Dawn and I frequently get a lot of people ask us about music to practice to, so a while back I created a page with some music suggestions with links to various CDs. I’ve been amazed how quickly this page has become a dinosaur. Being in the tech industry, I was an early adopter of MP3’s and digital music. As a DJ, it makes life much easier as you don’t have to carry around cases of CDs. So I am well aware of how CDs are giving way to the era of online digital music. No matter how much the music industry wants to protect their control of music distribution and keep them stocked in stores, the CD is going the way of the 8-track. What has surprised me is the extent and speed that CDs are becoming antiquated. When I tell people asking about practice music to go to a page of CDs, I now almost always get asked about online sources or music on iTunes. This would seem logical if I was talking about the younger generation, but this has been true across almost all age demographics. It seems the majority of people don’t want CDs anymore and demand digital downloads.
So why am I still linking to CDs? I guess I didn’t realized the extent to which they are dying off. Going forward I will start providing links to iTunes. After all, it is the #2 music retailer in the US. However, I will still provide some links back to CDs. Not that I’m grasping onto a dying technology, but, I believe in supporting independent swing and jazz artists. Many of these artists still rely on CD sales and I believe we should support their livelihood. However, I think we should encourage them to offer their music for sale in online stores such as iTunes. Hopefully this will further advance their music sales and give them the ability to keep doing what they do best.
