iVideosongs, owned by Songmaster Studios Education LLC, is an online music instruction service where original artists show how to play the songs they have written and performed. The site also has song instruction from studio musicians and from professional music instructors. The company slogan is "We'll show you how to play complete songs accurately."

Overview

iVideosongs lets users choose a skill level and genre, then download the high-definition video to their

personal computer A personal computer (PC) is a multi-purpose microcomputer whose size, capabilities, and price make it feasible for individual use. Personal computers are intended to be operated directly by an end user, rather than by a computer expert or tec ...

, iPod,

iPad The iPad is a brand of iOS and iPadOS-based tablet computers that are developed by Apple Inc. The iPad was conceived before the related iPhone but the iPhone was developed and released first. Speculation about the development, operating ...

or other device. Each song title is presented in chapter format, so users learn the introduction, verse, chorus, bridge, outro and other elements. Each title includes a master performance, so participants can compare their progress against the song, and

tablature Tablature (or tabulature, or tab for short) is a form of musical notation indicating instrument fingering rather than musical pitches. Tablature is common for fretted stringed instruments such as the guitar, lute or vihuela, as well as many fr ...

notation to aid in learning. For its iVideosongs products, Songmaster has licensed full rights to songs from BMG Music Publishing, EMI Music Publishing, Sony/ATV Music Publishing, Universal Music Publishing Group, Warner/Chappell Music as well as dozens of secondary and tertiary publishers, and pays royalties to stakeholders. This allows the company to provide complete and accurate instructional titles, presented exactly as they were originally written and performed, such as a lesson with Rush guitarist

Alex Lifeson Aleksandar Živojinović, (born 27 August 1953), known professionally as Alex Lifeson (), is a Canadian musician, best known as the guitarist and backing vocalist of the progressive rock band Rush. In 1968, Lifeson co-founded the band that wo ...

teaching students to play the song "

Tom Sawyer Thomas Sawyer () is the titular character of the Mark Twain novel ''The Adventures of Tom Sawyer'' (1876). He appears in three other novels by Twain: '' Adventures of Huckleberry Finn'' (1884), '' Tom Sawyer Abroad'' (1894), and '' Tom Sawyer, ...

". The iVideosongs titles are primarily for electric and acoustic guitarists, but titles for bass, keyboards and drums are also included in the catalog. The Songmaster Websites have free tutorials to help beginning musicians develop proficiency in techniques such as slide guitar, playing chordal fills and

walking bass Bassline (also known as a bass line or bass part) is the term used in many styles of music, such as blues, jazz, funk, dub and electronic, traditional, or classical music for the low-pitched instrumental part or line played (in jazz and some ...

lines. Beginning tutorials are also offered as a

podcast A podcast is a program made available in digital format for download over the Internet. For example, an episodic series of digital audio or video files that a user can download to a personal device to listen to at a time of their choosin ...

through iTunes.

History

iVideosongs was first launched on January 29, 2008 at the DEMO 08 conference in

Palm Desert, California Palm Desert is a city in Riverside County, California, United States, in the Coachella Valley, approximately east of Palm Springs, northeast of San Diego and east of Los Angeles. The population was 48,445 at the 2010 census. The city has bee ...

. Later that year, iVideosongs became one of the top 10 most subscribed podcasts on iTunes. iVideosongs got its start in

Atlanta, GA Atlanta ( ) is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Georgia. It is the seat of Fulton County, the most populous county in Georgia, but its territory falls in both Fulton and DeKalb counties. With a population of 498,715 ...

, co-founded by Andy Morton and Grammy-nominated musician Tim Huffman. iVideosongs was acquired by Songmaster Studios Education LLC in 2011. Based in

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, Songmaster Studios produces and distributes a catalog of about 230 iVideosongs titles from its websites and through Apple's iTunes, Viacom's Rockband, Amazon, Alfred Publishing and other partners.

Featured artists

Songmaster's featured artists include: *

Pierre Bensusan Pierre Bensusan (born 30 October 1957) is a French-Algerian acoustic guitarist. As Sephardic Jews, his family came from Spain, Spanish Morocco, and French Algeria. His music has been characterized as Celtic, folk, world music, New-age, and ch ...

* Jeff Carlisi * D.J. Fontana *

Jon Foreman Jonathan Mark Foreman (born October 22, 1976) is an American musician, the lead singer, guitarist, main songwriter and co-founder of the alternative rock band Switchfoot. He started Switchfoot in 1996 with drummer Chad Butler and his brother Tim ...

Russ Kunkel Russell Kunkel (born September 27, 1948) is an American drummer who has worked as a session musician with many popular artists, including Jackson Browne, Joni Mitchell, Jimmy Buffett, Harry Chapin, Rita Coolidge, Neil Diamond, Bob Dylan, Dan F ...

* Sharon Isbin * Chuck Leavell * Mark Lee *

John McEuen John McEuen, born December 19, 1945 in Oakland, California, is an American folk musician and a founding member of the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band. Career Solo work John McEuen was born in Oakland, California. In 1964, at age 18, he became interested ...

* Jim Messina *

Scotty Moore Winfield Scott Moore III (December 27, 1931 – June 28, 2016) was an American guitarist who formed The Blue Moon Boys in 1954, Elvis Presley's backing band. He was studio and touring guitarist for Presley between 1954 and 1968. Rock critic ...

Graham Nash Graham William Nash (born 2 February 1942) is an English musician, singer, songwriter, photographer, and activist. He is known for his light tenor voice and for his contributions as a member of the Hollies and the supergroups Crosby, Stills ...

*Ryan Newell * John Oates *

Kim Richey Kimberly Richey (born December 1, 1956) is an American singer and songwriter. Career Kim Richey came onto the music scene in the 1990s and entered her first recording contract at the age of 37. Kim signed with Mercury Nashville. She spent the n ...

Instructors iVideosongs instructors include: * Danny Grady * Steve Rieck *Rob Schumann *Alex Winfield

References

What Would You Do if I Showed You the Chords...

Crawdaddy! ''Crawdaddy'' was an American rock music magazine launched in 1966. It was created by Paul Williams, a Swarthmore College student at the time, in response to the increasing sophistication and cultural influence of popular music. The magazine w ...

So you want to be a real guitar hero?
, DEMO conference
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Reuters Reuters ( ) is a news agency owned by Thomson Reuters Corporation. It employs around 2,500 journalists and 600 photojournalists in about 200 locations worldwide. Reuters is one of the largest news agencies in the world. The agency was esta ...

Guitar playing startup hopes to cash in on instructional videos

VentureBeat ''VentureBeat'' is an American technology website headquartered in San Francisco, California. It publishes news, analysis, long-form features, interviews, and videos. History The ''VentureBeat'' company was founded in 2006 by Matt Marshall, ...

Learn to Play Exactly Like the Beatles
AppScout
iVideosongs Debuts - Learn How To Play RUSH's 'Tom Sawyer'

Brave Words & Bloody Knuckles ''Brave Words & Bloody Knuckles'' (''BW&BK'') is a Canadian heavy metal magazine. Although based in Toronto, Canada, ''BW&BK'' features writers from the US, Germany and the UK, allowing the magazine to represent metal music from an internationa ...

iVideoSongs.com - Giles Will Show You
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CNET News ''CNET'' (short for "Computer Network") is an American media website that publishes reviews, news, articles, blogs, podcasts, and videos on technology and consumer electronics globally. ''CNET'' originally produced content for radio and televi ...

Guitar Lessons from the Stars, in HD
,

Yahoo! Tech Yahoo! Tech is a technology news web site operated by Yahoo!. Former Yahoo! Tech The site, which was the first new product from the Santa Monica, California-based Yahoo! Media Group, featured a selection of original, licensed, and user-generated ...

Tech Startups Rock DEMO Conference
Popular Science

External links

Official site of new operating company, Songmaster Studios Education LLC [Sept. 2010]Official siteiVideosongs MySpace Page
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ivideosongs Musical training software