Competition and diversity

'Dear friend, my name is Salvador Clofent and since you seem to be involved in the business of music I've taken the liberty to tell you about www.orquestas.info . This is a totally free web portal for the promotion of any sort of musical ensemble as well as related companies and services -- recording studios, sound & lighting, management, etc. We need your participation in order to improve, so please visit us and sign up (altas de usuarios --> Registro de Artistas --> input name ...) if you'd like! You'll then be able to post your info, upcoming gigs, or particular offers. Give us a hand and we'll have a great site going. We won't disappoint you! Thanks very much!'

Salvador writes from Barcelona with news of a new musicians community site ... yet another new site with its hopes, aspirations, promises and requests for participation, and triggering my current thoughts about the nature of the net -- especially the musical bits of it -- and in particular the community aspects of web portals, information sites, help sites and ... magazines.

In one sense the increasing diversity can be seen negatively ... each new site makes it more difficult for the survival of those that came earlier, competing for the attentions of that elusive real visitor -- the one per week that isn't a search engine robot, an email-spamming robot or a promoter of someone else's website -- whilst we bravely maintain our public face with fabricated stories portraying millions of readers and page impressions until ... our money runs out! Where are you now, arioso.com ?

Conversely, though, each new site adds to the variety, the choice, the available perspectives and languages in a way that deepens our experience ... or at least it should do, if we could all cooperate, share information and help each other, rather than concentrating on that fast, ever elusive, personal buck.

I actually still believe in the internet as a medium ... it's exciting like no other so far, and seems to have no bounds other than those of our own imaginations. So, presumably, does our friend above ... maybe the fact that his press release is in three languages bodes well for the success of this new site. We do all need each other in order to improve. Moltes gràcies, and good luck, Salvador!

www.orquestas.info

Another example now of a start-up web business -- this time a record label, CD store and community site, including concert listings and other information. Jan Hart is known to many in the UK classical music world for her musical, promotional and organisational skills, and she has worked for the BBC and for English National Opera.

Jan's new, clean-looking site is based on a simple principle -- to recommend to her visitors the CDs she likes herself. Two or three CDs plus a string quartet are featured each month.

www.jansmusic.co.uk

The domain name of this next site says it all ... this is Duane Peck's information-rich and busy-looking USA-based resource site for composers.

www.iwritethemusic.com

... and having used this to help you write your fugue, you could do worse than submit the result to a new site from Italian composer and pianist A Gioele Simonetto which specialises in the art of fugue and which is called, wait for it ...

www.kunstderfuge.com

If your compositional abilities are not quite so far advanced, though, you might like to try online composition lessons from Bristol Music Services, or even get them to write the music! On this friendly looking site, various bits of moving text and auto-play music jump out to greet you ...

bristolmusic.everything.at

Someone who does have composition sorted is Japanese composer Tsutomu Tagashira. Whilst the world looks to his country for its sporting entertainment, Tagashira will presumably be putting together and promoting his next classical piece or film score in Tokyo, via this MP3.com site which contains some rather interesting downloads. Don't miss the gorgeous Rei for orchestra.

artists.mp3s.com/artists/102/tsutomu_tagashira.html