Join here, ou aqui, but it may be helpful to read on and see what it's all about:
The Euterpedia is an attempt to do something which has never before been done...
There is so much great music in the world, life-enriching, but it's scattered around the internet like nuggets of gossamer gold tossed here and there, behind bushes and under rocks. Bringing it together in one place and providing a good way to findably organize it would be tantamount to making people richer than Crassus (the Roman, richest man of all time and not a nice one), artistically speaking. And unlike money it's not zero sum...one piece of music can cover the entire planet.
Hence the Euterpedia, named for Euterpe, the Greek muse of music (the word music is derived, in fact, from "muse"), wherein musicians and aficionados each have their own page, which I'm calling a Music News page. The Euterpedia is like MySpace Music, but with many more resources.
Euterpe Street sidewalk tiles in New Orleans
The most important resource however, the raison d'être, doesn't exist yet...but very soon it will...
That is I Recommend. I Recommend means clicking on a Recommend Me link on the page of a musician (or aficionado, even) one likes. That musican will appear in a section -- kind of like friends (or in the case of the Euterpedia, like colleagues) -- on one's own page.
 Hermeto Pascoal |
So imagine that, for example, um... Herbie Hancock has a Euterpedia page. He clicks on the Recommend Me link on the page of Hermato Pascoal, and then Hermato appears in Herbie's I Recommend section. You're on Herbie's page, and you see that he recommends Hermeto. You've never heard of Hermeto Pascoal (for the purposes of this example that is; of course you really know all about him!), but you like Herbie and so you check out Hermeto. And you're like wow! That white-haired wizard from Pernambuco is incredible! And you see Hermeto's recommendations, wizened wizards from the Brazilian backlands, and you check them out...and etc. etc. etc.
A cyber-trail of musical discovery. Hopefully you'll be found along that trail somewhere.
I realize that there are some well-established sites out there now devoted to music discovery, but nobody does it quite this way: These recommendations built on the most trustworthy source of all, somebody whose opinion matters.
The original Euterpedia was programmed here in Salvador and had some of my most important features functioning. Alas the site was full of problems and in order to do it right would have taken a long time. So I went for the already-programmed Ning platform, put together by Marc Andreessen, the guy who programmed the Mosaic browser (which became Netscape).
Alas again, Ning didn't do what I needed it to do, which is provide that all-important trail of recommendations. I laid the concept out for the Ning people (yeah I know, sounds like they're from Star Trek) and they said they would consider implementing it. Then our good friends at Facebook came up with the Like function, which is essentially the same thing, and now the Euterpedia will likewise have it shortly.
Hallelujah!
You are welcome to join, be you musician, somebody who works with music in some capacity, or somebody who simply likes music (or even a place which hosts music). For now the Euterpedia is spread across and English-language version and a Brazilian (Portuguese-language) version. At some point in the future I would like to bring them together with a language toggle at the top of the pages (with a number of languages available).
Joining takes less than 60 seconds...here. Ou aqui.
I'll let all members know when I Recommend is functioning!
Thank you, and valeu!
- pardal
http://www.euterpedia.com
http://www.euterpediabrasil.com
P.S. By the way, members include:
Grammy award winning Zydeco man Terrance Simien.
Filmmaker Les Blank.
Bob Young, music critic for the Boston Herald.
Al Kooper, of Super Sessions, played organ on the recording of Bob Dylan's Like a Rolling Stone.
Nelson Sargento, last lion of Rio's Mangueira samba school.
John Funkhouser, Berklee professor, piano and bass player.
Jeff Harrington, Berklee professor, sax player.
Toby Gough, British Theatrical Director & Producer, responsible for getting more musicians and music out of Cuba than anybody else around today.
Jon Otis, rock-solid soul man, son of Johnny Otis (you know, discovered Etta James and Jackie Wilson, produced Elvis Presley), brother to Shuggie.