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The Internet, with its vast resources, offers an unprecedented volume of information to trumpet players. ITG offers this column as an introduction to this exponentially expanding resource. ITG cannot guarantee that these locations are completely accurate, and that all copyright laws have been observed. For suggestions and/or comments, contact Michael Anderson, website@trumpetguild.org
Online Radio Stations
THS COLUMN MARKS THE CONCLUSION of the third season of Web Site Reviews in the ITG Journal. The World Wide Web is proving to be a powerful resource for those who practice our “loud and lofty art.” As I look back through the Web Site Reviews archives on the ITG Web Site, I realize that not only are most of the sites reviewed still operating, many of them have gone through significant improvements. These sites are worth visiting periodically to check for new material and new innovations. An excellent example of this is the new site for Balquhidder Music, L.A. Philharmonic trumpeter Rob Roy McGregor’s publishing company. This site was significantly upgraded in January of 2005 and now includes excellent graphics and navigation elements. You can also download all sorts of free samples of everything he has in his catalog. Check it out (http://www.balquhiddermusic.com).
You don’t have to get your old journals off the shelf to go back through the Web Reviews archive. You can find every column in the ITG Journal section of the ITG Web Site. Web Site Reviews is the only ITG Journal item that we publish online immediately. In fact, because of its time-sensitive content, it is usually online months before appearing in the print Journal. To read archive and current columns, point your browser to the Web Site Reviews page (http://www.trumpetguild.org/ journal/webreviews/webrev_index.htm). Another advantage of viewing this column online is that all the web sites reviewed are hot-linked so that you can simply click on them to visit.
Continuing the tradition of dedicating the June Web Site Reviews column to Internet resources that are not specifically trumpet related, online radio stations provide our topic for this column. I believe the live streaming of a radio broadcasts on the Internet to be one of the least-known technologies among musicians. Somewhat like satellite radio, live radio webcasting eliminates the geographical restrictions of traditional terrestrial AM/FM radio. Many (if not most) major AM/FM radio stations in the world are now offering live webcast streams of their daily content. Also, there are many “Internet-only” stations cropping up on the net. Although a few online radio stations are offering online content for a modest subscription fee, most are free to any user who has a good broadband (high speed) internet connection, a compatible media player installed on their computer, and the web address of the radio station you wish to monitor. Be aware that the fidelity of this kind of delivery is not always the best. Most of the time it sounds as good to my ears as any FM station, but sometimes there is a loss of fidelity due to the compression of the audio signal and Internet congestion.
Orchestras. Most professional orchestra concerts in the U.S. and Britain are broadcast on a classical radio station in their area. The concerts are usually recorded live and then played at a later date on a local station, usually on the FM band. Many of these radio stations have web sites with a schedule of these programs and a live stream of their signal. So, you can easily hear live concerts of the orchestras in New York, St. Louis, Detroit, Minneapolis, Atlanta, Los Angeles, most of the BBC Orchestras, Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw Orchestra, Berlin Philharmonic, and many, many more. Even my local orchestra concerts are regularly available online. Unfortunately, as I was researching this column I found that a few of the major orchestras do not allow partner radio stations to stream their concerts online. I’m not entirely sure why some orchestras do not allow this, but I am pleased to find many more who do, than don’t.
I could provide a list here of web addresses to these types of radio stations, but its very easy to locate them yourself. Simply fire up your browser and go to the most popular search engine on earth (http://www.google.com). Search around using key words such as “classical music radio” adding the city whose orchestra you wish to find. It’s not foolproof, but usually you can find the web site of the right radio station on the first page of results. At times I had to use the “advanced search” feature to zero in on my goal, but I eventually found the stations I desired. Also, if you know the call letters of the station, their web site is usually the call letters followed by the .org suffix.
Here are a few to get you started:
One of the finest online radio stations is BBC Radio 3 (http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio3). This web site not only offers a live stream, it makes available an enormous amount of content in its easily explored archives. Much of what has been broadcast in the last week or so is readily available in the archive. All their professional orchestras and performing groups are represented here. You could spend all your time on this site and not want for more.
Apple’s free iTunes player makes available a wide variety of online radio stations that are categorized by genre. You can find stations that specialize in all kinds of music by browsing through the radio area of iTunes available for both PC and Mac computers (http://www.apple.com/itunes).
For jazz lovers I can recommend three excellent online jazz stations. First, the internet-only station Jazz Player Radio (http://www.jazzplayerradio.com). This station began as an “All-Maynard-All-The-Time” station, but quickly expanded to include all sorts of great jazz trumpet players. It is one of thousands of online radio stations available through Live365.com; this is an enormous clearinghouse of commercial-free radio stations that you can access via the Internet. It requires a proprietary player that won’t work with Macs, but I was able to easily get mine to play through iTunes. Check it out (http://www.live365.com) for just about any radio content you can imagine. It’s easy to search and browse by genre. Next, I highly recommend the web version of a great FM Jazz station (http://www.jazzfm.com) out of London. They have a free version and a subscription service making available a great deal more content. Finally, check out wwoz (http://www.wwoz.org) out of New Orleans, Louisiana, which bills itself as “New Orleans Roots Radio.”
The information in this column barely scratches the surface of what is available online, but if you aren’t already experienced with online radio, it will get you started.
| About the author: Michael Anderson is Assistant Professor of Trumpet at Oklahoma City University, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. He is the Executive Director of the ITG Web Site, a member of the ITG Board of Directors, the ITG Journal Editorial Committee and Chair of the Technology Committee. Anderson was also the project manager of the ITG Journal CD-ROM that was distributed to each member in the year 2000. |
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