Jammin' with Jango

Who doesn't enjoy listening to music while working? Give me the right beat and the usual chore of housework becomes a dance scene!! Slow down the tempo and I am able to relax to sit and complete paper tasks.

Although I enjoy the XM stations on my TV at home, I need some tunes when I'm working at school at the end of the school day. That's when I tune in to these favorites (and of course they are free!!):

Jango http://www.jango.com
Pandora http://www.pandora.com
The Radio http://www.theradio.com
Playlist http://www.playlist.com

(These are streaming sites that require bandwidth so your school site may request that you use such sites selectively.)

You'll need to set up a free account to save your profile and music selections. All sites allow you to set up personal playlists or save favorites based on music genre or original artists that you can rate and share. Some of the sites provide additional information about the artists or provide suggestions to other artists as well as the option of purchasing music downloads.

Since these are free sites, you will see ads but some offer a fee-based version without ads. Due to copyright or other agreements, these sites play the songs or artists you request but you also may discover new music as most of the sites also play music similar to the artists/genre you have specified. However, I have found that Playlist allows song after song of your favorite artists that you have saved in a list.

You are able to share your station/playlists on several social networks, such as Facebook and MySpace. Some have options to be shared to your blog or uploaded to a mobile device.

I'm sure there are other free online music sources out there but these are my favorites (so far!). Each has its own perks and problems--so you'll need to check them all out to determine your favorite.

Enjoy and rock on!!! :)