New Features: Product Reviews and New Product Info Pages

If you're a regular customer at Musicnotes, you may have noticed a change to our product information pages today.  Over the last few months we've been hard at work looking at what information our customers find most important about a product and making this information easier to find on our product display pages.  This is why you'll notice that we now have a "tabbed" product information section on each product display page.

Along with this change you'll also notice that there is a new area called "reviews."  That's right - Musicnotes now offers the ability to write product reviews.  We've taken a slightly different approach to this feature, however.

Since the majority of digital sheet music products available on Musicnotes.com are available exclusively on our site, you must have previously purchased a digital product in order to be able to write a review.  This is done to ensure that all reviews are relevant to the actual arrangement, print out and downloadable file included in the product.

One other requirement for writing a review is that you must have a user public user profile on the Musicnotes site.  This is a free service at Musicnotes and is required so customers can more easily relate to a review.  Since sheet music and terms such as “difficulty” can be very subjective, knowledge of the reviewer as well as the instruments they play and their skill level can be very useful.

So, if you've recently made a purchase, we encourage you to try out our new product review system and give us your feedback (leave a comment below).  To write a review, just find the product on the Musicnotes site and click the "Reviews" tab in the product information area.  If you've purchased the product, you should see a link to write a review.  (You may have to sign in first).

If you have additional questions about this new functionality, please see the "Product Reviews" section in our online help system.

Chopin Prelude from Halo 3 'Believe' Commercial

As gamers out there all know, Halo 3 is coming on September 25th.  Microsoft has begun it's major advertising campaign for the game, and has put together several commercials.  One of these, entitled Believe, is scheduled to begin airing this weekend.

The commercial spot is already available online, and many people have been asking what the music playing in the background is.  The piece is Chopin's Prelude in D Flat Major (Raindrops), Opus 28, No. 15.  The piano solo sheet music for this pieces is available for download at Musicnotes here - and the segment in the video begins in the second to last system on page 2 (the C# minor portion).

Halo fans - stay tuned... we have even more exciting music coming soon.

Mel Bay at 60

Mel Bay, famous for their guitar methods, is 60 years old this year.  There's a great article from the Associated Press about the company - well worth reading for a lesson in the history of guitar books.

You can read it here:

http://www.whec.com/article/stories/S183621.shtml?cat=588

And you can browse all Mel Bay books and sheet music here:

http://search.musicnotes.com/?pub=Mel+Bay&hl=y