Making music has never been easier. With user-friendly computer software programs complete with a wide variety of loops, drum beats and instrument sounds all built into the program, just about anyone can “drag and drop” his or her way to song creation. The more musically talented among us can use these home-based programs to sound like polished producers. But what happens when you’ve been through all of the sounds that come standard with the program, or you just get bored with them?

Dublin-based startup Soundwave is on a mission to make music discovery a fun and social experience. The app tracks users’ music listening habits and makes that metadata available to other app’s users.

Achieving the special skill of mastering more than one musical instrument does not come without the risk of huge pitfalls.

The marketing profession is changing. The Mad Men-style era of marketing, which prized creativity above all, has evolved as technology provides new opportunities to track performance and create data-driven marketing campaigns.

Recently, one of the world’s top music supervisors floated the proposition that it may make sense for labels and publishers to pay for placement (e.g., “Pay to Place”) in order to benefit from its promotional value to their viewers.

As these music-streaming sites provide legally licensed music, the industry generally embraces this latest incarnation of disseminating music; however, with every change comes the question of how this impacts the music industry as well as its artists.