All in One

Music Online is a product of the Alexander Street Press and it is the largest resource available today for the learning of classical, jazz and world music.

It combines a variety of music forms in one interface. It includes music videos and audios, scores, reference content, biographies, opera videos and images. It is the broadest collection of music material in a digital form.

Video Music Lessons

GarageBand, a new music editing software released by Apple, allows people to enjoy music lessons online for as little as $4.99 a lesson.

Some artists, such as Norah Jones and John Fogerty, are already teaching people online how to play their popular songs on the guitar. 

Pandora Radio and The Music Genome Project

Pandora Radio is a free online radio.  Pandora users can write a key word or an artist name and get results that are related to their search. 

Pandora Radio uses the Music Genome Project, a huge collection of songs and music elements which are analysed in order to help connect search words with the appropriate musical results.

YouTube Orchestra Concert

YouTube orchestra performed for the first time last week. After online auditions, 100 musicians were selected from 70 different countries. They all met for a few days of rehearsals and played a concert together in Carnegie Hall on Wednesday last week. 

This is for sure a big change in the music world and in the way by which an orchestra is assembled. Perhaps this will change the dreadful orchestral audition process. After all it is faster and cheaper both for the candidates and for the orchestras to hear musicians from all over the world on line than to have them all come to NY to play their 7 minutes auditions.

Pay What You Wish

The rock band Radiohead is realising its new album "In Rainbows" as a digital downloadable file which will only be available through the band's website. 

The interesting thing is that the band, which recently ended its long term contract with the record company EMI/Capitol, is allowing fans to pay what they wish for their album. 

Surprisingly the pay what you wish deal is worth while for the band. Radiohead sold many more records than they did for their last three albums. 

Free Music?

The legal system provided copyright law in order to protect artists' creative output. This applies to artists, scientists, teachers or anybody that created something. 

The problem is that many people disregard copyright law,  and this disregard is made worse by the fact that the law is not always enforced. Even though some people have been sued for downloading copyrighted music from the Internet, millions of people continue to do so.

What does that tell us about the law? Is it any good if it is not fully enforced? And why do people choose to obey certain laws and ignore this one? Their behaviour suggests that people demand music to be free.

 

On the other hand the many people who use iTunes do pay for their music online. Maybe it's because iTunes presentation is and functionality is attractive to them.

Vevo

The popular online video site, YouTube, and the biggest music company, Universal Music Group, join forces. The two decided to create a joint online site for music videos called Vevo.

Universal will contribute high level content to YouTube ab d YouTube will contribute its large audience to the equation. Combining these two elements can make for a very attractive platform for advertisers, which will increase the two companies' revenues.

MySpace and Jadakiss

MySpace was one of the sponsors of a rap concert which was broadcast to 70 million MySpace members.

The rapper Jadakiss performed a free concert at the Highline Ballroom and was communicating with both his loyal fans at the concert and his MySpace fans, who were watching the concert from their homes.

Combining New and Old

The conductor Esa Pekka Salonen, is going to conduct his last concert as the music director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic.

He has been the L.A. Philharmonic's music director for the past 18 years through which, thanks to his young and innovative spirit, he combined old and new music in almost every concert played by the orchestra.

He actually created a special series of the orchestra that performed music by living composers. The series was called the "Green Umbrella" and Mr. Salonen last concert as the music director of the L.A Philharmonic is one part of the series.

Treat Yourself Well

Professional athletes all receive massages regularly before and after training and competitions. Musicians on the other hand, who use their muscles for many hours every day since a very young age, rarely have their hands and back messaged and when an over use or repetitive motion injury happens they tend to be ashamed of it and hide it.

It is very important as a musician to educate yourself about how to prevent and how to treat injuries. There are a number of websites where musicians can read about it. It is important to stretch before and after practicing and there are many exercises a musician can do in order to strengthen his hands and body.

Imagine how good orchestras would sound if they had a hand therapist and a masseuse back stage. Why is it so common among professional athletes but not among musicians who suffer so often from repetitive motion injuries?

Here are some helpful websites:

Musicians and Injuries

Musician' s Health

Musician's Injuries

Getting to Work

Yesterday I went to the first meeting of the group "getting to work". It is a group that was created by Cheryl Metzger who is  a student at the Strategic Communication program in Columbia University. The group comprises people from the Communications field who are currently unemployed and are interested in doing some pro bono work for new non for profit organizations.

There were about eight of us yesterday and we met at the Continental bar on third Avenue and 9th street. It was very interesting to meet other people from the Communications program and hear their ideas. 

Musical Passover Online

Passover is coming up this week and people are getting ready for a long reading of the Hagada. Many songs were composed to the text pf the Hagada and these songs are sung at the holiday table.

But people from different places and countries have different passover songs. So when they get together for the big holiday they can't always all sing together. A few internet sites resolved the problem and published the complete Passover songs collection online. People can now see the melody and words in front of them as they are singing and they can each choose his favorite song and sing it with all the others.

Here are some of the Passover songs sites:

Kosher for Passover

Angel Fire

Passover songs- multimedia