It is fascinating to simply think about or study the evolution of music and music consumption within the last few decades. From the vinyl records and cassette tapes of our parents, to the CDs and mp3s of today, the way we acquire and enjoy our favorite music has evolved and is continuing to revolutionize itself.

Remember the Walkman? When Sony’s iconic portable cassette and FM device came out, music listening became a very personal experience. People could now take the music they liked, customize their playlists, and listen to it anywhere they were. More innovations such as the Discman and MD players followed soon.

As the compact disc began to rise in popularity, the sound quality also improved. Music lovers also began to be more discriminating about the clarity of the recordings, and big, bulky studio headphones found their way onto the streets more and more.

Then came the mp3, fueled by the Internet revolution. With music captured digitally and at an even better quality than its predecessors, fans began to use their computers for getting and sharing music at faster progressions. Digital music players like iPods became an everyday item. Now, online streaming sites feature customizable playlists, and you can also store your music on cloud services for accessing anywhere with an Internet connection.

Learning music has also transformed. Almost any resource or lesson can be obtained online. If you do not want to spend hundreds of dollars to learn the guitar, you can get online lessons, and many of the best guitar lessons online have webcam sessions with professional instructors so you get that personal interaction with an expert.

With all these improvements and advances in music, one can only guess where we will be a few years from now and how we will be enjoying our preferred music styles.

If you are into creating music and you’re having a hard time getting your work out, don’t worry, there are other ways for you to make some money. If you search for home based business opportunities for music, you will find a couple of ways to profit. One way is through donations. There are sites that offer royalty free music which you can place your music on. When people download your music, you will get a fee. Some sites go by donation so it’ll be up to the customer to pay. This might not sound very appealing but one great reason to go this route is that people looking for royalty free music will often use it for some type of promotional purpose such as a commercial and since they have to give you credit (if you opt into that), people hearing the music can look you up and find more of your music to purchase.

Now because you may have people potentially looking you up, you want to make sure you have a website for people to find you. Here, you can upload clips of your music. You can create videos on Youtube and link back to your site as well. Not every artist likes giving away free music but sometimes, it’s the best way to get your name out there.

Tracy Darrell Adkins, you know him as Trace, was born on January 13, 1962 and is currently a country music artist. His debut album, ‘Dreamin’ Out Loud’, was released in 1996 with Capitol Records Nashville.  Since that time he has released 9 more studio albums as well as 3 greatest hits collections. His latest release was “Proud to Be Here” that hit stores in 2011.

From those albums he has charted more than 20 singles on the country charts with several number ones including “This Ain’t No Thinkin’ Thing” in 1997, “Ladies Love Country Boys” in 2007, and “You’re Gonna Miss This” in 2008.

Trace also managed to get a number 1 hit in Canada with “I Left Something Turned on at Home”.  All of his albums have at least reached gold, with most of them eventually going platinum.  His 2005 album, “Songs About Me” has already been certified double platinum in the United States.  (Platinum is reached by selling one million copies)

Trace Adkins lyrics are known for their southern boy representation as well as the bluntness of his words. His single “Arlington” raised a lot of eyebrows when it was released do to it’s representation of a fictional soldier who was killed at war and was being buried in Arlington National Cemetery.

In addition to his successful music career, Adkins has made appearances on television.  He was on the game shows Hollywood Squares and Pyramid.  He even made it nearly to the end of Donald Trump’s “The Celebrity Apprentice” before getting ‘fired’. His deep voice and southern drawl has also helped him land voice over roles such as the recurring character Elvin on King of the Hill and he has done several jobs for KFC and BC Powder commercials.

In 2007, Adkins released his autobiography A Personal Stand: Observations and Opinions from a Free-Thinking Roughneck.

Audio Converter

 When you are really into music collecting the process of cataloging and organizing your collection can be tedious and technilogically challenging.

Many of us have analog collections of records and cassettes that cant be replaced. But these recordings are not always in print or the new “remastered” versions are over produced and too vanilla. So in the interest of space and browsing we convert the files into new digital formats and try to organize it all with one master software.

Personally, I also download alot of live performances from collector and archive forums that share legal music. Often audiophiles use very specific formats that will best showcase the music without any loss. Many of these formats are not popular in commercial applications so need to be converted in order to play on consumer grade dvd and audio players.

For this you will need an Audio Converter to change your file formats into ones that your commercial electronic devices can recognize. I had the special task of finding an Audio Converter for Mac  and I was successful in my search when I discovered Imtoo. Unlike most mac conversions they actually have the full feature suite and options that are available to PC users.

I think outsiders would be surprised about how much is achieved in the Music Industry through good old fashioned networking. Lots of big breaks and sweetheart deals are made with a handshake by executives who arent easily impressed.

Watching shows on TV like Entourage, people will often think that Hollywood and the Music industry is just being dramaticized, but in fact, these shows are nearly documentaries into how the industry actually spins and churns.

Keeping up appearances, showing up to the right parties and having just the right friends goes very far in this industry. Knowing when to send the perfect business gifts is an  art either your or your agent must master.

Sending off the occassional gift for some head honchoes special occassion will rarely be noticed, but its the minimum one must do in order to stay in memory and be seen as a good team player.

I like to treat my business gift selections with the same care I select my Valentines Day gifts. I pay attention to the known tastes of the recipeient and I try to show off my attention to detail and consideration for their personal tastes. Never anything to bland or normal but I still stay away from exotic and often select tried and true old fashioned candies and chocolates or other gourmet delicacies.