Music isn't much without audio. It's like the sky without air, the sea without water, the . . . um, you get the picture. Despite all the trimmings that go along with music - shirts, posters, magazines, and so on - the most important thing is the sound.
To exist online, music audio - or any audio for that matter - must be in a form that you can access and listen to on your computer. And that form would be . . . digital, baby!
If you really want to know, digital music is nothing much more than binary code, which essentially means strings of 1s and 0s. When strung together in their own unique ways, the numbers can be decoded into, say, the love theme from Titanic or "Number of the Beast" by Iron Maiden - though, fortunately, never an accidental mix of the two.
For almost as long as people have been using computers, they've been coming up with different software programs that let you record and listen to music through these machines. You may have heard of MIDI or WAV files, which were among the first formats for digital audio.
These days, music online takes one of two audio formats:
- Streaming audio
- Nonstreaming audio
Streaming audio
Streaming audio does exactly that - it streams fluidly, and almost instantly, onto your computer. Click a button, and the music flows - that is, as soon as it can make its way over the often-congested Net wires and into your machine.
But you pay a price for the instant access. Streaming audio is not stored on your hard drive; instead, music plays from the hosting site - the Web site that stores the music file - and stops when the music's done. Basically, streaming audio is like a radio broadcast. You tune in and listen, and then the music fades away.
To listen to streaming audio - or any online audio, for that matter - you need to use special programs. Currently, the most popular program for streaming audio is RealPlayer from RealNetworks, which is available for both the PC and Macintosh. Microsoft Windows and the Mac OS also come with their own audio players that can handle streaming audio. On the PC side, you can use the Windows Media Player or Apple iTunes; Mac owners can use either iTunes or the Apple QuickTime Player.
Nonstreaming audio
Nonstreaming audio does not play instantly on your computer, as streaming audio does. Instead, you must download the music file to your hard drive and play the file later. The bad news is that you have to wait to hear the music. And how long you wait depends on the speed of your Internet connection and the size of the music file. The good news is that after you download the music file, it's yours to play again and again.
The most popular format for nonstreaming audio today is MP3, a convenient acronym for a format with the unseemly name, MPEG Audio Layer 3. To enjoy MP3, you simply download your chosen MP3 file and play it by using an MP3 player. If you already have RealPlayer, the Windows Media Player, or iTunes (as mentioned previously for playing streaming audio), then you're set. You can also find dozens of other MP3 players on the Internet.
