Sponsored Post: Review of EZ-Tracks: Gospel
June 25, 2008
This is a review of EZ-Tracks Gospel, though this is just a subsection of the EZ-Tracks online music service as a whole.
EZ-Tracks promises to allow users to “download and listen to music carefree� and is 100% legal because it is supported by advertising. Herein lies the problem, though it depends on how you like to use the Internet.
Signing up for the service highlights the issue. I was forced to click through around four product advertisements before I could finish registering for the service and listening or downloading to music. Often, whole page adverts interrupt the download or preview process. While this is understandable, given that this is the only way for the service to generate revenue to cover royalties, it becomes rather annoying after a time.
The music itself is of variable, but generally acceptable, quality. MP3 files seem to be encoded at 128kbps, which is far from the highest quality available online, but not bad for a “free� service. There appears to be no DRM (copy protection) on the files, either, which is a blessing.
A few gospel tracks I downloaded suffered from poor vocal reproduction, particularly on sibilants, but this could have been a fault of the original recording rather than the encoding.
Sometimes, the 30-second sample of each song failed to load first time, at least on Safari on a Mac.
Users seem to get about 100 free song downloads upon signing up. To get more, users need to sign up for various deals offered by advertisers. This has the disadvantage that one could end up on a number of emailing lists.
EZ-Tracks seems to do what it was designed to do, but whether you’ll be able to bear the ads is up to you. Personally, I find it very difficult to use web sites and services with lots of advertising, and I’d prefer to see the option of paying a monthly fee to avoid the ads and get a download quota. Then again, there are plenty of other online music services which do this.
EZ-Tracks claims 30,000 music tracks, including a number of current popular hits, though to get at them all you’ll probably need to view a lot of ads.
JamStudio launches new, improved online music creation engine
January 31, 2008
JamStudio has announced the re-launch of its popular online music creation engine. The new look, version 2.0 site features a music arranger/mixer, providing a virtual band for music creation and songwriting, with new music libraries allowing a wide range of song styles to be created.
JamStudio.com allows musicians and songwriters to hear songs played by a full band and try out styles, tempos, and chord progressions. Songwriters are able to compose backing tracks or demos for producers to hear how the artist envisions the end product. In addition, the site allows students to practice music theory, chord progressions and music production.
iVideosongs launches high-def video site for teaching aspiring musicians
January 30, 2008
iVideosongs is an on-demand, high-definition video service designed to teach aspiring musicians of all skill levels how to play their favourite songs on an instrument.
iVideosongs instruction is provided by the original artists who wrote and performed the songs and also by expert instructors.
“Aspiring musicians want to play complete songs accurately, and that’s exactly what we give them,” said Tim Huffman, CEO of iVideosongs. “We’ve recruited established artists, legendary sidemen and some of the best instructors on the planet to teach rock, pop, blues and country songs. With iVideosongs, aspiring musicians learn the songs at their pace, when and where they want.”
Chris Foley’s “31 Days to Better Practicing” for pianists
October 16, 2007
Chris Foley at The Collaborative Piano Blog is about halfway through his “31 Days to Better Practicing” series, aimed at pianists who wish to improve their practicing and piano playing.
So far, topics covered include building a regular practice schedule (with tips for children, students, and adults), warming up exercises and ideas, goal setting, starting out on a new repertoire, slow practicing, memorising music, endings, and fingerings.
And there’s still just under half a month to go. Phew!
I’ve not had an opportunity to read all of Chris’s posts yet, but it looks like a great series, whatever stage of piano playing you’re at, or what you want to achieve.
Rant: How hypocrisy and shallow mindedness is destroying positive web culture (and music)
October 15, 2007
I rarely rant on Piano & Synth, but a couple of articles have really riled me, and since they mention music (possibly in an attempt to gain a bit of popularity as I can’t see much specific reference to music) I felt compelled to mention it here.
The first “article” which made me mad was about Reason 4 shipping. Reason is a fine piece of software, so I am irritated (as I am sure the developers are  probably an understatement) when I read statements like “It is noted that some people still wish it had VSTs and Linux support, and of course audio recording.” after “Propellerhead Reason 4 Now Shipping (and available on bittorrent sites with a serial keygen).”
People, there’s usually a reason (ahem) why requested features don’t make it into a product, and illegal software downloads is one very big reason. Propellerhead Software are NOT Microsoft, and they don’t have the margins to absorb the impact of the illegal used of their software.
That wasn’t even the rant.
This is…
In an artlcle entitled Avoid the Destruction of Positive Web Culture (and your music) we’re “treated” to a tirade of abuse against a number of web sites and “corrupt people using the net starting as recently as 3-4 years ago”.
Apparently, the social bookmarking site DIGG has articles which are always “posted to make you fear or hate something even if its benign”. Apparently, Slashdot is a better alternative. The writer has obviously never read the tons of vitriolic abuse that the owners of websites featured on Slashdot have to put up with, or indeed the in-fighting in the comments section.
Google is apparently “barf inducing”, though I doubt the writer minds getting listed in the search engine.
Weblogs Inc is apparently “shit”, and apparently only focused on technology, even though when I looked at their home page I found a number of non-tech sites…
And so on.
All this “positivity” (ha ha ha) is supposed to encourage you to “Make music you really care about please. Don’t fall into the cultural contamination in the same way. Companies will come at you with corrupt tactics, marketing, and hype. They will make shitty electronics & software for you to buy. Information affects your brain forever. Pretty soon you could be thinking like them and make shitty music about it. To avoid all the BS in the world you just have to make your own path and don’t look back. Just express yourself, and don’t get hooked onto someone else’s crap.
Take your culture back and start making positive music again!!”
Yes, that indeed is the only part of the article supposedly about music. I wasn’t aware that I had begun to make negative music, though after reading that tirade I think I might just have to.
After all that, the author’s idea of “positive web culture” includes The Pirate Bay. Yes, folks, apparently it’s just A OK to go grabbing whatever content you like, for free, without caring one iota for the content owners. Woo. Yeah, that’s so positive, man.
Having ranted about all of that, I’ve noticed that a lot of the content of “The Chip Collection” is bordering on being a splog, lifted verbatim from other sites. Hypocritical? Yep.
Apologies that this article wasn’t really about music, but that really irritated me.
Musical listening test study – testing musical perception ability
September 17, 2007
I’ve just found an interesting online research project being run by the University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne and UCL.
Here’s what the Musical Listening Test is about:
We are interested in studying musical perception ability in the general population. The following 2 tests, developed by Isabelle Peretz (University of Montreal), take less than 8 minutes each. They involve listening to pairs of tunes and deciding whether they are the same or different. Once you have completed both tests you will receive your scores.
The test involves listening to two sets of thirty pairs of short musical phrases, each of which may vary slightly in either pitch or timing of the notes. After listening once to each pair, you simply click a button as to whether you think the two phrases are identical or different.
I scored 26/30 and 27/30 on the two tests, which I’m pretty pleased about (and I know that I clicked the wrong button on one, so perhaps it should be 27/30 all round)
If you want to take part, simply go to www.delosis.com/listening/
NowPlayIt.com: interesting but limited piano tutorials from star musicians
September 17, 2007
VNUNet.com’s Anthony Dhanendran (from Computeractive) has reviewed the online music tutorials web site NowPlayIt.com, which offers musicians the chance to learn how to play the authentic instrument lines from popular songs directly from the band’s musician.
The service offers three levels of video: for £4 (around $8) you get a full ten- to fifteen-minute video featuring the artist explaining the track, working through the track on the instrument, and then showing the music video and note guides in split screen mode.
For £3 ($6) a non-celebrity tutor hosts the video, while the lite version (£2/$4) offers just the chords and video tutorial, with no other commentary.
Unsurprisingly, of the 300 video tutorials currently available, there’s not a huge number to choose from for pianists. That’s probably because the piano is not as prominent as guitar or bass, and a synth line would probably be too complicated to create a short tutorial for.
In general, it looks like a good site, and as they add more songs and artists, hopefully pianists will be a little better served.
Good potential.
Learning chords expedites playing the piano
April 16, 2007
Mark Miller has written an article extolling the virtues of learning basic piano chords as a way to playing recognisable tunes on the piano quickly.
How chords expedite the learning of piano:
Teaching students how to construct and play chords is very � concept-based�. This is not rote learning. Rote learning is fleeting. Concepts stay with us for our entire life. For example, once you understand that an � Augmented � chord means to raise the 5th of the chord up a half step, then you are able to form that chord at any time. Similarly, when you understand that a minor chord is the same as a major chord except you lower the 3rd or middle note by half step, you then can � find � or form that chord at anytime.
Learning your chords are the key to playing the piano life-long! How many times have you heard a parent say � I took piano as a kid , but can’t play a note today�. This is as common as it is tragic. Imagine saying � I studied arithmetic for 5 years , but I can’t add today!�.
Tips for working as a freelance musician
April 16, 2007
Peter Moser has written an excellent article on working as a freelance musician that covers freelance job roles, workplace, equipment and transport, skills development, fees and finance, insurance and professional support, promotion, and lifestyle, plus the advantages and disadvantages of being a freelance musician.
A worthwhile read.
Recording pianos and organs
June 1, 2006
Here’s a useful page with diagrams showing the best way of placing microphones around grand and upright pianos, and the Hammond Organ, depending on the setting: Recording pianos and organs
