Spotify: A great tool for audio technicians and musicians
It’s becoming pretty popular, pretty quickly and if you haven’t tried it out yet, you should probably check it out.
For those of you who don’t know what Spotify is, it is a invitation based music service that allows you to access millions of songs that you can play whenever you feel like. It’s like having an all-access, listen-only pass to Amazon.com or iTunes for free! Spotify launched in the US in July of 2011 but this Swedish based music service has been up and running overseas since 2008. It took longer to release in the US because it took years to negotiate contracts with record labels and distributors. It works on a invitation only basis so that they can monitor and control how many people sign up and how fast
.
This is huge for musicians as well as audio engineers. While I was in college, I was required to do a certain amount of critical listening to various types of music each week for applied lessons as well as other courses
. I started with borrowing stuff from friends, the library or using Pandora or Last.fm. There’s only so much you can get without doing something illegal or breaking your bank. Since I didn’t want to do either, I had to keep re-listening to things I had already heard. Spotify is huge because you can pick whatever you want, whenever you want and listen to it for free. It’s almost like what Lala used to be like before Apple killed it except you can listen to songs more the once with limitless options.
It is a great tool for musicians to diversity what they listen to as well as audio engineers to listen for inspiration and different mix ideas. I believe this is critical in the development of musical chops regardless of musical direction or background.
Sign up to get a free invite today at www.spotify.com or subscribe to Spotify Premium starting at $4.99 per month.