Most Radio Survivor readers have doubtless forgotten my effort to create a hybrid classical music room at plug.dj. Alas, I tried to pull it out of thin air without any of the real life connections you need to make an Internet music chat room work. Happily, someone remembered and brought a new one to my attention: Ost+ Piano and Strings Music. The community has a nice rules page that lays out its mission very clearly. Basically the focus is on music from film, anime, and the classical traditions. So you’ll hear some Chopin, followed by some great anime and game soundtrack tunes. A lot of good spirit among the users, and the community is supported by ClassyBot, a smart room management program.
One of the coolest things about plug.dj is that it has a DJ History feature. This was pointed out to me by Nantes, one of the Ost+ community staff. Just go over to your playlist area, and the top purple colored item should be titled “DJ History.” It is searchable, so community participants can refer each other back to memorable tunes played earlier. I was able to get a real sense of the flavor of the room from this feature. Definitely worth a visit.
While we are on the subject of classical, I am totally digging SoundCloud’s classical channel, which is featuring some amazing stuff. SoundCloud programmer Ahmed Gado from Mansoura, Egypt has been queuing a host of nice slow sensuous Oud/jazz/Hector Villa Lobos-ish pieces. I could listen all day. During my Saturday visit this was followed by Kiev based composer Benzab Abdi‘s Mowlavi Opera. And if that wasn’t beautiful enough, next came a user fan of the exquisite Danny Norbury with selections from his album Light in August.
This stuff is all so great, and when mixed in with traditional classical music (I caught a great track of JRhodes performing an Alkan piece) it is redefining classical music, making it come alive again. While we are at it, a second shout out to WQXR’s Q2 living composers channel. In a recent post I missed mentioning the excellence of Q2 late morning deejay Phil Kline. I caught him the other day and was struck by his eloquence and enthusiasm. The problem is that, situated as I am here in San Francisco, I tend to listen to west coast morning radio shows, rather than the east coast ones. But below check out a YouTube of his community cassette, CD, and mp3 ensemble composition, Unsilent Night.
The pieces’ website describes its origins as follows:
“It all started in winter 1992, when Phil had an idea for a public artwork in the form of a holiday caroling party. He composed a multi-track electronic piece that was 45 minutes long (the length of one side of a cassette tape), invited a few dozen friends who gathered in Greenwich Village, gave each person a boombox with one of four tapes in it, and instructed everyone to hit PLAY at the same time. What followed was a sound unlike anything they had ever heard before: an evanescence filling the air, reverberating off the buildings and city streets as the crowd walked a pre-determined route. Phil says: ‘In effect, we became a city-block-long stereo system’.”
Enjoy! BTW: Reports have it that YouTube is working the release of some kind of SoundCloud-esque service. And Deezer may show up in the USA this year!
We cover social music sharing communities every Monday in our Internet DJ feature.
