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A mere short nine months ago, I began studying after a fifteen year break. One of my first tasks was to create a blog, which at first glance seemed simple. As it turns out, this task really challenged me, almost to the point where I pondered quitting my new journey before it had even really begun. Perhaps I would have, had it not been for the fact that I knew that if I were going to be the best teacher for my students, and hopefully one day a brilliant teacher librarian, then I would need to rise to this challenge, and the many many more that lay ahead of me.

Where to locate ‘free to use’ images

One of the first things I learnt about creating a blog was the importance of being able to find images that were freely available to use as well as how to credit these images on my blog. Websites such as Pixabay, Unsplash, and Google are some of my favourite places to find images and I hope to one day create some of my own too. What I hadn’t considered until today was that if I could locate images this way, that I could also locate music.

Where to find CC licensed music

Using the search function on the Smartcopying website, I was able to locate a webpage with links to where I could locate CC licensed music.  Today, I thought I’d take a look at a platform called SoundCloud. This site provides access to a large collection or music, some of which can be freely used and shared. The user is able to create an account in which they can save music. One thing to note about this platform is that the user needs to ensure that they have adjusted the search filters to ensure that the music they are searching for is free to share, if that is the intention, because not all music on this site is free to share. Some other platforms which allow the sharing of CC licensed music include FMA (Free Music Archive), jamendo, and Audionautix, which allows you to search by genre.

There are, of course, many more platforms that provide CC materials in addition to the ones mentioned above however these are where I will begin my exploration and use.