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Fundamentals about musical consumption and distribution for Dummies...
We are all here because we want to stream music, discover new artists or promote our music. Being equipped for both, enjoyment and production, we need to be aware about internet fundamentals. I hope after reading my blog you will be enlightened like Saint Paul when arriving Damascus. I will talk very s l o w l y so that everyone will understand it.
First of all: A real music fan should avoid the internet and computers in general. Isn't it funny that the digital age offers us limitations when it comes to sound quality? Distribution and consumption of music was never easier, but the sound quality of mp3 streams is much worse than any vinyl ever was. We may listen to great tunes on fuzz and still there's something missing. The full dimensions of music can't be reduced to a 4Mb-mp3-file. That's the way it is, baby! The direct connection of those who enjoy tunes and the artist who create musical landscapes or intriguing lyrics seems to be a compensation somehow. No blessing without a curse...
Inspired by DifferentStars' blog I wondered why many artist or record labels are unable to deliver accurate informations when distributing their music as mp3s. Often the file name is reduced to the song title or mp3 tags are missing. Making music and being an artist is no excuse for the lack of basic economic skills. For example: Pepsi would not be that successful if they wrote Cola on the beverage bottles without their company name. Even the finest masterpiece will gain no attention when spreading your music turns into a Chinese whisper because of lousy file names or missing mp3 tags. How many anal-retentive freaks like me try to properly tag every goddamn track on their 80gb music-only HD? Not many I guess.
Many music communities (last.fm, iLike) offer the option that information about all songs played in iTunes, winamp, foobar can be send to your own community profile site where you and everybody else can enjoy checking out your listening habits and stuff like weekly stats. Any artist aware of that must have the urge to provide accurate information about himself on the internet in order to develop his name into a trademark! This advice is meant for those newcomers who offer free music downloads on their homepages or on MySpace or even on fuzz.
Due to the fact that distributors and consumers meet on MySpace, fuzz or other communities and forums, musicians should learn how to win a friend. The lack of strategy often ends up in hair-raising tactics. Spamming user profiles and praising your own music as the world's biggest deal since the invention of the wheel always looks stupid. Remember, it's the internet we are talking about. The anonymity on the net and the distance between each other reduces the willingness to act politely and people like me being spammed daily, often react to such behaviour with harsh replies. Hardly anyone likes annoying door-to-door salesmen and that's exactly how many lesser known artists look behave here on fuzz.
I could continue to give wannabe stars good advices but I cannot negate the flaws of music listeners either. My concern is the way we listen to music. The good old days of filesharing are gone forever. Hunting down files on Napster, WinMX or Soulseek was fun and broadened my knowledge of music. Very soon the record labels got suspicious (until today they suspect anyone with a happy face while whistling a song to be a potential criminal filesharer) and soon bands like Metallica proved that music biz these days is all about money and seldom about creating something that affects other people's lives and thoughts. Now good boys like me buy in stores like iTunes, often because the physical CD isn't available or very pricey. And that's the problem. We support huge online stores which torture us with DRM. Simply because it is the easiest way to buy and download stuff. This backing up of major labels and Apple is the problem. Restrictions, no matter if they concern artists or listeners, are always harming. That's why I like the fuzz shop and hope that more artists use that option to sell tracks without DRM.
Another bad listening habit is using mp3 players like winamp or iTunes. Proprietary software and art will never match in my opinion. And this is the reason for this whole blog (an advertisement for a new software if you will): To introduce a player called Songbird. Despite still being a bit buggy it finally offers the perfect interaction of a web browser, a mp3 player, a music collection database and a download tool for websites offering music (only legal downloads of course!!!). Enjoying music or radio or streams on the internet while simultaneously surfing on music communities and getting in touch with users and artists by using a single highly customizable software seems to be a great idea. Forget the crappy winamp browser or the iTunes software package installing Quicktime and Safari! Enjoy a software which connects the dots and allows you to listen, discover and interact altogether. Here the official description of Songbird: "Songbird is a desktop media player mashed-up with the Web. Songbird is committed to playing the music you want, from the sites you want, on the devices you want, challenging the conventions of discovery, purchase, consumption and organization of music on the Internet". Due to the fact that the browser will (and already does) use the same extension firefox users are familar with, I am sure that this media player will be the future of music experience on the net.
Freeing music from ignorant major labels should be considered to be the goal. Music is art, meant to be enjoyable and thought-provoking. Music is dedication. I hope I might delivered some food for thought. Thanks for reading this blog!
For further informations about Songbird please visit:
http://www.songbirdnest.com/
First of all: A real music fan should avoid the internet and computers in general. Isn't it funny that the digital age offers us limitations when it comes to sound quality? Distribution and consumption of music was never easier, but the sound quality of mp3 streams is much worse than any vinyl ever was. We may listen to great tunes on fuzz and still there's something missing. The full dimensions of music can't be reduced to a 4Mb-mp3-file. That's the way it is, baby! The direct connection of those who enjoy tunes and the artist who create musical landscapes or intriguing lyrics seems to be a compensation somehow. No blessing without a curse...
Inspired by DifferentStars' blog I wondered why many artist or record labels are unable to deliver accurate informations when distributing their music as mp3s. Often the file name is reduced to the song title or mp3 tags are missing. Making music and being an artist is no excuse for the lack of basic economic skills. For example: Pepsi would not be that successful if they wrote Cola on the beverage bottles without their company name. Even the finest masterpiece will gain no attention when spreading your music turns into a Chinese whisper because of lousy file names or missing mp3 tags. How many anal-retentive freaks like me try to properly tag every goddamn track on their 80gb music-only HD? Not many I guess.
Many music communities (last.fm, iLike) offer the option that information about all songs played in iTunes, winamp, foobar can be send to your own community profile site where you and everybody else can enjoy checking out your listening habits and stuff like weekly stats. Any artist aware of that must have the urge to provide accurate information about himself on the internet in order to develop his name into a trademark! This advice is meant for those newcomers who offer free music downloads on their homepages or on MySpace or even on fuzz.
Due to the fact that distributors and consumers meet on MySpace, fuzz or other communities and forums, musicians should learn how to win a friend. The lack of strategy often ends up in hair-raising tactics. Spamming user profiles and praising your own music as the world's biggest deal since the invention of the wheel always looks stupid. Remember, it's the internet we are talking about. The anonymity on the net and the distance between each other reduces the willingness to act politely and people like me being spammed daily, often react to such behaviour with harsh replies. Hardly anyone likes annoying door-to-door salesmen and that's exactly how many lesser known artists look behave here on fuzz.
I could continue to give wannabe stars good advices but I cannot negate the flaws of music listeners either. My concern is the way we listen to music. The good old days of filesharing are gone forever. Hunting down files on Napster, WinMX or Soulseek was fun and broadened my knowledge of music. Very soon the record labels got suspicious (until today they suspect anyone with a happy face while whistling a song to be a potential criminal filesharer) and soon bands like Metallica proved that music biz these days is all about money and seldom about creating something that affects other people's lives and thoughts. Now good boys like me buy in stores like iTunes, often because the physical CD isn't available or very pricey. And that's the problem. We support huge online stores which torture us with DRM. Simply because it is the easiest way to buy and download stuff. This backing up of major labels and Apple is the problem. Restrictions, no matter if they concern artists or listeners, are always harming. That's why I like the fuzz shop and hope that more artists use that option to sell tracks without DRM.
Another bad listening habit is using mp3 players like winamp or iTunes. Proprietary software and art will never match in my opinion. And this is the reason for this whole blog (an advertisement for a new software if you will): To introduce a player called Songbird. Despite still being a bit buggy it finally offers the perfect interaction of a web browser, a mp3 player, a music collection database and a download tool for websites offering music (only legal downloads of course!!!). Enjoying music or radio or streams on the internet while simultaneously surfing on music communities and getting in touch with users and artists by using a single highly customizable software seems to be a great idea. Forget the crappy winamp browser or the iTunes software package installing Quicktime and Safari! Enjoy a software which connects the dots and allows you to listen, discover and interact altogether. Here the official description of Songbird: "Songbird is a desktop media player mashed-up with the Web. Songbird is committed to playing the music you want, from the sites you want, on the devices you want, challenging the conventions of discovery, purchase, consumption and organization of music on the Internet". Due to the fact that the browser will (and already does) use the same extension firefox users are familar with, I am sure that this media player will be the future of music experience on the net.
Freeing music from ignorant major labels should be considered to be the goal. Music is art, meant to be enjoyable and thought-provoking. Music is dedication. I hope I might delivered some food for thought. Thanks for reading this blog!
For further informations about Songbird please visit:
http://www.songbirdnest.com/
Comments
As for the technical points, as someone who only recently was introduced to the web, blogging, and online social communities, I find myself in the ridiculous position of still climbing a steep learning curve about web basics [BB code, HTML, XML, etc.] while jumping ahead to sort through the implications of the dream of the semantic web that the futurists discuss. I'm operating with a severe handicap here - as I suspect most artists are - the vast majority of us are clue-less about how to use the web [but we are fast learners]. We just know intuitively that all of this will have a powerful impact on our lives.
To introduce Songbird to the fuzz community. I hope you or Clif can translate some of this information for practical application by the computer-challenged [like moi].
It would be helpful if Clif can introduce Songbird into the evolving and iterative Fuzz Tips And Tricks. Of course, I am aware that a seamless application would only be possible as the fuzz folks themselves start to open up the fuzz platform to deal with initiatives like this. They tell me [us] that they want to avoid the chaos of the OtherSpace by "judiciously" opening up this site to the programmers and computer-literate. But, it is happening anyway.
Like it or not, initiatives like Songbird are multiplying fast and furious and music sites that ignore the coming convergence of all music social networks will be swept into the "dustbin of history".