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I noticed:

https://photo.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/2657/weekly-featured-image-ongoing-contest

...and also the way that popular submissions are embedded in the main site:

photo.meta.stackexchange.com weekly-featured-image-ongoing-contest

And I thought it was pretty great!

It's been observed on this site now and again that we could do with a bit more actual music. Would anyone be interested in having a sonic equivalent here to showcase compositions and performances by users of this site?

  • How would the track itself be represented on the site? Would it be locally hosted, playing through the site itself? Would it be an image of the score? Would it be a link to an external host site? Would it simply be the track's name and composer's name? I'd support any of those options, but I think we ought to come to consensus on some details here. – user45266 Jun 3 at 1:45
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    @user45266 What I imagined was having a player in the sidebar with a play button to start an audio track without initially needing to follow any further links. I don't have any strong opinion on whether that should be hosted here or linked as I have very little knowledge about how hard either option would be to implement in the context of SE. I don't think there should have to be a score, but it would be nice to find a way for pieces in score form to feature too! – topo Reinstate Monica Jun 3 at 5:51
  • Why don't we all just change our profile image to our current favourite record ? I've been doing that for a few weeks now :-) – Your Uncle Bob Jun 3 at 15:31
  • Wouldn't it make more sense to have a plug-in that can play the ABCjs score examples? I know it's a completely different function, but if we're going to add functionality, why not concentrate on something which would help with the actual purpose of the site? – Your Uncle Bob Jun 3 at 15:51
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    @YourUncleBob That sounds interesting, though as you say, would be something very different (perhaps worth its own meta question?) – topo Reinstate Monica Jun 3 at 15:56
  • I'm sure adding an image is a lot easier than adding a player. I think this would be cool, I wonder if SE would go for it though. I think we would need their help. – Todd Wilcox Jun 6 at 13:22
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Technically the easiest way to do this would probably be to have a "photo of the week"-like frame in the sidebar, but with an embedded Youtube video. We already have a lot of Youtube videos embedded into questions and answers, so I guess there's no copyright or other legal problem in doing so.

There should preferably also be some explanation about why that particular piece of music was selected, and by whom, and links to questions about it and so on... Probably too much information to fit in the sidebar, so that would have to be on a different page (a question here on meta?), or in a pop-up or something.

I'm not completely sold on the idea of featuring music by users, but I could see it being useful as a starting point to encourage questions about certain genres, composers, composition techniques, instruments, playing styles...

  • One issue with Youtube (probably other services as well) is that the video might be unavailable for some regions, so for a portion of users, it might be unplayable. – Viktor Mellgren Jun 11 at 7:01
5

I'm not sure if this is feasible, but I'm up for it. I recently saw an off-topic thread:

Less known composers [on hold]

Where OP said that he was trying to learn a new composer each week and was asking for help with that. That was actually quite an interesting question. I agree with the close votes, it doesn't fit the Q&A style of the site, but still, if we embedded a player of sorts that features a track per week, it would help the users of this site to learn new composers or pieces.

  • I was actually thinking of having this feature showcase the creations of site users... But that could be another interesting use! – topo Reinstate Monica Jun 3 at 9:01
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    @topomorto both of them sound good yeah! – Shevliaskovic Jun 3 at 10:09
  • Putting up music not made by site users could involve copyright questions that it might be easier not to have to answer. – Todd Wilcox Jun 6 at 13:24
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    @ToddWilcox There are plenty of Q&A's here that have embedded YouTube videos. That never seems to be a problem. – Your Uncle Bob Jun 6 at 18:39

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