Sure, we’re no iTunes, but the UST Libraries have several different streaming audio resources that you can use to explore new music or to find old favorites. These resources are great fun to putz through if you’ve got the time and inclination. Oh, yeah, I mean they’re totally educational and will help you in your school work. That’s what I mean.
You can search by genre, composer, artist, instrument, album – there are many, many different ways to search. I really like searching by instruments and listening to all the different styles a single instrument can be played in.
Whoa… you guys? I just had a totally awesome experience. I looked up jaw harp in Naxos and Smithsonian and listened to two tracks simultaneously. Naxos gave me music by Argentinian Indians of the Gran Chaco. At the same time Smithsonian Global was playing tribal music of India. Overlaid, these two tracks made for a real trip.
Speaking of trips… I once learned the hard way that the driver on a road trip is forbidden to play either the jaw harp or the harmonica. Or rather… I’m forbidden from playing either while driving. Live. Learn. Playing the jaw harp makes my head vibrate and that makes me completely motion sick. Like barf-motion sick. And playing the harmonica tends to make me light-headed. (Maybe I’m playing them wrong. Maybe not). So there you go. I pass on that wisdom to you, my little kittens. Do with it what you will.
Back to the jaw harp tracks… Hopefully a good DJ out there will mix the tracks into a brilliant dance track and someone will lay down some beats. Add some throat singing and now that’s a club song! Keep in mind you can’t transfer this music, but you can register and create playlists in order to save it. Here are instructions for making playlists.
Smithsonian Global includes spoken word, natural and man-made sounds as well as world music. I knew this guy, my friend’s ex-boyfriend that I’ll call Ted* (cuz that’s his name), who was a sound engineer. He always carried with him this super high-tech audio recorder. Once Kay* and Ted* had a party after they returned from their trip to New York. They invited only people who had lived in NYC and Ted played his audio and we had to guess what the sounds were. It was loads of fun. Now that I think about it, it’s kinda a bummer that they broke up. Oh well.
I’m sure the Naxos Jazz resource is cool and has a bunch of good stuff on it, but I’m not all that interested in jazz so I didn’t spend any time with it. I leave that to all you cool hepcats out there. Smoooooth jazz.
I was gonna say that DRAM takes itself pretty seriously, but that’s before I really got into it. Any resource that lists toy piano, ruined toy piano and bicycle horn as instruments gets points from me.
*Names not changed cuz ain’t no one innocent.
