Julie Fowlis on social networking
writes:
The power of the internet in the modern music industry is incredible. The last ten years has seen a phenomenal growth in the social networking sites like , , and . It's a powerful tool for any musician...
...it's free, straightforward (for the most part) and, if you're dedicated to working the system - you can get your music quite far, quite fast.Ìý With this advantage, of course, comes a flip side - it is also just as easy to illegally download tracks, share music files and find copies of illegally recorded concerts online - all of which can impact the artist.Ìý It has become such a normal part of everyday life, I shouldn't be surprised to hear about the new song called 'Add Me', which is about someone on a social networking site. Tune into Mike's programme this week to hear it! I think we will be waiting a while for a Gaelic version of something similar though...
Our USA tour is now over, and I am slowly making my way back to Scotland, and home for a few days before heading off for our debut show in Germany, closely followed by a three week tour of England and Wales. Dates all on and our wee version of Blackbird will be released very soon as a digital download so keep an eye out for that.Ìý Hope to see some of you along the road somewhere! Ìý
Take care
Julie Fowlis
Comment number 1.
At 11th Oct 2008, Jon Freeman wrote:I don't doubt it's a useful tool for artists but not being one, I much preferred a different Internet scene where people could hear each other's music, "live" music too!
Our part started on Mudcat when Jim bunch mentioned something called Hearme, I think in 2000. I got involved in setting a page up, even going as far as writing a program that would lock the Hearme mic button to save people from trying to devise ways to hold the ctrl key down (methods included wedging cardboard from a fag packet between two keys and capoing the key!) while for example playing guitar. The page proved quite popular and there were probably around 6 people pop in for an hr or so most nights (well nights to me).
I thought it quite exciting at the time. You could have someone in Australia, another in the UK, another in the US, etc. taking it in turns giving a song or tune "live". The sound quality was usually pretty reasonable too.
Anyway, Hearme became unreliable (and I think eventually went bust) and we moved over to Paltalk. Although this was a cause of disagreement as the Hearme room had been pretty well closed (well more hidden outside Mudcat), a number of us went "open room". For me, this widened things as there were other live music rooms over there and there was some crossover between the sort of "live and accoustic" (who's "social side" became so good, they even had a couple of get togethers where some met in person!) and our "folk" rooms.
At our peak, I'd guess we could have up to about 20-30 "live performers" and the room often could keep going from (UK time) 7pm to 7am, longer sometimes, as people came and went. The Mudcat side of things at one time some of the more confident would give "concerts" (up to an hr live performance in another room) once a week. Looking at myspace, dwditty was one -
I'm not sure what happened to it from there or whether there is still a folk room (I'm sure there still we live music of some sorts) but I'm not up for the late nights any more (or for that matter. the drinks I'd have for dutch courage...). Still it was a fun time for me and for others. To me, not as good as playing with others in a session or singaround but the closest I've seen online.
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