Hi, I finished the track “Rapid Arc” this week which is a really different mix of trip hop and industrial music with a few vocal samples from Majella thrown in. This could be cool just to listen to or play in a podcast, as royalty free music for games, action videos, sideshows, presentations or whatever else that calls for uptempo wild music.

Free Download Royalty Free Music: RapidArc.MP3

Speaking of games check out this killer HD video game montage that used my song “Crawled Out of a Grave” by Daniel over at the ClearCut83 YouTube channel.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fml2CtMOuT0

Also I added a whole new section to my site with over 6,000 free games you can play at DanoSongs.com/Games.

That’s it for now, have a great week. Peace, Dan-O

CC: andypowe11 on flickr.com

This week I put together this acoustic techno piece with a spy sounding instrumental called “Violet Shrine”:

Acoustic Guitar Free Download: Violet Shrine.MP3

Also, Phil Marchand (philmarchand.com) used my song “Crawled Out of a Grave” as royalty free background music in his amazing, full of action outdoor adventure videos showing a mountain rope rescue, raft guide training and skiing tours.

Photographer Teymur Madjderey included my pop rock instrumental “The Wire” in his video documentary of a workshop which took place in Venice, Italty. It’s part of a blog post that also has some magnificent pictures of Venice which I could not stop looking at.

The folks at Blue Muse Publishing.com let me know that my tracks made it to the top 20 on Blue Muse Independent Radio. They are the publisher for JD Wood who I interviewed and who I think is a special talent.

Plus I got booked at the Androgyny Gallery on 5 Mulberry St in New Paltz, NY (845 256-0620) to do an acoustic guitar and vocals show on Sunday July 12th, 3-6 pm. I do a mix of classic and modern rock hits, jazz standards and my original songs.

Taltopia.com - Fans Choose “Shame” or “Fame”

Hi, this has been a very exciting week. Author Leann Marshall used my song “Silk” in her trailer for her SciFi book The Starfish People which was Winner of the 2008 IPPY Award for Excellence in Independent Publishing. I interviewed her in my music technology blog where you can find her Website and the video.

If you just subscribed recently, you already know this…I also put my MP3s into two new collections in zip files so people can download many of the songs at once from my site. I have been getting lots of downloads of these on peer 2 peer torrent networks, and “index of” searches, which is fun to see. Here are the links:

Silent Castle.zip - 8 of my pop, rock and techno songs with vocals. The same as on my home page, but in one download, like an album.

Dreaming in Science.zip - All instrumentals with alternative, light rock and moody electronic tunes.

I recommend TugZip if you need a program to unzip these files, just check out their site to learn how to use zip files. It’s just like opening any other file once you get the free program.

Free MP3 Download: Ambershire,MP3 - an experimental instrumental piece from the new collection I put together using Chinese instruments.

These are all free and royalty free to use or share with just a link back to my site.

Also, I was reading about Taltopia on CNN’s “Young People Who Rock” blog this week and decided to give the site a try. It’s another online “idol” style site where you get to place your vote. I checked into their Web statistics too, before bothering with signing up, and it turns out that this site’s weekly visitors have been skyrocketing. It’s free to sign up and I have already gotten some “fans” - so far so good.

All the best, have a great week.

Peace,

Dan

Hey, this week I’ve been listening to a bunch of musicsubmit.com artists and getting in touch with them to ask some questions about their approach to making and performing music. You can check out JD Wood, DJ Dazed and Nila Kay on my interview blog. Then visit their Websites to listen to some music that I really love and recommend.

Next I have been doing some fun collaborations with visitors of my site. Siobhan Hallett used my royalty free song “Rescue Me” in her student film on YouTube. I had a great email exchange with Per Erik Grønvik about the future of the music industry that I posted here in my music technology blog. He also suggested I redo my homepage to feature my own items like my CD and SongMix eBook and I did.

Ooh-chan wrote me a really nice note about how he used my instrumental MP3 “The Art of Gardens” as background music in a video for “Imbiss Fuga”, a restaurant she is promoting. The Opferman Motors YouTube channel also contacted me to do a rock instrumental for their motorcycle videos which leads me to this week’s royalty free rock instrumental songs download I produced called “The Wire”:

Free MP3 Download: The Wire.Mp3
(Creative Commons Royalty Free w/ Attribution Link to DanoSongs.com)

I also joined OurStage.com which I have been hearing about lately. Its a way for fans to get free music downloads and also vote on artists - kind of like an online American Idol.

Speaking of American Idol, I can’t believe they kicked Allison Iraheta off. She is awesome and I hope she does a CD.

Thanks for visiting and reading!

Peace,

Dan-O

Hi, thanks for checking out my latest update.

I am getting more and more interest in royalty free instrumental songs that people can use as background music for YouTube videos and on their Websites. If you don’t know, I offer my tracks under the creative commons for free use if you provide a link back to my Website danosongs.com.

For that reason I am going to get even more focused with these posts and just send out my own music so that you can be sure its ok download it it and do whatever you want with it. I love reviewing other artists but it is just to complicated to ask them to let people who visit my site use the music totally for free.

The other week a visitor asked if I could create something in the techno style of DJ Tiesto so I came up with this track called “Snapsphere”:

Downloadable Royalty Free MP3 Instrumental: Snapshpere.mp3

I am working on building my music library so if you need custom music I may be able to come up with something. Also, this week I uploaded two new rock songs with vocals on solo acoustic guitar called “Everything Dies” and “The Art of Gardens” on my home page.

Plus check out a couple of write ups I did on the online music institute Music Master Pro and the web-based beat making program called Sonic Producer.

Peace,

Dan-O

Image via Wikipedia

Techno Collaboration

A few years ago I met a fellow named Stashuk (Stan Shatkin) by answering his ad in Craigslist for a singer to sing on some of his techno tracks. Well if you know my music at all you might have noticed that I create some eclectic tunes and so working on an electronic project was perfect.

So I met with Stan and his partner Travis Lemmons in New York City at a rehearsal room one night. They are real cool guys that are serious about music. They have a Website essentialwave.com where you can see that they team up with a bunch of other djs to create tunes and jam out parties.

Creation of the Song “Silk”

After a time Stan and Travis gave me a CD of a song they called “Digital Illusion” and asked if I would make up some lyrics and sing over them, as well as play some guitar.  Well, my daughter had just written her first poem about the ocean and I loved it so I added and adjusted it a bit and used it as lyrics.

Then we did a recording session and what came out of it was a track called “Silk”!  If you have not already you can download the song at my home page.  Stan also released the instrumental version, still called Digital Illusion, on his CD you can check out at CD Baby here.

Techno MP3 Music Download

Well the whole point here is to uncover a new free MP3 track that you can download.  So I got in touch with Stan to see what he was up to and if he had any good techno tunes to offer.  After going through a bunch I really liked he gave me permission to post “Sunset in Paradise”. This track has a punchy driving beat, swirling melodic theme and moody breakdowns.  I love the combination of the ethereal synth with the full pulsing beat.

Download: SunsetinParadise.MP3 (with persmission from artist for free personal use)

Artist: Stashuk

Website: www.myspace.com/digitalsouls

Buy CD: http://cdbaby.com/cd/stashuk

You can contact Stashuk through myspace or stashuk [at] yahoo.com if you want to put his song in a podcast, video, or any kind of commercial project.  I hope you enjoy it.

Peace, Dan

In addition to writing standard pop rock songs I like to create loop-based instrumental ambient and techno electronic music sometimes.  This one is called “Copper Mountain”:

My Free Techno Music Download this Week: CopperMountain.MP3

Free Music Download Tutorial

I came on this great tutorial for IPod and iPhone from iLounge that details the ins and outs of how to download MP3s from iTunes, Amazon, Walmart, Napster, eMusic and Rhapsody.  By the way if you don’t already know when you download MP3s you want what is called “DRM-free” because that places no restrictions on your ability to burn to CD, make copies for yourself or whatever else you want to do with the file.

The Latest MP3s Around the Web

I also found this free music download from a band called Funeral Party that I think is really upbeat, fun rock with a bit of a gritty, funky edge to it.  Also, I discovered the Friendly Foes MP3s, an indie alternative band with a fresh sound that I liked too.

If you like Hip-hop, check out the CraveOnline December Free MP3 Roundup.  I dig DJ Babu’s track “Dearly Departed” which has a very unique new style that combines a Latin feel with rap.

If you like to workout and you are always looking for new electronic music to get moving then check out FitMusic.  The music is kind of generic but it’s programmed to be uptempo and easy to listen to so, and I thought I would mention it because you can also subscribe to the iTunes podcast.

Music Download Controversy in Schools

If you or someone you know is in college you have probably heard of the music industry’s new idea for college students to be able to download unlimited music for a monthly fee.  This is sparking a lot of controversy that you can read about here.

Related Free Music Downloads Articles:

• eMusic hits 250 million downloads
• eMusic: 250 Million Songs Downloaded. iTunes: 5 Billion+
• AT&T; offers Napster music
• O2 signs up with Napster
• More Music Sites (Part 3)
• SanDisk Sansa Clip MP3 Player: Best buy

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.

Download: WaitfortheDawn.MP3

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.

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 presentations, YouTube videos and films.

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.

Searching for Stock Music

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 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.

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 in the bridges.  Of course look for lyrics and vocals for this recording in a future blog post.

Download: TheArtofGardens.MP3

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.

This is another instrumental rock mix I finished for my next CD.  Its from a slow song called “Joker with Honey Lips”.  It has organ, acoustic guitar, drums and some electric guitar in the verse and bridge. 

It’s a simple song with a couple of chords that makes it easy to play on acoustic live.  This recording with a band makes it so different sounding.  I am doing the instrumental tracks for all 10 songs before remixing with vocals.

Joker with Honey Lips MP3 Download