Gifting iTunes to Make Someone's day!

I have loved music all my life. I have taken piano, guitar, viola, and flute lessons. I danced for twelve years growing up; ballet, tap, jazz...you name it, I danced it.  I can remember as a kid listening to mom's 78rph records that played "Backroom Piano" by Ralph Sutton on our HUMONGOUS stereo console and how it transported me around the room as I danced to the fast paced jazz piano music. I can also remember certain events or circumstances when I hear a specific song. Music can take me back to a place, a mood, or a special person almost instantly. Music has the ability to add energy to my workouts, joy to my day,  peace to my chaotic moments, and to encourage me through any hard time given the right melodic arrangement and lyrics.  Music has been an integral part of my life for as long as I can remember and has made my life richer in SO many ways!

I was telling my sister in law this weekend that I had a new idea for a blog post, about "gifting music" to friends, and then I saw this post on my sister's Facebook Page this morning:

It touched my heart so much and just confirmed that I wanted to share how YOU can easily GIFT a song, or an album to someone and share YOUR energy, joy, peace and encouragement!

Have you ever had a chat with a friend who is down and you JUST heard the perfect song on the radio that you know would make their day and cheer them up? Or been riding with your friend in their convertible with the wind blowing thru your hair on a sunny day and thinking "she would LOVE this song I just downloaded on my workout playlist"? Well, let's get going and I'll show you how to send them some music to make them smile!

First step, you need an itunes account to get this ball rolling. If you have that, you're ready!

Once you are in iTunes, go to the iTunes Store and find the song you are wanting to send to someone...(you will need their email address).  (I apologize ahead of time that the pictures, while full screen shots, it's still fairly hard to see details, but you can get the idea!)

I have selected a song by Maroon Five from the Hunger Games Soundtrack...very haunting but beautiful.

Now that you have found the album and song you want to "gift" go to the right hand side where you see how much the song costs...if you click on the arrow pointing down, you will see you are given several options to choose from, one being "Gift This Song".  

You can also gift the entire album by selecting from the Buy album drop down tab on the upper left:

Once you have decided if you are going to gift a song or an album, Select the appropriate option tab and you will see the following screen pop up:

This screen is kind of hard to read, but you will enter in the sender's name (you) and the recipient's name and email with an option to enter a personal message at the end. 

Once you hit CONTINUE, it will pop up a screen where you log into your itunes account:

Sign in and the next screen will show you what your gift will look like as it arrives to your friend...

Hit BUY GIFT and its on it's way! You will get a confirmation screen immediately after that stating that your gift has been delivered!

I love doing this for friends...it's like a musical greeting card without a postage stamp and two day lag time! Once they receive the music, they can download it onto their computer or their ipod/phone etc...it really is super easy!

You can also gift a custom playlist. I will add those instructions in a separate post.

So, to share with YOU the gift of how to gift music is ALMOST as much fun as sending a song to someone! Let me know what you think about this post and your stories of how music made a difference to someone you shared a special song, album or playlist with!