Category Archives: Resources For Musicians & Music Lovers

Radar Music Videos – Find The Right Director For Your Music Video

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RadarMusicVideos
Name: Radar Music Videos
URL: http://www.radarmusicvideos.com

No music project is unviable any longer – the amount (and diversity) of social networking sites currently available has wiped the word “impossible” away from the dictionary of music. If you wanted to assemble a band together that plays only one song – a 45-minutes rendition of “The Crystal Ship” – you are not only going to gather the musicians, but you are also going to get some supporters. That is, now that viral videos are all the rage people have license to do mostly whatever they fancy from the comfort (and safety) of their living rooms. The chances of a random drunk flinging a bottle of Newcastle Brown at the band are not just minimized – they become non-existent.

But if you think about it, not every angle is already covered. There is one in particular that has been unattended until now: the creation of a compelling music video. And that is all the more surprising because the potential a clip can have when it comes to doubling the expressive force of a song is colossal.

This site hopes to do something about that. It will let you create video projects that will then be scrutinized by directors, and those who feel that they can bring your original vision to fruition will get in touch. You can then decide whether or not you are hiring them. Continue reading →

SongVote – Ensuring The Right Music Will Be Played At Your Party

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SongVote

Name: SongVote
URL: http://www.songvote.com

It is never easy to get the music right when you are hosting a party. You might know your friends’ tastes from front to back, but what happens if someone brings a friend who is not really into the music you programmed so diligently? Nobody is saying that if a friend’s date is mad about Rihanna you should pump her albums all through the night, but including a hit of hers like “SOS” or “Umbrella” would probably help break the ice by providing a topic for conversation.

The question is, how can you know exactly what music does that kind of guest like? It turns out the answer is not that hard to come by. This new startup (name SongVote) lets you poll every attendee and find out exactly what songs they would like to listen to during the party, at least once.

Besides, this can be used in other contexts. Imagine you want to determine which ones were the best ballads of the ‘80s, or the most unjustly forgotten songs by the Everly Brothers. You can create a poll and find it out quite easily.   Continue reading →

Earwurm – For These Songs You Just Can’t Get Out Of Your Head

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EarwurmName: Earwurm
URL: http://www.earwurm.com

I don’t know how useful this site can really be, but it is something different for sure and that is something I always celebrate. It revolves around something that we all are familiar with: the feeling of having a song going round and round in our heads. I once saw a documentary in which a scientist compared the phenomenon with a kind of rash that itches and itches, and that only subsides by applying the right unguent. Scratching it would do no good. The “right unguent” is not the song that is stuck, but rather a different tune that will supersede it. That is one way to conceptualize it all.

Another way to approach it is offered by this site: it names these songs that repeat like a scratched record “earworms”. A handful of other names are provided on the site for the phenomenon, actually, and personal favorites include “involuntary musical imagery” and “tune wedgies”. Whichever name you apply to them, this site is a social resource where you can tell everybody about these songs that just won’t go away. Will doing so make them disappear altogether? Probably not. And has this got a “real” use? Well, I found one myself. There are songs that notwithstanding how awful they are still have an immensely catchy quality. Think “SOS” by the Jonas Brothers, or “Seven Things” by Miley Cyrus. Just one listen can lead to nightmarish times. This site could let those who were unfortunate enough to “become infected” warn everybody in time. Continue reading →

SingAndStudy – Learn A Language By Listening To Songs And Playing Word Games

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SingAndStudy

Name: Sing And Study
URL: http://www.singandstudy.com

For students of foreign languages, songs are one of the perfect frameworks for capturing new vocabulary. The reasons are obvious: songs lasts only a couple of minutes, and some sections repeat themselves over and over. And you have a melody to begin with – a melody that can dote whole segments of the composition with instant catchiness, if not the whole song.

I already reviewed one site for learning languages using videos, but this one is a bit different. Named Sing And Study, it stands as a (paid) Adobe application that you download and launch from your desktop. This application will let you create word games with these videos that you like. That is, you will define which words are missing from the lyrics as the song is playing. This has the immediate advantage of letting you set the difficulty level as specifically as you want. A song can be suited to just anybody, since you will determine what will be removed from where.

For instance, you could take “Like A Rolling Stone” and make filling the gaps something easy:

You never _____ around to see the frowns on the jugglers and the clowns
When they all come down and did _____ for you
You never _____ that it ain’t no good
You shouldn’t let other people get your kicks for you
You used to _____ on the chrome horse with your diplomat
Who carried on his shoulder a Siamese cat
Ain’t it _____ when you discover that
He really wasn’t where it’s at
After he took from you everything he could steal Continue reading →

Eyeball.fm – Another Way To Share & Discover Music Online

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Eyeball

Name: Eyeball.fm
URL: http://www.eyeball.fm

The amount of services to discover (and recommend) music online has no end. If someone asked why, we could but reply “Elementary, my dear Watson” with a smirk. “There is no end to these services because today absolutely everybody can upload his songs to the WWW and make them available to just everybody. These services are vital – or do you fancy sitting for a whole week chained to your PC listening to newcomer after newcomer?”

I have already reviewed a couple of these services, and you (being the diligent reader of MusicKO that you are) already know how they work. I will simply enumerate some of the most notable (and in some cases unique) features of Eyeball.fm for you.

For starters, it is more than merely a service for recommending music – it is a true backup service since you can upload your whole iTunes library to your account and access your music from there. And when you do that you are automatically gaining access to information such as bios and song lyrics.

Integration with services like Facebook is also accounted for, so that you can get down to recommending songs with your already existing circle of friends.

Best of all – in contrast to services like Pandora and Rhapsody, Eyeball.fm is available globally. This means that someone like me (who resides in South America) can use it to the full from the word go. Continue reading →

Songr – Finding New Music To Try In A Social Context

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SongrName: Songr
URL: http://www.songr.com

Songr is a social site for the discovery of new music. The way it operates is by having people submit these songs that they are listening to in real-time. A ranking with these tunes is there and then created. The songs can be voted up and down (like any social service that aggregates content such as Delicious or Digg), and the ones that are met more effusively end up topping the list for each respective genre.

The featured genres, by the way, are quite representative of the tastes of the general public. You have “Rock” and “Pop” along with “Metal” and “Rap”, and a couple more like “Country”, “Jazz” and “World” are thrown in for good measure. These will be enough for the site to get going, but as a fan of Anime and Japanese music I wish there were at least a J-Pop genre available. I hope that is implemented in due time. Continue reading →

iMusicTweet – Sharing Your Songs Through Twitter & Facebook Simultaneously

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iMusicTweet

Name: iMusicTweet
URL: http://www.imusictweet.com

I think we all will agree that sharing music using services like Facebook and Twitter is the most natural step in the evolution of the Social Web. After all, what good is connecting with everybody and telling them about what you do if you can’t show it to them at the same time?

The startup I am reviewing right now enables you do exactly that: spread both individual songs and full albums around, and the best thing might as well be that Twitter and Facebook alike are supported. The way it works is by letting you upload the song or playlist and having it played in your Twitter’s profile page, or streamed from your Facebook wall.

Best of all, you can make your songs both downloadable and embeddable. If you are looking for maximum exposure that is always useful, although I can’t help but wonder (and worry) a little about the copyright of what you are sharing when it is your own work what you are putting about. Continue reading →

Relisir – Never Miss A Music Release Again

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Relisir

Name: Relisir
Address: http://www.relisir.com

Relisir is a notification service that keeps you posted on new music releases. The idea is that you sign up and provide a list of these artists that you are ecstatic about. You will then be notified when they issue anything. In that way, you can realize how many days your piggy still has to live and how fatter it must become to be of any real use.

And in case you have a ton of favorite bands, you will be glad to know you can actually import the list from your Last.fm account and get the boring process of typing everything manually right out of the way. Continue reading →

Music Matters – Combating Piracy In A Fair Way

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MusicMatters
Name: Music Matters
URL: http://www.whymusicmatters.org

Weighing the pros and the cons of the Internet and the way it has modified how music is consumed always boils down to two arguments. On the plus side, artists nobody would hear about otherwise are brought recognition beyond their wildest dreams. On the down side, music is pirated left, right and center because the act of downloading an album (not to mention a mere song) seems innocuous.

When companies try to impose a solution, they invariably add fuel to the fire. The attempt to close the Pirate Bay had the opposite effect – the number of torrent trackers shot through the roof. It has always been the same all through history – something is prohibited, and people just do it three times more. Just think of the US in 1920, when the Dry Law was enforced.

The best course of action to me should be simply to remind people that what they are doing is wrong without sounding patronizing, and without doling an actual punishment. Because in 8 out of 10 cases these punishments end up affecting those who did go by the rules. Continue reading →

MusicVault – Rating Albums Old & New Using Twitter

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MusicVault

Name: MusicVault:
URL: http://www.musicvault.fm

Recent events have shown us that Twitter can make or break any movie. Upon seeing theatrical release, “Bruno” was slammed by twitterers and died an instant death. Conversely, movies like “Inglorious Bastards” and “District 9” were lauded on the micro-blogging universe and became that kind of picture you can’t miss unless you want to stop being invited to top parties.

Now, does Twitter have the same strength when it comes to music? Well, it looks like we are about to find it out. This brand-new service lets people tweet out the name of any album they have just listened to along with a rating. These are then aggregated on the site, and you can quickly learn which albums are universally praised. You do also get to see the most active users at a glance, and you can obviously start following them right there and then.

It is interesting to point out that once you are on the site you can choose to see either the best-rated discs or the worst-rated albums ever. It seems somebody who holds a grudge against Mike Oldfield is around – he gave “Music Of The Spheres” an overall score of 1 %, whereas his rating for “The Millennium Bell” was 2 %. There was also someone who gave Oasis’ “Heathen Chemistry” an overall score of 30 %. And I swear it wasn’t me! Continue reading →