Creative Commons License

If you download the PDF of one of my pieces, you will notice a disclaimer at the beginning and end of the music: "This work released under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 United States License".  What this means is that when performing a composition by me that is released with this license, I must be given proper attribution and the piece cannot be performed if a profit will be made from the performance.  So what is proper attribution?  I should be listed as the composer and the URL for More Than 3 Chords (morethan3chords.blogspot.com) should also be listed.  A couple of examples:

Example 1 -
         Ode To Batman...............................Ed Woodward
                                     (morethan3chords.blogspot.com)
Example 2 -
         Ode To Batman...............................Ed Woodward*
         ...
         ...
         * morethan3chords.blogspot.com

As long as these 2 pieces of information are included and associated with each other, I am happy.  There are more details at Creative Commons.  I am not that interested in making money off my music, but I am also not interested in someone else making money from my creative work.  Basically, give me proper attribution and you are free to use, change and distribute my music for noncommercial purposes.  If you do use my music, I would love to hear about it and hear your performance.

Why another blog?

Why does the world need another blog?  I'm not sure the world needs this blog, but I do.  I was a percussion major and earned a bachelor's and a master's in music.  I love to play and used to practice for 6 to 8 hours a day.  After I graduated with my master's, I spent a few years as a band director at various high schools and middle schools.  I always enjoyed the students, but the pay and upper management of any school district can suck the life out of a teacher.  At 1 am, on an un-air-conditioned school bus riding home from an away football game, I decided this was not what I wanted to do for the rest of my life.  Luckily, my school district had purchased the band a computer that I really enjoyed working on.  After I little research, I enrolled in a programming 101 course and went on to get a master's in computer science.  Soon I was changing careers to software development.  When I made the change, I was so burned out on music that I went cold turkey. I wanted nothing to do with it.  My focus was on building my programming career.  A couple of years ago, my wife gave me an MP3 player so I could listen to podcasts during my commute.  Next thing I knew I was ripping my old CDs so I could listen to them again.  For the first time in 10 years, I was getting interested in music again.  Programming is a very creative exercise.  Programmers are given what is basically a blueprint and it is up to them to make it a reality.  It is like improvisation except the results are more concrete since they are saved as part of a computer program.  In my current job, I am doing some very important work, but it does not have the creative component programming does.  This blog will hopefully replace some of the creativity I miss.  Over the years, I have written various pieces for solo vibraphone and percussion ensemble and decided to do something with these.  I plan on releasing them with a Creative Commons Non-Commercial Attribution license.  This will make them free to download and use as long as you do not make money on a performance or recording and give me proper attribution.  I'll explain this further in a future post.  The exercise of preparing the music, recording it and sharing it that will bring me happiness.  If others enjoy my music, that will be a huge bonus.