SoundCloud.com has quickly become the default go-to site for music hosting by all manner of musicians. The following overview is intended to provide an introduction to making use of SoundCloud, including some tips for maximizing one’s efforts, as well as some passing contextual and tactical thoughts on why SoundCloud has proved as popular and functional as it has.

One of the fundamental aspects of Berio’s compositional approach is his use of pre-existing composition, from Mahler to folk song, to his experiments in tape collage and other forms of electronic manipulation—and the copyright aspect of that is never touched on in David Osmond-Smith’s Berio.

Bob Dylan, synonymous with plugging in, has much to say about electronically mediated music.

In the few days since the publication of “Serial Port: A Brief History of Laptop Music,” I’ve already begun to hear from people, some referenced in the story itself, others simply involved in the culture at large.

Computer music is nothing new, though it has certainly blossomed in the past decade thanks to the rapid spread of personal computing. The question is: What’s “laptop music”?