if you will be doing something with it now you’ve read this! Your Comments are Welcome!
~J. Pisano
[tags]school, music, classical archives, classical, music, freeware, midi, noteworthy composer, free, mp3, audio, teacher, lesson plan, lesson plans[/tags]
I was with Classical Archives for two years.
I may go back to it, but I did notice that some of the performances were not good. My standpoint is as an amateur singer working with professional orchestras and conductors, eg Benjamin Britten.
Russell,
Wow, what a fascinating comment. I was/am looking at classical archives mainly for the midi aspect of it. I have listened to many of the recordings and found the majority of them to be passable, but I certainly did find a few “clunkers”.
Overall, I think that they have gotten better over the years with regard to the fidelity of their actual audio recordings.
What were some of the things you used it for?
~J. Pisano