Notes from note girl
The Internet offers an abundance of options to explore and expand upon your personal music collection.
Online marketing is a resource that musicians and youth have come to embrace. But if you’re like me, the concept of navigating online in search of new music was so intimidating that I preferred to just keep listening to my Stevie Wonder CDs. Well, there is good news all around. Streetside Records and Slackers are still staffed with wonderfully friendly and knowledgeable music enthusiasts who can guide you to your next favorite artist. But even more exciting was my realization that joining the laptop and iPod set is not difficult. So now I’m going to share a few of my favorite resources and encourage you to take that step into the digital age.
Internet searching, more commonly referred to as “googling,” an artist will undoubtedly lead you to sites such as www.myspace.com or www.youtube.com. These sites provide an opportunity to hear music and watch videos from any artist who creates a page. A virtual unknown can potentially reach millions here. Pages on these sites often link to the artist’s official Web site, where an artist will sometimes offer free downloads of a few tracks and a link to a source from which you can legally download and purchase his or her music. One example is the iTunes store at www.itunes.com. Currently on iTunes, you can purchase a song for 99 cents or an entire album for $9.99. If you are in doubt about the ethics of downloading, rest assured, artists are getting their royalties from this site. So explore and enjoy.
What if it’s been so long since you bought new music that you don’t even know of a recent artist you’d like? Visit www.pandora.com. Users can create a virtual radio station based on the artists they already know they like. Then the site will play similar artists, and you can elect whether to save them in your rotation. There are a number of similar sites, but this one is great because it requires no downloading and no submitting of any payment information while it provides a personalized soundtrack to your day.
Another new music outlet I’ve just begun to explore is iLike, an optional application on www.facebook.com. This application has seemingly endless options: creating your own music profile, downloading music and videos and creating playlists, all of which you can share with Facebook friends. You can also sign up for e-mail alerts about tours and record releases from any of the artists you put in your iLike library. I’m just getting started, and it’s fast becoming my favorite place to spend a few minutes (or hours) after my work is done and my daughter is asleep. Here’s an example of a playlist I just made: http://apps.facebook.com/ilike/library?view=custom_playlist&uid=1250944844&pid=1017838286.
If you like some of the artists on my playlist, I think you’ll like this, too: http://www.ticketmaster.com/event/06004190C9808E33 and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4cmNRVL1drA
– Tracy Lane, Director, Thumper Entertainment Music Division