By Ronald Roach

BOSTON

The Berklee College of Music, the world's largest independent music college, has announced the launch of a free, downloadable computer program that provides music lessons. The program, Berklee Shares, encourages musicians to share and distribute these music lessons online.
The Berklee Shares lessons are made up of a catalog of MP3s, QuickTime movies and PDF files derived from curriculum developed at the college by its renowned faculty. The lessons are available for free download on www.berkleeshares.com, affiliate partner sites and peer-to-peer networks including Limewire and Kazaa.
 Not unlike MIT's development of its Open Courseware Initiative, Berklee is committed to providing music education that is widely available to the music community around the world. The Berklee Shares program is designed to create an open exchange of ideas for musicians everywhere as well as to evangelize the Internet as a means to gain unprecedented access to quality education. Berklee officials say that digital distribution networks will have a significant impact on the future of music and music education.
 "Berklee Shares was born out of Berklee College of Music's commitment to furthering music education through innovative means," says Dave Kusek, associate vice president of the school. "Offering free education on the Internet and through file sharing networks underscores the college's core belief that these channels are an effective way to openly distribute meaningful educational content to a global audience. It also serves as a powerful promotional platform for artists to market, distribute and sell their music."
 The program was launched with more than 80 music lessons spanning instrument performance, music production and technology, songwriting and arranging, music business and careers, music education and music improvisation. The number of lessons offered will expand over time. The music lessons can help musicians around the globe to play better, write their own songs, teach better, use music technology on personal computers, and further their career aspirations, according to officials.
 The Berklee College of Music offers over a dozen performance and nonperformance majors and enrolls a diverse student body representing 70 plus countries.