Trent’s Music Heaven is not just a weblog, it also provides a service to the online music community. The site design is a little bit scattered, but Trent’s main projects – the guitar tablature and song lyrics – are kept right up front.
I’m not a guitarist myself, so the tabs are a bit lost on me. I can, however, see that they are nicely presented – putting up tabs online requires a little bit of design know-how so they’ll appear right, and Trent has done a great job with that. (And yes, he even has Stairway to Heaven up there!)
There aren’t as many lyrics as there are tabs, but it is such a treat to view lyrics online without having seventeen pop-up windows opening while I’m trying to read the words.
The archives are a little hard to browse – I’m not terribly familiar with the Nucleus CMS, so I’m not sure if there’s an easier way to view them. I tried to view the archives from Trent’s “general” category to see what guitar tips and articles he’s linked to, but I could only find a couple of entries in that category, even though I know there are more because they’re listed on the “Previous Posts by Month” page.
Trent’s also implemented some additional features, mostly Nucleus plugins. Any entry can be forwarded to a friend by e-mail, or displayed in a printer-friendly format. There are smilies available in the comments, and an option to search his site using Google.
I’m rating Trent’s Music Heaven a 4 for a few reasons. First, it’s nice to see a blog that’s also a helpful public service. I also like that Trent interacts with his readers, responding to their comments directly on the site. He’s also got some interesting links, mostly in the blogroll – and I hadn’t even heard of Nucleus before! Trent’s done very well with his Music Heaven, and hopefully he’ll keep up the good work.Trent’s Music Heaven