My name is Corey Stewart and I’m a singer/songwriter/musician from Australia.

I’ve been writing, recording and playing music for over 20 years and in that time I’ve seen a lot of changes in the music industry and a lot of changes in the way musicians get their product out to an audience.

When I first started it was still a really big deal to independently release your own material. The reason being that, the only way to “make it” was to send out lots of demos and hope to get signed to a record label.

Being an independent musician wasn’t really a viable option. There were no broadcast quality home studios in those days so if you wanted to record independently you needed to have a lot of money behind you.

Record labels rules the airwaves and independence was only afforded to a few artists.

Today, especially with the internet being a huge influence on society as a whole, the tables seemed to have turned. Home studios are everywhere, distribution of music is much easier to manage and putting out a CD is the done thing for bands and artists.

In spite of all this, I haven’t released a CD of my own as yet however, this is where my Grand Experiment begins.

Since 2000 I have been fascinated and excited about the possibilities for musicians who market themselves online. Since 2004 I have maintained a songwriting blog and a music industry blog and branched out my experiences to include web development and online marketing.

Over the last few months I’ve been wondering if it’s possible to have some sort of success as a singer/songwriter/musician through using the internet and open source software only. I’m thinking a kind of independent open source music artist. An Online Music Artist for want of a better phrase.

I have been doing some research and I realise that my ideas are not necessarily treading over virgin territory. Artists such as Brad Sucks, Scott Andrew, Jonathon Coulton and Ben Walker have paved the way before me, producing great music and using the internet to their fullest advantage at the same time.

Reading their stories and watching what they do (I subscribe to a lot of songwriting and indie music blogs) inspire me greatly.

I’m not necessarily here to be a trailblazer, all I want to do is to put my music out to anyone who wants to hear it, I want to perform my music to anyone who wants to see it and I want to produce music for anyone who wants to share it.

This site will document my journey, warts and all. My quest is to be a self sufficient, independent, online music artist.

My journey starts now.

Peace,

Corey