YouTube

Some time last year, I read a blog that advised musicians to get their music on YouTube. At that time, I hadn't spent much time at YouTube. The most that I'd watched is an occasional vlog. I figured that a really good video for a song would cost a lot or it would also be time intensive. That was until I started searching for some of the indie artists that I had been listening to on Myspace. That was about the time I discovered that there was everything but the kitchen sink on YouTube.

The only problem I had with this, is that what I was looking for was often not available. Of course, if an artist or musician was with a major label, most likely there was something up there, even if it was a homemade live version of a song. I don't have a problem with this, but it took a long while to understand why so many bloggers were making such a big deal about getting your music on YouTube. In fact, I found that a lot of indie artists were only posting vlogs or small samples of their work, with maybe an occasional full track. Most likely if a song was there it was a live version. I also found that artists were more likely to post demonstrations or interviews as opposed to songs.

Then I heard that it was possible for videos to be downloaded and the music separated from from the video. Of course that had copyright violation written all over it, not mention the loss of a sale to someone who was able to do that. But, even so, the possibility of reaching millions is still enough to get many artists to post a video, even if there are only photos or a slide used.

For an artist who is primarily a songwriter and doesn't do a lot of live performing, YouTube is still the way to go. I've posted my own attempts at video making for several of the songs from the Work The Program album and they can be seen on the
Nprogram Video Channel.