Classical downloader’s wishlist

Now that I’ve spent a bit of time searching and grabbing classical music from eMusic, a few pet peeves have surfaced. When I ArtsJournal linked to this article, I was ready to say, "Yeah, I’d like that, too."

Instead, I found the iPod-centric perspective of the article limiting, and a few of the points made me cringe.

So let me offer a few revisions to that list:

  1. Point: We want a dedicated classical music store for downloads.

    Counterpoint: Dedicated and comprehensive do not mean the same thing.

    A dedicated store, to my ears, sounds like it excludes other music. It’s that stratification which continues strangle exposure to classical music.

    Part of the reason I haven’t made this site focus exclusively on Japanese music is because I want to treat it equally with Western music. When I finally get around to writing about some classical stuff, I’m not going to separate it from either Japanese or pop music.

    A comprehensive store is not a dedicated store. A comprehensive store would include a thorough search engine with a vast inventory. The parameters of a classical search engine can’t be extended or modeled on one for pop music. Address these two concerns, and you’re in business.

    Just don’t separate classical from everything else and require me to create another login.

  2. Point: We want an intelligent MP3 player that doesn’t think Vivaldi is the artist.

    Counterpoint: Take that up with the developers of the file formats.

    Don’t ask the labels or the online services for this. They have nothing to do with the technical specifications for ID3v2 or other such file tagging formats. You need to take that up with the developers of the formats.

  3. Point: We want pieces to be wrapped as whole works, not as individual movements.

    Counteroint: What?

    Has this author tried scrolling through a 30-minute MP3 file? Bad, bad idea. And some folks actually do want to focus on individual movements, especially if they’re trying to study a portion of the piece.

  4. Point: We want to know that if our computer crashes, we won’t have to pay for the work again.

    Counterpoint: Stick with eMusic

    DRM is a fucking hassle anyway.