Interesting.
Have you thought carefully about upkeep of all the links. YouTube clips come and go over time and if you are trying to keep the links current over a huge number of tunes (the site says 2497 and counting) that seems like a mammoth task.
Hey, yup that's right, but I found a solution that allowed me to automate the videos discovery / classification process. Right now it's not optimized, and I will improve it for sure. I miss transcriptions videos, and a lot of performance, I'd also like to show some informations relevant to the video ( the meter if present in the desc or title, the key, tempo etc.. ).
I've as well made a process to convert either some PDFs or some musicxml files to my internal format for storing the charts, so I used different sources (books, some pdf I had laying there etc..) to gather and collect those tunes. In its current state, it's really more something like a proof of concept.
.. how much work do you have to do to review and check them ? A lot of the old Real Books are riddled with errors and even the good sources seem to be inconsistent for some tunes.
I'm guessing you made this to scratch some itch you were having, so I'm curious what that was?
Yeah, sources are inconsistent for many tunes. Plus, the chords often vary depending on the performance. I’ve seen realbook charts based on specific arrangements or referencing alternate chords from other versions. Some tunes even have multiple known versions (like Well You Needn't)
So here are the problems I encountered as a young musician & jazz player that I'd like to solve :
- I want to quickly listen to performances of a given tune/chart. When learning tunes, I’d often dig through allmusic or other sites to find all the recordings of a tune. That really helped me understand how some musicians borrow elements from earlier or more popular versions and that’s something I wanted to make easier to explore.
- While doing that, I thought adding backing tracks would be cool, and I’m also considering including transcription or educational videos (like the ones on Coltrane changes etc.)
- Another issue iss that many charts online refer to a particular version of a tune. I’d like to implement a versioning feature, so users could, for example, see Well You Needn’t with Monk's changes, and view all related videos. They’d also be able to compare versions listen/reading both etc..
- I want an app that works everywhere, on every device, and where you can read chord charts for free.
- On a personal side, I work in IT and I’ve challenged myself to release some side-projects. This is one of them!
So right now I’m sharing it, watching how much interest it gets, and making small improvements. Next steps (not ordered) include:
- Improving the layout & rendering engine.
- Releasing an editor, so people can have their private charts, setlists etc. and contribute back to the public repository
- Creating a community driven reviewing process. So people would be able to contribute, rate a chart, comment it, suggest edits which would then be moderated by trusted members of the community.
- Finding a way to cover hosting costs without ruining the UX or usability
In any case, please share feedbacks, I'll take them into account.
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