At any given moment, numerous Berklee students are spending time online on social networking sites counting friends we may or may not know, spying on our ex’s, and doing quizzes that seek to define what residual humanity we have left in this digital generation.

MySpace started the damage for me. When I got tired of fake beautiful women spamming me, I ‘grew up’ and started using Facebook to maintain my connections. After several upgrades, Facebook finally settled on a format that delivers not just to the college kids it was initially meant for, but to the general public—and advertisers.

These sites started a revolution in the way people make resumes, interact, and even date. But what makes us choose where to congregate? It’s only natural for each group of people to want to find a unique place to exchange ideas, get to know each other, and build personality. All of my friends in elementary school hung out at the skating rink every week, and each clique in high school designated an area on campus to eat lunch every day for four years; with the internet opening up a whole world of information to our fingertips, MySpace is our skating rink and Facebook is our lunchtime pow-wow. But which site will be the next bar where everyone knows our name? I guess it depends on what we are looking for in these websites.

Recently, the Groove office was visited by the creator of a brand spanking–new networking site: Corkizon. The Berklee alumnus wanted to pitch his idea to his alma mater. I dutifully set up an account and spent a couple of weeks using the site to compare it to the more established social networks. Corkizon aims to be a network for talented individuals including musicians, artists, filmmakers and even athletes. According to the site’s credo, it is “a resource to share your talent with the world around you. A place to showcase your work and be discovered by it. Instead of focusing entirely on the content, we showcase the creator of the content”. They continue, “The Internet today is growing unimaginably with new users from around the world publishing content each second of the day [...] Corkizon focuses on the person behind the content, and allows that person to show their products and talents to the world. We’re showcasing people and connecting them via their talents”.

While this is a noble goal, it sounds a bit like a place where I set up shop not too long ago: Berkleemusic.com. Berkleemusic.com is a site where all Berklee kids, teachers, and alumni can hang out, trade ideas and find work. I like the site a lot, not only because it’s sponsored by my school, but because there my accolades are working toward something other than online popularity. Facebook keeps track of all the loved ones I left behind. Twitter lets the world know every inconsistent thought to cross my mind. And MySpace—well,  MySpace still exists for something, I guess. So what does Corkizon bring to the table? What could it possibly give to the world that all these sites don’t already cover?

Upon setting up my account I noticed the similarities to the sites that inspired Corkizon. The home page shows a user’s clients at the bottom, much like Berkleemusic.com, and the notifications tool bar is ripped right from the front page of Facebook. Corkizon has some unique features as well, such as profiles that are customizable in a limited way. Instead of apps, games, and banners, Corkizon focuses on professionals and cuts to the chase with biography, broadcast information, and personal information among the optional widgets for your page. Each profile can also be rated, but I am still trying to decide whether that is a good thing or a bad thing for artists. These aren’t iTunes songs, they’re online representations of real people with real dreams; would you want your talents to be given two out of five stars? However, I did find one button very cool, the donation button. In true musician fashion, you can set up a PayPal account and people can donate money directly to your cause with a click of the mouse.

After spending some time on the site, I am still a bit indifferent to this budding social network. It has all the necessary tools to portray professional information well, with enough extras to keep users interested. The key to this type of website is gaining attention and finding enough users to make the site useful. Facebook reeled in the college kids; MySpace put media in your face; Livejournal connected people through deep intellectual thoughts and feelings; Berkleemusic.com aired our musical abilities. What will Corkizon do for you? The beautiful part about this website is that it is just beginning. It has seen the capabilities and setbacks of previously popular sites and strives to bring some elegance to the table. But the website can’t do it alone; it needs your participation to add spice to the mix. Corkizon is currently open to students and alumni of Berklee, Emerson, and Full Sail University, so head over and create an account. I don’t know if Corkizon will be the next Facebook, but you might end up a part of the next big thing in social networking online. It’s worth a shot to see what they have to offer and support a Berklee graduate, and we musicians can always use a little more exposure.

Corkizon.com

by Naomi Gingold
Staff Writer

On an early morning in late June two Berklee professors disappeared from campus. Thousands of miles away, professors Dan Moretti and Ron Reid of the Contemporary Writing and Production department found themselves at the Brookhouse International School of Performing Arts in Nairobi, Kenya. Traveling with them were Sam Skau, Assistant Director of Educational Outreach for International Programs, Michael Shaver from Berklee Admissions, and student Joey Guglielmo, all of whom had gone to Kenya to audition, interview, and award scholarships to prospective students of African citizenry.

Advised by a group of prominent African musicians and Berklee alumni, the Africa Scholars Program was created by Berklee President Roger H. Brown and his wife Linda Mason. Both Brown and Mason—who have extensive experience working in Africa—were seeking a way to give back to the continent they love when they initiated the program three years ago, and they have personally funded the program since its inception. This year they are joined in co-sponsoring the scholarships by the March to the Top Foundation, a non-profit started by Roy and Barbara March. Up to 1 million dollars in funds are available for many students to receive partial scholarships, and one talented “Africa Scholar” will be awarded a full scholarship to Berklee including room and board.

Currently, there are eight Africa Scholars Program students enrolled at Berklee, and ten more are slated to start this coming school year. In total, fifty awards have been given out.

In addition to auditions, Berklee faculty and staff held clinics and workshops for local arts educators while in Kenya. According to Sam Skau, they were hoping to give a “glimpse” of what a Berklee education is like, help “develop a support system for music education” in Kenya, and increase Berklee’s presence on the continent. Faculty and staff also had the opportunity to experience both the lows and highs of the country, as they had plans to visit the personal home of the U.S. ambassador as well as the slums of Nairobi.

Berklee is currently exploring other ways to expand and reach out to places in the world from where students are underrepresented. As for the Africa program, Berklee plans to hold auditions in a different African country each year. This year alone, audition participants came from countries as disparate as Ghana, South Africa, Nigeria, Senegal, Morocco, Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda, and Egypt.

Although the identity of this year’s Africa Scholar is still unknown, one thing is certain: The program is sure to leave an indelible impression on all the students and educators involved, regardless of their countries of origin.

by Andrew Slotnick
Managing Editor

The copyright holders and songwriters of Men at Work’s hit “Down Under” have been ordered to pay the winner of a copyright claim in Australia’s federal court. Larrikin Music Publishing won a lawsuit in February 2010 against EMI Songs Australia, Colin James Hay, and Ronald Graham Strykert; the text of the decision can be found here. Justice Peter Jacobson established that the flute riff from the popular song had been lifted from well-known Australian folk song “Kookaburra Sits in the Old Gum Tree.”

An updated ruling from July 6 2010 grants the publishing company 5 percent of the song’s royalties since 2002—substantially less than 60 percent of the royalties the song had earned since its publication in 1981, the amount originally requested.

According to BBC News, co-writer Colin Hay called the plaigarism “inadvertent, naive, unconscious.” Even with no malicious intent, it is hard to ignore the similarities between the two works. Below are transcriptions of the relevant portions of the songs written in the same key for illustration. They show that measures one and two of “Kookaburra” are identical to the flute part in measures two and four of the Men at Work song.

Hear “Kookaburra Sits in the Old Gum Tree”

Hear “Down Under”

Although neither US nor Australian copyright law contain exemptions for unconscious copying of a protected work, a similar suit in an American court may have been able to claim the incorporation of a well-know folk melody as fair use. Australia has a similar concept called “fair dealing” which covers only very specific instances, unlike the open-ended system in the US in which the courts decide whether a use is fair on a case-by-case basis.

This case should serve as a warning to the songwriters and composers at Berklee. Accidental copying can happen, but creators should take extra care to make sure that a perfect melody isn’t too good to be true.

By Jehad Choate
Staff Writer

“I don’t play the bass, I play music”

Victor Wooten is a household name to anyone who even knows what a bass might be. On Thursday July 1, Mr. Wooten presented a clinic at Daddy’s Junky Music across from Berklee. As a guitarist, it’s normally not in my interest to visit a clinic and listen to crazy slap solos for an hour, but I did it anyway because of Victor Wooten’s book “The Music Lesson.” My roommate showed me this book last year when I was suffering from an imbalance in my life. I am a self-taught musician who played brass in high school band as I tried to find my niche, but it was not until I learned how to express myself through guitar that I became a real musician in my own eyes. When I got to Berklee, I constantly battled with the separation between the emotional connection to what I play and the technical crap I am forced to cover in proficiencies and labs. Victor’s book saved my life. It covered concepts in music that few teachers ever really emphasize. His clinic yesterday afternoon was a physical representation of all the inspiring lessons he taught me through his book.

The first fifteen minutes of his clinic involved an amazing display of musical prowess on Mr. Wooten’s behalf. He got up there by himself and managed to manipulate his bass to sound like an orchestra of instruments. There were points when I couldn’t even tell the difference between him and a string quartet. When he finished, he mentioned his sponsorship with Hartke and then the lesson began. Victor told us that coming to this clinic was a great opportunity for all musicians to grow, and that he would be covering ideas that the audience and our teachers may not agree with. He encouraged us to treat his lessons like a spice to be added into the mix.”

The first thing he talked about was the definition of music, which he happily  called a language.  “I don’t play the bass, I play music,” he said as he pointed a microphone to his bass. He laughed, “I don’t hear any music coming from this!” He conveyed that music is something that begins inside the musician. It is emotional, and it plays with the tension and release of how we feel in one moment in time. The instrument is a tool to help get this idea across. He expressed the irony in the differences between how people learn languages and how they learn music. When learning to speak no one is told what is right and wrong or called a beginner, and by age two most people know how to speak. Yet when musicians begin to learn music, it is taught in a completely different manner, which in Mr. Wooten’s opinion is why some musicians take ten or twenty years to feel as though they are getting anything right.

Photo: Victor Paugh

Victor showed us how to speak through our instruments with full awareness of space and dynamics, without ever once stating that he was right or that this was the only way to go about doing anything. He expressed the power of confidence and groove and how both guide even the most wrong notes a person can play into sounding right. When one observer asked him for advice on improvising, the only scale he mentioned for us to learn was the chromatic scale. Then he proved how groove could emphasize a solo by playing a sick solo while avoiding the chord tones. It sounded right! He even rode a non–chord tone on a strong beat, and the groove he played made it feel natural.

The best part of the clinic was Mr. Wooten’s willingness to ask questions to the audience, because he believed that this was a moment when both the student and the teacher could learn from each other. He had a couple people play for him while he sat in the crowd and observed, and welcomed any conflicting ideas people had with his concepts. I didn’t need to be a bass player to take what had to say to heart.

Unfortunately, I had to leave early to go to my private lesson that day. Upon entering my teacher’s classroom, I had a great sense of confidence in what I played. It wasn’t because I practice an hour a day every day, because I don’t. It wasn’t because I got to see Victor Wooten tear up an intense version of “Norwegian Wood”. It was because for that hour and a half, in that small local music store, I was reminded of why I play. Everything we ever needed to know is already inside us; rather than teaching us how to play, he was showing us what we tend to forget when we get wrapped up in the less expressive moments of our musical lives. My teacher told me I played better after attending the clinic than I had in the previous four semesters he’s had with me. Thanks Victor.