1
Getting Started with SoundCloud

THE WORLD OF SOCIAL MEDIA IS ADVANCING DAILY as more and more individuals realize the value of connections beyond the personal. Platforms that were once great for catching up with friends have now become business platforms for promotion, awareness, and brand-building. As a musician, these tools shape the way you communicate with your fans and the music industry. You no longer have to wait for that A&R representative to be at a gig; you can build up your own following and your own demand, and increase your value for a potential label deal. Then again, you could get enough momentum to go it alone and bypass the label idea altogether. Whichever route you take, SoundCloud is a must-have in your musical and brand arsenal.

Let’s start. Open your web browser and type in www.soundcloud.com. The first thing you’ll notice about SoundCloud, before you even create an account, is the website—slice-of-life images of real people, engaging with music by either making it or listening to it. If I say to you that music is a social vehicle, you’ll say, “Yes, of course!” But it wasn’t always this way. Except for when you went to a gig or had a disco in your basement, music was at times an isolated experience. You listened in your room, in your car, and maybe a communal space, like a lounge. Nowadays there is so much choice—even with an iPod and earbuds, you’re connected to every other person who bops his or her head walking past.

There’s a commonality among people now. And SoundCloud is all about the collective, about sharing, about connections. You don’t just have an affinity with the person who called in to the radio station and happened to request a song you love; now you can interact and meet thousands of people with similar tastes, right in your home, at your office, or on vacation somewhere. All you need is a device and the Internet, and you can have access to SoundCloud and the world of music it represents.

As a musician, your potential fans can scout you before a gig, share your music with their friends and network, and follow your progress as you upload more songs. And it doesn’t stop there. They can comment on your track, but thanks to SoundCloud’s interactive wave, they can also comment on specific elements of it, and they can actively engage with you and your creative process. Yes you can love a song, but you can also home in on the atoms of a musical piece—you love that drop, that buildup, the chorus, that last chord heavy with reverb and nostalgia.

Your music and your production process become a more intimate experience for you and your fans, and there’s value in that level of feedback, in that type of connection, which, when harnessed, can help build your brand and career. Dive into a new layer of fan interaction, and let’s get started with SoundClound.

Figure 1.1 SoundCloud homepage.

Source: SoundCloud^®.