Most of us, when we were kids, listened to the radio to hear the latest, greatest songs in the music world. We listened eagerly for something new, something original, something our buddies hadnt heard before, and when a song made its way into our collective conscience, we would wait for hours for our favorite DJ to play the song for us, sometimes even for days, just so we could hit the record button and get the thing on tape.

At the time, the record companies knew we were taping our favorite music, but they didnt really care, because the quality of the recording was low and the DJ would more often than not talk over the first and last five seconds of the thing, making it worthless as something to swap or sell. Mix tapes were a personal thing, but they couldnt really compare to the real thing an LP, or, in later years, a compact disc.

But just as happens with every great hole in supply, eventually technological advances catch up with demand. And so it was that the publics desire for quality (free) music created the double cassette recorder, which made it possible for us to copy our mix tapes for our friends. The record companies tried to ban these devices, claiming they would lead to the end of the music industry. But they didnt&

Then video cassette recorders came along, allowing us to record our favorite music videos from MTV and play them endlessly. The music companies didnt like this either, and tried to get VCRs banned, claiming they would ruin the music industry. But they didnt&

Then along came Compact Discs, which allowed a cleaner recording to audio cassette, and late down the line, CD burners, which allowed people to copy CDs directly. Later still came DVD, and satellite radio. Everywhere you looked, someone was using new technology to make access to music easier, and everywhere that happened, the music industry tried (timidly) to put a stop to it. And then came Napster.

The online music world has led a fraught and tumultuous existence over the past decade. As early as 1996, pioneer internet users were passing around copies of their favorite music using chat servers and email, with equipment and formats that sometimes took as long as a full day just to download one song. But it was Shawn Fannings Napster program that, in 1999, brought the ability to download music freely to every net user.

Napster provided the means for anyone to log in anonymously, search for their favored songs across millions of users hard drives, and download those songs quickly and simply. The fact that any internet newbie could master Napster in minutes added greatly to its early success, but it was mass collectors, largely operating from university and college computers, who turned the system into one of the biggest buzz-makers in computing history.

What Napster did was create a huge central directory of every song owned by users on their system. If you wanted to get a copy of I Want Candy by Bow Wow Wow, you would just type the band and song name into Napster, hit search, and you would be presented with a long list of matches. You then just selected the one you wanted to download, and it would suck down on to your drive.

Of course, when people find a loophole that allows them to get something for nothing, they do often tend to go overboard, and thats exactly what the community of Napster users did en masse. Instead of just finding the music they needed, users were soon downloading everything they could find, hoarding songs and albums that they had little interest in, just so they could say they had them. It was not uncommon for college students to use multiple computers at their school to download thousands of songs on to CD in a few hours, most of which would never actually be listened to. This, obviously, annoyed the hell out of the record companies in ways that double cassette recorders never could.

While Napster made it clear to users that its service was designed to help users find legal music downloads, it also made little effort to stop people from trafficking in pirated material through its system, which led the body that represents the record companies politically, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) to take legal action against the company, effectively charging it with mass piracy and the loss of tens of millions of dollars in sales.

Interestingly, rather than kill music downloading completely, the court action had the opposite effect, spreading word of Napster across the globe like wildfire, which saw millions of new users sign up even as the creators of the program were fighting to keep the system from closure. So many people had become addicted to music file-sharing that the prospect of life without Napster seemed a punishment few could take, and so those with the skills began coding Napster alternative programs.

Gnutella was an early variant, created by Nullsoft (the company behind the hugely successful WinAmp music software), and though they quickly took the program off the market, hackers and crackers were soon ripping Gnutella to pieces and reconstructing it to suit their needs. Morpheus was soon on the scene, and as Napster began to cooperate with the record companies by filtering out popular song titles from the system, the new program rapidly grew.

But Napsters shift towards cooperation was not enough for the giant music conglomerates, who threw up hurdle after hurdle designed to take Napster out of business. Even heavy metal group Metallica joined the fray, launching their own lawsuit and earning the rage of many of their fans in the process. Lawyers for the file-sharing software company made the all-too valid point that, if Napster was in any way responsible for the actions of copyright violators, so too were the phone companies that provided the phone lines upon which the music was being shared. They claimed that the ISPs were just as liable as they were, because they didnt actually house any illegal files on their servers, rather they simply facilitated the searching of said files on other peoples computers.

We may never know if the judge hearing that particular legal case understood the difference, or merely figured that while Napster wasnt breaking the law per se, they were acting against the spirit of the law, but either way, the judge told the company in July 2001 that if it couldnt stop illegal files from being passed through its service, it would have to shut its doors. And thats what it did, after a judge stopped record company Bertelsman, who had invested heavily in Napster in an effort to legitimize the company, from taking it over.

Since Napster shut its doors, the company has since reemerged as a legitimate music download source, albeit with far less success than it enjoyed in the early days, and literally dozens of illegal file sharing programs have taken its place to fill the free music download void. These, such as WinMX, BitLord, Kazaa, Morpheus, BearShare, Aimster, Napigator, AudioGalaxy, and Limewire, run the gamut from useful to useless, but they all share a common element they take the stance that, if theyre not hosting pirated music, they have nothing to do with those using their systems that do. Translated: Use at your own risk.

You’ve got your MySpace page set up and you’ve decorated it to your liking. It looks fabulous! Now, wouldn’t it be great if people that clicked on your profile got a sampling of your favorite music while they read all about you? If you are asking, “How do I upload music to MySpace?” we’ve got the best solutions for you to bring tunes to your personal page.

Uploading from MySpace

The easiest way to upload music to MySpace is directly on the site itself. MySpace has its own playlist for you to choose from that includes all music genres and plenty of selections within each one. To find the playlist, simply log into your MySpace profile and click on the “Music” link. This link will take you directly to the MySpace music store so you can shop for tunes to your heart’s content. To make your search easier to navigate, you can browse the site by the artist, style or sound that you are looking for.

Once you have found the artist you are looking for, click on the name or picture. You will be taken to an official MySpace music page, which you will be able to identify by the header across the top of the screen. There will be a list of songs by the artist to choose from. To upload the song you want, choose the title and click on the “Add” button right next to it, then choose the “Add Song to Profile” option and you will have your chosen tunes play right on your MySpace profile.

Uploading from other Sources

If you don’t like any of the selections on the MySpace music page, you can also add your own selections to your profile. However, it is a good idea to ask “How do I upload music to MySpace without breaking copyright laws or causing problems with my site?” since this process is a bit more involved than simply uploading from the current MySpace play list. One way to do this is to sign up with a music playlist site that allows you to compile your own MP3 playlist and then upload those songs to different social sites like MySpace.

To upload music from an MP3 playlist site, browse your list to find the song and type in the artist’s name and the song’s title. Once you find it, simply hit “Upload” and your upload will be completed automatically. You can also cut and paste music from your music site to your MySpace profile. To do this, highlight the entire URL on your music site for the song of your choice. Copy that URL directly onto your MySpace profile and your song should be successfully downloaded for all of your MySpace visitors to enjoy. You can also upload original music by incorporating the song into an MP3 player list and then uploading to your MySpace account the same way.

Adding music to your MySpace account can be a fun way to spice up your profile. With these simple steps you will have tunes on MySpace in no time at all.

For too long, classical music has been regarded as the domain of instrumentalists, composers, academic musicologists and, typically, anyone over 40 years old. But while the majority of today’s youth would rather listen to Britney Spears’ greatest hits or watch My Chemical Romance on MTV, the view that young people are completely uninterested in classical music is not just erroneous – it’s simply not grounded in historical reality.

Mozart, widely regarded as one of the greatest classical composers of all time, wrote his first symphony at age eight and was dead by the age of 35. Schubert also died when he was 31, while Chopin famously didn’t live past the age of 39. Moreover, the phenomenon of the castrato in classical music in the 1700s shows that young people haven’t just been interested in classical music throughout the years – they’ve practically been canonised as part of a classical music tradition that, although lost, is not forgotten.

Today’s orchestras, choirs and opera houses are packed with young singers and musicians, many of whom are still in their twenties. Moreover, almost all modern, successful classical musicians will have undergone training from a very young age. Charlotte Church may have made headlines when she released her debut album “Voice of an Angel” in 1998 aged just thirteen, but while her phenomenal mainstream success was not typical, the fact that she was such a young musician in the classical industry was.

In the twenty-first century, the likes of Katherine Jenkins and “male soprano” Michael Maniaci, 28 and 29 years of age respectively, are making headlines the world over for their innovative approach to classical music and their stunning vocal range. Edward Gardner, the new Music Director of Glyndebourne on Tour (one of the UK’s premier operatic fixtures), is also only 28, proving that there is certainly no dearth of young people performing classical music, although there may be fewer youths than OAPs listening to it.

But as classical music institutions and performing arts organisations try their best to reduce their median audience age, classical music isn’t just becoming more accessible to young people – it’s also becoming more affordable. Scottish Opera, for instance, offer special ticket deals for people under 26, while many music-specialist booksellers are making classical music books and guides that will help younger classical listeners learn more about the craft. So while many may lament the loss or decline of youth interest in classical music in today’s world, they need only look towards the country’s concert halls to see where the future lies.

In the 1980’s, MTV brought about major changes in how we listened to music. The birth of the music video changed the views of thousands of people by combine visual and audio elements. It tested the limits by calling attention to new music. People liked what they saw and heard, the results were millions of dollars in increased record sales.

An artist uses a music video to promote their music. In past decades, they had to rely on television stations, however today music videos can be found everywhere. When you visit a movie store, or music store, you will find that there are thousands of different music videos that line the shelves.

Today with all of the changes in technology, you are able to watch music videos online. It is possible to download them so you can listen to them wherever you want to go. Another advantage to watching videos online that you have downloaded is that you will not receive any of the pop up ads that are associated with some site.

In order to watch videos online, you will need a few things. First, you will need a computer whether it is a desktop or laptop that is equipped with Microsoft Windows software version 98 or higher and a media player. There are several different media players to choose from, you can use which ever you prefer.

After you watch music videos online, you can save it to your media player and view it whenever you choose.

There are also quite a few different portable media players that allow you to watch videos online. MP3/4 players and ipods allow you to transfer your music video to share with your friends. The high quality and picture clarity are incredible.

Although there are sites that allow you to watch music video online, some are subscription based and you have to pay a monthly fee. There are however many that allows you to watch music videos online at no cost such as YouTube, MySpace and Yahoo. All of these sites have extensive lists of music videos in all genres from country and western to classical jazz; the choices are endless.

Summary:

MTV introduced the music video over twenty years ago. There have been many changes over the years, and the latest it the ability to watch music video online and to download what we choose. As technology advances, the ability to watch music videos online will advance with it.

Finding a distributor is hard. It can take months and months before you find and secure a distributor, which is not an easy process for independent labels or individuals.

Don’t give up or get discouraged; keep plugging away, even if you can’t find a distributor after months of searching. Distributors get a lot of packages on their desks every week, so it’s imperative that you contact them first before you send them a package. When calling a distributor, you may get them on the first try, or it may take you weeks before you get a live person to talk to.

If you don’t contact them first, and send a package to them unsolicited, it might get tossed or sent back unopened. But you may think, ‘My product is awesome! They would never do that with mine.’ Sorry to bring you bad news, but your package may never get opened. As a matter of fact, it may never get past the receptionist’s desk without prior clearance. So why not make sure that your product has a much better chance of getting heard by getting permission first?

For those of you who feel you could never make any cold calls, you will have to get over it, or have a friend do the calling for you. Getting through the first phone call is always tough, but then you will see, as you make more and more calls, that it gets easier every time. You are in competition with a lot of people who are making the calls. If you don’t call, the chances are very slim that you will ever be heard.

If, after the first time you call, you still feel that you are just too embarrassed, try making up a character and make your call as that character. Become “Jicki Wicki” from “Nagawicki.” (You never know; it could lead to an additional career of acting!) Make it a game.

It is important that you submit your CD to a distributor that distributes your kind of music. The person you send it to is not necessarily the person in charge of final decisions. From the time you start contacting them, it may take you six to eight months to get the actual product in their hands and get them to finally listen to it, before you find the right distributor. Once you finally get one, it can take an additional few months to get added to their database. Here are few words of advice on finding a distributor:

• On your first call, tell them your name and label. If you haven’t picked a name yet, make one up.
• Ask about their submission and distribution policies.
• Ask if being the only act on an indie label is going to cause a problem. Many distributors will not take products from Indie labels unless they have at least three to fifteen CDs in their ’stable.’ Additionally, many distributors will not take you on unless you already have established airplay. The catch-22 is that many radio stations, while they may play an independent artist, will only do so if they have national distribution.
• Ask what they want in the press kit. Some want an entire press kit with a CD (forego sending a headshot unless specifically asked for one), while others just need a letter of summary which contains recent happenings, targeting ideas, and review excerpts, if you have any. It’s important to find out this information beforehand. We found out, after much wasted time and money, that several distributors only wanted the letter. They had opened the package, read the tear sheet, and thrown the rest away. Once we started calling frequently, they asked for the whole package again. What a waste of resources!
• In your letter/press kit they will want to know your “SRP,” which is your Suggested Retail Price. For those of you who are unfamiliar with retail versus wholesale, retail is the price the consumer would pay in a music store and wholesale is the price the distributor pays to the product owner.

My suggestion for SRP is $11.98 – $12.98. You don’t want to price yourself out of the market. When you look in a music store, most major-label artists’ CDs are “on sale” for $11.98. Distributors will typically take 40-60% of your SRP as their cut (which at 40% x $11.98 gives you $7.19 per CD), and the music stores will typically mark up your SRP by $1.00 – $4.00. If you set your SRP at $11.98, and the store adds an additional $2.00 to the price of your CD, the cost to the consumer would be $13.98. However, if you set your SRP at $13.98 and the store adds $2.00, the price to the consumer would be $15.98. Which price do you think a consumer who had never heard of you would be more likely to pay?

• Double-check what style of music they currently distribute.
• Ask if they require your music to be played on a particular radio station.

There are some distributors that require you to be played on specific stations before they will distribute you. If that station does not play your genre of music, you have wasted your product, money, and time. Let me give you an example of why this is another key question. We had asked all of the above questions, with the exception of this particular one. Then we shipped off the package. When we contacted them later, they asked us if we were playing on a certain radio station. We said no.

It turned out that the station only played alternative music, while our CD is Country/Jazz. You can see the problem. When we approached them about this fact, they said they did not distribute Country Music. We asked when they stopped distributing Country Music. The gentleman we spoke with during our initial call said he was considering presenting Country Music to the company, but hadn’t had the chance. He realized that we would never be played on the station on which they require airplay, so he dropped it. A great example of wasted time, effort, and money!

• Inquire where their distribution arm reaches. Ask for specific states and regions. Some distributors only distribute in certain states. If your radio airplay, live gigs, and promotion are not in those regions, they cannot help you.
• When is the best time to reach them?
• Who are some of the major stores they distribute too, and in what areas? Call several of the stores and double-check their references. If the stores have never heard of them, they may not be a legitimate distributor. Save your product from an unscrupulous person who may be trying to rip you off.

This is just a sampling of things you must do in order to obtain a distributor. Don’t forget to get your music listed with iTunes, Sonymusic and all the other online distributors. Once you actually obtain a distributor it’s an entirely different playing field, and a lot of work, but well worth it.