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Music on the Internet

Links, Players, and Live Streaming Broadcasts

Copyright © 1997-2003, 2007 by David E. Ross

Section 8: The Congress shall have Power To … promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries; …

U.S. Constitution, Article I

I believe in the benefits of copyrights. This Web page (and most of my other Web pages) is copyrighted. However, the current state of intellectual law is unacceptable. Extending copyright coverage to 90 years (Copyright Term Extension Act of 1998) violates the concept of "limited Times". The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) stifles innovation instead of promoting it. And the primary beneficiaries of these laws are not "Authors and Inventors" but corporate publishers, movie studios, and record companies who reap the bounty of others' creativity. If you agree that this situation is intolerable, tell your representatives and senators in Congress.

23 September 2003

Music has charms to soothe a savage breast,
To soften rocks, or bend a knotted oak.

William Congreve

I have enjoyed listening to classical music as long as I can remember. I bought my first vinyl LPs in the 1950s. They were monaural; stereo systems were still quite rare.

Today, I have an eclectic collection of LPs, cassettes, and CDs. The composers cover the alphabet from Adson ("Two Ayres for Cornetts and Sagbuts") to Ziehrer (the "Wiener Bürger" waltz). Genres include Baroque trumpet suites; Broadway shows with original casts and the off-Broadway original cast recording of "Hair"; Balinese gamelans and Indian ragas; Gilbert and Sullivan operettas; Barbara Streisand; all nine Beethoven symphonies; Bach, Bach, and more Bach; ditto Tchaikovsky; Bobby McFerrin with Yo-Yo Ma, Placido Domingo with John Denver, and Itzhak Perlman with Andre Previn; ragtime; French hunting horn calls; Shaker hymns; American, English, Irish, and Jewish folk songs; Dixieland jazz; French and Italian operas; and various concert performances of all the music from Disney's "Fantasia".

Music and information about music can be found on the Web at the following:

Classical Music Archives: a source of midi "recordings" of classical music.
Classical Net Home Page: information about composers and reviews of recordings of their works.
Musical Disasters: humorous anecdotes about when music gang agley.
Gilbert and Sullivan Archive Home Page: the complete libretti of their operettas, MIDI clips (score only), and a few MPeg clips (trascriptions of classic recordings). There are also links to short ReadAudio clips (about one minute each) used by Amazon.com to promote the sale of recordings of the operettas. Finally, this site includes links to obtain MIDI, MPeg, and other audio software.
Musical Heritage Society: an excellent source of recorded classical music. They also have separate catalogues for jazz and for country.
Public Radio MusicSource: If a participating public radio station in the United States plays it and it's available, you can buy it here. Have only moderate expectations:
- The list of participating stations is limited, and there are no commercial or foreign stations.
- Many recordings of classical music played on the radio are old and no longer available.
To operate this service MusicSource maintains playlists from all its participating stations. A non-profit organization, the MusicSource pays any "profits" to its participating stations.
eClassical sells .mp3 files of classical recordings. It also has a daily free .mp3 file.

Obviously, this is not an exhaustive list of links to music on the Web. But each of the links above points to even more links. Part of the fun of surfing the Web is the search; you really do not want everything handed to you.

It don't mean a thing if it ain't got that swing.

Duke Ellington

Streaming Radio

Streaming is a technology that allows PCs, Macs, and UNIX platforms to play a audio clip while it is still downloading. By extension, this allows for an infinite clip. A radio station can feed into a streaming server. I connect to the server through the Internet and play that stream of data while it downloads without storing it on my hard disc. (There is also streaming video.)

RealOne Player logo RealNetworks®, Inc distributes RealOne Player®, both in a freeware version and a more elegant for-purchase version. This plays streams from .ra, .rma. and .rm Web links and from .ras and .ram indirect links (files that contain links).

Warning: RealOne Player has its own cookies.txt file, separate from any cookies.txt file used by your Web browser. Cookies are set relative to advertisement clips that download and play prior to an actual connection to a streaming broadcast; cookies might be set for other reasons. RealPlayer has an option to disable the use of cookies. From the menu bar, select Options > Preferences. On the Support tab of the Preferences window, select the checkbox for Enable Cookies to remove the checkmark. You may also locate the cookies file and set it to "read only". I found the file in <C:\Program Files\Common Files\Real\Common>. For additional information, see About Those Cookies….

Winamp logo Winamp™ is another streaming broadcast player available in both freeware and for-purchase versions. Developed by Nullsoft, Inc., Winamp plays .asx, .mp3, and .mpeg streams.

Windows Media Player logo Windows Media Player® is a Microsoft® product. It plays .wmp streams.

Each of the above also can handle some or all of the streams handled by the others. There are also other streaming broadcast players.

Indicated trademarks belong to RealNetworks, Inc., Nullsoft Inc., and Microsoft Corp.

images of U.S. stamps depicting musical instruments

Radio stations with streaming Internet broadcasts may be found on such Web pages as

RadioTower: Lists Internet radio stations by category.
Radio-Locator (formerly the MIT List of Radio Stations on the Internet): Allows queries by call letters and by cities. Lists stations alphabetically and by states. Includes stations that merely have Web pages along with those that broadcast on the Internet (which are marked).
Classical Radio Online: Peter Ribbens's personal, descriptive list of stations around the world. Ribbens attempts to make his list as complete and comprehensive as possible.

Note that these may also list links to playable clips that are not live broadcasts. Some of these clips may even be downloaded and saved as files. Often, however, the clips are merely advertisements.

Below are listed streaming broadcast stations to which I listen. Most also broadcast over the air.

The links for the call letters or station name lead to the stations' Web site.
The links for the speaker icons lead directly to the broadcasts. Selecting one of these links should launch RealPlayer, connect to the broadcast server, and begin playing. However, I have noticed that many of these URLs keep changing. If any of these links are broken, try the station's Web site or one of the Web pages that lists Intenet radio stations.

NOTE: Because of extortionate royalty demands by record companies (not necessarily supported by the performers and composers), many online broadcasters have either reduced the number of allowed connections, reduced the hours of connection, or ceased Internet broadcasting entirely. I call those demands extortionate because the recording companies are demanding a higher payment per listener from the online broadcasters than from the radio broadcasters. These demands are being made by the same four companies that destroyed competition in the recorded music industry by engaging in a frenzy of mergers and acquisitions. They suppressed Napster, sponsored the hated Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), and want to extend copyrights indefinitely. These companies hold performers in long-term contracts that constitute indentured servitude and then engage in "creative bookkeeping" to deny them their fair share of the royalties they demand. If you are half as outraged as I am, write to your Representative and Senators. In the meantime, the list below is now shorter than it used to be (alas KMZT).

In the listing below, the icons indicate which application I generally use for listening.

WQXR
96.3 FM, New York
"The station of the New York Times"
classical
CHIR
Scarborough, Ontario
Greek language and music from Canada
No, I do not understand a word of Greek; but I enjoy the music. The server has only a limited number of connections, except for paid subscribers.
CKUA,
98.3 FM, Athabaska University, Canada
(other frequencies elsewhere in Alberta)
eclectic
XLNC1
90.7 FM, Chula Vista (California) and Tijuana (Baja California)
Excellency One, Califormula Radio
classical: "The Top 400 Hits of the last 400 years"
The transmitter is in Mexico, and the offices are in the U.S. Selections are not announced; refer to the playlist on the Web site. In many cases, only excerpts are played.

WKSU
89.7 FM, Kent State University (OH)
classical, folk
KCRW
89.9 FM, Santa Monica (CA)
National Public Radio, eclectic
KWAX
91.1 FM, University of Oregon
classical
KUSC
91.5 FM, Los Angeles
"Classical public radio from the University of Southern California"
KSCN
88.5 FM, Los Angeles
Operated by California State University Northridge (CSUN)
Eclectic: classical during daytime weekdays; folk, blues, etc on weekends and evenings

Please let me know if any of these links are broken or if you want to suggest additional music links (both Web and broadcast).

Link to David Ross's home page
David Ross home

The stamp images in the middle of this page represent a combination of my hobbies. From the "Americana" series of United States definitive stamps issued in the 1970s, these samples from my collection relate music to the spirit of the American revolution and a celebration of democracy. They appear here, on a Web page devoted to listening to music.

Last updated 4 July 2007