Berklee College Launches Site to Share Music Lessons

Berklee College of Music has launched Berklee Shares, a program that provides free music lessons (protected by Creative Commons licenses, more about that later) via file-sharing networks. The project’s Web site hosts a growing catalog of text, MP3 files, and even QuickTime movies derived from curriculum developed at the college by its own faculty, Berklee… Read more »

Written By

Molly Sheridan

For instance, under the topic of music improvisation, you can download a movie of faculty member and professional musician Ed Tomassi demonstrating how to use motives to enhance improvisational playing. This all happens without charge, without the user even being required to register.

The lessons are also available for download at affiliate partner sites and peer-to-peer networks, including Limewire.

So why the altruism? Their Web site considers it simply a fulfillment of the school’s mission to train students seeking a music career and as “a way to reach interested students and make them aware of the possibility and potential of a Berklee education.”

Currently the catalogue includes more than 85 music lessons spanning instrument performance, music production and technology, songwriting and arranging, music business and careers, music education, and improvisation. More lessons are expected over time.

The site’s content is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs-NonCommercial license, which basically means that the Berklee College of Music and its faculty and authors hold the copyright on the material, but that they have given permission for it to be used, copied, or distributed for non-commercial educational purposes, without modifications or derivation. So without asking, you know that you can download something and share it with a friend as long as you don’t sell it to him for $20.

“Berklee Shares was born out of Berklee College of Music’s commitment to furthering music education through innovative means,” said Dave Kusek, associate vice president. “Offering free education on the Internet and through file sharing networks underscores the college’s core beliefs that these channels are an effective way to openly distribute meaningful educational content to a global audience, as well as serve as a powerful promotional platform for artists to market, distribute, and sell their music.”

With all the damage file sharing channels are charged with wreaking on the music industry, this moment probably couldn’t have come soon enough.