Music in Web Design

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Should you use music on your website?

Did we mentioned that we are East Tennesseans? We love Blue Grass music. We love orange and white. We love the University of Tennessee Volunteers. And we love any rendition of "Rocky Top," now the state song of Tennessee. Way to go Vols!

But should you put music on your website? That is the question. Short answer -- probably not. We love music, but not all kinds of music. Not everybody loves the kind of music we love, and chances are some people won't like your choice of music either.

Music, like animated things on websites, will immediately catch a web visitor's attention. It might even delight them. "Rocky Top" will certainly wake them up. Let's hope you weren't at your desk at work when you happened on this page, or it's a work-related excursion. If not, click back real quick and hope nobody noticed!

There are times when music is appropriate. If you want people to associate your business with a song or a musical jingle, as we associate "Rocky Top" with the UT Vols, embed that tune!

If you are a composer showing off your music, then, of course, you should use music on your website. If you're selling music, give 'em what they came for! Just make sure the opening selection is one that won't shake the timbers if it comes on full blast on the office desk speakers of an unsuspecting visitor.

A church might want a selection of hymns on their website. People like Christmas music on websites at Christmas time, so we often put Christmas music and snow and dancing Santas on websites in early December (and take them off in early January).

Websites dealing with the arts and entertainment -- music, literature, and photo or visual art -- might find music appropriate. People expect a sound track with their movies; they're more accepting when music sets the mood for an artistic website, less accepting when it sounds like a blaring television commercial.

However, if your website is an e-commerce website, music is probably not a good idea. People aren't coming to your website to be entertained; they're coming to your website to gather enough information about you and your products to decide if they want to do business with you. They don't want to hear music while trying to input their credit card number.

Bottom line: Function Rules. Think about the primary function of your website when deciding if you should add music to your web pages. If you decide to incorporate music into your website, there are several things to keep in mind.

If you insert music as a background sound, people using the Microsoft Explorer browser may be the only ones who will hear it. There are a few extra steps to embedding music to play on Netscape and Firefox browsers. If you've read all this without hearing "Rocky Top," you're probably here by way of Netscape or Firefox.

A little goes a long way. Most people will prefer to read a website without a soundtrack playing. If you add music to your website, use a short selection and let it loop only once so it will get through playing before it drives a visitor away. If they want to hear it again, they can always refresh the page.
Choose a selection that will not blast the listener out of his/her seat when it comes on their computer speaker. You definitely don't want to send people scrambling for the volume control. Of course, that's one way to make sure they don't forget your website. They won't forget; they won't come back, either.
Make sure you have permission from the copyright owner to use the selection on your website. This means you should do your homework and request permission before you use the file. If you found the music on a website, read the permission grant; not everyone permitting free downloads of music have the right to do so.
Use a "midi" rather than a "wav" file for music (wave is okay for a short sound like typewriter keys or galloping horses) because midi files are much smaller in size. You will experience some "load time" of your music enhanced web page anyway; midi files minimize that delay. For additional information on file type selection and how to add files to your website, click here.

Take away message: Like animated GIFS and Java animations, music should be used sparingly and appropriately. It can entertain; it can annoy. Only your visitor knows for sure. If you would like to discuss this topic, email info@oakridgewebdesigns.com.

Note 1: When we wrote this page, we were listening to Blue Grass music artists on our world famous local radio station, WDVX at 89.9FM -- makes our fingers type faster. We'll give you the link, but please don't click until "Rocky Top" stops playing because you will likely get great music at WDVX that will play along with "Rocky Top" and music over music is noise. Besides, once you click, you'll probably want to listen to their stuff instead of reading our stuff. Remember they are listener supported. Give a few bucks; keep the music playing! Oh, yes, bookmark our website so you can come back later and finish reading about web design.

info@oakridgewebdesigns.com

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