I am not quite sure I follow exactly what the problem is, maybe it would help 
to know exactly what speakers you have.
I have a Sonos system with speakers throughout the house and while there is 
currently not an app inside the Sonos Controller for Apple’s classical music 
app, I can simply Airplay it to my Sonos speakers. As long as you have speakers 
capable of Airplay you can stream anything playing on  your phone to said 
speakers.

From: viphone@googlegroups.com <viphone@googlegroups.com> On Behalf Of Judy 
Wilkinson
Sent: Monday, October 30, 2023 10:53 AM
To: viphone@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: How Apple gave people access to a library full of classical music 
– and tried to make it accessible

When classic came out, I am very excited Lee subscribe to Apple Music. I have 
found out that I cannot use it, however. I have smart speakers when I use 
Spotify a button pops up next to the play button that says it hooked to other 
speakers or something like that, and I’m able to to hook it to my living room 
speakers, but there is no such feature in Apple Music so the only way I can 
play, the classical music or any other Apple Music is by using Bluetooth 
speakers.
Obviously, I don’t want to buy expensive. Bluetooth speakers just to play my 
Apple Music. And I don’t always want to use your phones.
I can make it play through my speakers if I know the exact title of the 
selection or the album that I want to play but I don’t always want to do that. 
Sometimes I want to just go into my library and pick something and have a play 
as I say I can do this easily with Spotify and my smart speakers, but not at 
all with the Apple music I have had to reluctantly cancel my Apple Music 
subscription unless anyone knows exactly how I can make my smart speakers work 
that is.


Judy Wilkinson



On Oct 30, 2023, at 9:10 AM, Richard Turner 
<richardr_tur...@comcast.net<mailto:richardr_tur...@comcast.net>> wrote:

Greetings,
The word “Accessible” in the title of this article refers to general 
accessibility to the world, not about disability.

I found this article very informative for any classical music fan.  I stripped 
out the ads and have the link to the original story at the end.

How Apple gave people access to a library full of classical music – and tried 
to make it accessible
There are 1,243 versions of Vivaldi’s Spring from the Four Seasons alone. 
Helping people through that was key to building the new Apple Music Classical 
app, senior staff at the venture tell David Phelan
Sunday 29 October 2023 10:30

Earlier this year, Apple launched Apple Music Classical as a standalone music 
app that comes included in the price of Apple Music. It was an unusual move for 
a streaming platform perhaps more associated with Drake and Taylor Swift. And 
building it was a major undertaking, given the vast complexity of classical 
music libraries and the difficulties in navigating them.

Apple Music Classical continues to grow. In its latest move, Apple announced a 
new partnership between Apple and the London Philharmonic Orchestra with the 
release of a live recording of Berlioz’s The Damnation of Faust coming on 3 
November. This is just one of the partners Apple Music Classical has.

>From day one, the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra was a partner. The content 
>from that orchestra is extensive, with recordings dating back to 1929. Some of 
>it is unique to Apple and this exclusive content alone has already been 
>streamed millions of times.

Recently, senior staffers at the app talked exclusively to The Independent.

Apple Music Classical came about because Apple realised that classical artists 
and fans were really not being served well by streaming. As part of its mission 
to use its engineering knowhow to fix this, it bought Primephonic, widely 
recognised as the classical streaming platform that succeeded where others had 
failed. It took more than a year of work before Apple was happy with what it 
had created and its release to a highly positive response.

Now, classical music lovers don’t have to clamber past Justin Bieber and Taylor 
Swift to get to Bach and Rachmaninoff.

Classical music provides challenges other kinds of music don’t, or at least not 
to the same extent. Instead of playing an album, artist or track, classical 
lovers have favourite composers, orchestras, soloists and so on. The search 
parameters are mind-boggling. Apple is well-equipped, with more classical music 
than anywhere else on the planet, and Primephonic’s brilliant data metrics were 
a starting point from which Apple’s engineers and expertise transformed the 
experience. Want to listen to Vivaldi’s Spring from the Four Seasons? Apple has 
1,243 versions for you to choose from. If that sounds overwhelming, Apple has a 
solution: careful navigation with sophisticated search.

Just as Apple Fitness+ has a mantra that everybody is welcome, no matter their 
fitness level or knowledge, Apple Music Classical is designed for seasoned 
devotees and newcomers alike. “If you didn’t know much about the world of 
classical, Apple Music Classical offers a structure so you can get into it. 
It’s centuries of music, right, so where do you start? It gives you an 
opportunity to get some perspective on it, explains Mariana Pimenta, who works 
in operations at Apple Music Classical, saying: “We don’t expect everybody who 
downloads it to be a professional musician, and we want everyone to experience 
classical music. Our goal is to bring as many people as possible to this 
service.”

Marina Boiko is an editor. She goes on, “The story of classical is a great 
place to start and we’ve made sure there’s enough beginner-friendly content, 
such as playlists of periods or genres.”

Not all traditional classical listeners will be especially tech-savvy, but that 
may not be a problem, as Guy Jones, global head of classical editorial, 
explains. “Lots of classical fans are new not just to technology but to 
streaming. The whole point of this product is to bring classical to streaming. 
It’s the musical genre that wasn’t really being streamed because the experience 
was previously so bad. The technical side of things may be less of a problem, 
especially as Apple’s guidelines around human interface design are baked into 
our product, but the challenge is more in explaining that streaming opens up 
opportunity and accessibility.

“When I was first getting into classical music, I had to buy CDs. I had to 
choose carefully what CD I wanted to buy each month. The ability now to just 
pick a random composer and ask, ‘Do I like this composer?’ That ability to let 
you dip your toe in the water, I think that’s the real power of something like 
Apple Music Classical, and not just for beginners, for the experts too.”

The absence of the Primephonic app while Apple Music Classical was being 
developed was down to getting it right, Carlos Anez Gomez, from the metadata 
team, says. “It took us time, but it paid off because we needed to take care 
with every single point and I think we managed to do it, both in human terms 
and the algorithms: we made a great balance between computer work and human 
work. Where Primephonic had a relatively small catalogue, Apple Music Classical 
has a huge number of albums, for example.”

The London Philharmonic Orchestra perform Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No.3 with 
soloist Stephen Hough and Shostakovich Symphony No.10, conducted by Principal 
Guest Conductor Karina Canellakis
(Mark Allan)

Boiko adds, “No one knows everything that has ever been recorded in the history 
of classical music. And in that sense, we put a lot of emphasis on the 
discovery element, especially when it comes to the underrepresented composers.”

Each work has its own place, called the work page in Apple Music Classical, 
where you can find all the recordings, so it’s easy to compare different 
versions. Primephonic’s unique data continues to be essential. “The structured 
metadata, that’s the uniqueness of it,” Boiko says. “It makes it easy to find 
things even if you don’t know what you want. That structure, it’s what 
classical music apps needed and didn’t have. There are many ways not to get 
lost because you can search by ensemble, by orchestra or even by instrument.”

The work page is important, then. As Gomez says, “People discovering music can 
check this work page and say, ‘Aha, there is a new piece by a certain composer 
and I have a work page which will give me all the information that I need.’ I 
discover music every day going through this.”

Another key element is the playlist. Boiko goes on, “Playlists are structured 
in different ways. So, genre playlists are the best way for you to start 
listening to classical music. The story of classical is a narrated cycle, that 
guides you through all the centuries of music.

“Then there are more specific playlists. You can listen to duets and trios and 
quartets or quintets and then it gives you an overview of all this chamber 
music and maybe something that you wouldn’t necessarily find on other 
platforms.”

Jones explains the importance of the human touch. “I don’t think it’s widely 
known that at Apple it’s human curators behind the playlists. The assumption is 
that it’s all algorithms now. But for classical that’s a particularly important 
point, because it’s such a huge genre. People talk about classical like it’s 
one block and it’s really a thousand years of music from pretty much every 
country in the world. Our job is breaking classical into smaller chunks, to 
give people the agency to discover what they like, and to go down their own 
rabbit holes and feel more confident exploring.”

How does Apple Music Classical find a way to appeal to everyone? Jones 
explains, “It’s a really hard thing to do, to cover that broad spectrum. It’s a 
constant tightrope walk because you have very knowledgeable people with clear 
ideas about what they think the genre is as well as trying to please newcomers. 
We strike that balance in terms of our editorial strategy by being as authentic 
and genuine as possible and conveying our passion for classical. For those 
hardcore classical nerds a big part of the product is the browse and the search 
as much as it is the editorial, I think for the newcomers, they use the 
editorial a lot more if they don’t know what to search for.”

As it grows, there’s a lot more for Apple to do, and the team are working on 
changes and improvements. Here’s a last word from each of them about why the 
app matters. Gomez says, “People will discover that along with any classical 
library that they can have their access quickly to any recording they have.”

As Boiko says, “It’s a lot of music. I think there’s not one person that 
wouldn’t find something they would love here.”

Boiko has a different take on the importance of Apple Music Classical: “Maybe 
the listeners will have emotional responses to it. And at the end of the day 
music is there to make our lives better. It definitely enriches our lives.”

Finally, Jones comments, “The thing about human curation is we are ultimately 
making a human decision. And so, for instance, if you choose a recommended 
recording for Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony, you’re instantly upsetting everyone 
who has a strong opinion about their favourite. That’s what comes with the 
human aspect: this is our opinion, our recommendation, but you have the other 
recordings there to explore if you want them.”

Full article with ads:
https://www.independent.co.uk/tech/apple-music-classical-new-feature-iphone-ios-b2437303.html

Richard, USA.
“Reality is the leading cause of stress for those who are in touch with it.”  
--  Jane Wagner from The Search for Intelligent Life in the Universe

My web site: https://www.turner42.com

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