My Instrumental MP3 Download

I just finished the instrumental mix of the music for my acoustic guitar rock song “Wait for the Dawn” that I’ll also be adding vocals to. This is one in a series of MP3 downloads that people can use for background music on YouTube videos, presentations and film soundtracks royalty free.

Free MP3 Music Download: WaitfortheDawn.MP3 - CC Licensed - More

Digital Download of Entire CD Releases on Magnatune

I was reading about the site Magnatune, which is kind of an online record label that offers free low-fi versions of the of their artists’ albums. There are three ways to use the site:

1. You can go right to their home page and start browsing.

First pick a genre you like, and since you probably don’t know any of the bands (yet) then click on a name that sounds cool. For instance I chose the genre “Ambient” then the band “Amoeba” then I clicked on “Play Low-Fi” for their CD Pivot (which is awesome by the way). At the bottom of the album page you will see this and you will want to click on the link for the MP3 file:

[hifi lofi] Play all tracks as an m3u audio stream (or xspf, ogg, mp3 file)

Doing this you can download and listen to the entire CD from any artist on the site completely legally for personal use!

2. Go to the Magnatune Free Song of the Day

3. Go to the Free Relaxation Mix

Downloading from Spinner MP3 of the Day

I also stumbled on the Spinner MP3 of the Day page which has a huge archive of new bands.

Bumblefoot Image via Wikipedia

Rock Pop Love Song Free Mp3

This week’s free mp3 music download is a rock love song I recorded with Steve Wytas at Audio911 called “Our Song”. A bunch of the songs I recorded there went on my CD or in the soundtrack for the NYU student film I was in called “At Last”.

Free MP3 Download: OurSong.MP3 - CC Licensed - More

Also in my musical world this week..

New Guns and Roses Love Song Rocks

I was reading this article about the legal problems with Guns N’ Roses’ Chinese Democracy and I went to their myspace page to check out the new cd that you can stream and listen to free. I came upon their new love song “This I Love” and man that tune rocks - particularly the guitar playing.

Bumblefoot Interview on WPDH

If you don’t know it already, then I’ll tell you that a dude named “Bumblefoot” is G&R’s new guitar player. He is a trip and I knew about him from a recent interview with Coop & Tobin on WPDH in New York. You can stream their morning show and it’s a riot. You can also check the interview with Bumblefoot on their MP3 download under “Best of Coop & Tobin” and in it you’ll hear how he is actually already has his own anti-hit album you can download from Bumblefoot.com.

The New York Times - Rocks?

I had no idea the New York Times had rock & roll music industry articles. But Peter Holsapple who toured with R.E.M. is actually one of the many writers on the roster. Since we are talking about love songs this week, I thought I’d point out the story of how the song he wrote “Love is for Lovers” was a flop, mainly because he says he can’t sing! I think it is actually a good song and I agree that it should be remade. You can listen to it and see what you think.

Free Evermore Rock MP3 Download

Ok, so now I’m off the love song topic. I don’t know much about the band Evermore except that I have heard the name and their new free download of the song “Between the Lines” is awesome. You can get it directly from their site here. You can read more about it at Idiomag.

Image via Wikipedia

Royalty Free Instrumental Music for Videos and Multimedia

I’ve been uploading the instrumental tracks for tunes I’m working on for people looking for royalty free music to use in Powerpoint presentations, flash games, YouTube videos, on hold and movies. Students even  use them in their films and recording classes to learn mixing. If you need songs for a podcast my downloads are also podsafe.

There are more clips you can use as background music and listen to on my home page. I create various electronic, techno, classical and hip hop styles by mixing beats, samples and sound effects. I also have relaxation music that can be used for hypnosis and meditation.

In the process I have been learning some things about what the options are for those looking for this kind of music.  If you don’t know what royalty-free music is you can read this very good explanation. I decided to use the creative commons music license which allows free use as long as you provide a link or credit to DanoSongs.com. I still own the copyright, but you have my permission to use the songs.

Searching for Stock Music - The Best Cheap Library Websites

There are allot of new inexpensive options for what is called “stock” music on the web now. Here are a couple of interesting articles about istockphoto and estockmusic which offer tons of professional production audio for your personal and business projects.

There is also an explanation of the online sound library business in this article about AudioMicro that lists even more places to find low cost music for videos games, advertising or whatever. With any of these sites you can pay a one time buy out fee for unlimited use of the tracks.

Download My Acoustic Guitar and Piano Song

This download is an upbeat acoustic guitar pop rock tune of mine called “The Art of Gardens”. It has some cool piano and bongos with organ loops in the bridges.  Of course look for lyrics and vocals for this recording in a future blog post and cds.

Free Music Download: TheArtofGardens.MP3 - CC Licensed - More

If you want to download 30 of my songs at once you can subscribe and I’ll send you zip files with all the instrumental audio mixes. You can also listen to the top 10 downloads in the header of this blog post, where there is also a link to get the clips as ringtones.

Book Trailer Acoustic Soundtrack Music Download

While I’m on the subject of acoustic guitar instrumentals I have to point out a story about Seeds of Change which is a social commentary novel that happens to have this free mp3 download as a promotional item for the book’s trailer.  It’s a really cool, dark and driving track. I don’t know about the copyright for it though.

Peace,

Dan-O

Kaiser Chiefs in Munich
from Wikipedia

New Huge MP3 Download Site Lists

Today I found a great list of 30 free and legal sites to download music and there are many more on this list of places for mp3 downloads as well.

I Don’t Like the Amazon MP3 Store

I also read about how Amazon and Pepsi are going to offer free music. It sounded good so I went to the Amazon MP3 site to check it out. There is a link to “Free Songs & Special Deals” and I clicked through to download Kaiser Chiefs “Never Miss a Beat” which was free.

Well, let me tell you that downloading from Amazon is no easy matter! First I had to download and install their downloader, then I had to log into my account, and then… the thing did not work, or I couldn’t find the MP3 file, or something. Because I got no music and wasted 15 minutes!

I Do Like the Large Hearted Boy Blog (Plus…cool name)

On the other hand I went to the LargeHeartedBoy blog and downloaded 5 new mp3s in 5 clicks and 50 seconds. Now that’s awesome.

You can search around the Internet forever trying to find links where you can easily download new MP3s for free for your iPod, Zune or whatever, and you run into dead ends most of the time. I have an endless need for listening to good songs, and no budget for $1 a track, so I set out to compile some favorite “free and legal for real” digital audio bookmarks that I thought I would share with you.

Music Blogs are the Solution

The big sites like myspace and imeem have downloads, but it’s almost as if the actual files are hidden somewhere even though the music is supposed to be free. That’s when I discovered that there are music blogs that actually have new and legal MP3 files from tons of really good bands.

I’ve checked many of the blogs out and listed the ones I think are the best - mostly based on how user friendly the site is for downloading. Of course you need to have an open mind for new music, but these bloggers sift through hundreds of bands to come up with the best.

How to Download Free Music

All three of these blogs work by a simple concept: Write a blog post about the songs and artist, and include one or several MP3 files you can download for your iPod in each post. Of course you will need to download the MP3 file to your hard drive by right clicking and selecting “Save Target As” or “Save Link As” and then import it into iTunes. If you have another kind of music player you can transfer it over using USB.

List of Great MP3 Blogs

1. Daytrotter.com

The thing I like the best about this site is that they keep one page as an archive of all the material they have posted on the blog. That page is here:

http://www.daytrotter.com/songs

2. Fingertips Music Blogspot

This site has a blogger blog and a regular Website with newsletter.

You can get right to the good stuff at their top 10 page here:

http://www.fingertipsmusic.com/top_10.htm

3. Obscuresound.com

Works the same as the other two - great picks and easy downloads.

I also happen to like the blog template they use.

Writing a New Blues Songs

A few years ago I set out to write a blues song and I wanted to capture something a bit dark and magical - like when I think of New Orleans. I had always seen the voodoo practices that supposedly go on down there on TV, so I thought it was a neat subject to write about.

Also there are those stories of people down in New Zealand who become like zombies from voodoo. I also learned that the moon and tides in the arctic region act really strange, like nowhere else in the world. Anyway, that’s how I came up with this song “Antarctic Moon”.

Recordings of “Antarctic Moon”

The electric version of the song is on my CD “Guitar, Lyrics and Cut-ups” but I found an acoustic recording that I sang live on WXCI at Western Connecticut University. You can download it here:

Free MP3 Music Download: AntarcticMoon-Solo.mp3 - CC Licensed - More

Another cool thing about this song is that a member of the Antarctic Circle Society found it on the Web, bought the CD and is going to catalog it on their Website as a piece of Antarctic music history. Never thought that would happen when I wrote it!

I also added a video, free ringtone and lyrics for you to check out:

Music Video for “Antarctic Moon”

The video clip for my song “Antarctic Moon” was created on Animoto.com using Flickr.com Creative Commons photos. As a requirement of the Creative Commons license I have provided links to all the great photographers who contributed to this work.

Flickr.com Creative Commons Photo Credits

Dogs on dirt road in Toas
Violão - Virada Cultural
blue light
harvest moon
moon over rust farm
Gambian woman
Hospices de Beaune
rising moon

Blues Lyrics for Antarctic Moon

Took a walk down that dirt road to the house that’s falling apart
Went to see that voodoo girl cooking soup in a broth of hearts
And her potions came over me like the sea
Under an Antarctic moon

Took a statue from her garden and a bug from a jar
Made it past the iron-gate, down that lilac tree trail to my car
And her potions came over me like the sea
Under an Antarctic moon

And her potions came over me like the sea
Under an Antarctic moon
And her potions came over me like the sea
Under an Antarctic moon
Yeah that voodoo girl was blind
But she could see right through me every time

Free Blues Ringtone

If you have checked out some of my music you might know the song “The Time Isn’t Right”. If not, you can download the track here.

Free MP3 Music Download: The Time Isn’t Right.mp3 - CC Licensed - More

I actually recorded it in Boston in 1998 with my first digital 4 track recorder. Since then it seems to be one of my songs that people like most live or when I have given out demo cds in the past.

If you hear the lyric about the “midget man in a wheel chair that gives a rose to a band that didn’t understand when he said…”, it’s about a guy I actually saw on the main street in Nashville that gave me the idea.

Since the song has allot of different characters I thought it would be cool to do a video for it to promote my old band Phoenix Tree. I used eyespot.com to mash this together using clips users of the site upload and that you are allowed to remix with your own video. The result is pretty wild.

YouTube Music Video for “The Time Isn’t Right”

I also used myxer.com to take a clip so you can use it as a free ringtone for your cell.

Download Free Ringtone

“The Time Isn’t Right” Song Lyrics

Lifted by my wings crouched on the sill
Doing acrobatics moving from the matter in the air
You wouldn’t believe what I saw
A lady in a turban looking at her future telling devices and she said

Man you shouldn’t be here the time isn’t right for you
You should have known before coming around
Man you shouldn’t be here the time isn’t right for you
You should have known before coming around

That was on my way to an alpha state
I could see the levels rising climbing up the ladder to the spheres
You wouldn’t believe what I saw
A devil in a magic robe
Telling me a supernatural prediction and he said

Man you shouldn’t be here the time isn’t right for you
You should have known before coming around
Man you shouldn’t be here the time isn’t right for you
You should have known before coming, before coming around

I don’t what to see your face around here, the time isn’t right for you

That was before I chanted for a chance
Before I counted 4 3 2 1 and I went into a dance and fell right there
You wouldn’t believe what I saw
A midget man in a wheel chair
Sell a rose to a band that didn’t understand when he said

Man you shouldn’t be here the time isn’t right for you
You should have known before coming around
Man you shouldn’t be here the time isn’t right for you
You should have known before coming, before coming around

I don’t what to see your face around here, the time isn’t right for you
I said the time isn’t right