Category: Online Music

The Internet is a great tool for independent musicians, as it provides a way to reach new fans, meet new friends, and get new ideas for music creation and promotion. However, the extent of a website’s benefit to musicians is somewhat limited to the online community that said website has developed. Here’s a look at some of the best online communities on the Internet that musicians can use to develop and promote their craft.

1. Indaba Music.com – This website allows musicians to create new songs in “sessions” and invite their friends and random fellow musicians to participate. Fellow musicians can upload additional tracks and instruments, giving depth to the original tune, and eventually creating a fantastic, polished finished product. Because it’s all web based, it’s simple to understand and doesn’t consume a whole lot of system resources, although you’ll have to have decent recording ability to participate. This is a great website for getting feedback on songs, and the community for Indaba has grown greatly since comedian Stephen Colbert featured the website on his Comedy Central show.
2. Garage Band – A service unrelated to the Mac program of the same name, Garage Band lets musicians upload songs to have them rated and critiqued by other musicians. You have to rate a certain number of songs before receiving your own ratings, and the ratings themselves are carefully gauged by staff to make sure that only legitimate critiques get through; this means that you won’t receive something that says simply “song sucked, try again,” but rather a few carefully thought out sentences or paragraphs explaining what’s good and bad about your music. Serious songwriters are used to criticism, and this is a great way to improve your craft.
3. Myspace – Hey, don’t forget the big ones. Nearly every musician in the world has a myspace account which is used for promotion, new show booking, and more, so if you don’t have one, you’re simply missing out. Despite its numerous, annoying ads and preteen fanbase, Myspace is actually a very decent networking website for musicians, and by keeping an updated Myspace page, you’re simply covering all of your bases. While you’re at it, look into a Facebook musician’s account, too.
4. Craigslist – When you need to promote a show or find a new band member, the simplicity of Craigslist comes to the rescue, with separate sites for major cities, allowing you to only advertise to (or engage in discussions with) people from your local area. Thousands of people use Craigslist in every major city, so be sure to check out its “music” and “artists” sections and see if you can use it your band’s benefit. There’s always a few good conversations going on in their listings about local music, as well.

Do you know of any other online communities for musicians? Post in our comments section below.…

Stealing Music Online: Is Music Piracy Stealing?

I find that music piracy is not stealing. Why is music piracy not stealing? In this chapter ethics are based on morality and society. I find that our society rules are not universally enforced. The corporations are not morally correct when they charge their consumers way more than their product is worth. The scarcity factor in our economic system is not measureable. The consumers are paying way too much for what the product is worth. Artists and Corporations run a business that exceeds the product and life of the product. It is evident that the theories of morality are questionable. I for one enjoy the ethical egoism to an extent that one person should equally give as they have been given to. I find that our society is based on discrimination, competition and so much unbalance when equality is ignored due to resources and distribution of those resources.

One I find that music piracy keeps corporations moral. This is the greater good for all because corporations charge consumers way too much for their product. They are not able to manage their products, costs with their demand in regards to society and poverty. They forge through prices to cover their own personal interests. Their gains are profitable and they capitalize on their own products even if they are not worth the price they charge, so music piracy is not stealing, but a checks and balance of a system that is not ethical.

The Case for Ethic Theory and a Case Against Ethic Theory

The case for Ethnic Theory that is counteracting each moral code is to understand what is the case by case scenario will help someone understand what computer science of ethics or morals for behavior is. This woman in the news was given fines for stealing music online. But, corporations were not given fines when pricing too high prices, which calculate as theft, but they call it profit. When an individual sell music without licenses and permission they are bound by a moral code and legal action against them. On the other hand, when corporations steal from consumers using “profits” as a means to a consumers’ market and trading factor, we now have an ethical business complexity. In our society and culture, we ignore corporations and our capitalism because it is for the greater good, or common good, yet the corporations are the components to pollutions and social injustice components to environment and human development. Our society is face with health issues, environment issues and finally humanity issues, yet we have reasons to excuse their moral code.

My Personal Reflection and Testimony

My decision to steal music online is not part of my moral code or values, but if I did steal online, I would be part of the piracy that consists of stealing from corporations and artisans that lose capital. Does this mean profits goes down or does it mean, basic needs aren’t met is the question? Is this a morality that should be questioned, or should the morality of corporations and artisans who are wealthy should be questioned?…

Well, ok, I’m cheap. My Mantra is “If it is free it is for me”, so I have developed ways to get my music and not pay the dollar per song title. Of course , P2P programs are free unless you get scammed. If you are willing to navigate the murky legal waters of file sharing and disregard the fact that even little girls have been sued by the copyright holding company and have had to pay thousands of dollars as back royalties, I’ll tell you the name of my favorite P2P program: Ares. You get Ares on the net as a download. If they want to charge you for Ares you are at the wrong website. It is free so do not pay for it. It can be used to download music and movies and documents and programs. Ok I’ll give you a link for Ares

Having said that, besides any other consideration, P2P are useless if you do not know the name of the song or the author. Yahoo Messenger has a plug-in that plays Launchcast, a music service. after a day or three it becomes a pay service and if you do not pay you have to wait until the following month for more music. So how to listen to the songs first? Several ways, but first, unless you have something similar to Nero wave installed you need a program to record the music in a reasonable size and maybe even personalize the sound. Download Audacity. It will tell you to also download lame mp3. Do it . Get a little familiar with Audacity as it is a very useful program. You can punch up a recording, increase the bass note or give it a bit of echo. You can even equalize the sound for background listening or raise it for maximum noise.

Now the listening. find a directory of internet stations. A useful one is the website of Mit station locating Radio-Locator . There are also many ways to find stations thru the net with Google. To play them usually one of the regular players will do (Windows media, Real Player etc.) But if you want the ultimate player – Well it is a bit unstable but it will play incomplete and partially downloaded files but it will play internet stations and videos. It is called VLC. and, of course, it is free. Sometimes a player will refuse to play a file so try another player. Many a time it will work

Now you listen and record the stream in the background with Audacity. You can then export it as an Mp3 and listen to it to your hearts content. If you want to go in a real voyage of discovery try, Pandora – Pandora.

Oh? You discovered DVD burning? Can’t get anything done? I’ll have an article on it coming soon.…

Since discovering Pandora and yahoo Launchcast radio, I regularly streaming music off the web. Streaming music from these two sites is great because you can create a profile in which you can rate songs. In doing so, you can listen to music you know you already love, throw out the bad, and discover new artists and songs. Both sites are very popular and most reading this probably are already aware what these websites provide.

What is the downside? With these streaming websites, you can only skip so many songs unless you pay for a monthly subscription. Also, you do not have complete control over what you listen to. Granted if you want to listen to Kanye, for example, you can hear a lot of his songs; however, you cannot pick which ones exactly and will likely have to listen to artists similar to Mr. West that you may not even like! Well there is a music website out there that supplies great music without the drawbacks and is completely free.

Jiwafm.com is an amazing music website that I have recently discovered. You can search by artist, song title, album, or play list. In a click of a button, you can search this online music database for the exact song you are looking for and listen to it right away. There are no gimmicks or advertisements that you have to bear through. It is just like having the files downloaded onto your computer. You can create temporary play lists with exactly the songs you desire to hear so that you will have constant streaming music.

You do not have to create an account to listen to music on jiwafm, but I would recommend it to use the full potential of the website. By having an account, you can create and save custom play lists so that you can listen to them whenever you visit and sign into the website. You can also share these play lists with friends if they also have an account with jiwafm. You can also browse play lists of any jiwafm member and find out what great music play lists other users have created. This is the superior way of listening to music online because you can listen to exactly what you want, when you want, and also discover much more music at the same time. I guarantee you will fall in love with this website if you are a music lover like myself. One thing of importance that I must mention is that for some reason, jiwafm only works with my Firefox web browser. It does not work with Internet explorer. Just visit download.com to download the Mozilla Firefox browser if you do not already have it installed onto your computer.

Check out my next article that will give you a great tip in maximizing the full potential that this site has to offer.…