image credit: Scottish Dance Records by bob the lomond cc Licence
I don't really suffer from a shortage of music, (7.6 days worth if I listened to it from end to end), but I'm always up for hearing more; either online or by going to (mainly local) gigs, hoping some of the magic might rub of on to my playing. So when @iusher flagged up Spotify on Twitter a few days ago I thought I'd give it a go.
Initial impressions were good; excellent streaming, with little or no buffering and a wealth of tunes; this seemed Ideal for checking out an artists archives or to do keyword search on a genre. Since Pandora was killed dead, here in the UK, I have been using and having some fun with blip.fm but it's still rather insular; whilst Last.fm doesn't cut it for me.
It wasn't until @GeorgiaWonder, (who played for the Teachmeet at BETT), posted a collaborative playlist that the true value of Spotify became apparent. After some playing around, I decided to launch a themed playlist: Caledonia - which has one simple rule; all tunes must have some connection or link with Scotland, I posted 12 songs initially and have added one or two since. This has taken off like wildfire and the playlist now stands at over 140 and covers genres ranging including Rock, Punk Folk Strict Tempo Dance Bluegrass Comedy Poetry, The traditional includes folk from Ewan McColl and Karine Polwart, there's's dance music from, (naturally), Jimmy Shand and from this era Phil Cunningham, great rockers such as Frankie Miller and the late Alex Harvey line up next to the pop of Lulu and Sheena Easton; Andy Stewart and Billy Connolly supply laughs, and Robin Williamson carries on the tradition of the Celtic bards. Perhaps one thing that would make Spotify a killer app, would be the opportunity to see who has uploaded individual tunes; (and catch the culprit responsible for adding The Bay City Rollers!!). Perhaps also a online chat or comments would complete the picture, making it do for music, what Twitter has, for our personal social and learning networks.
And great fun though it is; this is about much more than sharing tunes; the playlist reflects a shared, yet very diverse cultural identity, I would be surprised if any of the collaborators didn't discover a few new tunes. Woven into the musical experience were anecdotes, banter and whisky. So, to anyone reading this please join in the - you don't have to be Scottish - just the music. Here's the link
Since then I have been thinking quite deeply about how we access/store/listen to music; is the time coming when like a lot of our other data; a great deal of our music will live in the Cloud?. Spotify certainly suggest this might be a possibility. Since using it I have had little desire, to visit my library on my HD. Spotify seems much more immediate, and there's always a surprise in the next song. How I will listen to music in the car driving up to Teachmeet Borders later today is of course, a different story!
Seriously though, if it is now possible to have this degree of interaction, community and collaboration for music, it can also be achieved in other areas. We can do it for knowledge, we can do it for learning, for learning resources, and offer some real shared community learning.
Very interesting post Theo. I really enjoyed contributing to the playlist (I enjoyed not being the person who added Bay City Rollers even more....), and it's clear what a powerful social tool that could be.
I think it's inevitable that our music is going to be held in the cloud. The last.fm application for iPhone made this clear to me; but for a wider 3G network around and about Glasgow (and I mean specifically, on the motorway), I think I could quite happily store little or no music on the Flash memory on the phone and just stream what I listen to. It's definitely coming, it's just a question of having the wireless infrastructure in place for it.
Posted by: John Daly | February 20, 2009 at 10:37 AM
Good to hear that John; never thought about flash memory on iPhone, (nice one); as you say the tech is already here. I suspect there will be quite a few in the so called 'music industry' that see this as a huge threat. Look what happened to Muxtape recently. I think we need to be prepared... this is far too good to lose.
Posted by: Theok | February 20, 2009 at 11:10 AM
What a great idea, Theo - I'll have a go as soon as I get home (accessing from Bahrain means I can't use the free service for some reason - I'll try before I buy).
How about some Big Country, Al Stewart, AWB, Dick Gaughan, Gallagher and Lyle....the list goes on.
John
Posted by: Johncon@cisco.com | February 24, 2009 at 12:10 PM
I have been using Spotify for around a week now and its been great. Effortless selection of music plus revisiting all my old vinyl records that are stored in boxes. Spotify on an iPhone would be a brilliant app. There are rumours flying around that it is in development. However what are the chances Apple would allow it? Not much as it could kill iTunes.
Posted by: Jim Henderson | February 24, 2009 at 01:44 PM
I'll cover both John and Jim' comments in one!
Good choices John, I'll let you add them though I couldn't find Dick Gaughan who would have been on my original list. Did add Ivor Cutler though whose Life In A Scottish Sitting Room #2 Episode 6 describes a 'good Scottish education" How did I mange to overlook him first time round?.
Interesting observation Jim, do Apple have a dilemma? - if they have any sense they will ask iPhone app developers to include a "purchase from iTunes" facility. I think we have more to worry about with the dinosaurs in the "music industry" with their protectionist attitudes and inability to 'get it' http://bit.ly/B9XrA
Posted by: Theok | February 25, 2009 at 11:15 AM