April Newsletter

Welcome to the April edition of the ShareSong.org Newsletter. 

This month we’ve got some great new praise and worship music to share with you, some exciting updates on the site, and some thoughts on the digital music revolution that has transpired in the wake of the Napster furore.

You may have noticed that we’ve transferred the Newsletter over to a Yahoo Group to facilitate cleaner distribution and easier maintenance for the ever expanding group of (over 1500) registered users. 

If, at any time, you would like to unsubscribe from this distribution list simply send an email to ss-newsletter-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com. 

Overview

New Music

Online Radio Station

Chat Room

Discussion Lists

The Digital Music Revolution

Legalities

Press Release

New Music

One of the best things about being involved in the ShareSong.org project is sitting down each month and going through all the great new music that has been added.  There is just so much seriously high quality praise and worship music happening out there!  

Here’s a quick sample of some of the highlights from this months’ 55 new additions. 

Jim Hronchek (mcw_share@roundcheck.com) has submitted another 12 songs ranging from a lounge jazz/big band style to his usual driving rock and worshipful ballads off his new albums “Just For You” and “Prophet’s Call”.  

Nathan Gifford (ngsax.com) from Hammond, Indiana has submitted four high quality worship songs that draw on some nice jazz influences.  “I Come to Give You Praise” is a must-listen that starts out quietly taxing down the runway and then takes off into the heavens like a Boeing 747!

Dan Foster has submitted “I Met Jesus”, a great Elvis-like rockabilly that really goes off! 

Darlene Ketchum (http://www.pacificlife.edu/dketchum/) has submitted “God Rocks” from her album “God Attitude” which focuses on kids worship.  This one is set to be a youth anthem in years to come! 

Ray Watson (http://secretplaceministries.org) has submitted three beautiful new worship songs from his “Throne of Love” album.   

The Digital Music Revolution

They say “any publicity is good publicity.”  While the recent media furore over the illegal music sharing on Napster.com brought a lot of bad publicity to online music sharing, it also greatly raised the profile of the humble mp3 file format.  A lot of people, especially the big record companies, have taken notice, of the potential for the sharing of music via the Internet. 

Last month we featured a number of comments about ShareSong.org.  This month we look at what some secular artists have said about the sharing of digital music and the change in paradigm that it has brought about in the distribution of music. 

“I am in support of the sharing of music files.  I believe that truly another parallel music industry will be created along side the one that presently exists and that is exactly what traditionalists fear.”  Chuck D, Public Enemy 

“Somewhere along the way, record companies figured out that it’s a lot more profitable to control the distribution system than it is to nurture artists.”  Courtney Love, Hole

“’Shawn would go on these 50-hour coding stints -- thank you, Red Bull -- and just watching him would make anyone tired," says Ritter. "When coupled with 16- and 20-hour days from Ali and me, we'd reach a certain critical mass…

“You know, I rarely use Napster. It's unfortunate on so many levels, not having time to enjoy what you worked hard to create. But once in a while, I'd boot it up and search for rare material. What I'd get back would just boggle my mind. It would make me sit there in silence and stare at my screen like an idiot. The realization hit me like a ton of bricks. I'd download some esoteric live UK performance and listen to it several times, all the while screaming over my shoulder to Shawn or Ali, "Man, do you have any idea what we've got here?" over and over. I've had this epiphany several times. But I never really had any idea of the magnitude of impact the system would have, and frankly, I don 't see how anyone could. Who on earth would have figured those adoption rates (i.e. 38 million users within a year)? We didn't have to market the product, no advertising, nothing. Who could have predicted that? Shawn always knew it would be big, and I believed him. But I'm fairly sure even his own expectations were blown away early on.”  Jordan Ritter, 23, Napster Co-Founder

“The Internet will act to help level the playing field.  Even though the large corporations will maintain a large percentage of control, there will be lot more room for independent labels and individuals.  The Internet is an empowering medium above all else” Sam King, Co-Founder and Vice President, MP3.com.au  

We believe it is inevitable that praise and worship msuic will be (and already is to a large part) caught up in the digital music revolution.  Over time, artists will find themselves distributing their material via both traditional means (i.e. CDs and tapes) and on the Internet. 

The advantages are huge for the up-and-coming songwriters and artists.  Anyone who’s gone through the process of burning a short run of CDRs just to get their music heard knows how blissful the concept of just uploading music to the Internet for other people to download is.  The fact that MP3.com will give you money for them hosting your work (Playback 4 Payback) and even market, sell, burn and mail your CDs for you sounds too good to be true (D.A.M. CD Program).  

For the medium sized artist (or church) who have produced an album and sold it to everyone that they know, they can then take it to the Internet and get some further mileage (and sales) for their creative effort. 

The digital music revolution will afford the large commercial artist an even higher profile.  People like Madonna (mp3.com/Madonna), Dido (mp3.com/Dido), Eric Clapton (mp3.com/EricClapton) and Highest Praise (mp3.com/HighestPraise) know that it’s all about exposure.  Only when people know who you are do you have a market.  No matter how good your work is, if you don’t have a way of easily letting people hear it, your CDs will just sit on YOUR shelf.  

As the publication of illegal songs is shut down on Napster, users will go looking for new music available LEGALLY on the Internet.

The vision of having a method of distributing praise and worship music LEGALLY via the Internet seems to be increasingly relevant.   

Press Release

A press release (sharesong.org/press_release.htm) has been developed to succinctly communicate the message about ShareSong.org.  If you are involved with a magazine, newsletter, radio station or even a church bulletin, we would greatly appreciate it if you could use this press release to pass on the word.  

Legalities

The Napster debacle has highlighted the need to tie up the legal loose ends when it comes to do with the hosting to intellectually copyrighted material (e.g. digital audio, sheet music, chord charts etc) on the Internet.  

In view of this, we have revamped the Contributor’s and User’s Agreements (sharesong.org/use_agreement.htm and sharesong.org/writers_contributors_agreement.htm)

Discussion Lists

Just in case you’re not getting enough email already, we’re featuring a couple of discussion lists to check out if you're in being involved in the online praise and worship community. 

ChristianSongWriting.Org (http://ChristianSongwriting.org) is a great list to be on if you want to brush up on the nuts and bolts of being a Christian Songwriter.  Participants helpfully critique each other’s work and discuss both philosophical and technical issues that are of relevance to Christian songwriters.  On this list you’ll meet a lot of the people that have been doing Christian music on the Internet for as long as the WWW has existed and have a lot of knowledge and experience to share.  

Worship Together (http://www.worshiptogether.com) has a list for worship leaders (seriously high volume), which keeps you up to date with what’s happening in the commercial realm of praise and worship music.

Christian Songwriters (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CSWR) is a list that is based around the Christian Song Writers Webring (http://nav.webring.yahoo.com/hub?ring=christsong&id=1&hub) and Songs of Praise (http://songsofpraise.org/), both of which were started by Elton Smith.   

Then there’s the writers@sharesong.org (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/sharesongwriters) which has been set up as a focal point for writers, worship leaders, and users of praise and worship music who are involved in ShareSong.org. 

Online Radio Stations

We’ve set up a ShareSong.org radio station on ShareSong.org (mp3.com/stations/ShareSong) in conjunction with the ShareSong.org mp3.com site (mp3.com/ShareSong) to showcase some of the latest and greatest material being added to ShareSong.org.  This enables you to listen to streaming music while you surf the web. 

If you have material on mp3.com that you would like added to the radio station then please let us know. 

Hoping that you and yours have a blessed Easter...  He is risen!

Marty Kendall

ShareSong.org Coordinator