Can you become rich and famous by putting your music on the Internet for MP3 downloads? I doubt it! However, you can make some money, and your music will have world wide exposure and you do have the opportunity to be heard...

For the most part, the MP3 music sites on the web are for promoting musicians, not for making them rich from CD sales. However, of all those who are signed to Traditional Record contracts, probably less than five percent ever get played on the radio. Most likely not even one percent of those who have record contracts ever get one dime in royalties, on the sales of their CDs.

If you place your Guitar Music on a MP3 Web Site, you have an equal opportunity in being downloaded, equal to those who have knocked out bands that are very popular when making personal appearances. MP3 music on the Web is the great equalizer in music.

There are a million MP3 web sites now. Well maybe not quite that many but the number of MP3 sites are great in number. In my mind there is a leader in MP3 music sites and that is www.MP3.com

MP3.com promotes it's Artists. It is a fact that MP3.com is a very well organized Web Site where you have no problem finding the kind of music you like. The MP3.com web site is broken down into many genres. There are even sub-genres on MP3.com. So you can find the type of music that turns you on.

On MP3.com you can listen in lo-fi to any song which is listed for download. If you have Cable Modem or DSL, you can listen in hi-fi, full-fidelity sound. It's a great experience. When you purchase a CD from www.MP3.com you have been able to listen to the music on the CD before you buy the CD. The listen before you buy method is so much better than the buy then listen way of purchasing a CD. I have purchased 8 CDs from www.MP3.com in 55 days. I have purchased from www.MP3.com some of the best music I have ever heard in my life.

Many, most, MP3 sites do not provide a way for you to listen the music before you download it. Why would anyone download an artist they have never heard? MP3.com provides the lo-fi play of all the songs that are up for download. You know what the artists sounds like before you make that download that takes from 10 to 15 minutes using a 56K modem. A High Speed modem can usually download a song in about 25 seconds.

In my opinion there is better music on MP3.com than there is in the retail CD shops. The founder of MP3.com knew that there were some great bands out there who could not get signed by a large or small record label so he established www.MP3.com for those musicians. However no matter what your level of artistry, you can place your music on www.MP3.com or any other MP3 Web Site.

MP3.com has a "Payback for Playback" program going in November. The artists on MP3.com whose music is listened to and downloaded receive a kind of royalty. In November I have had 2941 downloads, 2997 band page views, 3751 lo-fi plays, 1156 hi-fi plays. I have earned $142.29 in royalties by having people listen to and download my Guitar Music on www.MP3.com - for just the first 19 days in November. It will be interesting to see what the total is for November. I think that is pretty good for a jive Country and Blues Guitar player who has no vocals, strictly Guitar Music.

When I promoted my music on a personal Web Site, I got about 5 hits a day on my personal web Page. On my www.MP3.com band page I have averaged 157 hits every day. I get more hits on my MP3.com band page in one day than I got in a month with a personal Web Page for my music. Big difference huh?

On my personal Web Site, I made no money whatsoever on my music. On www.MP3.com I have earned $142.29 in 19 days from listeners' royalties. I have had 5 CDs sold on www.MP3.com, netting me a total of $15.00. www.MP3.com burns a CD and ships it to those who order your CD. I get half the sales price. I have priced my CD at $5.99, and have 23 songs on the CD. Most people place from 8 to 12 songs on a CD that is sold on www.MP3.com.

In the 55 days I have been on www.MP3.com I have had 7224 downloads, or an average of 131 downloads a day, 919 downloads a week, and 3940 downloads a month.

I am on one other MP3 site, and have been there for 50 days. On that site, I have had 397 Downloads, and have been paid $19.85 royalties for my downloads. Big difference between www.MP3.com and the other Web Site, in the number of downloads, and the amount of money I have made.

The reason that my music has been downloaded from MP3.com is simple: www.MP3.com promotes you as a new artists when you first post songs on the Web Site. If people listen to your music, you get on the www.MP3.com Charts in your Genre. Charts are promotion in and of themselves. I have been on the MP3.com charts, in my sub genre for 50 of the 55 days I have been on www.MP3.com.

I'm not really trying to sell you on www.MP3.com. I am merely giving you some facts so you can judge which MP3 site is the best one to post your music on. It is very evident that www.MP3.com is well organized, and promotes the music of those when they first come on to www.MP3.com, then if the downloads come, the new artists get on the Charts, and the Charts are promotion in and of themselves.

www.MP3.com has 469,000 unique visitors each day. There are 39,000 Artists who have music posted on www.MP3.com. The MP3.com Web Site has 16 main genres, and each main genre usually has many sub genres. The Country genre on MP3.com has 7 sub genres; the hip hop genre has 14 sub genres. The other main genres on www.MP3.com vary in the number of sub genres. And some sub genres have sub genres. If you can't find a proper place to put your music on www.MP3.com then you are hurting.

www.MP3.com is a corporation, a public company traded on the stock exchange. The management of www.MP3.com has the money to run a first class operation. The other MP3 music web sites are most often privately held businesses with not enough capital to have all the features that are present on www.MP3.com. It takes hundreds of millions of dollars to operate a Web Site that has tens of thousands of MP3 artists, and hundreds of thousands of visitors each day, with hundreds of thousands of MP3 music downloads. It is really as simple as that. It takes money, in the hundreds of millions, to have a great MP3.com Web Site for musicians to place their music on, and for music lovers to find the bands they want to hear and download. www.MP3.com is capitalized at $3.15 billion dollars.

There exists the very amateur and the very professional, on www.MP3.com, and on all the other MP3 sites where music is posted for download. Your success in getting your music heard when you post MP3 music files is not necessarily based on your level of professionalism. However if you are a professional working band, and know how to record your songs so they are good to listen to as recordings, you have a plus in your favor. Many very professional bands do make recordings that are good enough to be popular as recorded music. However, many professional bands have MP3 music files that are not worthy of their live performance artistry.

The problem is that many professional musicians have to have a live audience for their artistry to come out. When some great musicians record, the artistry does not come through, though they might have perfect mechanics in their performance. People do not listen to the mechanics of music, they listen to the artistry. Consequently many very professional bands are not popular when it comes to MP3 music on the net.

There is a group of musicians who have their MP3 music files on every popular MP3 Web Site that exists. These musicians work the MP3 Web Sites with a passion to stay in the charts for it is their claim to fame. Anyone can do this if they so desire, and their recordings are good enough that music lovers will download them.

Many small labels are promoting their artists using www.MP3.com and other MP3 web sites. They offer a couple of songs for free full fidelity download, and let the music lovers listen to the rest of the song in lo-fi play. If someone wants to sell CDs, this is the way to do it. And there are many MP3 music artists who only allow 2 or 3 free full fidelity downloads to let the music lovers hear a sample of the music they play. If the music lovers want to hear all the songs on the CD in full fidelity, then they must purchase the CD.

The gripes of some Artists on ww.MP3.com are: they don't sell enough CDs; they go down in the charts after being on www.MP3.com for a few months. These complainers want to post about 8 songs and want them to stay on the MP3.com charts forever, not a few months. So they bitch and moan, and are terribly negative about MP3.com. However, they stay on www.MP3.com, and they frequent the forum boards and make postings that run down www.MP3.com.

The Bitchers and moaners on www.MP3.com have thrown facts and reason out the window. Anyone knows that not even those who sell CDs by the millions seldom have one CD that remains on the Radio and Sales Charts forever, using the traditional method of marketing music. Instead of recording enough new songs to make a new CD that can get them back on the www.MP3.com charts once more, the Bitchers and moaners just bitch and moan because they are no longer on the www.MP3.com charts. The Bitchers and moaners seem to want to spread hate. They try to get musicians not to post their music on www.MP3.com. Remember one thing, if a bitcher and moaner convinces you that www.MP3.com is not the place to post your music, they are keeping you from getting your music heard.

I would say that 99 percent of all those who post their music on www.MP3.com are very happy with the results because their songs get downloaded and someone hears their music. Some very professional musicians get Record Contracts because they are heard on www.MP3.com. Some musicians are contacted by www.MP3.com and are offered the opportunity to open for Nationally known bands. The number of people this happens to is not great, but it does happen.

No matter what MP3 Web Site you post your music on, it will be heard more than if you have just a personal Web Page promoting your band. Compare my MP3.com Web Page hits of 6445 in 50 days to 5 hits a day for the personal Web Site I had for my music.

No matter what kind of music you play, you can be successful in getting downloads from MP3 Web Sites if you have some recorded music worth listening to. It doesn't matter how good your band sounds in person, your recordings have to be worth listening to before people are going to download them from www.MP3.com, or any other MP3 Web Site.

I just have instrumental music, something that is not a big seller in the traditional recorded music market, and yet I have had the number of downloads that I have given you. My songs were recorded on my computer at home, not in a high price Recording Studio, and for 50 out of 55 days I have been on www.MP3.com, I have been on the Charts. I was the featured artist in the Country Blues Genre, and I reached the number 2 spot in Country Blues with one song, and the number 3 position with another song. That shows what can be done in the MP3 music market on the net.

There are many Guitar players in the Jazz Genre of www.MP3.com. And these players are needless to say very gifted. So if you love Jazz Guitar you can find many good songs to download. In the other genres, there are few Guitar instrumentals. You might want to change that situation. I would love to see more Guitar Instrumental Music on MP3.com. Let the Guitar players stand on their own, and not have to have a singer in order for them to play their great music.

One guitarist in the Rockabilly Genre has done quite well in selling his music on CD. Danny B Harvey has some great Guitar Music that is Rockabilly, and other genres. You might check out his music on www.MP3.com.

The Blues Genre has some purely Guitar Instrumental Recordings, but not many. However, check out the acoustic Blues Genre on www.MP3.com for solo Guitar. The other sub Genres in Blues may well have some good Guitar Instrumentals also. I am in the Acoustic Blues Genre as well as the Country Blues Genre, and know the music on those web pages best.

Good luck with your efforts in MP3 music.
Lee, The Guitar Man, on www.MP3.com

Visit my Band Page and listen to my latest song, "Hillbilly Jive."
http://www.MP3.com/artists/54/the_guitar_man.html

See also, see a previous GNW article by the Guitar Man:

GUITAR AND DOBRO PLAYING
http://www.guitarsite.com/newsletters/991108/11.shtml