An essential part of learning piano is listening. Listening to piano music helps us to discover new repertoire. It also helps us get an initial understanding of pieces we’re trying to learn. It also keeps us inspired through the sheer joy of hearing beautiful works played amazingly well.
We have traditional radio and TV where we can listen to whatever is served up for us. We now of course have YouTube, which gives access to a whole range of things totally free of charge. YouTube quality is sometimes questionable – especially with older recordings. Also, the choice of recordings is somewhat limited due to copyright restrictions.
A private collection
Putting together your own record collection can be a super expensive thing. I have friends who over the years have spent literally thousands on lots of records, most of which I doubt ever see the light of day anymore. Then of course, there’s the change in physical format – from Vinyl, to CD, passing through cassette. How many people have the same thing in more than one format?
Added to that, we now have digital formats allowing us to carry hundreds of hours of music around with us in our pockets (and even his has gone from using stand along MP3 players to music players fully integrated into our smartphones).
Online streaming
I’m sure everybody has read about the impact on the entertainment industry of illegal streaming sites. Whilst I don’t support them, to an extent they are a consequence of people wanting the convenience of the digital format (in addition to getting it for free). In an attempt to keep up, the music industry reacted to the digital age by offering a set of Streaming Services. It’s worth pointing out that since these were established, the incidence of illegal streaming is reportedly lower. This I think supports the theory that it’s not all about money!
Some of the major streaming services on the market are:
To Subscribe or not to Subscribe
The idea of ‘subscribing’ to something whereby you never actually ‘own’ anything can seem a little unusual when thinking about music. However, we’ve been subscribing to TV services (at fairly high monthly payments) for many years now in most countries. Many such services even include Video on Demand in the subscription. Of course, once you stop paying, then you have no TV – yet we don’t mind.
However, it’s perhaps a little change in mindset to imagine that you’re simply renting your record collection and once you stop paying, it will no longer be available.
Let’s put this into context though. If you purchase a CD (or download an album) say once per month, then such a subscription is cost effective as you’ll no longer need to purchase or download anything. Instead, you’ll have access to more music than you’ll ever have time to listen to at the click of a button. If you’re a serious collector, then you’ll doubtless spend far more than such a subscription might cost you in several lifetimes!
Limitations of mainstream services
Unfortunately, for Classical Music, these mainstream services aren’t always that great for one main reason – and that reason is ‘Meta Data’. I’m not going to blind you with science – all meta data really means is things by which you can easily search. For example, if you’re searching for the latest Adele song, just the song name is highly likely to be sufficient and you’ll find it. However, with classical music, we rarely want just a particular piece of music, we’ll might want a particular pianist playing it, a particular orchestra, even a particular conductor. Equally, lots of classical pieces have the same name. There are lots of First Piano Concertos, sonatas, sonatinas and preludes etc. out there and so the Composer is important. This typically means that whilst using services such as Apple Music, finding a very specific recording can be a challenge (I know, I have used them).
However, there are now options available for the serious classical music fan. Naxos Music Library, Medici TV and Idagio are some great examples. These are built so that as a classical fan, you are able to find music in a much more natural manner because they have paid real attention to the ‘meta data’ (or the way they organise the music catalogue).
Unwired for sound
As an aside, you might be forgiven for thinking that music on laptops or phones can only be listened to through either headphones or the shoddy built in speakers on the device. However, this is far from true nowadays. There are absolutely amazing bluetooth speaker systems available. Bose is one such manufactuer. At home, I have 3 Bose devices. One for the TV which is pretty much in a fixed position to all intents and purposes. I have another one that can be carried from room to room for day to day use. Finally, I even a small one that I take away on holiday with me. (OK, I like toys). All of these will happily play music bounced to them from my laptop, phone or iPad. The sound quality is quite startling.
You’ll find other options from multiple manufacturers too – visit your local shops to try them out for yourself.
Introducing Idagio
Let’s take a look at Idagio as an example …
This is a subscription service. It has an App you can use on your smartphone or tablet. Alternatively, you can log into their website directly to listen through your computer. It gives you unlimited access to their entire catalogue from any of your devices for $9.99 per month.
Idagio has paid a lot of attention to the way it has music organised for you . This allows you to easily search for specific things that you want.
If you want a particular piece, played by a specific soloist – then searching is a dream. Equally, if you want to see which versions of a particular piece are available then this is also super easy to do.
Alternatively, you can go on a voyage of discovery based on a piece, an instrument, a composer, an orchestra, a conductor, a soloist, an era or even a mood. You just select the option you want and keep clicking your way through.
The second great feature is what they call ‘Collections’ – so a way of creating your own personal music library within Idagio – by ‘hearting’ individual Tracks, Albums or Recordings. You can then access them from within your collection without needing to search for them again.
You can still have local copies
Perhaps the final thing to mention is that if you are worried about how you could access this music whilst sitting on a plane for example where you have no network, you can set your account to automatically download a local copy of everything in your collection to your device – this way you only actually need an internet connection when searching for new things.
Which is right for you?
If you and your family has very diverse musial tastes, then perhaps the traditional streaming services such as Apple, Amazon and Spotify are well suited to your needs and could prove a very sensible way to enjoy your music.
If, on the other hand, you are a serious classical music enthusiast then check out one of the dedicated streaming services such as Medici TV, Naxos or Idagio. There is generally a free trial period so you can play around and see how useful the service will be to you. There’s nothing to stop you trying all of them to be triple sure you’ve selected the right one.
