As an indoor cycling instructor, you already know that music plays an important part in creating an exceptionally motivating class.
But sometimes, searching for new music and developing playlists can be time consuming and costly. Since iTunes came out with its social network, Ping in 2010, I’ve had great success finding music and sharing songs and playlists there with other instructors. In fact, I may have been happy to stay with Ping forever. Then I heard a rumor that with its new upgrade this fall, iTunes will be dropping Ping. I can neither confirm nor deny that rumor, but it did scare me enough into looking at other music options.
That’s when my search began for a new music-sharing site that would offer me the ease of finding new music, putting my playlists together and sharing them with other instructors. I knew about other social music sites such as MeeMix, , Maestro.fm, and Last.fm, and I had dabbled in Spotify before, even recreating some of my iTunes playlists and publishing them there. I had never really explored Spotify enough to see all that it had to offer though.
With the possibility of Ping not being available to me any more, I knew that it was time to jump in and give Spotify another try. This was around the same time that John contacted me to write some blog posts here at ICI/ PRO. I mentioned to him that I was dabbling in Spotify, and he said it would ‘change the way I use music in my indoor cycling classes.’ As music ‘junkie’ and someone that had become pretty adept at creating playlists, sharing them and using them in my classes, I was sure that he was exaggerating.
As the next few weeks went by, I continued to explore Spotify, upgraded to ‘premium’ membership status and gained more confidence using it. I also installed the Spotify app on my new iPhone. In that short time, I have almost completely stopped purchasing new music in iTunes and cancelled my $12.99/month eMusic account. I’ve also begun to stream my playlists in my indoor cycling classes through my phone. Amazing, really, if you stop to think about it. I’m still working out the kinks in this area, but overall I’d say it’s going quite well.
To say that this was a challenge for me would be an understatement, because I consider myself just a bit technologically challenged, and I will admit that I found Spotify difficult to navigate at first. I am not someone that picks things like this up easily. I’m guessing that a lot of you reading this are in the same boat. I’m still working on learning how to use Spotify to it’s fullest potential. While I know that I am only using a small part of what’s available to me as a premium member, I’ve already decided that John was right. It already has started to change the way I’m using music in my classes.
Let me begin by telling you a few of the things that I already love about Spotify:
It’s inexpensive. I know what you’re thinking. How is $9.99 a month for a premium membership inexpensive? Here’s how: You don’t have to purchase music anymore. You have thousands of songs available for you to use. Between my monthly eMusic payment and my iTunes purchases, I was spending well over the $9.99 that I am paying per month for Spotify.
It’s simple to create playlists. This part of the process is actually very similar to iTunes, only much simpler. You can browse new music, see what others are listening to and create your own playlists in less time than if you had to download them and drag them into your playlists. In just a few clicks, you have everything you need at your fingertips.
You can share your playlists: Kind of like sharing playlists on iTunes only you can actually sync an entire playlist to your device and use it in your own cycling class. Sure, on iTunes you could purchase entire playlists easily, but it would cost you anywhere from fifteen to twenty dollars or more. With Spotify, you have access to thousands of songs and playlists and you can use as many as you’d like.
While I’ve learned a lot about Spotify in the few short weeks that I’ve been exploring it, I still have so many questions about it. I’m quite certain that I have not even scratched the surface of all that it has to offer me as a cycling instructor.
For example, here are few things that I’ve struggled with continued to struggle with:
I’m finding it hard to find other people to ‘follow’. One way to find people is to log in through your Facebook account and follow your Facebook friends that are on Spotify, but I am specifically looking for other instructors and people with good musical taste. No offense to my Facebook friends, but most of them don’t fit into either category. It’s not as simple as ‘searching’ for people by name.
I’m still learning the whole ‘online’/’offline’ thing. Do I want to stream my music via the Internet, or take it ‘offline’, which is a feature of the premium membership? One lesson I learned: when you are ‘online’ and your iPhone rings during class, your music will pause until you dismiss the call, unless you switch your phone to ‘airplane’ mode.
My goal until my next post is work out some of these kinks and share more of my Spotify experience with you. I would love it if I didn’t have to take this journey into the great unknow alone, so In the meantime, I will put this challenge out to those of you not yet using Spotify premium:
At the very least, try the free membership to see how you like it. If you ‘re ready to make the jump, I promise you that the premium membership will be worth every penny. I would be more than happy to entertain any questions that you may have about starting up with Spotify. If I don’t know the answer, I’ll try to find it for you.
Until then, keep the music flowing!
It's hands down the most convenient service on earth for discovering, sampling and sharing music. I use Spotify every day and enthusiasticly promote it to anyone who will listen.
If you're privileged to live in an area where it's available, you can try their Premium version free for 30 days.
With the Premium version you can download and use the Spotify App for both iPhones and Droids. Try using it in your class and you may never use iTunes again 🙂
IMPORTANT NOTE FOR NEW PREMIUM USERS!
Spotify only works via a wireless connection between your computer and device. Yes it shows an option for connecting and transferring music using the USB cord on your iPhone – DON'T USE IT!
Please review these help articles for more tips and tricks.
“The trouble with becoming dependent on technology… we're then completely at the mercy of something we have near zero little control over.”
Anonymous
I learned a valuable lesson this past Thursday night > check your device to ensure your make available offline/downloaded Spotify playlists are in fact available offline/downloaded before you leave your house!
I teach two classes on Thursday's; 6:00 am and 5:30 pm and use my iPhone 4s to deliver the music via Spotify. I like to use the same playlist for both classes and teach a similar class, even though the morning class is only 45 minutes. The morning class when off without a hitch but when I tried to cue up the same class that evening – it wasn't showing as available offline. In fact none of my Spotify playlists showed as playable 🙁
Quickly thinking back to another Best Practice post > when something isn't working, your first move should be to reboot (power down) the device. No help at all. Thankfully I still had a few playlists in iTunes and was able to carry on with a class I wasn't ready to teach.
Then this morning Amy had the same problem on her Android phone. This problem isn't limited to just iPhones. Thankfully she had checked this morning and was able to download her class before heading off to teach.
The Spotify forum has a number of posts describing the problem, but no solutions. I spend some time trying to replicate the problem without success. So beyond what I've listed below, my advice for Spotify user's is to check and confirm that the playlist you will be using is in fact ready for offline use.
Always have an alternate form of music ready and waiting!
For years I had a “Rescue CD” tucked into my personal folder in the Dept Head's office. It's long gone. Today I'm burning a new one as I type this.
Have an old, unused iPod laying around? Add a few of your old iTunes playlists and throw it into your gym bag, along with a charger cord and wall transformer. I just bought a few spare cord/chargers from Amazon.com for about $5 each.
Subscribe to IndoorCyclingMusic.com‘s music podcast. These hour long mixed tracks on my iPhone have been lifesavers in the past. Because they're the actual mp3's they will be there as long as your device will turn on.
Don't forget that Indoor Cycling DVD's include a soundtrack. They might not be to your taste, but could do in a pinch when everything else fails.
As a last resort (say the studio's sound system fails completely) be mentally prepared to coach a class without music. Coach Troy Jacobson has made a fortune walking around with a clipboard and stopwatch. Sure they add a soundtrack to the finished Spinervals Cycling DVD, but there was no music playing during the taping of the episode I participated in.
You may even go so far as to prepare for a future disaster by choosing to teach a quiet class where it's just you, doing your best impression of Coach Troy > except you would be prepared in advance.
Dave Santiago's Racing with Pro's class profile may have the structure you'll need to look prepared and sounding professional.
This weeks ride is from me, Joey! – “In all honesty, I was dreading putting together this week’s ride. My classes have been after me to put together a few theme rides, which I almost never do. This weeks ride is focused on music from the 1970s. I am in the endurance working phase of my micro-periodization for my classes, so I had the profile already put together in my mind. I used one of my favorite endurance profiles, where we start with a higher cadence in the 100s and then work our way down to the 60s adding tension the entire way. The wildest thing happened, I had an amazing time. Once I started listening to the music I kept on thinking: “Oh, I remember and love that one” and it just kept on happening. I ended up with over 140 songs on my short list to choose from. It really made putting this class together fun. I hope that you enjoy riding it as much as I have.” Joey
This ride is from Joey!! – “This was a fun ride to create. This is one of my favorite types of classes. I love the increasing tension class because it builds endurance, builds strength, and teaches the riders how to manage their tension
What Rocket Scientist at Spotify thought this would be a good idea?
What the @#$%^& was Spotify thinking by removing the total playlist time in the latest update? The number of followers has zero value to me when I'm building a playlist.
Last week my Spotify displayed this message offering to update, which I regrettably did.
Don't upgrade Spotify if you want to keep your playlist timer.
Now I have no clue about the total length of the playlist. Chris Hawthorne and I are trying to find a work-around, but for now I suggest using the little X in the right hand corner of the update notice if you haven't updated yet.
