A new web app, Music Research Engine, enables users to browse, watch and listen to YouTube videos at the same time as reading the related Wikipedia content. It’s the first web app to combine YouTube and Wikipedia browsing in this way and has been specifically designed with music students, teachers and enthusiasts in mind.
Music Research Engine was created by Oliver Braithwaite, Director of Stars & Catz Music Teacher Network, to make researching the context and background of pieces, genres and musicians easier, simpler and more organised than ever before. It’s been released along with a free suite of music tools, resources and downloads on each of the Stars & Catz websites.
“I didn’t know that this would be a world-first when I started developing the tool,” said Oliver, “but as the project progressed, I searched Google for ‘YouTube and Wikipedia combined’ along with other search terms and realised that we’d come up with a web app that was the first of its kind. I was quite surprised, to be honest, because it seems like such an obvious fit.”
This is how the tool works: The user starts a search for a song, artist or something else music related. The search results consist of up to 150 YouTube videos which can be browsed through and watched without navigating away from the page, along with the corresponding article from Wikipedia. From there the user can browse further into the subject via the links in the Wikipedia article which, instead of leading to Wikipedia, launch more search results within Music Research Engine.
“A student must be familiar with a song in order to feel engaged in learning it,” said Oliver. “On top of that, knowing about the personalities and history behind the music can make the difference between the student staying interested and inspired or losing interest, so it’s vitally important. That’s why we created Music Research Engine.”
As well as Music Research Engine, the free suite includes guitar, ukulele and piano chord dictionary tools, backing tracks for improvisation, free eBooks, printable music sheets, a metronome, over 240 inspirational music quote images and more. The whole suite is desktop, mobile and tablet friendly.
About Oliver Braithwaite
Oliver Braithwaite is the Founder and Director of Stars & Catz Music Teacher Network and creator of Music Research Engine. He founded Stars & Catz in 2010 after several years as a private music teacher.
Stars & Catz currently operates in four countries, Australia (where the network originated), Canada, USA and the UK. Music Research Engine and the entire suite of free music tools, resources and downloads are available on each of the four Stars & Catz sites:
Australia https://www.starsandcatz.com.au
Canada https://www.starsandcatz.net
USA https://www.starsandcatz.com
UK https://www.starsandcatz.co.uk
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Media Contact
Company Name: Stars & Catz
Contact Person: Oliver Braithwaite
Email: news@starsandcatzhub.com
Phone: +61 417 704 828
Country: Australia
Website: https://www.starsandcatz.com.au
