Open Pandora's (Music) Box

Some of you may have heard of the Pandora music service by now, but for those who haven't experienced it yet - it's something worth taking a look at.

Here's an example of how Pandora is used.  I type in the name of a favorite song; let's take "Mandy" by Barry Manilow.  Pandora will build me a radio station playing songs that have similar tonal qualities that "Mandy" has.  Some of the songs in my list are: "Close to You" by Ronald Isley, "We're All Alone" by The Walker Brothers, "Oh No" by The Commodores, and "The Hungry Years" by Neil Sedaka. 
Why were these songs picked?  Well, for "Oh No" Pandora tells me that "...we're featuring this track because it features easy listening qualities, a subtle use of vocal harmony, repetitive melodic phrasing, major key tonality and heartbreaking lyrics."  Pretty substantial reasons.

That's all pretty cool, but what are you going to use it for?  Well, if I'm in a particular mood and have one song that really fits, I can put on a station of similar songs so I have a variety of music playing while keeping that same musical mood going. 

For your piano playing, for instance, if you have a particular song that you just LOVE to play, why not find other songs that are similar in nature?  It's an easy way to expand your repertoire while staying within your comfort zone.

So check out Pandora, find some new favorite songs, and learn to play them with sheet music from Musicnotes!

Why RSS Feeds Are Cool

One of the great things about Musicnotes' new blog is the fact that we now have RSS feeds available to one and all.

But what the heck are RSS feeds?

A common question... many of our visitors have never heard of them, what they do, or why they're important.  So here's a quick primer:

RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication.  Essentially, RSS allows anyone to grab the content of one site and use it somewhere else.  The most popular use is to view all your news/blogs in one spot so you don't have to check dozens of different sites every day.

To use the RSS feed yourself, you'll need to get a feed reader - which come in many different flavors.

My favorite: the smooth, creamy goodness of PageFlakes.com
Pageflakes allows users to create their very own Home page on the Internet.  By grabbing RSS feeds from all over (plus other modules they have to plug-in to your page) you create your own portal.  For instance, I have CNN Top News, Sports Illustrated News, The Musicnotes Blog (of course), and even Page Six Gossip from the New York Times.

Other home pages include MyYahoo, Google Homepage, and Microsoft's Live.com

You could also use an RSS Reader - either web based or an actual software product.  Bloglines.com is a popular web-based service that's very easy to use.  News Gator has a free online RSS reader as well as a paid installable program that allows you to view all your feeds right in Microsoft Outlook.  News Gator also has an installable software called Feed Demon which is nice too.

So why are RSS feeds cool?  They simplify the process of viewing information online.  Add all of your RSS feeds to any service you choose, and you'll forever have all your favorite news and blogs in one spot!

Happy Feeding!

Search Update Completed

FYI: The Search Update that was "coming soon" is now complete and live on our site.  Mostly you won't notice many changes to our search system, as most of the changes take place either behind the scenes or are simple upgrades to the "old" search.

Two things you may notice, however, are 1.) the addition of "piano" and "guitar" as easily accessible instruments in the left-hand "narrow results by" column (when you search for something that is available in those instruments), 2.) more digital sheet music results displayed by default.

Both of these updates (plus many of the ones not listed here) were results of feedback we received from our visitors.  We've got quite a few more ideas in place to help make searching even easier, but this new update should significantly help you find your sheet music easier than ever.

If you have any suggestions for additional search features or changes, please let us know.

ActiveX Controls and Security

As most of you know, in order to view, print or download digital sheet music from Musicnotes.com, you first have to intall software from our site.  This software allows us to offer the sheet music as interactive media, rather than a simple "scan" from a printed book - one of the benefits of how we offer our sheet music (thank you Inernet!).

Anyway, every day we have thousands of people come to our site who dont' feel comfortable installing our software or simply don't want to go through the steps.  If they are using Internet Explorer they may be a bit confused as to what this "ActiveX" control is that they are prompted to download and install.

We do our best to explain the benefits, but people are hesitant nonetheless - and for good reason.  There are some malicious and dangerous ActiveX controls on the Internet, which is why Microsoft prompts you for permission to install them.

Today I received a great little newsletter from CNET, where a person asked in one of their online discussion forums "What Are ActiveX Controls and Are They Dangerous?"  One of their forum members sent a very informative response, which I link to below.

If you don't feel like reading the article, however, there was one major point that was made - and that was the fact that you should look at the context of the site and why it's asking you to install the ActiveX control.  If you're on a site like Symantec's, where you are running an online anti-virus program, it makes sense that you install the software if you want to use their service.  After all, Symantec is one of the most-respected anti-virus companies out there, and if you want to run a program from their site you have to give them permission to install it.

Likewise on Musicnotes - it's simply not possible for us to offer our digital sheet music with all the functionality we do without our ActiveX controls (or plugins, if you're using Firefox, Netscape, etc).

When you're prompted to install these controls, look at the context of the site, what it is you want to do on that site, and if you trust the site.  When in doubt, you're probably better off not installing.

We just hope you're not in doubt with us - because we love you. :-)

Oh yeah - here's that link to the article I promised you: What Are ActiveX Controls and Are They Dangerous?