Grand Valley State University students will soon hold a creative new way to immerse themselves in music when Trebel Music, a new interactive mobile music service, is released to students this fall.

Trebel Music is a music app created by young people, for young people. It will provide students with a safe and fun place to listen to music for free, said Gary Mekikian, founder and CEO of M&M Media, and Corey Jones, chief of product at Trebel Music and M&M Media.

“Trebel Music allows the user to download songs, which will be free to them, in order to save them to playlists and listen to them when they choose,” Mekikian said.

GVSU is among 30 colleges to be the first to experience Trebel Music, as the creators are coming to campus in the future to promote the app and encourage young people to become involved in the safe and free music experience they are offering.

“This app is not a music streaming app, unlike many other listening apps on the market, and will therefore not be in competition with these products, but will stand on its own,” Jones said.

When users search and tap on a song to preview, download and play the music, they earn “virtual currency” by consuming the advertisements that play during the process of downloading the song. They can then use this currency to “pay” for playing uninterrupted music or to own their favorite songs outright and listen to them any time without ads.

This system of advertising and “virtual currency” allows the artists of the music to be compensated for their work, without each user having to pay a fee to listen to the music.

“Trebel Music is a cool way for students to discover music together,” Mekikian said.

The application includes a social tab which brings up the profiles of other students from the same college campus so that people can see each other’s music selections and even share playlists. This section allows users to see their classmates’ top downloaded songs and learn about music they may never have discovered without this social function built into Trebel. In the future, the company is looking to develop a way for people to directly send songs, playlists and messages to their friends, Mekikian said.

Many other features are included in the app such as the ability to fast forward and rewind songs, personalize the color theme based on different album covers and the ability to “scratch” records. While listening to each song, users are also able to view the accompanying music video and lyrics.

M&M Media is looking to launch a music blog site in the next couple of weeks and encourages any GVSU students with a love of both writing and music to look into available writing positions with their company.

More information on the Trebel Music product is online at www.trebelmusic.com.