Dana Oshiro is a Canadian PR strategist and writer. She blogs regularly at Villagers With Pitchforks . It’s unlikely that you’ve wooed someone by holding an iPod over your head in the rain. How we enjoy, share, discover, market and remix music has dramatically changed in the last two decades. While many of us are still rabid fans, technology allows us to wear the hat of producer, musician and distributor. Below are some of the latest trends in music and technology. If you’d like to contribute to the list, please add your thoughts in the comments below. 1. The F Word: P2P File Sharing Always a controversial topic, peer-to-peer file-sharing was once exceedingly difficult having raised the ire of the Recording Industry Association of America. Music has traveled via FTP, torrents and now via the cloud. However, one Swedish company appears to take the title of today’s file transfer darling. From the land of the Pirate Bay comes SoundCloud , a service that allows users to upload tracks and listen to streaming music quickly and easily. In the words of Stephen Colbert, “We’re not all brainiacs on the nerd patrol.” While a few select geeks still get their glitch from private back channels, many fans are clamoring to sites like SoundCloud for a fast fix on tunes. Similar services include Imeem , Deezer , GrooveShark , 8 Tracks and Project Playlist . 2. Mashups: Remix Fandemonium One of the fastest ways to make a song and its various parts viral is to encourage fan collaboration - just ask Radiohead . As part of the evolution of remix culture, web-based mixers allow fans to mix on the fly without the aid of professional audio suites. “Flash based sequencers are toys in the hands of an experienced audio engineer; however, artists consider [web sequencers] part of marketing and a possible revenue stream,” said Todd Tate, one of the organizers for San Fran MusicTech Summit . Demoed at the Music Summit, MixMatchMusic’s Remix Wizard allows fans to create new tracks instantaneously out of pre-released stems. While the tool is certainly not a professional quality mixing board, it’s a great way to increase distribution and sell stems. Many musicians will purchase stems to add to their original compilations. Two similar web-based collaboration tools include JamStudio and Indaba Music’s Session . Meanwhile, Donk DJ , reminds us that amateur remixing can be reduced to earsplitting simplicity. Built on top of the coveted EchoNest Remix API, Donk DJ lets users upload tracks only to shred them in a tornado of donk disaster. 3. App Happy: Mobile Music There are more than 1,300 music-related mobile applications in the iPhone app store alone, and consumers can only expect to see more as third-party developers build for the Android Market , BlackBerry’s App World and the much anticipated June release of the Palm Pre . Some of the more interesting music applications include the ever-popular Pandora app , which is available on for iPhone, BlackBerry, and Windows Mobile devices; Smule’s gesture-based app instrument, the Leaf Trombone ; Song lyric look up tool, LyricFind ; and Tapulous’ Tap Tap Revenge 2 - a beefier iPhone version of Guitar Hero. Pricing for most of these applications is between zero to three dollars. Given that the iPhone takes its design cue from the iPod, the device is a particularly intuitive medium for music games and players. 4. Concert Sales: Monopoly or Fanopoly For more than ten years, musicians have had a bittersweet relationship with Ticketmaster. In the nineties Pearl Jam boycotted the concert giant for “creating a virtual monopoly of tickets” and more recently Springsteen and the New Jersey Attorney General went toe to toe with Ticketmaster after Boss fans were wrongfully directed to buy marked up tickets from a subsidiary reseller. Several online ticket search engines have emerged to buck the one player ticketing system. US-based SeatQuest and FanSnap aggregate tickets from a variety of resale vendors including StubHub and TicketNetwork while Seatwave lets UK fans get a piece of the action. 5. Benjamins: Getting Paid Whether you’re an acoustic purist or a vocoding fool, Bandcamp helps starving musicians power their online stores and put food on their tables. Given the incorporation of valuable social media widgets and the ability to upload a variety of formats, the colorful adage is completely understandable. Similar services include Fairtilizer , TopSpin Media’s self service tool and the much-anticipated second coming of Muxtape . More music resources from Mashable: - Social Music: Top 5 Music Recommendation Services - The Rise of Social Music: How the Web Transformed Audio - 18 of the Best Music Tumblelogs - 16 Great Music Add-Ons for Firefox Image courtesy of iStockphoto , EasyBuy4U Reviews: Grooveshark , imeem Tags: digital music , Lists , Mobile 2.0 , music , social music , trends
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5 Trends in Digital Music
