What we should do as Microtonalists to broaden our exposure

Microtonalists:

I've been exploring Podcasting. I think this may be a way for those of us in the Microtonal music world to jumpstart our exposure to more listeners. Podcasting is the process of making audio programs available for subscription. Using RSS enclosures, you imbed an MP3 file inside an RSS feed, and people can subscribe to the feed to pick up the day's broadcast and automatically download it to their iPod or MP3 player.

Using tools like iPodder for the Mac and Doppler for Windows, you can subscribe to feeds from a variety of sources, and the tools will automatically download new content to a folder on your computer, and then synch it up with a handheld MP3 player or iPod. The beauty of this form is that it is super easy to listen to music and radio programs on the go, in your car, while on a walk, waiting for the kids at soccer, whatever. A list of content to subscribe to is posted regularly on several web pages. I subscribe to a few daily broadcasts. The best ones are listed at the bottom of this note.

Webjay, which Jeff Harrington uses to assemble playlists, supports Podcasting. Just drag the "Podcast" link from the Webjay playlist to the Doppler window and all changes to the playlist will trigger an automatic download of the new songs. Some of radio stations make available content for subscription as well.

I've started a Podcast for microtonal music. Over some "background music" I talk about what the piece will consist of, and then play the music. The site looks like a regular blog, but with some magic in the background thanks to Feedburner, you can drop a link on iPodder or Doppler and subscribed to every post on the site. Every day a new fragment will appear on your iPod or MP3 player. To see the blog, try
http://podcast1024.blogspot.com. Or if you are ready for true podcasting, add the feed link http://feeds.feedburner.com/Podcast1024
to your RSS reader or iPodder.

Indiefeed, at http://blindingflashes.blogs.com/indie_feed/ accepts Podcasts and collects music from people who support the Creative Commons License. People who want to assemble Podcasts of their own, can grab a complete intro-voiceover-music-voiceover-outro, with 95% of the cast being music. Podcast producers then can pad their Podcast with music that explains itself. The person who runs the site would be willing to host a new category for Microtonal Music, if we can commit to a steady stream of posts.

If anyone is interested, I would be glad to add the intro-voiceover & -voiceover-outro to your music if you send me permission and a URL, and a short description of the music that I could read.

For more on Podcasting, see

• definition: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Podcasting


• Samples: http://www.ipodder.org/


• Indiefeed: http://blindingflashes.blogs.com/indie_feed/


• My blog: http://podcast1024.blogspot.com


• My feed: http://feeds.feedburner.com/Podcast1024

If you already know how to receive podcasts, subscribe to these to get a feel for the style.

• In the Trenches: http://kevindevin.com/wp-rss2.php - talks about Information Technology issues


• The Daily Source Code:
  http://radio.weblogs.com/0001014/categories/dailySourceCode/rss.xml - the most professional Podcaster out there. Kind of like an FM radio jockey.


• Northwest Public Radio: http://www.nwpr.org/rss/articles.aspx - radio spots that appear on Public Radio stations in Oregon and Washington


• IT Conversations:
  http://www.itconversations.com/rss/recentWithEnclosures.php - Great discussions and public speeches by people in the IT industry


• Jeff Harrington's list:
  http://webjay.org/by/idealord/mikrotonal-experimentaltuningmusic.xml - a nice mix of tunes


• Future Tense:
  http://www.publicradio.org/columns/futuretense/podcast.xml - American Public Media on Politics


• The last 100 Podcasts: http://audio.weblogs.com/ - A directory of recent podcasts by everyone


• Air America Al Franken:
  http://www.airamericaradio.com/weblogs/alfrankenshow/index.php - needs no introduction to lefties everywhere

Prent Rodgers