Five Gifts for the Music Fan

Nov. 23, 2014

1. BOXES OF BLUES (OR JAZZ, OR POP, OR"¦)

Box sets are a classic holiday gift that also make for a pretty spectacular presentation to the music aficionado, especially if you can pinpoint his favorite band or musician, and this year has plenty of standout offerings. MTV and influential Athens, Georgia indie-rockers R.E.M. have just teamed up to produce the massive "REMTV" box set that brings together six discs of live and televised performances, as well as a new R.E.M. video documentary; a new Bruce Springsteen box set called "The Album Collection Vol. 1 1973-1984" includes all of The Boss’ first seven studio albums; Joni Mitchell’s "Love Has Many Faces" is a four-disc set complete with poetry book; and Daft Punk’s "Alive 1997 + Alive 2007" includes colored vinyl, stickers and a whole lot more. These are just the tip of the 2014 holiday box set iceberg.

2. MUSIC FEST MADNESS!

Music festivals are few and far between in the winter, although there are a couple of good ones, including Snowball (snowballmusicfestival.com) in Colorado and the Winter Microbrew and Music Fest (microbrewandmusic.com) right here in Traverse City. Tix to either of these would be a welcome gift for music fans, as would tix that would get them through the tough winter months with something to look forward to, namely, passes to Chicago’s Lollapalooza (lollapalooza.com), Michigan’s own Electric Forest Festival in Rothbury (electricforestfestival.com), the Detroit Electronic Music Fest (demf.us), Tennessee’s Bonnaroo (bonnaroo.com) or the favorite of the Florida-bound, Miami’s Ultra Music Fest (ultramusicfestival.com). These are just a few of the festivals that release advance tickets for a splashy gift that’s as much experience as it is music. Just make sure your giftee is able to travel there and back, or throw in a plane ticket, too, and be this year’s favorite Santa.

3. WALL OF FAME

Your giftee might already have her favorite bands in her music collection, but does she have them on her wall? Music posters have come a long way from the days when they mostly consisted of flyers torn from venue walls. Rock poster artists like Raymond Pettibon, Jon Contino and Kii Arens, plus design shops The Heads of State and Hammerpress, use contrasting colors, sharp graphic elements and fresh typography to craft posters that are equal parts music and art. Do some snooping through your giftee’s playlist, make good use of local shops and online sites like allposters.com, gigposters. com and eBay, and you might soon see your gift hanging on her apartment wall.

4. SCHOOL OF ROCK

If your giftee wants to live the rock n’ roll lifestyle instead of just listening to it, they’ve got to start somewhere and your gift can put them on that rockin’ road. You can start with a music instructor in your own town; colleges and high schools can often direct you to people who teach individual lessons in addition to their full-time teaching job. A musician you admire might also offer music lessons. Stores like Marshall Music and Evola Music can be great resources too, as can arts centers like Crooked Tree Arts Center in Petoskey (crookedtree.org) or Traverse Community Music in Traverse City (traversemusic.com). For a giftee in a more rural area, or with a more challenging schedule, companies like ArtistWorks (artistworks.com) or JamPlay (jamplay.com) offer lessons online for a fee. You can prepay video lesson gift cards at JamPlay by the month ($19.95) or the year ($139.95), while three months of instruction with extra-personalized feedback from an instructor at Artist- Works is $90.00.

5. SUBSCRIPTION SONGS

Finally, what better music gift is there than access to as much music as your giftee can handle? Buying six months’ or a year’s worth of subscription time to a streaming, on-demand music provider is a great option, especially if you’re not entirely sure what genre of music your giftee enjoys. They can then access an extensive roster of playlists, from rockabilly to chamber music to indie rock to punk, and everything in between. You’ll want to do some shopping around before you decide, depending on what kind of device your giftee uses (smartphone, tablet, etc.), but the options are many, including Google Play, the XBox Music Pass and Beats Music. As of press time, all three are $9.99 each per month and Rhapsody’s Unradio is even lower, at $4.99.