College is an exciting time in our lives, because we meet such a wide variety of people. With everyone coming from different backgrounds, it’s often hard to find a common ground. This is where the beauty of music works its magic. Everybody enjoys listening to some form of music, whether it’s an epic symphony or a DJ droppin’ beats on the dance floor.
While we all share a love music, we may not always be able to afford it, especially broke college students. Thanks to advances in technology though, there are a number of ways you can save money and still enjoy listening to your favorite music.
Photo by Nrbelex
1. Listen to music on the Internet
Thanks to the Internet, you can now listen to radio that doesn’t suck for free. Of course, you need a device that’s connected to the Internet, but most college students spend the majority of the day within arm’s length of a device “wired” to the Internet.
- Pandora — http://www.pandora.com
Free Internet radio with recommendations that help you discover new music. Enter the name of your favorite artist, song, or composer, and Pandora will automagically generate a radio station featuring that music and more music like it.
- SHOUTcast — http://www.shoutcast.com
Free Internet radio covering almost every genre imaginable.
- Seeqpod — http://www.seeqpod.com
An awesome search engine for music. SeeqPod indexes content from around the Web and allows you to instantly play the songs you find when you search. This is great for finding that song that you’ve have stuck in your head all day.
- Last.fm - http://www.last.fm
Join the social music revolution. Last.fm helps you find people with similar tastes in music and discover new music and concerts that you’ll enjoy.
- The Hype Machine - http://hypem.com/
Listen to the music that everybody is blogging about. The Hype Machine aggregates songs from the music-related blogosphere into one convenient location for your listening pleasure.
2. Buy music online
Save money on the music you buy by purchasing digital downloads online. Since you can purchase individual tracks, you don’t waste any money on the songs that you’d never listen to anyway.
- Amazon.com MP3 Downloads — Amazon MP3s
Amazon MP3 Downloads is the best option in my opinion, because the MP3s are DRM-free. This means they will play on practically every modern music player, and you don’t have to worry about authorization each time you need to transfer your music to a new device. This is where I currently buy all of my new music.
- iTunes Store — iTunes site
The iTunes Store works great as long as you have an iPod and don’t move your music around a lot. The DRM gets annoying for someone, like me, who upgrades computers every 1.5 to 2 years.
3. Buy used music
What’s the difference between the music you hear from a new CD versus a used CD? Nothing…except for the extra money you have to pay for a new CD. Save yourself a few dollars by buying used music, and the savings will really add up over time.
- eBay - http://www.ebay.com
I’m pretty sure everybody already knows to look on eBay for used items.
- Local record stores
It may take a bit of digging, but sometimes you’ll be able to find some hidden treasures in the used CD bins at your local record stores.
4. Subscribe to satellite radio
You’re probably wondering how adding another monthly fee to your budget can save you money, and that’s a good question. Well, satellite radio can save you money, because you no longer have to buy CDs. With such a wide variety of stations, you’ll no longer need to buy new music to keep you entertained during the commute to and from work.
5. Listen to indie bands
Start listening to bands that haven’t hit it big yet, and you can save money because their CDs and concerts are cheaper. You’ll also get the satisfaction of being able to brag about how you knew about them before they hit it big when all of your other friends finally find out about them.
6. Trade music with friends
If you have friends with similar musical tastes, you can trade music with each other. You can even do it with friends with completely different tastes for a more “interesting” experience. I’ve done this with friends in the past with varying degrees of success. Even if your musical tastes clash, it’s likely that you’ll discover at least one or two new songs that you’ll enjoy.
7. Know the band
This one is pretty obvious. If you know the band or someone in the band, then you can probably get some free music and concerts out of it. Of course, a really good friend would probably pay to support the band anyway, so maybe this isn’t such a great tip.
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I think iTunes is DRM-free now, and at higher quality than Amazon. But Amazon is still cheaper.
Last time I checked, only certain labels offer DRM-free downloads on iTunes. Also, both stores sell tracks encoded at 256 kbps, so the difference is indistinguishable to most ears. Amazon is definitely the cheaper choice though.
What about “Be in a band”? You don’t have to be a professional for that to be a good option. Some of the most fun evenings I had in college were when everyone brought their instruments down to the common room and played for the rest of the group, either individually or in spur-of-the-moment ensembles. Sometimes people even practiced ahead of time. You wouldn’t necessarily end up with MP3s for later listening (unless someone brought recording equipment), but that type of event is certainly effective at providing “common ground” and bringing people together. Arguably it would be more effective than just listening to prerecorded music.
Elizabeth - Funny that you mentioned it. I seriously debated adding “make your own music” as number 8 while writing this article. Some of the best times I had throughout college also involved music of sorts. Back in grad school, we had a certain night of the week where some of us would meet up and jam together. I decided to leave it off the list, because the music that comes out of these jam sessions isn’t exactly something you’d want to listen to over and over again. I think the same can be said about most karaoke nights.
I’m also a fan of YouTube for music. I can play just about anything I want, when I want - plus I can save my favorites.
Hayden - I’m a YouTube fan as well, although I usually use it for music videos, covers, or live concert recordings rather than studio tracks.
Yahoo’s “Launchcast” (free internet radio) is also a very good source for music. It sounds a lot like Pandora (I haven’t used Pandora myself) in that it’s a “free internet radio with recommendations”. In Lanchcast you just rate different songs and different artists, and naturally, the more you rate the more customized your radio station becomes. You can also listen to pre-made radio stations or, alternatively, other listener’s customized stations! It’s really cool. My older brother introduced it to me 7 years ago, and I’ve been a fan ever since.
The library system near me has a large collection of CDs that you can borrow with a library card. I like to order CDs online through the library system website, they notify you by e-mail when something came into where you requested to pick it up, and you get what you ordered for a week. I then rip songs from the CDs onto my computer and voila! free music!