Note: My Web pages are best viewed with style sheets enabled.

Unrated

Music on the Internet

Links, Players, and Live Streaming Broadcasts

Copyright © 1997-2003, 2007, 2010, 2012-2013, 2015, 2017-2021, 2024 by David E. Ross

Music has charms to soothe a savage breast,
To soften rocks, or bend a knotted oak.

William Congreve

I have enjoyed listening to classical music as long as I can remember. I bought my first vinyl LPs in the 1950s. They were monaural; stereo systems were still quite rare.

Today, I have an eclectic collection of LPs, cassettes, and CDs. The composers cover the alphabet from Adson ("Two Ayres for Cornetts and Sagbuts") to Ziehrer (the "Wiener Bürger" waltz). Genres include Baroque trumpet suites; Broadway shows with original casts and the off-Broadway original cast recording of "Hair"; Balinese gamelans and Indian ragas; Gilbert and Sullivan operettas; Barbara Streisand; all nine Beethoven symphonies; Bach, Bach, and more Bach; ditto Tchaikovsky; Bobby McFerrin with Yo-Yo Ma, Placido Domingo with John Denver, and Itzhak Perlman with Andre Previn; ragtime; French hunting horn calls; Shaker hymns; American, English, Irish, and Jewish folk songs; Dixieland jazz; French and Italian operas; big band and swing; and various concert performances of all the music from Disney's "Fantasia".

Music and information about music can be found on the Web at the following:

• Classical Music Archives: a source of midi "recordings" of classical music.
• Classical Net Home Page: information about composers and reviews of recordings of their works.
• Gilbert and Sullivan Archive Home Page: the complete libretti of their operettas, MIDI clips (score only), and a few MPeg clips (transcriptions of classic recordings). There are also links to short RealAudio clips (about one minute each) used by Amazon.com to promote the sale of recordings of the operettas. Finally, this site includes links to obtain MIDI, MPeg, and other audio software.
• eClassical sells .mp3 files of classical recordings.
• Musopen's catalogue of public-domain classical music available for either playing online or downloading.

Obviously, this is not an exhaustive list of links to music on the Web. But each of the links above points to even more links. Part of the fun of surfing the Web is the search; you really do not want everything handed to you.

It don't mean a thing if it ain't got that swing.

Duke Ellington

Streaming Radio

Streaming is a technology that allows PCs, Macs, and UNIX platforms to play a audio or video clip while it is still downloading. By extension, this allows for an infinite clip. For example, a radio station can feed into a streaming server. I connect to the server through the Internet and play that stream of data while it downloads without storing it on my hard disc. All of the following can play both audio and video streams from the Internet and also play audio and video files on the user's local computer.

RealNetworks®, Inc distributes RealPlayer®, both in a freeware version and a more elegant for-purchase version.

Warning: RealPlayer has its own cookies.txt file, separate from any cookies.txt file used by your Web browser. Cookies are set relative to advertisement clips that download and play prior to an actual connection to a streaming broadcast; cookies might be set for other reasons. RealPlayer has an option to disable the use of cookies. From the menu bar, select [Tools > Preferences]. Under Category on the left side of the Preferences window, select [Connection > Internet/Privacy]. On the Internet/Privacy pane, clear the checkbox for Enable Cookies to remove the checkmark. For additional information, see About Those Cookies….

WACUP Winamp was developed and distributed by Nullsoft®, Inc. (a unit of AOL®, Inc.); but development and distribution were terminated at the end of 2013. In 2014, however, a new company named (appropirately) Winamp SA bought AOL's rights to Winamp and tried to resume development and distribution. Now, WACUP — the WinAmp Community Update Project — is unofficially continuing that effort while the Winamp SA Web site appears broken.

VideoLAN® VLC is a client that seems to handle almost all stations to which I listen. It can also convert music and video file-types (e.g., from mp3 to mp4).

Apple®, Inc. replaced its iTunes with Apple Music. I have not installed it, so I cannot comment on its capabilities. It appears to be "purchaseware" instead of freeware. I do not know if this is still available.

ClipGrab® is NOT a streaming player. Instead, this application captures and downloads inline audio and video clips from Web pages, including from YouTube.

Warning: The installer for ClipGrab should be downloaded, after which the Internet connection should be disabled before executing it. Otherwise, additional nagware might be installed, which will advertise other software products.

Indicated trademarks belong to RealNetworks, Inc.; AOL, Inc.; VideoLAN; and Apple, Inc. The trademarks apply to the names of the applications, their logos, and the companies.

Radio stations with streaming Internet broadcasts may be found on such Web pages as

• RadioTower: Lists Internet radio stations by category.
• Radio-Locator (formerly the MIT List of Radio Stations on the Internet): Allows queries by call letters and by cities. Lists stations alphabetically and by states. Includes stations that merely have Web pages along with those that broadcast on the Internet (which are marked).
• Classical Radio Online: Peter Ribbens's personal, descriptive list of stations around the world. Ribbens attempts to make his list as complete and comprehensive as possible.

Note that these may also list links to playable clips that are not live broadcasts. Some of these clips may even be downloaded and saved as files. Often, however, the clips are merely advertisements.

Below are listed streaming broadcast stations to which I listen. Most also broadcast over the air.

• The links for the call letters or station name lead to the stations' Web site.
• The links for the speaker icons lead directly to the broadcasts. Selecting one of these links should launch RealPlayer or VLC (as indicated by the adjacent icon), connect to the broadcast server, and begin playing. However, I have noticed that many of these URLs keep changing. If any of these links are broken, try the station's Web site or one of the Web pages listed above.
• This icon indicates a Web site that contains a page that can launch a streaming broadcast through an application embedded in the page without first asking if the user wants to hear the broadcast. The result might be overlaid on top of music from an external Web application (e.g., RealPlayer, Winamp), even over a different broadcast. Such broadcasts will terminate if the Web browser is terminated or even if a different Web page is viewed.

NOTE: Because of extortionate royalty demands by record companies (not necessarily supported by the performers and composers), many online broadcasters have either reduced the number of allowed connections, reduced the hours of connection, or ceased Internet broadcasting entirely. I call those demands extortionate because the recording companies are demanding a higher payment per listener from the online broadcasters than from the radio broadcasters. These demands are being made by the same four companies that destroyed competition in the recorded music industry by engaging in a frenzy of mergers and acquisitions. They suppressed Napster, sponsored the hated Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), and want to extend copyrights indefinitely. These companies hold performers in long-term contracts that constitute indentured servitude and then engage in "creative bookkeeping" to deny them their fair share of the royalties they demand. If you are half as outraged as I am, write to your Representative and Senators. In the meantime, the list below is now shorter than it used to be.

In the listing below, the icons indicate which application I generally use for listening. Some stations, however, also provide streaming broadcasts for more than one application. Stations that broadcast only via applications embedded within a Web page are omitted because their broadcasts require dedicating a Web browser rather than a separate application, thus interfering with using the browser. Note that some of these Internet broadcasters require broadband connections; others support both dial-up and broadband.

In some cases, playing streaming broadcasts through a non-browser application required creating files on my Web site that are linked from the speaker icons. Those files contain the actual URIs of the streams, URIs that might not be recognized by a browser for launching a streaming application.

Many streaming broadcast sources frequently change the URI of their streams. If you find a stream listed below no longer works, please let me know. Note that some of these do NOT have classical music. I do indeed have eclectic taste in music.

Please let me know if any of these links are broken or if you want to suggest additional music links (both Web and broadcast).

David Ross home

Last updated 12 December 2021.