Are there any classical music-specific iPhone applications?
If there aren’t, shouldn’t someone hit that?
Maybe a variation on Shazam, where you hold the phone up to the speakers when classical music is playing and it finds the score for you. Critics could use it during performances! Shazam aside, maybe the application could pull the score if you’re just listening to classical music on your iPhone. Calling all music publishers…? This is never going to get new fans for the art form, but it would certainly be exciting for existing music dorks.
Or what if a site like Arkiv or Pandora created an application where, after Shazam identified the repertoire/soloist/orchestra, other recordings (with buy options) would be recommended? You could select “different soloist” or “cheaper recording” and it would find the piece you just heard (in a movie/elevator/lobby/on hold with Time Warner Cable) with your personal preferences taken into consideration. You could then purchase the recording you wanted and download it right to the iPhone.
What about a program note application; if there were a central database of all program notes, and you were about to see a performance of the “Emperor” concerto, you could pull up the notes by the authors you like before the concert/during intermission, rather than only having the option of reading the notes that the venue provided. It would also be interesting to see where the pieces you were about to see had been performed recently.
(Poor, SAD Amanda doesn’t have an iPhone because she refuses to let go of her 1997 Verizon family plan, but it truly is an amazing thing.)
Shazam does pick up loads of classical recordings. I remember trying this out with a friends iPhone, and it picked up some obscure Carter recordings.
The Arkiv-style type of application should be possible with the next iPhone software release scheduled for June. Currently iPhone applications cannot access your iTunes library, nor let you make purchases from within the application. But both of those will be possible come summertime.
Both the Arkiv-application and the program note application sound great! I had a patron complain that our program notes didn’t give her enough background on the music, that she was new to classical music and she needed more information to appreciate the music. iPhone apps to the rescue!
How about subtitles (and translations) for opera arias while listening to either mp3s or live performances…