philosophical geekess

So I was at the shopping center near my place earlier today, and over the ruckus that is the ‘mad rush before everyone does last minute Christmas Eve shopping tomorrow’ crowd, I heard “Auld Lang Syne” over the center’s PA system. Yes, I know, this is not unusual at this time of the year, but that’s not the point of this post, either.

Anyway, I’m thinking to myself “Stupid people, it’s still 8 days until New Year”. But it got me thinking – what can the Ubuntu community achieve in 8 days?

Can we achieve a Ubuntu Community choral compilation of “Auld Lang Syne” in epic proportions and unprecedented poor quality? (basically, you send in a clip yourself singing, and I then put it along side lots of other people’s recordings so it sounds like a sing-along). I say “Heck yes!”, so we might as well try it.

Ok, so here’s the plan. Get a recording of yourself (or a group of you) singing the first stanza and the chorus of Auld Lang Syne. I suggest playing with either Audacity (in repos) or Jokosher (0.1 in repos or 0.2 with a crazy download script thingie).

Please use these words, which I’ve taken from the ‘Anglicised translation’ on the Wikipedia page:

Should old acquaintance be forgot,
and never brought to mind ?
Should old acquaintance be forgot,
and days of long ago?

CHORUS:
For auld lang syne, my dear,
for auld lang syne,
we’ll take a cup o’ kindness yet,
for days of long ago.

This audio file will need to be:

• In .mp3 or .ogg format (of course the open format is better )
• 44100Hz
• In time (and preferably key) with this recording of the first 30 seconds of Auld Lang Syne. Suggestion: listen to the clip it on headphones while you record it.

(The snippit is from a rendition done by someone who goes by the name Fresh Nelly and was featured on a CC-licenced album last year)

Once you have done this, send it to ubuntu [dot] auldlangsyne [at] gmail [dot] com along with whichever name (can be your real name, your irc nick or something completely different) you want to be credited with.

Recordings need be licenced under cc-by-sa 2.5 (Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike) so by sending the file in, you’re agreeing this is the case. The final compilation will be under this licence.

Please, do not fret about the quality of your singing provided you are audible, relatively in time and with minimal background noise. This is just something for fun – for a laugh if you will. The more people, the better this will be. I cannot sing either but I will be in there with the best of you. The end result will likely be so crap it’s funny!

You have until next Friday to submit recordings so I have time to check all the recordings and compose the final piece before the New Year.

Have fun!