Sound: #26: Making (or listening to) Music Together

Since we learned about the basic 2.0 tools in the original iHCPL program, we can now add to the fun by starting to mix some of them together. This post is about combining social networking and music in a couple of different ways. First, we will take a look at sites that connect people through similar tastes in music and then we will explore sites that connect people making music and allow them to collaborate.

Sharing Musical Tastes

MySpace started as a site to help connect bands with listeners and fans with other fans, but the site grew so huge that the social aspect is now the main draw. Quite a few newer sites are still centered around the music aspect. Mog is a site created specifically to link people together based on the music they like. The "Mog-o-Matic" is a downloadable application for Windows or Mac that tracks what you're listening to on the computer and adds it to your Mog page. Imeem and Project Playlist are other sites that are based around sharing music with friends. Phling! is a service that allows you to access audio from your PC on your mobile phone and share it with friends. Qloud allows you to add a "my music" component to your existing social network account in Facebook or Friendster.

Creating Music Together

There are music sites that allow musicians to play together even if they are miles apart, but we are going to focus on sites for beginners. Splice is a good music creation site to start with, since it is free to join and use and there is nothing to download. Splice lets you upload and record sounds, compose songs, listen to music and much more. Songs are rated and ranked by the site's network of users.

ccMixter is a music remix site based around material licensed under Creative Commons agreements. David Byrne and The Beastie Boys have allowed some of their music to be used on this site. JamStudio is a site set up to create your own songs by choosing from different set up options, which can then be saved and e-mailed to someone for editing. It is billed as "the online music factory."

Discovery Exercises

1. Take a look around several of the music networking sites and compare notes on what they offer.
2. Either sign up for an account with one of the sites listed under "Sharing Musical Tastes" or create a song using JamStudio.
3. Write a blog post about your discoveries.

This post was brought to you by Linda Stevens, Kathy Knox and Mark Haywood