Free music lessons from the Berklee College of Music have helped the school see growth in its paid programs.
The Berklee College of Music plans to double its freely available lessons available at Berkleeshares.com. That would make over 170 downloadable lessons available. In a press release, the school sees the free content it has available now as partly driving “explosive growth in paid enrollment” in its online extension program.
One might see the concept of file sharing, even of free content, in diametric opposition to the purposes of a music enterprise. Fortunately, Berklee recognizes the value of legal and appropriate file sharing. Lessons for drums, guitar, voice, and most importantly, bass, may be found online.
Many of the lessons come in pdf files, but a few lessons like Bass Funk Grooves are available as MP3s, while Muting Strings for Bass is in QuickTime’s movie format. Berklee notes in its release that over a million unique visitors have downloaded over 500,000 lessons.
Those downloads go beyond just music education and improvisation. Berkleeshares.com also offers lessons on Production and Technology, Songwriting and Arranging, and Music Business & Careers. Berklee also operates an online extension program at BerkleeMusic.com; that program offers students a chance to participate in programs without having to live near a Berklee campus.
The success of the program reinforces what should be an ingrained lesson to site publishers everywhere. Quality content brings in visitors, and very high quality content converts them into customers.
David Utter is a staff writer for Murdok covering technology and business. Email him here.
