Music Issue: There’s an app for that

Remember going to Walmart, Best Buy or local record store to pick up a favorite band’s CD? Today, that process has been simplified – just hop in bed, open up a laptop and search for favorite music instantly. The digital age has made it effortless to purchase music, and has simplified the quest of discovering new musical favorites.

THIS IS MY JAM

For those who are obsessed with refreshing their Facebook timelines as much as they are with updating their iTunes libraries, the musical social media tool “This is My Jam” will provide a fix of both.

The application launched in February by former Last.fm employees, allows users to select music and then showcase their selection on their social networking accounts with the option of adding a short description.

Posts will be uploaded to users’ My Jam accounts, as well as their Facebook or Twitter profiles. Other people can choose to browse through friends’ selections of their handpicked songs, which opens the doors for finding new music.

THE VINYL DISTRICT

For those who enjoy visiting the nearest record store, there is an app for that, too. An app geared toward fans of vinyl was launched in December 2011 called “the Vinyl District.” TVD is accessible through both the Apple app store and Android marketplace.

The app features a GPS-based locator that provides directions to the nearest record store. Record stores can be found on the app by either typing in keywords, or browsing through the stores listed based on a user’s location. The TVD app also allows users to create an account, where they can set up a profile and share favorite finds, as well as post discoveries to Facebook, Twitter and Foursquare.

The feed from TVD’s website is also available through the app.

SHAZAM

Technology has had a tremendous impact on the way in which music is obtained and discovered.

Sophomore computer science major Reman Abuali uses the music app “Shazam” to suit her musical needs.

“If you’re listening to a song you don’t know, you use Shazam to find the name and band,” Abuali said. “Then your music obsession is complete.”

The app uses a built-in microphone on mobile phones to gather a brief sample of a song, and then compares the sample to a central music database to provide the name, album and artist of the song.

There are a plethora of apps and websites available to fulfill the musical needs of all types of music lovers.

“This Day in Music” is an app that provides a slew of facts, figures, quizzes and trivia about all kinds of musical artists. “Spotify” is a music database that can be accessed from a Mac, PC or mobile phone. Users can also share music via Facebook, to let friends in on what they’re listening to.

There are also apps including “Ocarina,” “PocketGuitar” and “Chordmaster” for playing music.

All of these put a twist on the phrase that says, “Music makes the world go round,” as listeners can now take their music around the world.

Alexis Wright-Whitley can be reached at awrightwhitley@temple.edu.