Church music may be one of the most standardized products in the world. Since hundreds of years, church goers use the same songs and rhythms which often become part of the cultural tradition of a society.
Not any more. Last week, LifeWayWorship unveiled the latest innovation in digital music: SongMap, a web-based application that allows users to create custom arrangements of songs and produce corresponding audio files and sheet music.
Lifeway is a service company supporting the Southern Baptist Convention and one of the world’s largest providers of Christian products and services. But despite its religious mission, it uses latest technology and has invented really a world's first-of-a-kind product with its customizable music offering
Well, old-time readers of my blog my remember a similar offering of cutomizable music, but not in this scale and scope.
SongMap is the first web-based technology that allows users to choose specific sections of songs: verses, choruses, transitions, and more ... and then download sheet music and audio files that correspond to the custom arrangement. The technology was developed specifically to meet the needs of worship leaders who want more flexibility arranging songs for church services. At the same time, SongMap has broader implications throughout the mainstream music world.
“SongMap is the first technology that gives users the ability to change songs on the Internet to meet their own tastes,” said Mike Harland, director of LifeWay Worship.
“Some churches need sheet music for a full rock band each week, while others rely solely on accompaniment tracks. We set out to find a way to help these churches create music that suits their congregations. In doing so, we created a new music technology that does what none other has done before.”
Very similar applications could be used by schools, theaters, local choirs, and so on ... however, I don't know whether the creators of this technology would love to see their product used for some raunchy song by 50Cent.
Three years in development, SongMap was created by a team of software engineers and music industry professionals. It involved the largest known recording project in Nashville history. Nearly 1,000 songs and 8,000 mixes were recorded in just 10 months by over 150 professional musicians, vocalists and engineers. The production team then divided the arrangements into more than 500,000 individual segments. From these segments, the SongMap technology allows users to “map” custom mixes of individual songs.
The cost to map a song ranges from $ 1.49 to $1.99 per part. Once a song is purchased, the user has immediate access to the corresponding MP3 file and sheet music. I am curious to learn how this technology is accepted and how it will develop in the next years. I could imagine a Zazzle or Spreadshirt-kind of business model: Some creative people create new songs to address, e.g., a recent trends, and then share their creation with others in their own online song store.
Context Information:
- SongMap Website
- Springwise on SongMap
- Earlier Posting on similar offering
- More on customized music
- Mass customization seems to be the concept of the year at US Christian enterprises, as also this news article reports
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