Leopard-compatible update for iPlayMusic

Leopard Makes Jamming Easier with iPlayMusic

The new release of Apple’s Leopard operating system adds new features that enhance musical workflows and unleash the collaborative potential of iPlayMusic software. Now it’s easier than ever for beginning guitarists to listen to their favorite songs, learn and play along, create their own versions, and share with others.

Using the Spaces feature in Leopard, iPlayMusic, iTunes, GarageBand and iChat can all be neatly combined, so that each application can be given it’s own Space and used for its core features – iTunes for discovering and listening to new music, iPlayMusic for learning and playing along with the music, GarageBand for creating your own version, and iChat for collaborating with other musicians. In this example, our beginning guitarist will download Bob Marley’s song “Three Little Birds” from iTunes, learn and play along with it in iPlayMusic, record his own version in GarageBand, and then jam with another member of his band using iChat’s new Screen Sharing capability.

First, he launches Leopard, goes to System Preferences > Exposé & Spaces, selects the Spaces tab, enables spaces by checking the check box, and sets his windows up into four quadrants. iTunes will go in the first Space, iPlayMusic will go in the second Space, GarageBand will go in the third Space, and iChat will go in the fourth Space.

Now each application has its own Space, so our beginner guitarist can spend less time rearranging his desktop and more time being creative.

By default selecting the Ctrl key and the numbers 1, 2, 3 or 4 will activate the appropriate Space. The next step is to launch each application according to our example workflow. First, he launches iTunes and searches for Bob Marley’s song “Three Little Birds.” Once he finds and previews the song in the iTunes Music Store, he purchases and downloads it to iTunes. Next he launches the iPlayMusic Beginner Guitar Lessons product, which is available in the Apple Store or online at www.iplaymusic.com. When the application launches, it has its own Space, since he designated that Space 2 would belong to iPlayMusic. He does a quick search in the iPlayMusic media browser for the song “Three Little Birds” or the artist Bob Marley. He finds the song, plays it back at the desired speed, and if necessary learns the chords and strumming patterns that are required for the song, all available in the iPlayMusic product. Once he has it down, he clicks the Create button, which launches the GarageBand project file for “Three Little Birds” in Space 3. He records his own version of the guitar part, and then “Saves As...” to a new file. Now it’s time to jam with the singer in the band. iChat’s new Screen Sharing capability unleashes the power of musical collaboration, as now it’s easier than ever to jam with other players. He launches iChat in Space 4, IMs his Buddy and then Shares his desktop. Now each player has the ability to share each other’s screens, record tracks locally, and then copy and arrange tracks back and forth to each other’s projects simply by dragging them from one desktop to the other. With Leopard, it’s never been easier to integrate five key pieces of the musical process – listening, learning, playing, creating and sharing!

iPlayMusic Beginner Guitar Lessons is currently available in Apple Stores nationwide for $39.95. Play Music Together is the kids version of iPlayMusic, which includes the software, a full-featured DVD, and color-illustrated storybook, available now in Apple Stores for $29.95.