Apple Music Classical • Hacker News Board

Re: Apple Music Classical

#261

Post by bookofjoe » Tue, Mar 28, 2023, 3:36 PM UTC

tkgally wrote: post #57

tgv wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've used Idagio for 6 months. They have a reasonable interface, good performances and sound quality, but their catalog is indeed limited. There are hundreds of performances of the same well-known works, but there's not (very) much beyond it. I've discovered about 100 fairly unknown composers through YouTube that I consider quite good, but many of them are missing from Idagio, or are listed with one or two works. The…

> I still buy albums (mostly from prestomusic, in case someone wants to know) I buy my classical music from Presto Music, too. The purchase process is easy, and maybe the performers get a bit more than from streaming. I suspect that purchasing music files to own will seem increasingly strange and inconvenient to younger people, though.

"The test of whether you own something is if you can sell it."—Anonymous

Re: Apple Music Classical

#262

Post by pwinnski » Tue, Mar 28, 2023, 3:38 PM UTC

johndill wrote: post #94

Looks nice but I have to play with it more. It has certainly been "Appleinzed". Playlists feature single movements of pieces that make little musical sense outside of the context of the whole composition they were meant to be a part of. For new users looking to dop their toes in the Classical world the absolute first, featured piece you see is Mahler's 9th symphony. Certainly not something new listeners would likely…

While you're thinking about playlists, I should introduce you to classical radio. Out-of-context movements are the norm there!

Re: Apple Music Classical

#263

Post by wmeredith » Tue, Mar 28, 2023, 3:40 PM UTC

015a wrote: post #188

On the one hand: Apple has released (at least) two new "major" consumer "apps" over the past year (Freeform and this). This gives me positive echos of "old Apple"; a company that took the software as seriously as the hardware, that apps like Aperture and Logic were critical to the Mac becoming what it is, and that they should have a hand in creating not just the platform and technologies, but the actual experiences t…

Freeform kicks ass

Re: Apple Music Classical

#264

Post by CharlesW » Tue, Mar 28, 2023, 3:40 PM UTC

perceptronas wrote: post #257

>Which devices is Apple Music Classical available on? >Apple Music Classical was built exclusively for mobile and is available on iOS with Android coming soon. I wish they made an app specifically for MacBook as well

I'd expect that one of their next steps is a "larger screen" user experience that should work for both iPads and Macs.

Re: Apple Music Classical

#265

Post by masklinn » Tue, Mar 28, 2023, 3:41 PM UTC

superduperuser wrote: post #183

masklinn wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Classical doesn't really fit that well into a schema, since you have composers, performers, and then under performers there's soloist, or multiple soloists, which orchestra, which conductor, and so on. That sounds like a schema to me. Hell, even popular music can have such complexities, it’s just that they’re usually ignored e.g. if you want to correctly tag a cover featuring a rapper, that’s basically a performer…

I get your point but rap was a bad example. Rappers don't "cover" songs and artists who cover rap songs are usually bedroom artists posting on YouTube.

You may want to re-read my comment. In my example there was no rap artist covering a piece, or a rap song being covered, there was a rapper guesting on a cover. Rap is not just a genre on the side.

Re: Apple Music Classical

#266

Post by AJRF » Tue, Mar 28, 2023, 3:43 PM UTC

Anyone noticing there is serious view caching issues with this app? Every menu I click into will briefly show me a previously navigated to screen.

Say root is View A which has two sub views B and C

I go into B, then back to A, then into C - it will show me B for a second.

Re: Apple Music Classical

#267

Post by jancsika » Tue, Mar 28, 2023, 3:44 PM UTC

TylerE wrote: post #41

lelag wrote: post #24

Strange feelings looking at this... This is almost exactly the product I failed to get into YC with back in 2017... All the same ideas as far as the UX goes with one main difference: the business model. I wanted to apply the Steam business model where people would actually buy album again (and not tracks a la iTunes). The issue is that while it's nice to have a UX tailored for classical, this won't likely help the cl…

Orchestral music has always depended largely on essentially donations, back to the patronage that kept many of the great composers at least fed, if not rich.

You missed the word "dying" in the OP. The popularity of orchestral music has waned to the point where what you are loosely calling "essentially donations" gets a lot less bang for the buck these days.

Just for a single example-- the count who funded the Mannheim school got musical rockets in return, ones that became the envy of all of Europe. Of course orchestral developments were happening in other locations as well; in general this set off a kind of orchestral space race. You can track it through history all the way to Bayreuth and beyond.

Hell, there's probably a line from those orchestral crescendos to the "orchestra hit" General MIDI instrument.

At the height of all that orchestral fervor you've got, for example, an opera composer as a member of Italy's first parliament. How many people on HN can even name a living composer?

Now imagine $living_orchestral_composer at the helm of a nationalist movement in the U.S.

I've read the preceding sentence three times and brain just outright refuses to come up with imagery for that.

So while I guess you can squint and see the historical funding of orchestras as "essentially donations," there's a big difference between donating to a historical society and donating to the red cross. The 19th century funding of orchestras was much more like the latter-- funding for something that is essential to living (or at least in the U.S., essentially to being taken seriously by Europe). Today it's like building model trains for your ears.

Re: Apple Music Classical

#268

Post by crtasm » Tue, Mar 28, 2023, 3:45 PM UTC

lelag wrote: post #131

echelon wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But unfortunately, this wont change the fact that the classical recording industry is dying and that the sector is only surviving thanks to public and private subsidies. Bet $100 that all classical music will be AI generated (synthesized and composed) in just three years. Supply side will be infinite.

I would bet heavily against that any such generated music to become popular (except maybe as bad filler music for video games music etc). The truth is that classical music fan are very very picky about what they like. Computers have been "better" musician than human for a long time: a midi file is always played "perfectly". Yet it's sounds horrible, mechanised to our ears. The controlled imperfection of a real human…

Can't speak for generated compositions but midi data is played however your software is programmed to do so, which could include adding imperfections.

Re: Apple Music Classical

#269

Post by tempodox » Tue, Mar 28, 2023, 3:46 PM UTC

This has to be a joke, right? Given Apple's enmity towards headphone cables, I don't see the point. Their Bluetooth EarPods can never ever render the necessary sound quality.

Re: Apple Music Classical

#270

Post by CharlesW » Tue, Mar 28, 2023, 3:51 PM UTC

lynx23 wrote: post #80

192kHz/24 bit, what a wonderful piece of snakeoil... What do they actually record with this frequency, bats talking to each other about classical music?

> 192kHz/24 bit, what a wonderful piece of snakeoil…

I agree, it really hertz to see Apple pandering to non-technical audiophiles like this. I blame Neil Young. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pono_(digital_music_service)

> What do they actually record with this frequency, bats talking to each other about classical music?

I lol'd.