Many thanks, Wellman! I am grateful that you listened and left this comment.

Thanks for listening, and for your kind words. My process of creation is a bit different than some folks’ process of creation, although it’s by no means unique or cutting-edge. But I like that I can start from different places, sometimes, than the more talented people I know, and still reach a place that is “music”.

The decision to use Jamendo stemmed from my perception that Jamendo has succeeded in generating a listening community which actively listens to material posted there. I thought about it a bit, because its format gives rise to the old “signal-amid-noise” problem. But I was persuaded by the fact that I know of a lot of people who use jamendo as it should be used—a great place to sift through and find free CC music.

I tend to post here at mixter, on the netlabel I co-own with Verian, or in submissions to compilations on other netlabels. It’s funny to me how each reaches an audience I cannot reach through the others. Last.fm teaches me that each audience is a little different. I wanted to use Jamendo to reach its audience. Also, I like places that host my albums.

I suspect that NSI, our netlabel, may draw me a few more downloads than I will draw on jamendo, but already I’ve had the kind of “shout outs” that I had hoped for, so the Jamendo hosting may work out well for me.

By the way, side note—my archive.org posting of my very first album has crossed 5,000ish downloads now, so Archive.org may get my vote for most downloads. CCmixter gets my vote for easiest way to get picked up in a podcast or video, while netlabels get my vote for most listens by people altogether. They are all good resources, and I plan to use them all. I read something by Brad Sucks which similarly advocated using multiple outlets because the audiences don’t overlap that much, and I think he’s right on that.

And there I was being happy with the 64 downloads I have got with my latest released effort and my first on archive.org. ;-) I still have to listen to the Seven Virtues EP. I have alreaded downloaded it and will give it a listen tomorrow.

I make a niche kind of music that is not mainstream, but which appeals to similarly non-mainstream listeners. People have been very kind to my archive.org release, particularly as it is even more rudimentary than my usual release.

I must go listen to your archive.org release, as I’m not sure I knew it was there before!

When I last checked I had 63 downloads, so I guess that someone has withdrawn his/her download. Or maybe I was being a bit too optimistic. ;-)

Anyway, I have listened to your EP and liked what I heard. I will certainly give it lots of more spins.

Can you point me to your archive.org release?

thanks for listening to 7 virtues. I’ve been pleased that people have enjoyed it thus far.

“eerie exchange prairie park” is something I posted at archive.org in 2005—it’s half glitchy, weirdbient electronica and half odd field recordings—but people have downloaded it, played it on ‘net radio, and so on.

Here’s the cite:

http://www.archive.org/deta...

looks like I was in error!
only 4,300 downloads.

Thanks for that great explanation of your thought process! So even on the web, multiple outlets is still an important strategy to pursue to build an audience. An important lesson for anyone with such ambitions.

Thanks!

I have a really great concrete example just in the past day or so.
I like the netlabel intelligentmachinery.net, which runs towards dark and minimalist experimental ambient, and into the “noise” culture. They run a compilation or two every year. I submitted to the December one, a drone compilation. My drone-song, “Sub-Atomic Joy”, ended up being released this past week with a lot of other drones. I noticed in my last.fm stats that it was being listened to within days by a young man in Finland who otherwise was a fan of darker metal and electronica music. I don’t think that fellow would visit any of the other places I’ve released, saving only darkwinter.com, but he was soon listening to that one at intelligentmachinery.net.

There’s something really cool, by the way, about seeing your simple submission to a small California website turn up on a Finnish mp3 player within a week. That’s the beauty of CC culture.