There are many ways that you can listen to free music on the web. In some cases you can download free songs. If you have a fast web connection, you can hook up to sites that have internet radio stations. There are are also sites on the web that will let you listen to music and not download, but there are also some sites where new artists have songs available that you can listen to and download. There are legal and illegal means of getting songs. This website includes links, blogs, and a question and answers section to help you in your search to find songs. In addition, specific links and approaches you can take for downloading are given to improve your ability to access the songs that you need. BitTorrent clients for downloading MP3 songs and sound capture utilities are also suggested.

In order to download torrents that have music, text or video files, you need a program that will perform the download. Luckily, there are many programs available on the Internet that are free for doing this job. Here is a list for both Mac and PC machines:

• uTorrent - PC - one of the first programs
• Vuze - PC and Mac, a full-featured bit torrent client that has an easy-to-use interface.
• BitTornado - PC
• BitComet - PC
• Transmission - Mac

These are sites that are legitimate sources for free music and not spam or front sites for pay sites for downloads, like ez-tracks.com (which is a front for Kaaza):

1. Madeloud.com - A site which is subtitled as an Underground Music source. meaning that they represent independent artists. On this site, you will find hip-hop, rap, hardcore rock which includes the growling metalcore genre, indie rock and many mainstream genres by unkown or relatively unkown artists. There are a total of 32 main genres available that have songs available for free music downloads. http://www.madeloud.com/music/free_downloads
2. Notesunderground.com - These guys have their Nu Music series, and as of April 2010 they have 89 lists of recommended music which you can get by doing mp3 downloads or you can audio podcasts to your iTunes. http://notesunderground.com/

Here are some sites for internet radio where you can listen to some new songs and genres of music if you are so inclined. The sites are organized alphabetically by genre.

1. African - MyAfricanMusic.com has an extensive collection of traditional songs listed by country, and other genres are also available, including jazz, reggae, zouk and gospel. Some of the countries include Nigeria, South Africa, Mozambique, Ethiopia, Congo, Ghana and a few other countries. http://myafricanmusic.com/streamselection.php
2. Customizable - Last.fm offers a free trial where you can put in your favorite artists and it will also give a list of recommended similar artists which you can listen to. After the free trial, a monthly subscription costs you $3.00 per month. http://www.last.fm/

It is illegal to download copyrighted material without permission. See the RIAA's website for more information. www.riaa.com/