Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
The sheet music is public domain. The recordings often are not because (shocker) people had to perform and record and publish it and need to get paid to, you know, live.

If you see classical music as a generic commodity where any recording is interchangable with any other, I guess it doesn't matter to you and you'll do fine on archive.org.
Yes. Nevertheless, there are literal MIDI renditions/translations of those sheet music – and you can listen to those instead...
 
This is app equivalent of “this could’ve been an email”. It should’ve been a tab on an existing app.
*EXACTLY* - To hell with all these specialized apps. I hate that I can't delete Safari, people could just email me the contents of the sites I'd like to see. And word processors are a complete waste of time and money as well - in most cases you end up sending that "document" to someone via email anyway, so you might as well type your book in Mail.app.
I'm working on a "separate tab" in Mail.app that lets me send my code directly to my CPU so I can finally delete my compiler - yet another useless piece of crap made by people who just don't get it.
 
Excellent! I think they could have communicated better with the app icon, but I will just have to make my own 🙂
 
It's so ironic and downright annoying that the company that makes the computers that 95% of musicians use to create the music, and that arguably has the best library of hi-res music available, is so incredibly useless when it comes to delivering that music in full quality to people's homes. Great that the highest quality live recordings available (which tends to be classical music) can now be streamed at 24 bit 192 kHz - but barring connecting your phone to your hifi system with a lightning>USB adapter, it is literally impossible to play it back on a standard hifi system. You can't even do it with Apple's own speakers or headphones. And it seems the only third party supplier they want to work with is Sonos. I guess Apple REALLY wants to convince people that small plastic speakers is the only real way to really enjoy classical music...
 
  • Like
Reactions: MacFarmer
Yes. Nevertheless, there are literal MIDI renditions/translations of those sheet music – and you can listen to those instead...
Those are pretty much the equivalent of having Siri read you an audiobook. Dull, monotonous and mechanical.

In any music genre that is designed to be performed by humans (i.e. anything other than electronic music), the individual interpretations are what make the performances interesting. And those often involve making certain notes a little bit shorter or longer than written, or a little bit softer or louder. Think of a blues: You can try and write down the characteristic rythm and intonation, but it'll never match the exact characteristics of a performance. And that goes for classical pieces, as well. It's actually part of the reason conductors and soloists become famous – they interpret the sheet music in much the same way that an actor would interpret their lines.

With the recent advances in AI, I wouldn't be surprised if eventually an algorithm were able to convincingly mimic the characteristics of a human performance, but right now it doesn't take a lot of experience or training to recognize, e.g., a MIDI playthrough of a piano piece.
 
Why does this need to be a separate app? It's all just music... 🤷‍♂️
The music is already available through the Apple Music app. If you are happy finding classical music in the Apple Music app, I'm happy for you. Personally, I find that the Apple Music app doesn't work for classical music. I'm pretty sure it's the same thing for many others.
 
I’m surprised that this is not included as part of Apple Music.
The classical music is included as part of Apple Music. However, finding classical music pieces doesn't work well with the Apple Music app. For classical music you need different search options than for contemporary music.
 
  • Like
Reactions: CarlJ
I don't get the purpose. Will Apple release 10 new music apps based on genre as "brand-new feature" in summer then? Or a 100 based on *fill_in_the_blanks*? Doubtful they are going to make a decent revenue with this thing.
 
This should part of the Apple Music app. Why have a separate app? Just make a classical music inside the Apple Music app. What am I missing?
 
I don't get the purpose. Will Apple release 10 new music apps based on genre as "brand-new feature" in summer then? Or a 100 based on *fill_in_the_blanks*? Doubtful they are going to make a decent revenue with this thing.
Since it's not a seperate license, we will never know. But like many others, you don't understand the difference between searching for classical music vs searching for "everything else". This feature is essential to those interested, and as is blatantly obvious by the many people asking this question, meaningless to everyone else. FOR THAT EXACT REASON, putting it as a seperate app rather than cluttering up the UI in the existing app, is the best option for everyone.

That being said, Apple Music also lags behind competition when it comes to searching for people in the credits, primarily producers. In Tidal it's easy to find all the albums that for instance Nigel Godrich is credited for. In Apple Music, that's to my knowledge not possible.
 
Last edited:
This should part of the Apple Music app. Why have a separate app? Just make a classical music inside the Apple Music app. What am I missing?
Search for classical is totally borked. Not bad, not awkward, but useless. You may as well be throwing darts at a stack of CDs. And the central problem is that track/artist/album just doesn’t fit classical and can’t be made to — square peg, round hole. Apple has finally realized that classical search is a problem of its own that needs a solution of its own.
 
i believe this app will be folded later into the Music app. Right now, they probably going to assess the usability and the UI from the user feedback they‘ll get from the separate app, and once they feel that they nailed the interface, they might include it into the main app but in a different section of its own and with its own unique interface. Right now, having a separate a app has the advantage of being a sort of public beta with its own regular updates.
 
i believe this app will be folded later into the Music app.
I hope so. But remember there are two parts to the problem -- having a good interface for searching metadata, and having good consistent metadata to search. Buying Primephonic got Apple a solid, coherent, first-class metadata collection but only for classical. I *hope* that inspires Apple to invest big in collecting metadata of a similar quality for the rest of their music, without which an improved search interface wouldn't matter.
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: CarlJ
I hope so. But remember there are two parts to the problem -- having a good interface for searching metadata, and having good consistent metadata to search. Buying Primephonic got Apple a solid, coherent, first-class metadata collection but only for classical. I *hope* that inspires Apple to invest big in collecting metadata of a similar quality for the rest of their music, without which an improved search interface wouldn't matter.
What metadata is missing for pop music that would be useful? Like, are people searching for songs composed by Hillary Lindsey or something?

In any event, I don’t get the complaints about Apple Music Classical being a separate app. I haven’t seen anyone really passionate about classical complaining… it’s the people who don’t listen much who are. If you’re not into classical, or don’t listen often—don’t download the app, no harm, no foul. People who are passionate get how different classical is and why it needs a different interface.

Because classical is so different, you’d probably need to devote an entire tab button on the bottom of the main Apple Music app to the Classical interface, which would make for a much worse experience for the 95%+ of Apple Music subscribers who don’t regularly listen to Classical. Better just to segment it away.
 
Indeed a lot of choice, only two pages: https://www.thomann.de/intl/thunderbolt_interfaces.html

if it were up to me, I would make a separate media player that would only control the iOS device. so that the sound does not have to go through the iOS device.
🤔 Which do you think Apple cares more about, sales of iOS devices or a $450 - $8,800 Thunderbolt audio interface that someone else manufacturers? iOS 16 has been out for 6 months and they still don't have this tent-pole feature ready to go.
 
I also wonder if we might see this paired with a new pair of headphones designed specifically for listening to classical music. AirPods Max 2.0 maybe?

and a new Homepod that looks like this ..

fresh_41_480x480.jpg
 
Why does one genre need a separate app why can’t it be in the main music app

There have been maaaaaany many articles and videos answering this question. But I’ll add: when you cram too many different features into one app it’s called bloat and it makes everything worse. See: iTunes before they turned it into Music and split off the podcasts, iPhone management and other features.
 
  • Like
Reactions: colinwil
I have to ask: Why do you need an Apple Music sub for this? This is just classical music, music that is free since classical music is public domain. So why should you need a subscription just to listen to public domain music you can get for free from archive.org?
How do you expect to listen to it if performers don’t get paid? The sheet music might be public domain (excluding the VAST amount of contemporary music this also includes) but recordings are not. The fact that a piece of music is public domain doesn’t mean you can listen for free, it means you can perform it for free and people can pay YOU. Classical music subscriptions like this and IDAGIO pay the performers by the second instead of by the track so this will actually be a great service for musicians to actually be paid what they’re worth, unlike Spotify or Apple Music prior to now.
 
I don't know as much about classical as I'd like, and I'm hoping this will have some tools that help me follow a thread if I find something I want to hear more of.
If this is anything like the Primephonic app that Apple bought and shut down, I think it very much will! That app had playlists for an "introduction to..." various composers, periods, and instruments, and every track had ways to browse to further tracks with the same composer, performer, or different performances of the same piece. It also had podcast-type recordings interviewing performers about their favorite repertory, IIRC. I really hope they have these features in the new app.
 
What metadata is missing for pop music that would be useful? Like, are people searching for songs composed by Hillary Lindsey or something?

In any event, I don’t get the complaints about Apple Music Classical being a separate app. I haven’t seen anyone really passionate about classical complaining… it’s the people who don’t listen much who are. If you’re not into classical, or don’t listen often—don’t download the app, no harm, no foul. People who are passionate get how different classical is and why it needs a different interface.

Because classical is so different, you’d probably need to devote an entire tab button on the bottom of the main Apple Music app to the Classical interface, which would make for a much worse experience for the 95%+ of Apple Music subscribers who don’t regularly listen to Classical. Better just to segment it away.

Honestly I would love to be able to search pop music by songwriter or producer. That’d be super and a great way to discover new music! What if you could search by session musician? Ooh there’s an idea for when they do Apple Jazz… 🤤
 
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.