I am a musician, so it is only fitting that I spend most of my time immersed in music. I listen to it on the go, I look to it for inspiration, and I am always searching for new music to listen to. I usually google music or watch YouTube videos, but a few months ago I was introduced to Spotify, and I'm now addicted. I've always hated Pandora because they automatically assume that I want to listen to similar music when I really just want to listen to a particular artist. This gets especially tricky when I am looking to listen to a classical composer as a reference for a future performance, or need a certain jazz album to write a critique on.
I know I'm a little behind on the Spotify bandwagon, but to explain briefly for those who may also be behind: Spotify is a commercial music streaming service that allows you to browse music by artist, album, song, genre, record label, or playlist. There is a free version of Spotify, as well as one that you can purchase. Spotify features advertisements that play in between some songs- this feature is disabled when you become a premium member. Regardless, Spotify is a great way to find and listen to the music that you want to listen to. It has an impressive library to stream from, as well as the capability to share playlists with other listeners and even listen to top charts from several different genres.
For relevance in the music education world:
Spotify allows you to search music and stream it easily. It was particularly helpful for me when I was attempting to learn a challenging song cycle. I struggled trying to find good YouTube recordings, and unless I wanted to purchase the CD recordings, I was out of luck. Spotify had the songs by several different recording artists, and I was able to learn them quickly and efficiently.
It seems sometimes that we take things like this for granted. We do not realize that not all music is instantly accessible- unless it's the latest One Direction song or Taylor Swift ballad, which is streamed and played and covered 9 billion times daily, it's not easy to find all the time. Spotify has given me the opportunity to actually listen to quality recordings of music that is relevant to my major as opposed to having to watch ads of the new Call of Duty game before I listen to some average at best teenage girl try to sing the music, or be forced to listen to an impostor of the composer I'm really looking to listen to.
I really enjoyed reading this post, because I literally just started using Spotify too and I can't believe I didn't start using it sooner! I'm glad you wrote about it because there are probably more people than we realize who don't know all the benefits of Spotify, especially vs. Pandora, which was the same reason I switched. It's definitely a software we could recommend to students as well. I usually go with Youtube for recommendations, but your post made me start to think that it might be a really good idea to suggest downloading Spotify instead - not only would it give them so much more access to better recordings, but they could use it to explore music on their own too.
ReplyDeleteStefani-
ReplyDeleteSpotify is an essential technology in my life, but I have never considered it for the classroom, so I am glad I read your post. I would assume that as a future music educator, it would be absolutely essential to have a medium in which you can access a large number of musicians and their discographies from a variety of genres. While youtube can have many technical problems and is often times finicky, not to mention may not have complete works or ones that are a bit obscure, it is great that you have discovered Spotify.
Stefani, I have never used Spotify before but your post has sparked my curiosity. I use Pandora a lot and like you point out Pandora doesn't always play the artist you are looking for. I have never considered using this technology in the classroom, and I am still not sure about how something like this or Pandora would fit into my major, which is English, but it makes sense for a music educator who is looking to expand his/her library and is looking to learn more songs/pieces. You may also be able to recommend it to your students since it's free, which means that they would have easy access to the same music you do.
ReplyDeleteI honestly love the little cynicism at the end there, I actually LOL-ed. I use spotify and actually I am a premium user, which allows me to make playlists and even have my itunes on as a playlist. Unfortunately it doesn't work the other way around. I can download songs from searching within spotify into the app so I can play the playlist offline. so no wifi, no problem. Honestly I don’t even use my itunes too often anymore. I love spotify, it finds music and different performances so much easier than any other medium. It also delivers a truly great quality, just like if you bought anything off itunes. For me this makes more sense than buying an album off itunes because I listen to a ridiculous amount of bands and music’s that trying to get all the albums I want would cost a fortune and the premium is ten dollars a month, about an album a month. For someone who wants to listen at least 3 or 4 new albums a month this makes more sense. This is definitely worth a buy. Even without the premium spotify is using this app is worth it.
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