Thursday, May 1, 2008

Recommendation & Filters...

What is a music enthusiast to do with so much music being put out nowadays?

I've been told it's all about Filters(?) and Recommendation Services(?).

I will talk about "Recommendation Services" first.

http://www.imeem.com/

http://www.lastfm.com/

Those are just two sites that offer the Recommendation Service.

iTunes also offers a recommendation system. As far as I can tell these things work by keeping up with what you are listening to or purchasing and making recommendations based on that.

I guess this is also where "Filters" come into play because these sites are filtering out what you are not listening to and focusing only on the type or types of music you have shown an interest in.

How does this benefit the independent musician? Well if you manage to get your music uploaded into any of these services...And if you categorize yourself properly then you may just find your music being funneled into someones profile.

The hard part is getting the initial exposure. Once you get some folks listening to your music the momentum should pick up and you may find yourself being listed right alongside some of your biggest influences (if you have managed to capture a similar sound quality in your music).

I still think that saturation and obscurity are the enemy for the independent musician and any hope of beating those two depends on your ability to channel your exposure to the right arenas.

Play shows, make connections with people in the "Know" and of course: Make great music.

I really do believe that Connections are a very big part of it though...you can not just make great music and hope someone hears it. You have to know someone somewhere that can put your music in the "Right" hands.

If the "Right" hands like what you are doing and Recommend it to others, this will go a very long way in helping you to achieve your goals.

Wow, you read the whole post. Good for you!

Cheers,
m e e k
m u s i c

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

You're exposure online has everything to do with how hard you're willing to work at it.

I once had an imeem account that had a modest number of plays, the problem was that it was growing at a ridiculously slow pace because I wasn't on imeem every day. You've got to browse profiles, playlists, etc. You've got to communicate. People won't just stumble upon your music. I ended up canceling my imeem account and have not missed it since.

Last.fm on the other hand is a dream. I've found so much fantastic music on there. The social networking aspect is great, and the downloadable radio app is pretty cool too. Using the last.fm radio app, you can tag songs with descriptions or whatever you want, there is also a feature to "love" or "hate" a song. The algorithms process all this and recommend based on your real listening habits. It even tracks iPod plays and songs you play in windows media player (as long as you also have the last.fm plugin). The more you listen, the better the recommendation.

If there was one site I would say you have to have your music on, it would be last.fm. It only takes a few hundred plays (called 'scrobbles') for the system to begin matching you with similar artists, thus increasing the chances you'll be discovered.

Anonymous said...

Wow, I can't believe I made the mistake of typing "you're" instead of "your." :P