About
Open Well-Tempered Clavier - Ba©h to Bach
$44,083
904
We have a new stretch goal - $50,000 - which will allow us to make a braille version of the Well-Tempered Clavier. Watch this video to understand why that's important:
Blind musicians, who read braille scores when learning music, have to settle for less than 1% of the repertoire. The rest hasn't been converted into braille. We can engineer software that will convert MuseScore scores to Braille, more than doubling the number of scores available to blind musicians. But we need your support! These are the stretch goals:
$50,000: Braille version of the Open Well-Tempered Clavier
$60,000: Braille version of the Open Goldberg Variations
$100,000: A free web-service to automatically convert MusicXML files to Braille
$150,000: All 50,000 scores on MuseScore.com available as Braille
An awesome recording and digital score
We are creating a new digital score and studio recording of J.S. Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier (Book 1), and we're placing them in the public domain for everyone to download, own, share, and use, without any limitations.
The Recording will be distributed online in MP3, WAV, and lossless FLAC file formats. In addition, the master multi-track WAV files containing all tracks and microphones will also be made available, along with video and photos of the recording sessions.
The score will be in the MuseScore format, and if we meet our stretch goals, as a braille edition for blind musicians.
Meaningful backer rewards
Your support will allow us to record in the Teldex Studio, with Anne-Marie Sylvestre as the producer. Your support will allow us to be quite obsessive in creating a beautiful score that is as true to Bach's manuscript as we can be. Your support will allow us to do the mastering of the recording using state-of-the-art equipment to guarantee the best sound possible.
We've got some great rewards for our backers, including copies of the Double CD (PARMA Recordings' Navona Label); the printed score (GRIN Verlag edition); USB sticks with LOTS of cool files; scans of Kimiko Ishizaka's study scores with fingerings, phrasing, and analysis markings; private lessons or concerts with Kimiko Ishizaka; and VIP tickets to upcoming concerts and the CD release parties (Berlin, Paris, London, New York). To celebrate making Bach's music accessible to blind musicians, we are creating a Braille-embossed print of an original, commissioned artwork, something that both the sighted and the blind can enjoy.
NEW: Add $20 to any pledge and receive a copy of "Blind But Now I See", the Doc Watson story. More details here.
Perhaps the nicest backer reward, however, is the dedication of one of the Preludes or Fugues. One of the 48 pieces is dedicated to someone or something you love or honor. This dedication will appear in all published formats of the work, including the printed score and commercial CD. Since this is a public domain work, and will be stored on all of the important internet archives and libraries, your dedication will exist and be remembered for as long as humans listen to music. This is your chance to do something eternal for someone you love. Dedications are typically 1-3 lines of text.
Digital Scores
Here is a video describing the top 10 technical advantages of having your music in MuseScore format. Of course, if we succeed in our quest to create a service to convert MuseScore files into Braille scores, that would be the new #1 reason!
A Sample: The Fugue in F-Minor
Bach's music is rich and rewarding. Listen to this a couple of times through. Let it sink in. There are 48 pieces of this caliber in the first book of the Well-Tempered Clavier. This music will accompany you for a lifetime.
The Ba©h to Bach Team
Our team consists of pianist Kimiko Ishizaka who recorded the Open Goldberg Variations to great acclaim and glowing reviews. She'll be assisted by producer Anne-Marie Sylvestre, and she'll play a Bösendorfer piano, provided by the manufacturer, that she gets to hand pick from all of their instruments. The recording will be made in the Teldex Studio, Berlin, one of the finest studios in the world. PARMA Recordings will publish and distribute the recording worldwide on the Navona Recordings label.
The score will be produced by the MuseScore team and Olivier Miquel. GRIN Verlag will publish the score in its print form.
Stay in touch!
The Open Well-Tempered Clavier will be released on our website: http://www.opengoldbergvariations.org
Updates are posted regularly to our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/Open.Goldberg.Variations
We're on Twitter: @OpenGoldberg, @KimikoIshizaka, @RobertDouglass
Kimiko Ishizaka also has her own site: http://kimiko-piano.com
Our YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/OpenGoldberg/videos
Risks and challenges
Barring natural disaster or acts of God that prevent Kimiko Ishizaka from recording, this project will succeed. We've done it before with great results, and this time around there's a bigger and stronger team working together to make this recording and score.
Learn about accountability on KickstarterQuestions about this project? Check out the FAQ