As a musician you probably tend to focus most of your energy on creating music rather than getting too involved in all the business aspects. Regardless, one of the most important things you should remember to do is copyright your music so that it’s not possible for others to use it for profit without first getting your permission. Read the rest of this entry »
With the growing popularity of MP3 players, in car CD players have become more affordable than ever. Even though they’re still more than adequate for listening to music, car audio cd players are hardly cutting-edge technology anymore, so this means you can get them for a fraction of what they cost just a few years ago. If you’ve been doing without, you’ll be amazed at the difference that one can make.
I never really bother fixing anything that’s not broken in my old heap. When my friend suggested that I get an in car CD player, I thought that he was missing the point. Why would I pay money for in car CD players when I had a perfectly good radio available? It just didn’t make sense. I’d never had the option to chose exactly what music I wanted to listen to before, so hadn’t really missed it - it never really crossed my mind that listening to the radio in my car wasn’t the only option.
When I saw how cheap in car CD players were, I decided what the heck and went out and bought a JVC car CD player right away. It was a lot easier to install than I’d anticipated. I think anyone with even a basic understanding of electrical would be able to do it. Pretty much most of the cars that don’t come with in car CD players come with a deck where you can plug one in. All you need to do is connect a few cables, screw in a few screws in, and you are up and running.
I don’t know how I did without an in car CD player for all these years. I love being able to select my own music! It’s made me think about upgrading my other audio equipment. Having in car CD players is great, but I could probably enjoy it even more if I hadn’t blown my speakers already. Listening to high-quality digital music on speakers that pop and hiss with every beat can get kind of annoying!
In my opinion, in car CD players are even better than MP3 players. Think about it - everyone wants an MP3 player or an iPod. People rip them off all the time. They’ve taken over from CD players as the best thing to steal from a car. People used to break into your car just to steal your car CD audio player or your radio. Now that iPods are around, however, people don’t do that anymore. They leave the in car CD players alone. The way I see it, it’s better to have something that’s a little out of date that can still bump the tunes than something that’ll get stolen in a couple of days!
The Freesound project is a site where you can download (and contribute) sound samples, recordings, noises and all sorts of audio snippets. The beauty of the site is that everything is released under the Creative Commons Sampling Plus License (you can view the license here). To paraphrase from the license - this means you are free “To sample, mash-up, or otherwise creatively transform this work for commercial or noncommercial purposes.” Wicked!
Now, keep in mind that the site isn’t just a massive repository where you can leech tons of useful sounds. There is a thriving community too, where once you create an account you can interact with other sound artists.
All in all, it’s an awesome resource, you could spend months trawling through the available sounds. Just make sure you do something creative with them! 
Check out The Freesound Project here.
Music licensing is very important for almost any musician. Its especially important for a serious musician, whether he play jazz, rock and roll, folk, or even classical or some other genre. It is crucial for a musician to keep his rights, and that means licensing and copyrighting his work properly.
If you right a particularly successful song, some one else might want to license your music from you, and that means big bucks for you. I had a friend once, a classically trained violinist. Even though he rarely composed songs, one day he decided to enter a contest to compose a hit new piece of music for a commercial for a popular fast food chain which shall remain nameless. He though he had made out like a bandit when he won a $500 award for his song and heard it played on the television, but soon he realized that he had been robbed.