I work from home and for the last decade or more I’ve listened to the classical music channels provided by my cable TV system for about eight hours a day. However, I may cut the cord soon, so I’m looking for replacements among streaming sources.
Here are my criteria, which the cable music channels have provided:
[ul]
[li]No talk, commercials, or other interruptions. [/li][li]No vocal music, only instrumental[/li][li]Enough music so that I don’t hear repeats often.[/li][li]Accessible via Amazon Echo[/li][li]Free would be nice.[/li][/ul]
We’ve just gotten a few Echos and Echo Dots, and we have Amazon Prime. When I ask Alexa for “classical music” it connects me with Amazon’s “Classical Focus” channel (which is distinct from the confusingly similarly named “Classical for Focus” playlist). Unfortunately, that channel has a quite limited selection of tunes: within a day or two I hear the same pieces over again. The cable music channels don’t repeat more than once every few weeks.
I know Alexa can connect to Pandora, Spotify, and other pay streaming services, but I’d prefer something free that also meets the above criteria, if possible.
I was going to suggest Pandora until I got to “I’d prefer something free.” I believe there’s still a free Pandora option, but it comes with ads. A free service with no commercials may be tough to come by, but I’m keeping an eye on this thread just in case…
You should be able to stream internet radio with it. I listen to WGUC 90.9 from Cincinnati. It’s commercial free except during pledge weeks, not a lot of talk, but you will hear the occasional vocal piece, they play the Metropolitan Opera Saturday Matinees as well as some other choral pieces.
BBC Radio 3 hits quite a few of your criteria - no commercials certainly, very diverse range. Given the time difference the “Through the Night” programme will fit your evening very well I reckon.
If you’re willing to do a little work yourself, you could browse some of the classical music that’s available on Amazon Prime and put together a playlist(s).
I have found a lot of classical music on Youtube. Since they are classical music, you can ignore the video if you want. Some channels with classical music are Classical Vault 1, EuroArtsChannel, KuhlauDilfeng2 (a lot of obscure composers there), olla-vogala and some oane. There are hundreds of hours of music in each of those.
A quick web search leads me to believe that Tunein radio works with the Echo. There are probably a hundred or so radio stations at Tunein just under ‘Classical’. There is bound to be a few that suit your needs. You’ll have to sort through them to find what you want, but Tunein is nice. And yeah, free.
I’m going to say the same thing I always say, which is: Take Advantage of Your Public Library! Go in and grab a handful of Classical CDs and put them in your changer… if you don’t like some of them, well… it’s free!!! (you can even record the ones you like and make your own playlist…)
I love the Classical Focus channel when I’m winding down for the night.
It looks like there are quite a few other classical channels. “All Classical,” “Baroque,” “Classical Piano,” “Orchestral Music,” “String Quartets,” “Romantic-Era Classical,” etc. I’m seeing them online, but haven’t listened to them.
I’m not really interested in a stream from a broadcast radio station. I could tune into my local classical NPR affiliate, but my top priority is no talk, no interruptions to the music. My job involves writing and copy editing, and I find that words in any form – including singing in a language I don’t know – is distracting. I know that some radio station have separate broadcast streams, but I assume they aren’t uninterrupted music, that there are station IDs, or announcements of what was just played. Am I mistaken about that?
It appears that the only access USAians have to the BBC via Alexa is the news flash.
Thanks, but the great thing about listening to cable music channels is exactly that I don’t have to do any work. I’ve looked at creating a big classical playlist on Amazon that could run for several days, but it looks like more work than I’d care to do, especially since there must be some channels out there that will meet my needs. The one advantage of creating my own playlists is that I could (conceivably) weed out pieces I really don’t like. With cable music you have to live with it or switch to another station. But streaming through Alexa all you have to do is say “Alexa, next,” so the occasional bad tune isn’t a really big deal, and probably not worth creating custom playlists to overcome.
Adblock can block ads on a streaming music service? Do you just get a minute of silence, or does the next piece of music come up? I haven’t used Pandora or Spotify (yet), so I’m not familiar with how they work.
Thanks, but it looks like I’d have to play the videos on my phone and connect to the Echo. A little more cumbersome than necessary, and would run down my phone’s battery. Also, they would be the same pieces in the same order every time, unlike a streaming source that would shuffle them.
So far TuneIn seems to be one of my best options, but oddly, you can’t tell Alexa to play a genre on TuneIn, and even trying to tell it to play one of TuneIn’s channels seems a little iffy. When I tell it to “Play ‘Sounds of the Symphony’ on TuneIn,” (a TuneIn channel), it says “I cannot play by genre on TuneIn.” But voice commands work for another TuneIn channel, Pure Classic.
If Alexa keeps refusing to follow voice commands, I can also control channel selection from the Alexa app, which is not too inconvenient.
Hell, no! Way too much work. I don’t have a CD changer, I’m not going to rip a bunch of CDs (probably not legal, anyway), and then create a playlist. The whole point of what I’m looking for is to avoid programming and anything like work. I just want the music to play, without even thinking about it, much less having to do anything like work.
There’s nothing wrong with Amazon’s channels, except as I said above, they’re too limited. I played Classical Focus a couple of days in a row when we got our first Echo, and heard Albinoni’s Adagio in G Minor (which is a very nice piece, don’t get me wrong) two out of the three times we played the channel, and we were only listening for an hour or two each time.
Keep the ideas coming, folks. I’d be interested in hearing from users of the paid services like Pandora or Spotify. Why do think they are worth paying for, compared to these free streaming sources?
I (inadvertently) turned on the “Classical Piano” channel on Alexa the other night. I found it a tad soporific - I mean, I’m pretty sure at no point would a Rachmaninov Piano Concerto appear.
Just had an unwelcome interruption: an ad for Firehouse Subs on TuneIn’s Sounds of the Symphony channel. And there seem to be occasional station IDs on the other TuneIn channels. They’re bearable, but ads are not.
And I’ve discovered that TuneIn channels are live streams, so you can’t tell Alexa to skip to the next piece, which is a nice feature of Amazon’s own channels.
I find that it tends to start with the same piece several times in a row.
In any case, I offered the other channels thinking you might be able to switch channels on occasion with little effort while still getting the commercial free experience.
I’ve posted about this a few times before, but these days most of the streaming services are all pretty good. What differentiates them are little things like the user interface, file quality, curated playlists, specialized radio stations (which are basically channels that play a specific genre or theme, without commercials or (usually) commentary), and perhaps built-in functionality with certain speakers or hardware. The ability to listen to specific songs, artists, and albums, and create and share custom playlists is the main selling point over free services.
My advice: Most, if not all, offer free trials (though most do require a credit card up front, I’ve never had a problem avoiding getting charged by opting out at the end of the trial period), so why not try them all and see which one, if any, suits you? I wouldn’t try them all at once, you will be overwhelmed. Stick with one, maybe two at a time. I would try one at a time and take notes. That said, I use (and recommend) either Napster, Deezer, or Tidal for 320 kbps streams, which sound great on most equipment and normally cost $10 per month*, and Tidal for high quality lossless FLAC streams at $20 per month (Deezer has lossless at the same price for Sonos systems, and will probably roll out for other devices soon). Lossless may be worth it if you have a good Hi-Fi system or headphones, maybe not for background music while working or using Bluetooth.
That said, Spotify, Apple Music, Google Music, Pandora Premium, and others are also fine. Like I said it comes down to the little details that may make you prefer one over the other.
if you pay a year at a time, Napster gets down to $8 per month. I like the features, so I’ve used it the most.
I listen to music while I work (I also do a lot of writing/editing), and I’ve paid for Pandora for the past several years. My plan is called “Pandora Plus.” Paying removes the ads, and also if tracks come on that I don’t want to hear I can skip as many as I want (there are limited skips with the free version). To me, those two things are worth $55/year.
There is a “Pandora Premium” plan that costs twice as much and lets you stream particular songs on demand, make personalized playlists, and download songs, but I’m not interested in any of those features.
I’ve never felt the need to try Spotify or any other service. I alternate using my iPod and Pandora. I like all different kinds of music, and vocals don’t bother me while I’m working, so I like the “station” concept where I can get as broad or specific as I want (e.g., in addition to a “Jazz” station I also have a “Trombone Shorty” station). I also sometimes like hearing stuff I either don’t own or haven’t heard before.
The Amazon Echo supports TuneIn internet radio, so you should have these:
Radio Suisse Classique - only talking is to announce the titles. They focus on the Classical Era (roughly 1730-1820) and will play a lot of composers you’ve never heard of.
Classix Radio Switzerland - almost no talking. Eclectic, includes movie sound tracks.
I signed up for a trial of Pandora, because it is the cheapest, but its selection of classical sucks. The playlists for the classical channels seem to be about 6 hours long. I love Eine Kleine Nachtmusik, Beethoven’s Fifth, Barber’s Adagio, Albinoni’s Adagio, and the Moonlight Sonata. They’re all great, great, pieces.
BUT I DON’T WANT TO HEAR THEM EVERY GODDAMN DAY!!!
So I’ll cancel Pandora at the end of the trial, and I’ll try some others of the sources recommended here and in online reviews I’ve been reading.
In the meantime, I’m back to the cable music stations.
