Music mapping tool lets users rearrange songs

There is no shortage of ways for music lovers to share and even have a hand in selling their favourite music, as we’ve noted on several occasions before, but it wasn’t until just last week that we had seen a tool specifically designed to let them edit and rearrange recordings of individual songs. SongMap is a new web application that allows users to create custom arrangements of songs and then download the corresponding audio files and sheet music. The technology was developed by Nashville-based LifeWay Worship to give church leaders new flexibility in arranging their services, and creating it involved what the company says was the largest known recording project in Nashville history, involving more than 150 professional musicians, vocalists and engineers to record as many as eight different versions of each of nearly 1,000 songs. Users of SongMap begin by selecting a song they’re interested in from LifeWay’s corresponding library. Starting with the traditional, default version, they can then make changes at will, such as rearranging the order of verses, choruses, introductions or transitions and even changing keys. Along the way, they can listen to the result of each change. Once they’re satisfied, users can then download the audio files and sheet music for the arrangement they created. The cost to map a song ranges from USD 1.49 to USD 1.99 per part. Though intended for religious contexts, SongMap obviously has far bigger implications in the mainstream music world, where the creative masses known as Generation C(ontent) will surely jump at the chance to make their own mixes just as eagerly as Generation C(ash) will snap up the ability to sell them. iTunes, Napster, Amazon—are you listening…? 😉 (Related: An online music store of one’s own — Viral music sales through widgets — Music promotion with a profit-sharing twist.) Spotted by: Judy McRae