The Internet has shifted the power to produce and consume media content from the traditional big media conglomerates into the hands of ordinary people. In the area of music, websites like mixcloud and soundcloud are online platforms for people to share and distribute content, conveniently categorised into playlists or genres. Jango is another popular website for people to listen to music, and my favourite. Just type a favourite artist name into the dialogue box and Jango will come up with a playlist of similar artists. How awesome is that.
When it comes to creating content, open source applications like Audacity and Pure Data allow serious hobbyists to manipulate sound in many powerful ways. For example, Pure Data allows real time sound manipulation with other hardware or software such as sensors and camera input. It also allows real time collaboration among musicians on the internet. For the layman, Apple’s Garageband is an easy to use app which has many features to mix some good music.
Here is a favourite playlist of mine from mixcloud, of tracks created by local Singaporean sound artist Darren Ng, aka sonicbrat. A series of soundscapes reflecting Singaporean identity. Beautiful sound indeed.
lohjianhui 