nowplayit.com
A great new music site has launched - respect is due to nowplayit.com . Even at launch there are already a good number of tutorials up, as videos to download. These are all for purchase; I bought a ‘lite’ tutorial for £1.99 (Yellow by Coldplay) a full tutorial for £3.99 (Underdog by Turin Brakes and an in-house tutorial for £2.99 (Space Oddity by David Bowie).
Initial feedback on the site’s discussion board is that the prices are steep, though this is a new business model so time will tell. Kudos must go to the site producer (can’t find a name) for organising the rights to the songs, videos, images, let alone organising video recordings with artists. These are major artists to bring onboard, and it is perhaps because the music business is trying to re-invent itself (save itself) that major players are here to test the water of a new business model.
The ‘lite’ video I bought is just a music video of Yellow with chord symbols/ fret-board diagrams
The files are large but quality excellent, whether you enlarge on your computer screen or play on a video ipod.
The full tutorial includes a detailed demonstration by the band’s guitarist with plenty of guitar technique tips and details. The chord diagrams are really easy to follow and where riffs are demonstrated the finger positions light up in time.
The ‘in-house’ is the winner for me, as the lesson is more professional, more fluent and structured, with relevant tips and demonstrations.
The focus in these tutorials is on playing an individual instrument in a song. I’d like to see more about the musical language - chord function, writing and arranging features, though I accept that I have a more specialised interest in how music works than just reproducing a performance, which is clearly of interest to many musicians. Chord symbols - often these don’t do justice to the actual combination of notes, though I accept there is a need to make the tutorials accessible so compromises are essential.
Excellent project - I’ll follow it with interest as I have dabbled with formats for using a song as a vehicle for learning in my study songs experiments.
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