When preparing a piece, or researching performance practice, it can be helpful to listen to several versions of it. There are the usual library resources of the compact discs we have on the shelf, and databases such as Classical Music Library. If you are looking for more, the internet is a logical place to go. I recently ran across a site – Songza.fm – that acts as a music and video harvester, meaning it is searching and pulling content from most music and video sites on the internet – mainly YouTube and iMeem. From there the user can create a playlist, which can be added to or shuffled at any time. Any user can embed a single music file or video using their easy sharing widget (see example below), or can link directly to an account to share an entire playlist. (See the Music Library’s Brahms example here. Songza is even enabled with rss, allowing someone to subscribe to your song feed. This takes Songza from being a place to search for and listen to music, to a way to share music with others.
The new Google Discover Music is another option for locating music files on the internet, although it currently has less functionality than Songza.fm. The Google Discover Music partners with iMeem, Pandora, Rhapsody, lala, and MySpace, meaning once you have done a search you are presented with a list of various sites containing that work or song. The song is more likely to be a preview rather than the entire piece, depending on which partner’s site you end up on. The benefit of using this over a regular Google search is that it is only looking for music files (.mp3, streaming, etc) and will filter out all the results that would normally be included in a search such as lyrics, CD retailers, and so on. What it doesn’t do is allow you a quick way to listen to all of the results in one place.
Both Songza.fm and Google, along with all their partners, provide clear pathways to allow you to purchase the music you are listening to.
Categories: Music Resource