Tutorial

MyBlogBand.com is a great way for musicians to connect to other musicians online and exchange music and ideas. It is also a great way for listeners to discover new bands and musicians they might like as they can search for bands and musicians by genre. Several bands and musicians are featured on the home page, and the most played songs are listed in on the home page.

Registration

To participate in MyBlogBand.com, a user must register. To register, a user must enter a username, email and password. If the username or email are already in use, the user must pick another. Once registered, the user is logged in and can post comments to a band page. They also may continue on to become musicians. Any registered user can post comments on the band profile page.

Musicians

Musicians can fill out a profile, post pictures and tracks for others to listen to. Any of this can be edited at any time by logging in. Musicians may also participate in bands by starting a band and inviting other musicians to join, or auditioning for one of the many bands already on the site. To log in, enter your username and password in the log in boxes at the left hand column. If you’ve forgotten your password, you may click on “email me my password” and your password will be mailed to your email address. Once logged in, the log in box goes away, and a menu with various options appears in the left hand column. If you did not create a musician profile when you registered, you can create one now. If you have already created a musicians profile, you can view your profile by clicking on “view profile”. You can make changes to or delete your profile by clicking on “edit my profile”. It is important to choose genres that represent your music, as that will help others with similar interests find you. It is also important to choose instruments that you play, the amount of time you have been playing that instrument, and the state you live in as this information will be used by other musicians on the site to find you.

You can change your password by clicking on the “change my password” link in the left hand column. You can add and remove images from your image gallery by clicking on “manage my images”. Images are uploaded by selecting a local file using the “Browse” button and then clicking “Upload”. Only jpeg images should be uploaded. Images can be reordered by using the pulldown boxes next to each image and selecting which position you would like that image to occupy. The first image is used as the thumbnail image for your musicians profile page, so choose an image that you like. You can add and remove tracks from your profile by clicking on the “manage my tracks” link. Tracks can be uploaded by selecting the file using the “Browse” button and then clicking on the “Upload” button. Depending on the type of connection you have, it may take several minutes to upload a track. Do not click on anything else while a track is uploading. Only MP3 tracks will be playable by the online player. Tracks must be named before they are uploaded.

Bands

Musicians can participate in bands in several ways. A musician may start a band. A band has a profile very similar to the musician profile. It is important to choose genres that are representative of this band so other musicians and listeners can find the band. Bands also have image galleries that work identically to the Musician image gallery described above. Once a musician creates a band, they can invite other musicians to join the band by searching for them using the “Musicians” menu item at the top of the page.

If you have at least one band, and the musician is not in that band, a link will show up on that musicians profile page called “invite this musician to join your band”. This will open a page where you select the band that you want to invite them to join and an optional message. An email will be sent to the invited musician. They can log in and accept your invitation. Band members should create at least one song that is representative of the band. This is done by clicking on the band name in the left hand column and then clicking on “manage band music”. This will open a page where any current songs are listed, and a link to add a new song is available. Add a new song by clicking on the “add a new song” link and filling in a title and optional description. Once the song is created, tracks can be uploaded for this song. A song may have many tracks as the song develops and new parts are added. Tracks are added by clicking on the “tracks” link under the song on the “manage band music” page. Select a local file using the “Browse” button and then click “Upload”. Please wait for the upload to complete as it may take some time depending on the type of internet connection you have. The first track uploaded becomes the “public” track for this song and is the one that shows up on the band profile page for this song. You can add notes for this track so that others know what the track is. You can make this a “private” track so that only other band members can see it, and you can decide if you want to make it downloadable by others.

As more tracks are uploaded, you can decide which one is the “public” track. For instance, if you add a guitar solo to the song, you can upload a mix that includes this solo and make that the “public” track. Any musician can audition for any band that they are not already in. To do this, find a band using the “Bands” menu item at the top of the page, and click on the “audition for this band” link. This will allow you to upload a track for a song. The band members will get an email. A band member can log in, find the band and song that the musician has auditioned for, and listen to the track. The band members can keep the track or delete it. If they like the musician, they can invite them to join the band by clicking on their name and clicking on “invite this musician to join your band” on the profile page as described above.