Internet Moments

Since 2007 you’ve been able to go online at JamStudio.com and create your own authentic sounding music for free.  With an easy to follow tutorial and simple controls on the screen, this internet based Adobe flash website could definitely capture the imagination of even the most amateur musician.  Think of it as a music sandbox.

JamStudio.com was created by Dave Edwards and here is a 10 minute interview with him.  The online music mixer includes over 40,000 musical phrases played and recorded by real musicians that you can mix to create your own songs.  JamStudio.com is free, but you can create an account so you can save and further develop your creations later.  For a monthly fee of about $10 you can become an All Access Pass Member and you’ll be able to download all your musical creations royalty free.

For educators there is a special grant program that gives students an All Access Pass to JamStudio.com at no cost.  Here’s some more information about the grant program at Philly-Teacher.blogspot.com.

So find your musical talent and experiment with JamStudio.com today.

JamStudio.com on Fox 4 in Dallas-Fort Worth, TX:

Would you like to play a piano, right now?  Just go to the free online Virtual Piano and you can do just that.  VirtualPiano.net was created by Crystal Magic Studio LTD in London, England.  Even if you can’t play a note you can still enjoy trying.  And if you can play, you might want to consider entering one of their competitions.  Here’s a video of one of their past winners.

Composed and Conducted by
ERIC WHITACRE
“Lux Aurumque”

This original composition went live on YouTube on March 21st, 2010.   You can read about previous projects and the development of this virtual choir at Eric Whitacre’s Offical Blog.

If you enjoyed the music selection on Pandora then you’ll probably like GrooveShark even more.   It’s simple.  Any song you want, any artist you can think up.  Just type it into their search engine and they’ll find it for you and play it for free. 

GrooveShark was founded in 2006 by Sam Taratino and Josh Greenberg and it’s based out of Gainesville Florida, U.S.A.   It is a service of Escape Media Group and according to Wikipedia (01/04/10) they are streaming 50 to 60 million songs a month and growing at a rate of 2-3% a day.  

Give it a try today, see if you can find your favorite music on http://listen.grooveshark.com/

Internet radio usually consists of going to a radio station’s website and clicking to access the streaming version of their broadcast.  Pandora.com is a little different than that.  It offers internet radio also but it’s customized to each individual user’s taste. Pandora.com has been developed as part of the Music Genome Project which was founded in 2000 by Will Glaser, Jon Kraft, and Tim Westergren.  The goal of the project is to identify the fundamental attributes of music and so far they have developed a list of approximately 400 of these music attributes.  Below is a video where Tim Westergren attempts to explain the Music Genome Project and Pandora.

No matter what you might think of the project, the website is definitely worth checking our.  Apologies to those outside the United States, for various licensing reasons, Pandora.com‘s  free music service is not available world-wide.