{"id":625090,"date":"2023-04-03T09:49:05","date_gmt":"2023-04-03T14:49:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.sellorbuyhomefast.com\/index.php\/2023\/04\/03\/why-cant-more-music-apps-be-like-apple-music-classical\/"},"modified":"2023-04-03T09:49:05","modified_gmt":"2023-04-03T14:49:05","slug":"why-cant-more-music-apps-be-like-apple-music-classical","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2023\/04\/03\/why-cant-more-music-apps-be-like-apple-music-classical\/","title":{"rendered":"Why can\u2019t more music apps be like Apple Music Classical?"},"content":{"rendered":"
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In 2023, it\u2019s hard to love classical music. Not because of the music itself \u2014 it\u2019s just difficult to find it. Searching for George Gershwin is as likely to bring up his own performances as it is to bring up music he composed that\u2019s performed by other artists. The problem is that, in the metadata, classical music doesn\u2019t just rely on the typical stuff like artist, genre, song title, or album title. There are soloists to consider, and composers, and conductors, and pieces performed by an orchestra and a choir. Apple Music Classical<\/a>, based on the Primephonic app that Apple acquired in 2021<\/a>, addresses the problem with the metadata and has me wondering why more apps aren\u2019t this rich in the stuff.<\/p>\n

I didn\u2019t realize how little classical music was in rotation on my phone until I downloaded Apple Music Classic. I used to love classical music, collecting LPs and bouncing between different performances, marveling at the subtle changes to the music each conductor and musician created. Before streaming became the dominant form of music playback, I had whole playlists of composers I liked with the metadata for each musical file meticulously filled out. MP3 files actually have a lot of places for metadata<\/a>, and it was useful to know which pianist was taking the solo in which recording of Sergei Rachmaninoff\u2019s Piano Concerto No. 2.<\/p>\n

But the nuance was lost as streaming became the dominant form of music playback. Streaming needs to be good enough to reach the widest range of people possible, and it takes resources to get as meticulous as I would with my own curated list of pieces.<\/p>\n

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\"An<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

Direct you attention to the albums suggested. Specifically the last two.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Even now, searching that same concerto in the vanilla Apple Music app gives me only two suggested performances before suggesting organ and ukulele covers. That\u2019s not what I want, and I love that, in Apple Music Classical, I can (and have) spent a couple of hours listening to dozens of performances of Piano Concerto No. 2. Some play it with a somberness of a funeral dirge, others with a breathtaking speed that calls to mind something composed by Franz Liszt, and I can flip between each version with speed and ease. There\u2019s even a little description of the concerto explaining its historical context and the difficulty of the piece.<\/p>\n

There feels like a genuine affection for the music in Apple Music Classical. Quite a few pieces I\u2019d consider fairly significant get the same treatment of Rachmaninoff\u2019s work, with dozens of renditions and a neat little explanation. But there are also just a lot of ways to find the music. I can search by composer if I\u2019m feeling like it\u2019s a Ralph Vaughan Williams sort of morning or by artist if I\u2019ve got an urge for more Sviatoslav Richter in my life. I can also search by instrument, orchestra, ensemble, conductor or soloist, or even choir.<\/p>\n

I was particularly impressed by the array of choir music, which felt more robust, or at least easier to find, than on other music apps. I spent years looking for a specific arrangement of \u201cLet All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence\u201d that I heard in college and finally found it on Music Classical (it\u2019s from Bairstow: Great Cathedral Anthems Vol. 1, <\/em>and it\u2019s almost embarrassingly emotional \u2014 I adore it). I was also able to listen to just the recording of a specific choir I\u2019ve had a fondness for for years. <\/p>\n

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\"Three<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

On quite a few works, you can get details on the piece itself, browse loads of performances, and sort by popularity, name, release date, or duration. It\u2019s also possible to get related works that, in this case, I\u2019d never heard before but did sound related.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Music Classical isn\u2019t always perfect. I was surprised that \u201cGliding Dance of the Maidens\u201d from the Polovtsian Dances in Prince Igor<\/em> wasn\u2019t included in Alexander Borodin\u2019s popular works given it\u2019s the basis for the well-known song \u201cStranger in Paradise\u201d<\/a> from the 1953 musical Kismet<\/em>. But that could just be a me thing.<\/p>\n

This is all to say, I\u2019m in love with Apple Music Classical, and I just keep wondering why the regular app isn\u2019t more like it. While classical music certainly has a need for a vast array of metadata, I like to think most other music does, too. People like to listen to the works of a single producer, and when they search for Stephen Sondheim, they should be able to just see all the musicals he composed as neatly as I can see all the works of Anton\u00edn Dvo\u0159\u00e1k in Music Classical.<\/p>\n

I understand why the main app doesn\u2019t provide the same kind of nuance in searching and browsing. It\u2019s covering a lot of different genres of music with a lot of different expectations from listeners, and it has to do a good-enough job for all of them, whereas Music Classical does an excellent job for only really one. But already, I have co-workers wondering where the Jazz version of this app is, and I don\u2019t think they\u2019ll be the only ones. Right now, music streaming apps are trying to differentiate themselves from each other to earn our dollars. Apple is foisting spatial audio upon us, and Spotify is trying to get us to care about podcasts, and YouTube Music is quick to give us a video and remind us of its origins in the main app. But Music Classical remembers that a lot of us are giant nerds, and we just want to go down rabbit holes with our faves.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Read More<\/a>
\n Alex Cranz<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In 2023, it\u2019s hard to love classical music. Not because of the music itself \u2014 it\u2019s just difficult to find it. Searching for George Gershwin is as likely to bring up his own performances as it is to bring up music he composed that\u2019s performed by other artists. The problem is that, in the metadata<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":625091,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[706,442,46],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-625090","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cant","8":"category-music","9":"category-technology"},"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/625090","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=625090"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/625090\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/625091"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=625090"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=625090"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=625090"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}