I’ve been on a music kick lately, and thought I’d share some of what I’ve come across. Here’s the short version – check out Pandora if you’re interested in an exploratory musical journey.
When I got my Toshiba M400 tablet pc in April, I spent some time transferring applications and continue to do some minor tweaking. One of the apps that didn’t want to transfer properly without interfering with other programs was Musicmatch Jukebox. On my Portege 3500, I listened to Musicmatch radio most of the time I was online or occasionally listened to music I owned.
Though I did try to get Musicmatch working in the first week or two of setting up my new M400, I ultimately decided simply to work with Windows Media Player. I wasn’t able then and haven’t yet found an internet radio service for Windows Media Player comparable to the diversity offered by Musicmatch. However, with an internal CD player on my M400, I found it much more convenient to expand the music library on my computer. The processor and CD speed also made the process fast. I could listen to tracks on a CD even while saving the entire CD to my music library, and the process of saving tracks would typically take about five minutes. With the expansion of the music library on my computer, I could listen a lot longer without repeat tracks or getting bored with my music.
Still, after a month and a half, I found myself craving new and different music, so the search for online stations resumed. The first thing I found were some stations for relaxation music using a simple google search. This was largely for my massage practice so that I wouldn’t have to spend hours sorting through my expanded music library to customize a playlist. I settled on Ambient Meditation Audio Streams. It offers a variety of music in the audio stream, but unlike some other “relaxation” offerings I’ve heard, it doesn’t change pace or tone in jumping from classical relaxation, nature sounds, world music, or something else new age. In addition, in the course of listening to the music stream up to four hours at a time, I have never heard any kind of commercial.
Meditation music is not what I listen to when I’m studying or simply browsing the web. For that, I wanted to find something to fit a variety of tastes for alternative rock, classic rock, 80’s and 90’s hits, some pop rock, and perhaps a little swing, jazz, reggae and world music thrown in the mix. In this, Musicmatch excelled by offering a variety for free that was also easy to navigate. Yahoo Messenger offered a similar variety, which is unsurprising given Yahoo’s purchase of Musicmatch last year (if my memory is correct). While Yahoo offered the feature of being able to share what you might be listening to, the free service limited how often it could be restarted each month, and I’m not prepared to pay for it yet.
Though I’m still experimenting with it, I think I may have found my musical salvation. Pandora, created by the Music Genome Project, is an intriguing music sharing and recommendation service. I must say it wasn’t easy for me to find. It wasn’t in the top pages for my google searches. I think I ultimately found it on an ask.com search.
So what makes Pandora special? It let’s users build customized playlists by having them enter artists or songs they like. The service then will play artists and songs that it considers similar. As songs play, you may say that you like or dislike a song to refine your preferences for a given station, and you may also add songs to a favorites list. The thing I most like in my first impression of Pandora is that its original intent and primary function appears to be suggesting music that users may not have heard before. I can listen to my own music library when I want to be safe in listening to something familiar.
Another thing I like about Pandora is that it offers several ways to share music with friends. Users can search for shared station, email favorite stations to friends, and even have Pandora generate the code to paste into your blog so your favorite stations or songs are shown on your blog page. You can see it in action under the music tab at the right. Ty it out by entering a favorite song or artist in the create station box. Don’t want to experiment on your own yet? Feel free to strap on training wheels and sample my initial efforts. So far, “Swing, Jazz, & Reggae” and “Alternative Rock” have given me the best results. By the way. the initial station title is the name of the song or artist you entered. It is very easy to change the name either to what you hope for or what it turns out to be (if it’s different than you initially planned – which is part of the fun!).
