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IntellectualMusician.com
I used to consider myself a musician about 12 years ago when I was obsessed with my high school band teacher. Since then, the only music I’ve been playing comes through my iPod. Why am I telling you this? To let you know in advance that I’m far from the target audience that the authors at IntellectualMusician.com were probably targeting when updating their blog.
The first thing I noticed, and I hate it when this happens, is that the layout was rather distracting. Instead of listing the last several posts down the page, there’s a table set up with the first sentence or two listed of the post and a link where readers can read the rest of the article. All of the authors do a good job of giving readers the gist of an article in the first several words, but I just found all of the clicking a little unnecessary. That’s why I scrolled to the bottom of the page so I could click on "View All Posts".
April 9th was the very first post of the site and it does a straightforward job in explaining what the site is about and how those interested can also become a contributor to the site. From that point on, posts are made on a regular basis about a bevy of subjects, including Composition, Ear Training, Improvisation, Practice, Theory, and many, many more.
Each of the four authors have their own specialty they focus on when posting and their own writing style, all of which are key components on what make this blog work as well as it does.
As I mentioned before, those best suited for reading IntellectualMusician.com are, well, intellectual musicians, or at least those aspiring to be such. Former high school musicians, like myself, may have some challenges understanding each of the posts, but may also be able to pick up a new tip or two in their reading.
This site was reviewed on 2007-04-30 by Wendy.
They felt this site belonged in the Music category.
Wendy felt that IntellectualMusician.com deserved a rating of 4.
By the name of the site “intellectualmusician.com,” I began to think about what this site could be about. I imagine a site where music is taken to another level – thought. I would imagine that the owner of the site is probably either a musician or someone in an academic world. I expect to see music from the eyes of the mind instead of the ear. I hope to see this take place. Hopefully someone can help the world understand the thought behind putting a music piece or composition together displaying the musicians thought behind the music rather than a catchy tune that all of us seem to enjoy as we turn on the radio today.
The site has a simple interface. It does not render well in IE 7.0, but there is a disclaimer on the site stating to use Firefox. I am not sure if this is done on purpose for kickbacks based on downloads of Firefox from the site or not, but since the majority of the world does use IE, I don’t feel this is a good thing. It is easy on the eyes and can clearly be placed into different categories. There is an area devoted to forums. These forums could be of use to many musicians. It provides a means by which musicians can discuss their opinions of music, and how to develop new music.
The site is, as expected, about teaching music and brining a new level of music to listeners. The site has 4 authors, Henderson, Mylotte, Gerson, and Oakleaf. Oakleaf appears to be the reason why intellectualmusician.com is currently in existence. The authors wanted a place for musicians to work together and grow as an organization – a group of musicians. All of them have extensive bios in music and education.
The site takes on a new meaning for beginners on the web. If you want to learn about playing an instrument, I would recommend you to check out intellectualmusician.com. It appears they have the knowledge and the professional skills to take a beginner with no knowledge and get them playing quickly. They focus on not just telling you what keys or strokes of the instrument to play, but they actually inform you about the instrument itself. They want the beginner to not understand music, but understand how to create music through the instrument. I feel their skills would be beneficial on any college music program. Their skills are not only growing together as a group of musicians, but they are providing information to help the world grow into music.
If you want to learn how to play the guitar any beginner should check out their articles on the composition of the guitar. I am sure that more instruments will be coming as releases on this site as it grows. They are currently trying to build their reader base and their membership so that intellectualmusician.com can be a centerpiece pushing the music industry to new levels.
This is a good site for any musician. Currently it is probably more geared toward beginner musicians, but as the site develops, I think the concepts will develop. I am sure the authors of the site would love for more advanced players to subscribe to their forums and offer up their personal advice as well. This site is highly recommended for the beginner musician.
I rate this site at a 3.75 for 2 reasons: the first is for a good site to be used it must be able to be viewed with many different browsers and the second is that it is still in the growing stages and is geared toward beginners and not the advanced musicians. I do believe that this is a good starting point and that it will grow with time to truly become the "intellectual musician".
This site was reviewed on 2007-04-29 by mrmaggoo.
They felt this site belonged in the Music category.
mrmaggoo felt that IntellectualMusician.com deserved a rating of 3.75.
To be honest, the only thought I had about IntellectualMusician before I visited the site was that of John Cusack's character Rob Gordon in High Fidelity. I really thought this was going to be a blog form of the "I know more about music than you do" attitude that was displayed in the movie.
The layout of the blog was intriguing to me. It didn't really feel like a blog's layout, more of just a general article site layout. The site's design is a spin off of 2 or 3 column layout with the main content being on the left and navigation (or ads/navigation) on the right. The main content area is a two column tabled type layout with each article taking up the exact same space as the next. Of course this is just a ruse as it is just a snippet of the article and you must click on the "continued" link to read more.
Which brings me to another grievance I have with the design/layout/functionality of the site. When you click continued, you are taken to the "more" section of the blog post. Considering most people I forget instantly what they I just read when the screen changes, I had to scroll up to re-read the intro. Especially in cases where it broke in mid sentence.
Enough with the layout/functionality already. I know you are all wondering about the content. Well lets start with the first post which states the primary purpose of the site:
"IntellectualMusician.com is a website built and maintained by musicians, for musicians. The basic idea is simple, gather a superior group of extremely talented and well educated musicians and give them an outlet to share their knowledge."
So with that said, I am expecting well basically what I originally thought before visiting the site. Now I am not one to practice music, but I do know a fair share so this should be fun. But wait, the posts are about how to play music, and practice and well how to make the instruments sound the way they do. The posts to me seem like they are just re-written out of a book and that this blog is more of a "music class" than a "group of musicians sharing their knowledge".
Since I couldn't find what I thought I was going to find here, I decided to look around at the other parts of the site. The owner took the time to make some Web 2.0 type graphics for the "Home" and "Forum" links. The forums are very green and really need more people. However what is there, with the lack of users is good. Again, it is more talk about the playing and learning of music. So that kind of bummed me out.
Since I am not a musician and don't have any interest in learning to become one, I thought I would ask a buddy of mine to take a quick glance at the site since he teaches drums at the local high school. His quick impressions was that the layout needed work, but the articles were actually good for him. So there you have it, if you are a music person, you will probably enjoy this site. If you are just a listener, you probably won't. The design needs some serious improvement, especially in the archives to make the site more accessible. Overall I give the site a 3.25 due to the layout issues and that the site is geared towards a specific niche of people. That niche will more than likely enjoy this site.
This site was reviewed on 2007-04-29 by Brent.
They felt this site belonged in the Music category.
Brent felt that IntellectualMusician.com deserved a rating of 3.25.
3 reviewers gave IntellectualMusician.com an average rating of 3.6667
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