June 4, 201313 yr Hello! I'm David, based in NYC here in the states. I thought I'd sign up to these forums as it seems like an ideal place for me to share my work, and learn from others doing similar things. I'm a musician (classical pianist), and have learned quite a lot about computer science over the last years. My plan is coming together, and I have recently launched a website that aims to organize the great composers & their music, behind a simple interface. The goal of the site is to make classical music more accessible to the world at large. The site may be found at www.openclassical.com if anyone would like to take a look. I'm looking forward to exploring the forums here and interacting with you all.
June 4, 201313 yr Hello! I'm David, based in NYC here in the states. I thought I'd sign up to these forums as it seems like an ideal place for me to share my work, and learn from others doing similar things. I'm a musician (classical pianist), and have learned quite a lot about computer science over the last years. My plan is coming together, and I have recently launched a website that aims to organize the great composers & their music, behind a simple interface. The goal of the site is to make classical music more accessible to the world at large. The site may be found at www.openclassical.com if anyone would like to take a look. I'm looking forward to exploring the forums here and interacting with you all. Welcome to WDF cool site btw did you build it from scratch?
June 4, 201313 yr Author Welcome to WDF cool site btw did you build it from scratch? Hey webdesigner93 - thanks! Yes I built it myself from scratch. I started working on the site last summer, and since then it's been a cycle of design, then coding, then data curation, then user feedback. I've done quite a lot of C++ coding in the past, which helps a lot when shaping the backend php and so on.
June 4, 201313 yr 'ello, David - welcome to the forum I'm pretty passionate about music but classical is a field of music I don't often listen to. I really love what you've done with your site - really fascinating how you've structured it and surely worth a read/listen/getting immersed. Bookmarked! Look forward to your contributions!
June 5, 201313 yr Author 'ello, David - welcome to the forum I'm pretty passionate about music but classical is a field of music I don't often listen to. I really love what you've done with your site - really fascinating how you've structured it and surely worth a read/listen/getting immersed. Bookmarked! Look forward to your contributions! Thanks 4li4s! I'm also looking forward to jumping into the occasional thread when I feel I might have something to offer (I consider myself more of a musician than a technologist). Do feel free to let me know if you have any comments or suggestions about openclassical - I am open to all feedback. I'm always thrilled when I hear that people find it useful.
June 5, 201313 yr Actually, it triggered off a two hour search on the internet starting with Vivaldi that ended up with me reading up on the Napoleonic Wars!? You know how it is once your brain starts craving for knowledge I think it's an intuitive site and I'm likely to recommend it to people who I think would be interested in it. One immediate thing to comment on in terms of functionality is the foot of the page. The actual footer is pretty small and last night was a bit hard to click on links without clicking in the wrong place (using a trackpad that's built in). It might be worth increasing the height of the footer and the lower margins/padding of your main content to give it a bit of breathing space. To be honest, I haven't explored that much of the site as I found the first few links really interesting. Overall a pleasant experience
June 5, 201313 yr Hello, David, and welcome to WDF! Great site. (btw, Alfred Schnittke and Edison Denisov are missed... )
June 5, 201313 yr Welcome to the forum David. I must say i'm kinda impressed by the back end you've written. (Can't really see everything but the front end tells the back end )
June 5, 201313 yr Hello David and welcome to wdf. Amazing site with a noble cause you've build. Both the user interface and the content is high quality.
June 6, 201313 yr Author 4li4s - I haven't considered the footer for quite a while, and I do agree with your comments. I'll update that soon. Thanks! Lev - thanks! By the way I just added lots of Schnittke works per your comment. Both he and Denisov were listed under 'minor composers', and Denisov remains there for now - it's just a logistical thing as I update each composer one at a time. You can find Schnittke's updated page here. Pretty awesome music. extincted & Nillervision - thanks for the welcome and the kind words!
June 6, 201313 yr Hey and welcome to the forum. Gotta say, love the site... Just put it on my faveourites as i play a lot of music and can defiantly use this! A Suggestion for your site which id love: Maybe have different arrangements of particular pieces for different instruments? So a good example would be "Canon" by Pachebel (most famous among guitarists)... show a video for arrangement on piano, acoustic guitar, orchestra, flute? lol etc... Would be really nice
June 7, 201313 yr Author Hi teodora! Thanks for the welcome. HighDarren - so pleased to hear your comments. Arrangements of different pieces is definitely something I'd like the site to formally track in the future, and we kind of pick this up already in the YouTube videos we list. By the way I went ahead and updated Pachelbel since you mentioned it - you can see the page for the Canon here:https://www.openclassical.com/composer/Johann_Pachelbel/work/canon_in_d?play_movie=H1L4sVxuKZg again, do let me know if you have any other comments or feedback.
June 25, 201313 yr David welcome to the forum. You have built a nice site. If you don't mind I suggest you to add some colors or graphical interface to your site. I completely don't have any idea about a musical site. My suggestion is based only on the modern trends of website design, as nowadays people are attracted towards graphical sites.
June 25, 201313 yr Author David welcome to the forum. You have built a nice site. If you don't mind I suggest you to add some colors or graphical interface to your site. I completely don't have any idea about a musical site. My suggestion is based only on the modern trends of website design, as nowadays people are attracted towards graphical sites. Hi AnnaMaria012 - thanks! Actually I am open to all ideas regarding the visual layout (which at this time is largely functional, as I continue to build out the features of the site), and I am curious if you would like to elaborate on what you mean. I personally prefer a clean presentation, which I hope guides the visitor's eye to the most important functionality on each page. If you have specific sites / designs in mind that you could share that would be appreciated.
June 27, 201313 yr Hey David, Looks like a cool site! Would be interesting to see how far you can take that one tip though. I'm using my phone at the moment and the site doesn't really adjust to my limited screen size. There's a lot lately about responsive sites and a masonry grid. Maybe those could be integrated in the layout? Good luck!
June 28, 201313 yr Author Hey David, Looks like a cool site! Would be interesting to see how far you can take that one tip though. I'm using my phone at the moment and the site doesn't really adjust to my limited screen size. There's a lot lately about responsive sites and a masonry grid. Maybe those could be integrated in the layout? Good luck! Thanks PietPuk - I have a lot of exciting ideas planned for the site, which I do hope will be realized over time. Right now I'm building out localization code (Korean being the first translation of the site!) so that I can broaden my audience, and get more feedback. One step at a time! Mobile devices are definitely on the todo list. I recently plugged in Google Analytics to the site, so I'll have great breakdowns of what device types are visiting the site. I'll have to decide at that point if I want to adapt the site to be generally 'responsive', or build bespoke versions for each phones & tablets. I'm not sure the layout of my site lends itself to a masonry approach, but it's an interesting thought!
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