Thanks for the kind words! Holler if you have any questions.

–Peter
peter@tuneocre.com

I think the real strength of releasing music online on a personal website (besides the availability) is the close connection those outside the music-making process can have with the musicians as they release the ‘finished product’ so to speak. That’s a connection that I don’t see very much of with big label bands, even those with a blog, like Radiohead. After all, those bands need to maintain a kind of image - the music you put out here is more of an obvious extension of, well, you. And if people are here reading this site already, then the music is just one more intriguing part of the total package, if that makes any sense.

This is the reason i just love posting my music on this blog for free. I love being able to hear the story, read the lyrics, and enjoy the music all at once. i’d even like to do youtube style videos of the performances.

re: jon

Also, ‘releasing an album’ via CD or vinyl is a way of indicating that you are serious enough about your music to place it out on the market to compete with all the other music available. I think even a small, high-quality, limited run of CD’s would be certainly worth while if you had a batch of music ready to put out

I’d be all about making some CD’s if it weren’t for one, small, inconsequential thing: money. to sell cd’s, you have to buy cd’s. Top quality duplication and silkscreening costs way too much for a hobby budget. My hobby budget has to compete with the grocery budget and the credit card bills. I don’t think it’s going to win out very often. And that is, in so many words, the reply to point 1: I am clearly not serious enough about my music to put it out there to compete with all other music available.

I already declared that i am absolutely uninterested in the whole advert, promo, headline-making, radio-playing, indie showtimey flashy gigging musician-on-the-road deal.

What I want to do, and i suppose i’ll have to settle with the inevitable non-profitability of the whole idea, is to just sell what i already love to create, without the overhead and investment of actually “entering” a.k.a. “competing” in the music business. The cheapest way to do that would be online. Unfortunately for Matt Smith, digital music stores are highly lucrative. I know, i know; DRM is evil.

i think the point is, i’m going to keep my music for free on my website.

Guitarist, improviser, and all-around crazy man, Eugene Chadbourne has been doing this for years, often-times including some home recordings, outtakes, or other ‘bonus’ features in his mail-order albums. You won’t make a living doing this, and things will have a kind of home-made charm, but nonetheless its proved a viable option for some artists, especially those releasing multiple types of these ‘albums’ per year…

As, to the money making thing - I have basically two thoughts:

1) A large majority of people still treasure having a physical artifact. Also, ‘releasing an album’ via CD or vinyl is a way of indicating that you are serious enough about your music to place it out on the market to compete with all the other music available. I think even a small, high-quality, limited run of CD’s would be certainly worth while if you had a batch of music ready to put out, which leads me to point two….

2) Releasing an ‘album’ is totally different from putting up a group of songs to download. Some might disagree, but the standard for albums was really set back in the late 60’s and early 70’s - albums have a kind of thematic cohesiveness and come with a set of expectations from listeners (liner notes, album art that somehow relates to the music, credits, composition rights, etc.). These days, the format of the album seems to be on some shaky ground - digital downloading is changing people’s expectations of music, I think. So perhaps the larger question to ask is, “Should I be putting out my music in a format that is fast becoming obsolete?” The itunes method is a kind of next step in moving away from the album format, but as Matt notes, that is only going to reach people who use digital music stores. Having said all that, I think a proper CD is still the way to make a serious move towards making money off your music, even if it’s only in a limited way.

At any rate, we are being bombarded with so much music these days that sometimes I just want to stop listening completely. The way to grab people’s attention in this ocean of sound is to either have a big label and lots of promotion behind you, or to connect directly with your listeners both with and outside of the music making process. You’ve been doing the latter of those two with this site for quite some time now, and I hope that never ends, regardless of how ‘commercial’ you wish to be with the music you make.

Finally, you should bear in mind (and now I’m stating the obvious) that most small-time, independent musicians make the majority of their profits from playing shows, not from selling CDs. The most effective way to make some cash from your efforts here would be to polish up your arrangements, get a band together, and take your show offline and on to the road. Of course, that’s a seperate issue entirely, but one worth thinking about.