datadelivery

In theory, the concept made sense, in practice, it was hard to know what to expect. There were quite a few surprises throughout the song. It was amazing to see some themes / patterns being repeated and the "no note" option was chosen quite regularly despite being a less interesting option for the crowd.

So, the repetition at the end was also a surprise. It was as if the crowd got itself into a loop and couldn't stop "following the crowd". However, even when I put myself in the crowds shoes and tried to work out when to break away from the pattern, it was easy to say "there should be one more note the same and then it would sound good if it changed after that".

One reason for the repetition was the fact that the chord progression (sequence) was the same throughout the whole song. If there had of been more variety in the progression, it surely would have influenced the pattern to break out.

Regardless, many songs have repetitive sections and I think that some lyrics and background elements will make the section sound a lot more interesting.

Well, I have been amazed by the power of Wikipedia for many years...then Stackoverflow came along and made it significantly easier to find answers to programming problems. Then I became addicted to Reddit and reading comments about articles actually became interesting when collated effectively.

So I realised collaboration was a powerful thing when harnessed in the right way. I wondered what else this could apply to. Something seemingly complex yet mathematical....music came to mind.

Though the melody project is complete, the full song is still a work in progress. It is a skeleton which still sounds quite mechanical as it does not yet have any variation in the gaps.

For example, here is a keyboard performance of the verse which sounds a lot more interesting than the main website.

So I think I will reserve my judgement until we produce a professional remix with lyrics and backing elements.

The lyrics have a fixed dictionary (for the purpose of syllables etc) but the crowd can suggest for a missing word to be added.

Quite a few people have attempted to add Harambe. Sorry, it's not a dictionary word so I can't authorize it :)

You will probably be surprised to hear that I do not have an answer for that yet.

I launched the site in half-finished state, thinking that I would test out the concept with a few hundred people and work out what to do from there. Within 24 hours it was getting thousands of visitors and New Scientist magazine were requesting a media interview.

So the legal "damage" had already been done from day 1. I didn't have the cash to talk to lawyers - so it is all up in the air right now. Lawyers or Reddit...what do you suggest? :)