extensive chant, choral & classical site for 1/4 price of i-tunes
  • emafi
    Posts: 7
    I'm mostly a CD buyer, with hundreds of classical, chant, and polyphony CDs, but I've spent many hundreds if not thousands of dollars on it, and my two complete bookshelves full of discs have run out of room, so I tried emusic.com, which offered 50 free downloads, and I was amazed at the wide selection of classical Catholic music, including at least dozens of chant and polyphony CDs. Currently, I'm on the 100 songs a month plan, which costs $25 (1/4 the price of the same downloads on i-tunes). The lowest quality I've seen is 146 mbps (but it's usually above 200). Has anyone else tried the free downloads or got on the plan?

    This sounds like a promo, but I'm really happy with the availability of music that doesn't take up physical space or cost as much as itunes (more than just buying the CD, usually), but does actually benefit the artists financially.

    Just as a sample, most of the Gloriae Dei Cantores work is there, as are huge portions of the Naxos catalog, hyperion, harmoni mundi, some Chanticleer, etc.

    Search "chant" and nearly 500 albums come up. It's awesome; I love it.
  • gregpgregp
    Posts: 632
    I use it also. Very happy with it. As you said, lots of good stuff. As I read this, I was listening to the Robert Shaw recording of Bach Mass in B Minor which I downloaded from there.
  • gregpgregp
    Posts: 632
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  • Jeffrey TuckerJeffrey Tucker
    Posts: 3,624
    That's so great. Someday, someday, I will move into the age of digital downloads for audio. I'm a real dino in this area.
  • Michael O'Connor
    Posts: 1,637
    I have to say that being able download a single movement or art song has been great for teaching purposes. For stuff I really want, CDs sound so much better on my hi-fi stereo. Mp3s are yucky.
  • Charles in CenCA
    Posts: 2,416
    Dittos on emusic; subscribed for about a year now. Downloads of symphonic works are a very good deal due to movements, generally much longer in duration, are regarded as just one download. But in any case, figure the ratio of about 7 to 8 albums worth for the cost of 1 $20 CD in the old school retail like Borders. Also, one can find some pretty esoteric stuff quite easily.
  • mjballoumjballou
    Posts: 993
    I come and go on downloads - partially because I'm a musician who sells CDs. At the same time, money does come in from digital downloads with no effort on my part. itunes drives me nuts because of that whole Apple proprietary business.

    I'm also addicted to liner notes. They're invaluable for radio programming purposes and I'm an incurable reader of "tidbits."

    However, I'll be heading over to emusic.com later today based on the above recommendations.
  • gregpgregp
    Posts: 632
    One thing about emusic that has helped me is that, in learning the chants of the Gradual from scratch, in addition to looking at the neumes and practicing them, I need to HEAR them over and over to get them in my brain. Downloading them allows me to do that. A technique that I've discovered in searching their site is that frequently Propers and Ordinary parts of the Mass are not listed in a readily identifiable way, so I search on the "Track" instead. That usually gets me much closer.
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