Chorus Line: A New Way to Find Music and Promote Unsigned Bands And Performers

I've been thinking recently about the problems and the sheer work involved in finding new music online from new bands, and how solving these problems would help bands and performers to promote their work. So I've devised this idea and submitted it to the Global Ideas Bank:

Chorus Line: A New Way to Find Music and Promote Unsigned Bands And Performers

The Problem

The problem exists for two groups: music lovers (or music seekers) and unsigned bands/performers.

The music seeker: The problem for the music seeker is a simple one: you want to quickly find lots of new music from new bands/performers but it takes so long to navigate around the different websites and pages.

Bands/Performers: Thus this obviously creates a big problem for bands! -- their music is much less likely to be heard if people cannot access lots of new music quickly and easily.

What’s needed is a quick way for people to hear lots of new music from different bands/performers, and to be able to pick out the music they want to hear more of – to sort the wheat from the chaff, if you like.

The Solution

“The Chorus Line”

In A Nutshell: The Chorus Line is a compilation of many choruses from different songs, and each of these songs is by a different unsigned band/performer.

When a listener plays the Chorus Line they hear ten seconds of a song (the chorus) before the Chorus Line proceeds to the next song and then the song after that etc.

Selecting Favourites: If the listener likes the chorus currently playing and wants to hear the whole song they have the option to either:

Listen to the entire song now

Or

If they wish to continue listening to the current Chorus Line, they can save the song to their favourites to be listened to at a later time.

Chart: Charts would be compiled showing the most saved songs, and the most listened to songs.

A rough idea of how Chorus Line could look:

Note: The "Play" marker can be dragged either backwards (as rewind) or forwards (as fast-forward).

The Winners’ Hierarchy

If there are say, one hundred songs on one day’s Chorus Line and a “winner” is picked (the song with the most entire listens) then that song could be included in a monthly Chorus Line compiled to find “The Song Of The Month”. Thus there could also be a "Song Of The Year" feature.

Where?

Chorus Line could be created on a new website, or an existing site linked with music (such as MySpace or YouTube) could introduce the feature.

Further Options and Possibilities

The Band/performer could decide what part of a song is added to the Chorus Line: they may opt to add a verse and the chorus, or the introduction and the chorus, the chorus and the instrumental etc.

The listener could decide how much of each song is heard – for example, they may decide that they’d like to hear ten seconds of a verse of each song, and twenty seconds of the chorus. Or maybe they want to hear more songs and feel they could pick out the good songs on hearing only five seconds of each chorus.

There could be a comprehensive library featuring all songs that featured on the Chorus Line and all past winners.

Statistics (and another chart) could be created about how many people decide to visit a band/performer’s webpage after hearing their song through Chorus Line.

Each day’s Chorus Line could be sponsored. Perhaps each day’s Chorus Line could be sponsored by an established band/performer, and a Chorus Line could be created featuring that band’s entire output, to help promote their music.

Different Types Of Chorus Line Possible

Individual bands and performers would be able to download the Chorus Line software so that they could make their own Chorus Line but featuring just their own songs. This Chorus Line could be added to their own MySpace page to enable visitors to be able to form a quick impression of the band and, if they decide to hear more, they can choose which songs they like the most to hear in their entirety.

A Chorus Line could be created to help choose the shortlist for the Eurovision Song Contest. The public could thus be involved in all stages of the Eurovision selection process.

Chorus Lines featuring vocalists could be created so that songwriters can quickly find suitable vocalists for their songs.

“A Capella” Chorus Line for songwriters: If someone writes songs and does not have the musical ability or the resources to pay for professional demos, they could sing their songs A Capella to be included in a Chorus Line. Visitors (and statistics) would inform the songwriter which are the best songs to pursue, and also listeners – if they like the song – could opt to assist in making demos.

A Chorus Line could be made for the purpose of displaying the talents of musicians. For example, a guitarist could add their work to a Chorus Line and people looking for a guitarist would be able to listen to that Chorus Line to speed their search.

Different Chorus Lines could be created for different music genres: eg. one for dance music, one for country music etc.

When a number of different artists have covered a song (particularly on YouTube) there could be a “Battle of the covers” – a Chorus Line featuring the chorus of each cover.

A Chorus Line could be created for people who have written music but are looking for someone to write the lyrics. Thus lyricists would be able to quickly find songs that inspire them.

If someone has created a YouTube video, is looking for suitable backing music and wants to encourage unsigned bands/performers, a Chorus Line could be created with music that video-makers can choose as backing.


songwriting
music
music promotion