songs

FastChords Pro provides a little something for piano players of all skill levels. With an ability to transcribe as well as play songs, musicians will get a lot of use from this program.

This program's ingenious layout makes all its many operations simple to access. With a piano's keys laid across the top and a calculator-like box for all other commands, users shouldn't have to make too many trips to the Help file before they are navigating the program like an old pro. Playing a song was very simple and only required users to input the specific … Read more

FStream is a free, fast-launching app for listening to and recording Internet radio. If you don't want to open iTunes or some other more full-featured application when you play Internet radio, FStream can be a good alternative--and its very small resource footprint can help you avoid networking issues sometimes caused by more bloated apps. This application has a slim, unobtrusive interface, and you can even run it directly from the menu bar. FStream can play OGG Vorbis, AAC/AAC+, MP3, and WMA, and it can handle MMS over HTTP as well as M3U, PLS, and ASX playlists. It can … Read more

Just the other day my daughter was trying to sing along with Coldplay's "Viva La Vida"--but, let's face it, those are some tough lyrics to catch. If only I'd had Lyrical, a new app that looks up song lyrics--for the currently playing song.

That's pretty slick. Just start a song on your iPhone or iPod Touch, then run the app. In a matter of seconds it retrieves the lyrics from crowd-sourced site LyricWiki.org.

Of course, you don't have to play a particular song to get its lyrics: Lyrical also lets … Read more

FastChords offers those with a keyboard the chance to learn or perfect their piano playing. With a surprisingly easy way of dictating and learning songs, this is an intriguing option for pianists of all levels.

The program's interface was impressive, featuring a piano keyboard along the top, which lights up to showcase a chord. In addition, the tool to input notes and listen to music looks like a calculator and felt instantly familiar, even for nonpianists. There is a wonderful Help file that not only illuminates the program's functions, but also discusses terms and techniques that new pianists … Read more

Band tracker and concert reminder service Songkick is venturing into new territory on Tuesday. The site is launching a feature that lets users chronicle all the shows they've ever been to. Think of it like a virtual shoe box for your old ticket stubs.

Users can either add these shows by hand, or search from a database that includes more than a million concerts. Each show page includes things like set lists, photos, videos, and posters. This information has been aggregated from various Web sources, including blogs, band pages, and event sites. If users have their own videos or … Read more

It's easy to get songs on to an iPhone; it's notoriously hard to get them off. Whenever you plug someone else's iPhone or iPod into a computer, iTunes wants to erase everything on that player. Here's an easy way to get your songs and videos off your iPhone.

Thanks to Alan for sending along a link to Pod to PC. It's free software that allows you to take the files off your iPhone without messing with iTunes. You can download the software from CNET's Download.com.

Once you have it installed, launch the program. … Read more

Google and Universal Music Group last week announced Vevo, a music video site that will feature Universal's music videos running on YouTube technology. I use YouTube as my primary source of watching music videos, and I'm not convinced that I, personally, need a Vevo-like site in my life.

That doesn't mean there isn't room for a site like this. Vevo could still become a great site--but not if it just streams music videos. Here are five features that I'd like to see on Vevo at launch:

1. High-quality video Whenever you try to watch music videos on sites other than MTV.com, the video quality is usually poor. But if Vevo offers outstanding video quality, it will certainly make pople notice. If you're going to a site to watch music videos, wouldn't you expect them to look good? Yeah, me too.

2. An awesome community I love reading comments on YouTube. Popular music videos have hundreds, if not thousands, of comments from both fans and haters alike who want everyone to know their opinions. Vevo needs a community like that to be successful. Watching music videos is fine, but if Vevo really wants to keep people coming back, allowing them to comment is a must. There's a reason why most sites allow users to post comments; they keep people interested in content they've already consumed. That's what Vevo needs.… Read more

To get ready for the show, warm up to this year's top contenders in one free and continuous playlist featuring Coldplay, Katy Perry, Lil Wayne, The Jonas Brothers, Radiohead, Duffy, Brazilian Girls, and many more.

The 51st Annual Grammy Awards will air on Sunday February 8 at 8 p.m. on CBS. In the meantime, listen to this free playlist by clicking on the green button below, then visit Download Music to stream and download thousands more free songs.

If you're looking to share an MP3 with a friend, or with a bunch of other folks on Twitter, worth checking out is Songly. The service takes the URL of any MP3 that's hosted on the Web and will both shorten it for micropublishing tools like Twitter, as well as package it in a slick little Flash player. This is especially useful since your recipient can play it back without having to download it first.

Compared to TinySong, which we looked at back in June, the big benefit here is that you're not limited to a catalog … Read more