FMS-Blog : The Wildly Whimsical, Mostly Musical WebLog
Wednesday, April 26, 2006
Music Promotion without the Big Bucks
I recently stumbled upon a really handy little tool on the internet : a media player that provides only content by unsigned acts (downloaded as you play).
The programme, called Indy, is a compact piece of software that draws music files from a database of mp3's that have been submitted by musicians from around the world. The idea is that people who have not been signed can get their songs heard by a worldwide community free of charge, the only condition being that they also have a website that offers information about themselves and also free downloadable mp3's of their music.
As for the listener, during each track they are invited to give the tune a rating between 1 & 5, and then the statistics collected from all the other listeners' choices are used to determine which tracks will be sent down next. So, if you rate a track 5/5, the programme will figure out who else also rated the track highly and then what other pieces they also liked, passing these onto you next. So, when you first begin using the programme you're likely to listen to a plethora of different styles and genres that you may or may not be interested in. But as you offer a rating of how much you enjoyed each track as you listen to it, you should find that the programme delivers more and more songs that are to your tastes (assuming these follow a similar pattern to most other people).
So, the listener gets to hear lots of new music, increasingly catering to their individual tastes, while the musician has a free method of getting their stuff heard and distributed worldwide - pretty good idea!
You can download the programme and read T&C's at www.indy.tv
The programme, called Indy, is a compact piece of software that draws music files from a database of mp3's that have been submitted by musicians from around the world. The idea is that people who have not been signed can get their songs heard by a worldwide community free of charge, the only condition being that they also have a website that offers information about themselves and also free downloadable mp3's of their music.
As for the listener, during each track they are invited to give the tune a rating between 1 & 5, and then the statistics collected from all the other listeners' choices are used to determine which tracks will be sent down next. So, if you rate a track 5/5, the programme will figure out who else also rated the track highly and then what other pieces they also liked, passing these onto you next. So, when you first begin using the programme you're likely to listen to a plethora of different styles and genres that you may or may not be interested in. But as you offer a rating of how much you enjoyed each track as you listen to it, you should find that the programme delivers more and more songs that are to your tastes (assuming these follow a similar pattern to most other people).
So, the listener gets to hear lots of new music, increasingly catering to their individual tastes, while the musician has a free method of getting their stuff heard and distributed worldwide - pretty good idea!
You can download the programme and read T&C's at www.indy.tv
