With nearly 2,000 free sample instruments Pianobook is a resource like no other. But it is so so much more than that…
I set up pianobook as part of an album project. The idea was, make a bunch of tracks, get people to contribute sounds to make them, and in turn allow everyone to get access to these sounds so that people can make music of their own with them. I settled on pianos because whilst they’re difficult to sample “well”, they’re relatively easy to sample and get some form of usable instrument for the lesser experience “samplist”. It caught a buzz and we immediately had what I learned the hard way was a “success problem”. Under the tutelage of Stephen Tallamy – a willing and generous volunteer – I scrabbled around on my laptop moving a dozen-odd pianos off wetransfer which we blew up that Saturday morning onto an AWS server.
The romance of this hadn’t occurred to me until this point. An idea that every piano had a story and people could share that story and the piano itself with strangers was an appealing one because it connected us on a human level. The tools we were playing, using and expressing ourselves with weren’t just bitmaps on our screen and sectors on our drives. They were part of a continuum, a heritage, a history… and they also had what I knew to be the secret sauce in samples – character.
Then came the suggestion “pianos are a bit non-inclusive” or a bit “bourgeois”. Not everyone has access to one. So we said “fuck it, put any sound up”. At which point the flood gates opened. Again we scrabbled, a new website, then not long after, another new website… But this wasn’t the bit where we judged the true value of what we had created by mistake. What was happening amongst the people making and sharing these sounds was where something truly remarkable materialised. People were collaborating, and making friends. Business partnerships were being hatched. Companies being formed and day-jobs being quit.
It had become a “thing” way beyond my humble idea for a crowd-sound-sourced album project.
So the success problems continued, and for me it was bandwidth. With a business making music for film, tv and computer games, a sample company with 140 staff and 3,000,000 users meant that pianobook was often the straw that broke this camel’s back. A series of custodianships began, and huge efforts were put into continuing the project. However if I was to observe one difficulty experienced by those kindly enough to take it on. Was a disadvantage of not being their to watch the thing from the beginning. That it was a wholly organic evolution based on human connection (god this sound like such wank, but it is the truth). It needed gentle guidance, suggestion, the support and encouragement of all, regardless of, well anything really. If you’re interested in sound, you’re welcome, without exception.
As custodians we are enablers, not instructors, scout-masters, or leaders. We simply need to make sure that there is a fertile creative space where more growth is stimulated by encouraging people to have a go, providing some form of incentive for people to have another go, and to just let people get on with it… and thrive.
So after a spell of a couple of years not being involved with pianobook, I got it back. At which point… the success problems returned. This video is about me finding a suitable candidate to give pianobook the love, no thats wrong, the time, I could never afford it. Handing over to a new creative director. Owen Bolig.
To find out more about pianobook go HERE.
Read my pianobook open-letter about the thinking behind the need for a new creative director HERE.
…and Owen’s post about his hopes and aims for this extraordinary corner of the internet HERE.