Notices, Navigation, and Links

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Check out a collection of rounds with midi sound and printable images of the music here.

This site serves a dual purpose: to share fun stuff with others and to spread information that might be of interest to those making use of it. Please do check out the soft sell for classical music listeners.

Additional material remains to be uploaded to this site. For a quick look at each month's additions, bookmark the updates page.

There's now a separate index for the classical music midi files on this site.

Try your ear at a WQRS-style contest!

You can look at the FAQ of a Classical Radio Station

Take a tour of counterpoint.

Davis Gloff's Web Site

1998-99 Cultural Events Calendar for southeastern Michigan

The homepage for the Detroit Classical Radio Corporation

Credits and Legal Stuff

Additional links may be found on the other pages.

It's ironic. People are becoming more adventuresome about exploring the music that has stood the test of time; some of the hottest-selling recordings feature the music of the Middle Ages or, of all things, opera; we're preparing to celebrate a millenium of human accomplishment (and surely it is music that best reveals the footprints of the human spirit); and research into the ways in which our brains respond to music is encouraging more attentive listening to a variety of formats. And, ironically, right now the opportunities available to the ordinary person for just sampling classical music are being whittled away.

Concerts require an expenditure of both time and money and are, for someone who just wants to know what's available, not a reasonable option. The CD market is saturated with offerings, but someone who just wants to browse can't be expected to launch into a CD buying spree. For the new or casual listener, the best (and for some, the only) source of classical music is the radio. And the current state of broadcasting in the U.S. is destroying the commercial (read: free) classical stations around the country.

Just last year, two venerable classical stations, WFLN in Philadelphia (which had broadcast classical music for 50 years) and WQRS in Detroit (which had broadcast classical music for 37 years) were purchased for enormous sums and converted to different formats. Neither city now has a full-time classical station. A year before that, Flint, MI, lost its classical station, and so on.

It is not that there is no classical audience or that classical music broadcasting can't be profitable. WFLN and WQRS both enjoyed a comfortable income. But stations that feature half-hour to one-hour segments of uninterrupted music can't be as profitable as stations that can carry more commercials; the fantastic sums being paid for these stations can't be quickly recovered from a classical format. And although the airwaves are managed by the government on behalf of the general public (just like water and other shared resources), the stations are owned by businesses that in too many cases today seek to maximize profit at any other cost.

Well, that's the situation. If you think there's something amiss here, you can write to the FCC about their role as the rationing board (there are only so many legal frequencies) charged with ensuring "broadcasting in the public interest".

Thanks!


 
 

 
 
 
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  This page has been accessed times since 7 November 1998.