Have you ever watched a commercial and wondered, “What’s that song?”. I’ve seen this Diet Coke commercial dozens of times and every time I see it, I find myself humming this song for hours. I googled it, but could just have easily Shazamed it if I’d had my phone next to me. (If you’re not Shazaming, you should definitely try it! It’s a great way to find and save new music to use later in your classes!)
If you like to use Christian Rock (or even if you don’t) in your classes, this one is perfect. Check out these lyrics:
Brave Fight like a soldier Brave Rise like a warrior Brave Won't stop till the final day Brave I want to be stronger Brave Gonna be bolder Brave
And last, here’s a favorite that I used in this week’s playlist by one of my favorites, Haik Naltchayan. I used it as a long, steady climb in and out of the saddle:
I'm not embarrassed to say that I like country music. Country is a genre that many indoor cycling instructor avoid, but I embrace it. I get more complements about playing country music than any other genre. Country music IS popular and has a HUGE following. I live in Denver and a few weeks ago U2 was playing the Pepsi Center, a 20,000 seat venue and Luke Bryan was playing Mile High Stadium, a 75,000 seat venue, on the same night. Luke Bryan sold out U2 did not!
This week I mixed together 3 new country songs:
Homegrown by Zac Brown Band
Play It Again by Luke Bryan
John Cougar, John Deere, John 3:16 by Keith Urban
All 3 songs are about 3 minutes and 30 seconds long. I like to use this music mix for three 3 minute intervals with 30-40 seconds recovery after each. Since the energy and tempo “feel” lower and slower I like to ride at a cadence of 60-80 rpm for this set. Listen below to how I used this set in class.
[wlm_private ‘PRO-Platinum|PRO-Monthly|PRO-Gratis|PRO-Seasonal|Platinum-trial|Monthly-trial|PRO-Military|30-Days-of-PRO|90 Day PRO|Stages-Instructor|Schwinn-Instructor|Instructor-Bonus|28 Day Challenge']If you use video I also mixed together the videos of these three songs.
3 song harmonically mixed track, to download Right Click > Save As / Save Target As to download. Open in iTunes and then you'll see this in your Spotify Local File folder.
Corbin Chinatti Ruff with Mom and Dad – Sorry Dunte, this picture was so cute I couldn't pass up using it for this post 🙂
Stages Indoor Cycling's Dunte Hector joins me to discuss his ideas about integrating power, while using your existing music playlists. Brilliant in its simplicity and so easy to implement… I wish I had thought of it myself. Learn Dunte's trick below.
We actually recorded this PRO Podcast back several years ago and we mention that Cameron Chinatti was due to give birth at any moment. Well on Feb 13 (after we recorded) Corbin Chinatti Ruff became the newest member of the Stages family.
I've taught Indoor Cycling classes for about 15 years and thought I understood all of the Do's and Don'ts of delivering music to my classes. Based on the technique offered in this podcast, I'm realizing I still have a lot to learn…
Dennis Mellon is one of those Instructors who really gets music. His understanding of creating great playlist is probably one reason he was voted the top Instructor where he lives in Colorado. In a past interview Dennis introduced us to the concept of Harmonic Mixing – paying attention to the musical key of each track and combining only those tracks that are in complimentary keys.
My initial interest was learning; when does Dennis creates his class playlist? Is it after he's decided on the specific profile? Or does he build his profile around his playlist? Listen below to learn his method – he actually does it both ways.
Then, during our conversation, Dennis casually explains how his simple technique for transitioning between short intervals. “I just hit next.” I've always believed that forcing a change, before a song has finished, was too disruptive. Dennis's view is that the disruption is exactly what he's looking for 🙂
The 8:50 Blue Man Group song (with the silence in the middle) that I refer to is Exhibit 13 – except it isn't available in Spotify 🙁 You can find it in the iTunes music store and it's in Deezer.
Here's the playlist I built to go with the new Epic Planet RAAM video. I started out looking for a 13 minute song to match the long climb that finishes this video. At 13:47, Peter Frampton — Do You Feel Like We Do – Live is a perfect choice. Past experience has shown me that you can go crazy trying to compile a playlist that matches a structured video exactly – better/easier to match up a few of the important sections in the ride.
I get a lot of questions about Spotify, but the one question that I get over and over from people that are interested switching from iTunes is: “Do you own the music?”, or “Can I sync music from Spotify to my iPod or burn it to CD? “ And my answer is always the same: “No, you can’t, but you won’t believe what you CAN do for only $9.99 a month!” Now I know that bothers a lot of people. What's the sense in spending $9.99 a month and having nothing to show for it? How is this worth the cost?
It seems that when it comes to music for our cycling classes, there are two camps: Those that want to own all of their music, and those that see their music as more disposable and don't mind ‘borrowing' it.
If you are strictly an iTunes user, then you own the music that you purchase. Well, at least you own the license to listen to songs on many devices.(* Here’s an interesting article from CNN that raises questions about digital music ownership.) It’s all yours. I once strictly used iTunes and now I own a LOT of music. Most if it I rarely listen to or use in my playlists anymore. It just sits there taking up storage space on my computer.
If you are a Spotify user, you are essentially borrowing the music. You are paying Spotify $9.99 for UNLIMITED access to their extensive library of tunes. I (along with many other cycling instructors that have jumped on the Spotify bandwagon) believe that the borrowing is the way to go.
Here are my top 8 reasons why I would rather borrow music from Spotify than buy it :
I have unlimited access to music. I rarely am unable to find a song that I am looking for. If that does happen, I will purchase the song on iTunes or Amazon, but I’m still not spending as much money as I was pre-Spotify.
I can listen to a song all the way through and then decide if it’s something I want to use in my playlist. I can’t count the number of times that I have purchased a song on iTunes and then later found that it was not suitable for my playlist.
Spotify has a radio feature that allows me to ‘like’ songs as I listen. These songs then go into a file called ‘liked from the radio’ and can be easily accessed for future playlists. This is a great tool for finding new music.
I don’t have songs (most of which I’m not listening to) clogging up all of my computer space.
I can take my playlists ‘offline’, which means I can use them anywhere, even without an Internet connection. **You do need to have an iPhone or smart phone device to sync your music.
I can follow other instructors and see what they’re listening to. I can check out their playlists and if I like what I hear, I can pull a few of the songs over to my own files. If I’m in a bit of a rut, I can even follow someones entire playlist and sync it to my device to use in my own class. (Tip: This is frowned upon if you work in the same gym.)
Many songs that I borrow, I may only use a few times. If I use it more than that, it will always be there. If I don’t use it again, I won’t feel that I have wasted my money. There are many other songs out there just waiting to go on my next playlist.
In my leisure time, I do enjoy listening to music. The music that I listen to at home or in the car is not always the same as the music I listen to in my cycling classes. For example, I love using Pitbull in my classes. I can honestly say that I would never listen to his music outside of my class. So owning a bunch of Pitbull does not seem cost effective to me. Here’s another example: My all time favorite band is the Beatles. I have rarely used any Beatles tunes in my classes, but I love to listen to them in my leisure time. Do I own all of my Beatles music? You bet I do. And if I want to borrow it from Spotify, I have that option too.
Spotify is the best $9.99/month I have ever spent as an instructor. It has made my class preparation less time consuming, more fun and much more convenient and to me and that is worth every penny.
What do you think? Do you feel more comfortable owning your music or are you OK with borrowing it?
I get a lot of questions about Spotify, but the one question that I get over and over from people that are interested switching from iTunes is: “Do you own the music?”, or “Can I sync music from Spotify to my iPod or burn it to CD? “ And my answer is always the same: “No, you can’t, but you won’t believe what you CAN do for only $9.99 a month!” Now I know that bothers a lot of people. What's the sense in spending $9.99 a month and having nothing to show for it? How is this worth the cost?