Find the music you want to hear

Web offers huge selection of possibilities

Great new streaming music sites have opened just in time for the holidays, and they’re the ones giving gifts.

If you want some seasonal listening for your family get-togethers and office parties, or if you’re looking to get far, far away from yet another Christmas Carol, there are musical options for one and all.

Like the new social music platform called Whyd, where you can gather and play pretty much any music, from any Web source.

Whyd is a social music community growing by invitation only, but it’s making a special invitation to Canadian music fans and independent artists.

Whyd has online tools for listening to multiple media types and platforms, as well as for listening to others’ playlists whether or not they are logged on to the service, says Whyd community builder Tony Hymes.

Musical retailer hmv Canada has just opened up The Vault, and there’s some free time left to try out the new flat rate streaming music service, available on Web connected PCs and mobile devices.

It’s got a huge and growing library of top tunes and popular artists, and the site lets users discover other music, build a personal listening library with custom playlists and share them through social feeds.

Of all the tunes available online, you might like a cool new collection of holiday favourites and familiar carols from a duo known as H2.

Home for the Holidays is a jazz and classically-inspired take on the season, featuring the guitar and flugelhorn of Canadian Mike Herriott and partner Sean Harkness; Home is the second release by H2 on Canada’s Opening Day Entertainment label.

But, if you want to really rock out during the holidays, check out Wolfgang’s Vault.

Wolfgang is really Bill Graham, who ran the famous Fillmore East and West concert venues in the ’60s and ’70s.

He had some digital prescience, Graham did, recording in as high a quality as possible absolutely everything that went down at the Fillmore.

You name an artist from that era, they played there and Graham recorded it.

Sean Harkness, left, and Mike Herriott, known as H2, have released their second album, called Home for the Holidays. It features jazz sounds of guitar and flugelhorn.

Wolfgang’s Vault features recordings of the many artists who played at the Fillmore East in the 1960s and ’70s.