The newly released Santana app for iPhone offers several nice features, but the one that really grabbed me this morning was the two sample lessons videos. These 2-3 minute videos feature Carlos Santana talking about the origins and inspiration behind a couple of his classic tracks “ ‘Black Magic Woman ‘ and ‘Oye Como Va ‘ “ while also giving little demos of his guitar techniques on the songs.
I didn ‘t get a real ‘lesson ‘ feel out of these videos (and I ‘m no musician anyway) but they ‘re just super cool in my book anyway “ just for the chance to watch the man himself chatting in this way. I hope more will be added in future app updates.
The rest of this app is pretty good too “ hit the jump for a little more detail and some more screencaps
Santana is laid out simply and in a recognized style for the iPhone “ with a bottom nav bar with buttons for its main sections. Those sections are:
Home “ A selection of four cool pics of Carlos in action on this page. These are pretty good for wallpaper as well if you just take a screen capture of them into your Camera Roll .
Music “ This one is a disappointment. No free tracks included within the app “ as the recent Death Cab for Cutie app offered “ and no streaming of tracks, as the PUSA app provides (though it is also a paid app, not free like Santana and DCfC). All you get here is links to the iTunes store for a number of tracks. I hope the developers may choose to follow the lead of other good apps in this area, and offer more real content in future updates.
Videos “ Links to eight music and one ‘behind the scenes ‘ tour videos. Some of these are quite good “ like ‘Maria Maria ‘ with Wyclef Jean.
News / Tour “ Links to recent Santana related news and information on upcoming tour dates.
More “ Quite a bit of good content here. Biography and Discography sections, as well as links to those video lessons and more.
Here ‘s a screencap of the ‘Black Magic Woman ‘ lesson video
One legendary guitarist, with another legendary guitarist on his t-shirt, talking about a legendary track of his “ can’t argue with that.
I like the Santana app, largely because I ‘m a Santana fan since way back. It ‘s not the slickest or most complete band app for the iPhone I ‘ve seen recently “ but it ‘s got enough good content to provide Santana fans with a nice diversion, or serve as a great discovery tool for those who don ‘t know the man / group.
A bonus I ‘ve got out of discovering it this morning is that a drab Monday morning has now had a Santana soundtrack to it “ as the app got me turning up the tracks on our stereo.
You can find Santana in the App Store now, and it ‘s a free app.
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