Songs With Meaning: How To Incorporate Songs on Your Blog
Mrs. Emerson’s English students are reading The Pearl. The main character, Kino, has songs in his head that are particularly meaningful to him. The students were asked to reflect on songs that have particular meaning to them and write reflectively, incorporating the songs, on their blogs.
I created a short screencast here using Jing which explains how to incorporate popular music into their blogs. We’ve chosen to have them either embed lyrics or YouTube videos instead of audio tracks. Complete audio tracks raise DRM-issues, and WordPressMU doesn’t support embedding sampled music widgets like iMix.
The demo samples I was using follow below:
I really like the Dave Matthews Band. Although they weren’t around when I was in college, they remind me of what I might have listened to at that time. Here is a song most everyone knows from DMB, “Everyday”. This is a sample of an enbedded video:
I also like U2, and in particular I like the song “I Still Haven’t Found What I Am Looking For.” My son’s 5th grade class read a novel and listened to this song, then after some discussion they wrote incredible, insightful reflections about what they were reading. This is an example of using hypertext to link you to the video which isn’t embeddable but which does play on the YouTube site.
David Gray’s Greatest Hits just came out. His song Babylon is one of those songs with melodies that stick in your head. I can’t show you a video with this song, but I can share the lyrics:
Babylon
By David GrayFriday night I’m going nowhere
All the lights are changing green to red
Turning over TV stations
Situations running through my head
Well looking back through time
You know it’s clear that I’ve been blind
I’ve been a fool
To ever open up my heart
To all that jealousy, that bitterness, that ridiculeSaturday I’m running wild
And all the lights are changing red to green
Moving through the crowd I’m pushing
Chemicals all rushing through my bloodstream
Only wish that you were here
You know I’m seeing it so clear
I’ve been afraid
To tell you how I really feel
Admit to some of those bad mistakes I’ve madeIf you want it
Come and get it
Crying out loud
The love that I was
Giving you was
Never in doubt
Let go your heart
Let go your head
And feel it nowBabylon, Babylon
Sunday all the lights of London
Shining , Sky is fading red to blue
I’m kicking through the Autumn leaves
And wondering where it is you might be going to
Turning back for home
You know I’m feeling so alone
I can’t believe
Climbing on the stair
I turn around to see you smiling there
In front of meIf you want it
Come and get it
Crying out loud
The love that I was
Giving you was
Never in doubt
And feel it now
Let go your heart
Let go your head
And feel it now
Let go your heart
Let go your head
And feel it now
Let go your heart
Let go your head
And feel it now
Let go your heart
Let go your head
And feel it nowBabylon, Babylon, Babylon
Source: http://lyrics.com accessed on 1/10/08
Filed under: Instruction, Music, Tools, Video
The screencast looks great! Thanks for the information.
I’m admittedly a little fuzzy on all the copyright and intellectual property issues, but how is posting a YouTube video different than posting an MP3, or part of one? To my mind, both have the same potential to involve copyright infringement. Therefore, it would seem just as legit to buy a non-DRMed MP3 from Amazon, use an audio editor to grab 30 seconds, and post it. Is the fact that the students are just linking to content that’s already there what keeps the project this side of infringement?
I have been to innumerable sites that are embedding YouTube videos, and specifically music videos. I’ve noted on YouTube that certain artists (like U2) can choose to make their work “unembeddable” and playable only on the YouTube site. To the extent that there is an embed code, I’ve told the kids to go ahead and embed.
As to the mp3 file–this would be costly,editing a lot of work, and a lot of their music isn’t DRM-free. I wanted to do the iMixes for this very reason, but that wasn’t possible.
As you know the copyright issues are really up in the air. I don’t know enough about it to satisfy my own interest. Interestingly, a major 2.0 venture capitalist has all kinds of music and video available on his site. He does some of it to challenge what he thinks needs to change–I’m not willing to go that route. I don’t think it is the right answer.
If you are aware, or become aware, that we shouldn’t embed then let me know. I’ve seen music widgets “taken down” because of infringement, but I haven’t seen anything challenging YouTube given the latitude they offer to choose whether the video is embeddable or not.