Apr 19, 2023
Did you know that you can borrow musical instruments (keyboards, strings, and percussion) free from the Main, Nepean Centrepointe, Cumberland, and Greenboro branches at the Ottawa Public Library (OPL)?
Whether you’re just starting out or interested in improving your skills, you’ll find many useful resources at the OPL.
In addition to the comprehensive music print, CD, and DVD collections, here are five online music lesson resources for you:
The Great Courses Library Collection is available at Hoopla through BingePass.
BingePass is the newest borrowing format on Hoopla. One-time check-out of BingePass counts as one play credit in your account. Clients can steam any course in the Great Course collection for seven days with a single checkout.
Login->Click Browse > Select BingePasses > Click Great Courses > Click Play Title > Click View All Categories > Click Music Category.
Or you can just search “music” in the search box.
You will find the following Courses:
- Learning to Play Guitar: Chords, Scales, and Solos
- How to play Piano
- Music Theory: The Foundation of Great Music
Other excellent music-related courses include:
- The 23 greatest solo piano works
- Great music of the 20th century
- Music and the brain
- Music as a mirror of history
- How to sing
The Great Courses Library Collection is also available at Kanopy. The available content for music-related courses is almost the same as what’s available at Hoopla. However, the borrowing policy is different. You can only check out one series from the Great Courses Kanopy per month per card with 30 days of access.
Accessing the Great Courses Library Collection in Kanopy is a bit more challenging:
Login to Kanopy>Click Browse>Click Instructional under Genres, or
Login to Kanopy> Search “The Great Courses”> Click The Great Courses under Suggested Matches, Click Hobbies> You‘ll find a number of music courses, including:
- How to play piano
- Learn to play guitar: Chords, Scales, and Solos, etc.
You’ll need to spend some time exploring, or you can search directly from the search box to find more music course titles, such as:
- Music Theory: The Foundation of Great Music
- How to Sing
The Great Courses Library Collection is available on both the Hoopla and Kanopy platforms.
Hoopla Bingepass lets you browse to find the courses you like the most, while Kanopy works best if you have already made your choice and want to access all the episodes of your favorite course within a one-month period.
Online music lessons, including piano, guitar, banjo, guitar, and vocal lessons, are also available from our popular database LinkedIn Learning for Library.
If you’re you ready to learn how to record music and make an album, the expert-led tutorials on LinkedIn Learning show you how to record and mix songs, make beats, and use popular music production and sound engineering software. Audio and Music provide the training you need to stay ahead with expert-led courses.
Click Browse>Creative>Audio and Music
We hope that you can take advantage of these world-class, self-paced video lessons from accomplished expert teachers.
Login > Click Master Classes
Watch and learn with the best of the best in the world's largest online library of master classes! In these 240 master classes, classical music's greatest teachers share their wisdom and skills in playing different musical instruments as they coach students on works by Franz Liszt and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, etc.
If you are curious about how musical instruments were invented and their history, the 13-episode series entitled The History of Musical Instruments @ Access Video on Demand, is for you.
Each episode focuses on a different instrument, its origin, history, how it’s made, and how it works. Viewers visit factories and watch as expert craftsmen construct each instrument. Each episode is 28 minutes.
Check out the Online Resources Homepage for more online music resources, including:
- Streaming or downloading music albums (Hoopla & Naxos)
- Watching classical live music concerts, Operas & Ballets (Medici.tv|EDU), or
- Listening to jazz, world music, etc. ( Naxos)
Filter your search with the category music, and you’ll get search results for eight music-related online resources.
Here’s hoping you enjoy the magic world of music!