Music: one of our greatest loves. Artists and musicians enrich our lives immencely. Gotta love those artists.
Some musicians choose to release their songs under the Creative Commons license. In other words, these artists give you permission to use free music for marketing. Learn more about the different license types here and here.
Always read the attribution information to respect the artists’ rights.
For each free music source on the list, I selected one piece of music that spoke to me.
Open your ears to open your soul.
These tips are valueable when adding music to your marketing project.
1. The Free Music Archive
“It’s not just free music; it’s good music”
This source may be the answer to all your prayers. Covers everything from the praying on your knees to rockin’ with dreadlocks.
The nice search function includes artist’s name, sub-genres and different license types. Sit back and keep working with the ‘play page’ function.
2. cc Mixer.org
“Download, Sample Cut-up, Share.”
Cut through the noise quickly with the Editor’s Pick. Easily embed on your site by clicking the link on the left within each mix.
The handy dandy attribution link removes the guess work on how to appropriately attribute.
For mixes with non-commercial attribution, look for CCPlus licensing. A straight forward series of questions gets you the right license and price from tunetrack.net.
Sublime, dreamy and soothing, the ‘Shallow Waters’ by raja_ffm mix is so soothing you might choose to buy it. Close your eyes.
3. Incompetech
The list of emotions from bouncy to unnerving is useful to make a shortlist. The individual pieces descriptions are great.
Got a mood in mind? Start with a themed categories such as horror or action.
Having found something interesting clicking on the ‘more’ box gives you the info for appropriate accreditation.
This is an article about free music but at $49 for the entire catalogue (catalog) I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention it!
Evocative of beaches, sun and cocktails, you’ll find it hard to resist creating little beauties. Try starting with the music and adding imagery for a change!
Made with Magisto. Music “Maccary Bay” Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) in Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/
Other Lists Of Free Music
14 awesome open source music sites for digital creatives by Web Distortion
12 Creative Commons Sources Of Free Video Music
6 Twitter Accounts That Will Find You Free Music By Mashable
Have free music you’d like to see added? Let me know with a tweet.