Finding Music:: Quick and Easy Listening

To relax, work, and play, I rely on music.  I have a terrabyte of music on an external hard drive I've accumulated over years.  However, I have yet to sort through it all and rarely have the hard drive hooked up to the computer, so what I actually can listen to is pretty limited.  So, while I put off the project of sorting my stored music, for any of my day to day music needs, I get by using the following tricks.

Let me just note, being a musician, I don't mind paying for music when I know the proceeds support the musicians.  However, I know many bands that make more money off t-shirt sales than album sales after everyone gets their cut, so I make sure to support the bands I fall in love with as best I can, and enjoy as much music as I can (legally) access.

Online Streaming Music - 

While everyone is familiar with Pandora, most also know it has gotten very commercial (and quite full of commercials).  Grooveshark was a good site, but legalities with how they got their music brought them down.  I myself have moved along to Jango for browser fed streaming music.  With Jango, you enter an example of what you want to hear, and it creates a 'similar' playlist. So far, the visual ads on the page seem to explode on the screen, but there aren't as many audio ads between the songs for Jango (about 1 ad for every 3-5 songs, versus Pandora's 1 ad every 2-3 songs).  Also, there is no sign up, so you just go to the website, enter the artist/title, and let it play.  Even with the irksome ads, it is nice to not have to sort through music on a harddrive, and ads are just the cost of free without legal ramifications.

Also, if I am more in a radio play mode, I will look up online radio stations like National Public Radio (NPR) or 365 Internet Radio.  These have ads too, but often also have some real people playing DJ or discussion leader, which is a nice change from the all-computer-algorithms of most music sites.

When I Need That One Song Downloaded - 

Now, as I said, I pay for music when I know the band benefits, but many times, I don't have time to buy or I simply don't even want to own the song but need it anyway (e.g. learning a song for my band that I don't like listening to.) For these moments, I often use a simple-ish two step process:

1. I go find the song I need on Youtube - checking to make sure it is the version I want.
2. I go to FLVTO, where I enter the share address of that Youtube video, hit 'convert', and the website strips the video and creates a little MP3 audio file.

Remember, this is completely by-passing the artists getting anything for their work (along with their greedy record company execs, producers and managers).  If you do this too often, more and better music becomes even harder to find as less gets produced.  Keep it in mind - support music artists as you can.

To Obtain Full CD's or Collections-

Photo courtesy of
Wikipedia Commons, User: Arbitrarily0

When I want a lot of an artist or a type of music genre, I go to the local library.  Well, libraries in my case - I am a member of 3 different ones in my area (city, county, and metro area.)  They have CD's on location, or you can request almost anything through an Inter-Library Loan from other libraries.  You can put the CD's in your laptop and rip right to your computer as needed.  This is great for trying new stuff, because if you don't like the artist, you aren't out any money.  They also have some good 'mix up' collections and movie soundtracks that have a fun variety of artists on one disc.

Explore New Stuff-

You will encounter new stuff eventually listening to online streaming audio from any of the sites listed above.  However, it is sometimes hard to focus on when the new stuff plays as you usually are doing something else while listening.  So, I also recommend you check out your library's online options for sites where you can download new audio files daily or weekly and listen to things for free.  Or, just pull some of those wacky looking CD cases off the library shelf and give them a listen.

Photo of Smokin Roads, my band!

Don't forget local talent!  Ask your friends or check out the local music and events newspaper in your area to read up on up and coming groups and new sounds.  You can support the bands best by going to their shows, and often can buy their CD's if you like them right from the musical hands that made them - AND get your copy signed!



I also will simply add this site's List of Apps and Stuff to Find New Music.  They did an awesome and in-depth coverage of other tech-based programs and apps that seem really cool.

Happy listening!