Even if you have an extensive music collection, there’s still nothing better than discovering a new band and instantly falling in love with them.

Anyone who says there isn’t any good music being made nowadays just isn’t looking. In fact, finding new music is super-easy with all the music sharing websites there are, and it’s made it easier for smaller bands to find a large audience.

There’s an entire world of music waiting for you to discover — a lot of it available for free — as long as you know where to look.

Here’s three great ways to discover new (and free) music.

1. Explore Bandcamp
Bandcamp is a great site that lets musicians share and sell their music and retain a lot of control over the pricing. By searching the site by genre, you can see which singles and albums are being downloaded, and most of it is high-quality and independently produced or on a small label.

One of the best features of Bandcamp is their pay what you want model, which allows musicians to choose to post their EPs, singles, and even full albums and let their listeners decide how much they will pay for them.

If you like what you hear, you can support a band as much as you want, both monetarily and by sharing their music on your social media profiles.

2. Try Spotify
If you aren’t already on Spotify, you can get a free account through Facebook. With the radio function, you can create a station based on a song, artist, or playlist and get related tracks that you’re likely to love.

You can also see what your friends are listening to and subscribe to their playlists to see what new discoveries they’re making.

3. Search your local music scene
Rather than blindly searching for specific bands, check out sites dedicated to the local music scene. Not only will you find shows that you can actually go to, but it will direct you to the best up-and-coming bands in your area. Or just check out sites for other cities known for having a great music scene.

There are hundreds of sites and blogs that are in the know about which bands have the potential to be big; then you can say you knew them when, and be the one to introduce your friends to great unknown bands.

Originally posted on September 16, 2013 @ 10:11 pm