A ton of small businesses like chiropractors, doctors, espresso stands, taverns and retail need music to create the atmosphere for the customers and keep the employees pumped up. To get the right music into your establishment you basically have six options:
1) You plug a tuner into your sound system and listen to the radio.
Pros: Free, options from various type of stations, variety of music
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Thanks to the partnership with Viacom, we’re seeing some new music channels that we’re digging. I’m loving the TGIF Blues channel - lots of fun classic blues like Albert King, The Kinsey Report, Lonnie Brooks and Ruth Brown. They even throw in some Cream and Blues Brothers - Yes! My wife is enjoying the VH1 - I Love the 80’s channel. She is re-living her party peak with tunes from The Smithereens, Talk Talk, Pet Shop Boys and Sinead O’Conner. There is also a CMT (country music television) channel, VH1 Classic (Jackson Browne, INXS, The Byrds). All nice adds to the channel guide at Rhapsody.com!

I met Luciano Pavarotti in Vienna in the fall of 1986. I was a college exchange student in the EIS program when Bob Funk and I went from major hotel to major hotel in the city looking for a bar that had cold beer and was showing American football on TV. We stumbled into the Sheraton which was just off the Karnterstrasse and while investigating how cold the beer was we noticed a large glassed in room on the far side of the lobby. In the glassed in room was a gleaming black Piano, a small pianist and a larger than life Pavarotti, warming up for a performance of La Boheme at the Vienna Opera House later that week. Being a couple of young knuckle heads - we finished our beers and walked over to get a closer look. Fortunately, we had a camera with us and when we caught his eye we showed him the camera and he nodded his head. We waited about 15 minutes for him to finish and was very kind to take a picture with us and chat a bit. He seemed much taller from far away but was only 5′ 9″ or so but big around! He told us that he was performing and that we should see the opera and experience the music in the historic Vienna Opera House. We thanked him and left. But there’s more.

We learned later that day that in the Vienna Opera House, the royal boxes had been turned into standing room only sections. By arriving at the Opera House early in the day and waiting in a line on the side of the building, you could buy a very inexpensive ticket (about $14 dollars back then), enter around 4pm, secure your spot in the standing room only area with a scarf or coat wrapped around the railings in the box area, go get dinner, then return in time to see the show. It was fantastic! We ended up seeing 5 operas while in Vienna during that semester and I’ve been a low budget fan ever since.
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My wife and I hosted a bunch of parents from our elementary school last weekend after a sail boat trip (long story). Mostly 40 somethings with a wide range of musical tastes. I hadn’t planned on how to spin the tunes, but with my Rhapsody set-up (PC in the kitchen attached to an amp and speakers inside/outside - click here for full description) I figured I’d just pick an artist station or decade channel and run that. Fortunately, a newer dad who didn’t know many people but is also a member of Rhapsody sat down at the computer and found his “happy place” at the party. Here’s a great way to give the music lover at the party a critical task that really worked out.

1) Get the person in charge of the music a beverage and sit him/her in front of Rhapsody
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I’ve only recently been watching/digging the music videos on Rhapsody.com and the Rhapsody Music Service. Some of my favorites are the live performances from the Rolling Stone Exclusives. I’m learning guitar and it’s a great way to pick up some pointers on the songs that I’m learning. Check out this great video from KT Tunstall - Black Horse and Cherry Tree. I love how she records some tracks and uses them to back her up while singing the track. Very cool.

I spent the New Year’s holiday with my family and friends on the East side of the mountains in glorious shoulder high snow. The person we were staying with had gotten DSL to his house late last year and I gave him the full scoop on rhapsody which he wanted to try. When we went to Rhapsody.com to listen to some tunes, it became clear very quickly that Rhapsody.com and IE 7 don’t get along. I became even more outraged when I was unable to download FireFox onto my friends computer because it was blocked by IE7! Apparently, the default security setting in IE 7 is medium high which limits downloading a lot of items including software from www.micrsoft.com. Nice work Microsoft! After changing the security settings in IE7, I was able to download firefox and get everything working, but boy - what a pain! Here’s the lesson: Don’t download and use IE7 yet - let everyone catch up to it first (including Microsoft :-))

I’ve been playing with the Sansa Rhapsody and trying to see what all it can do. On my last road trip, I built a couple of artist based custom channels in Rhapsody and transfered to my SansaRhapsody to see what Rhapsody kicked out. I’m going to see the Dixie Chicks tonight in Tacoma so put together a country music channel with my favorite hillbillies including: Dixie Chicks, Jerry Jeff Walker, Keith Urban, Toby Keith, Clint Black, Dwight Yoakum, Jimmy Buffett (close enough), Willie Nelson and Brad Paisley. You can pick up to 10 artists and allow Rhapsody to pick the songs, pick additional artists and fill out a channel.

The Good:
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Downloading a track from Rhapsody is not the same as buying the track from Rhapsody. Why? Because Rhapsody is a subscription service that has whiz bang technology that let’s you put songs that are “downloaded” from Rhapsody on your harddrive or MP3 player to listen to as much as you want WITHOUT paying for it (other than the monthly subscription). However, if you do want to OWN it and put it on a CD mix or some other media that can’t attach to the internet and look-up whether you have rights to it or not, then you can buy it for only $.89 per song (cheaper than iTunes).

So, just going through a major kitchen re-model and I’ve settled on a system for music for the main floor of the house which includes Rhapsody, iTunes, a New Dell PC, a Niles 12 channel Amp, 5 niles volume controllers (3 with auto-mute for the outside), 2 sets of in-ceiling speakers and 3 sets of outdoor speakers. Here’s the situation and my solution:

Situation:
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As I laid on my Chiropractor’s table listening to some nice music and getting my back cracked, I asked my chiro what he did for music in the office. He said they have switched from Muzak and the $50 a month they charge to playing CDs they bring in. “I couldn’t listen to the latin channel one more time” he confessed. This got me thinking about all of the small office environments out there and if Rhapsody might be a good fit for them. I think so, let’s review:
1) Rhapsody has tons of music that you can either program through a playlist or pick a genre and let it play. Overr 2,000,000 songs with all genres - you’ll find something that works - blues, jazz, classical, adult alternative, etc.
2) You can play specific albums are artists if you want and if in the mood
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