Monday, October 28, 2013

SoundCloud problems

Melody brought up a good question when she asked me whether I have been able to find some of the smaller provo bands on soundcloud. The answer is that it has been hard. The problem with actively trying to find a smaller band, as opposed to being led to it by recommendation algorithms, is that you are going to be shown a lot of bands and songs with similar names (even the same name). And often times you won't be able to tell that this is the band you are looking for unless you know the names of there specific songs. And finally, some local bands opt out of uploading there music to soundcloud (such as Joshua James). So what are my alternatives to finding these bands?

Well the best one is to go to smaller scale local music venues, where you can see local bands play and talk to people who can give you that information. You can also do a social network search...though i'm not entirely sure how many of these bands continually tag themselves as a provo band. So basically ask friends or other people, whether on Facebook or in person. As Melody pointed out, sharing music on sites like spotify or soundcloud with a small group of friends can be a great way to discover new music. So my answer is that no, I have not been able to find many smaller Provo bands. I will need to pursue other avenues besides SoundCloud searches.

For example Professor Burton told me his son played in a local band called "Eli Whitney" and I remember him saying they had a soundcloud, yet I couldn't find them on there. Now this may be because I misspelled the name of the band. But I tried entering some variation on the name and still couldn't find anything. It seems hard to find a band unless it already has sizable views on soundcloud, though not as hard as youtube. But it is still chaotic and hard to navigate at times. I wish they had a better system of organization and tagging.

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