Freesound Forums

About a year ago I needed a recording of a group of people singing "Happy Birthday" as background for a video. It's out of copyright and I assumed there would be versions on Freesound. No luck, so I went to the bother of making my own recording at a local club.

Recently I wanted a snippet of "Good King Wenceslas" sung by ordinary people at a Christmas party, again as background to a video, and again, I ended up making my own recording.

Freesound says not to upload complete songs. My question is: are out-of-copyright songs used commonly in home situations, songs such as Happy Birthday, Auld Lang Syne, Christmas carols, and so on, when sung by non-singers in a home situation or around a campfire, can they be uploaded? I'm not talking about choirs or proper singers, I mean ordinary people stumbling over the words, roughly in tune. Are they considered to be sounds, or are they always songs?

Hi guy...,

In the FAQ it says "Freesound isn't meant to upload songs, it's for sounds! We know this distinction is sometimes difficult.. ... For songs there are a lot of great already existing sites like: (links)"

https://freesound.org/help/faq/#i-created-a-song-where-can-i-upload-it

If you tried out the links I guess what you found was less 'amateur' and more 'produced'.

I totally get your point and think traditional stuff like that would be valuable, but there's no easy distinction between ambient/amateur and professional performances these days. I think the Moderators job would become a nightmare. I guess freesound doesn't want to be swamped with full artistic creations because that would change it's nature.

Put in a 'Sample Request'? I reckon the Mods might allow a response to that, or the creator could mail it to you directly.

Good luck,

Wibby

I would consider a crowd singing 'Happy Birthday' as a "Sound atmosphere". A complete song would be a professional studio recording or would involve music/instruments

Breviceps wrote:
I would consider a crowd singing 'Happy Birthday' as a "Sound atmosphere". A complete song would be a professional studio recording or would involve music/instruments

That's more informative than my answer Breviceps.

Also I notice guyburns was only asking for snippets.

Thanks for the comments. I'm not actually asking for snippets at the moment, I was just wondering if I uploaded my recordings whether they would be accepted.

Happy Birthday is not really a good example because it is always dedicated to someone. Mine is to a fellow called Eric. You'd have to have hundreds of different Happy Birthday's for them to be a good resource.

But Good King Wenceslas... I've now got this stereo recording with 18 people singing and a honky-tonk piano banging away in the background. It seems a pity that these sort of tunes can't be shared with other people. Maybe they can. Maybe I should just upload it.

I came across two accordion tunes on Freesound (#259295, #232907) – complete tunes – and I used one in my AV. I was surprised they were available.

Hi guy,

You should definitely upload them. It's up to the mods if they get passed.

It might start a trend for other similar samples that would increase the scope and range of freesound.

I think tags could be important, like brevicep's "sound atmosphere, traditional song/carol, home, party, gathering, family" etc.

Regards Wibby.

After the encouraging replies here, I uploaded Good King Wenceslas and it was passed by the moderators (https://freesound.org/people/guyburns/sounds/483810/).

I might contact the moderators and suggest that they have a section in FAQ about in what circumstances traditional tunes can be uploaded. Maybe someone here can comment on my ideas, with the general thrust being that the sounds should be of the type that can used as general background for videos, not concert-style recordings of a polished and rehearsed performance.

1. The tune must be out of copyright, and a link to the out-of-copyright status to be provided by the uploader.

2. The tune should be commonly performed by a group of people in a party, pub, or other social situation. Tunes such as Happy Birthday, Auld Lang Syne, For He's a Jolly Good Fellow, Christmas carols, folk songs.

3. Singers should be obviously amateurs: out of time, out of tune, and vague sounding.

4. Not a good idea to allow solo singers as that would encourage would-be-singers to upload themselves.

Freesound should definitely not become a repository for solo singers or groups of singers, or instrumentalists, trying to impress others, but I think it should be a repository of tunes that fit within the definition of "sound atmospheres", a descriptive term used by Breviceps above.

Very interesting discussion indeed We know many times it is not clear what sounds would be acceptable and what not. The thing is that it is very difficult to draw a line between what's a "song" and what not, etc. I think the premises of what content is allowed could be summarized as:

- We want that the content uploaded to Freesound can be reused.
- We don't want artists to upload songs/albums (in the traditional sense of songs/albums) for their "self-promotion" because there are other places specially for doing that (e.g. soundcloud, bandcamp, etc) and the "sharing & reuse" concept is not the main driving force.
- We don't allow illegal content.

Because it is very difficult to write specific guidelines like those proposed by guyburns, I think it might be better to keep the current vague text that we have (or replace it with another one of similar length and maybe a slightly less vague) and not try to write very specific guidelines on what's allowed and what's not.

Also it is true that we don't want to become a kind of youtube and all of a sudden start to have thousands of "solo singer" recordings because it becomes a trend (just as an example), but I'd say let's not worry too much about that unless it really becomes a problem.

frederic.font wrote:
....... but I'd say let's not worry too much about that unless it really becomes a problem.

I trust the Mods judgement.

Let's hope they're not buried under a mountain of extra work.

Regards Wibby