Our History
Introduction and Purpose:
The Museum of Canadian Music's home base is located in Calgary, Alberta, Canada.
We are Canada's first National Museum featuring Canadian music in all it's varieties. The purpose of the website is to collect, research, preserve, protect and promote Canadian music and culture.
The Museum was created to tell the story of Canada's magnificent cultural history, specifically relating to music and other sound recordings by Canadian artists.
As well as an encyclopedia and listening post for Canadian music of all genres and decades, the Museum provides artists and Canadian record labels with a free venue to promote, market and sell their music.
Background:
All work on this site is 100% volunteer and it does not make a profit (the website hosting costs alone are more than the membership fees we receive – we hope this changes!).
The Museum of Canadian Music contains one of the largest private collections of Canadian music artifacts anywhere in the world. We are currently digitizing the collection.
A lot of the music featured here is rare and difficult to find - especially in good shape. Robert Williston, together with record dealers, writers, record labels and artists themselves are bringing the website aspect of this project to fruition.
Sound files are posted to enhance the experience of the visitor by exposing him or her to our expansive and rich Canadian culture.
We post music and hope that the artists contact us and help us with biographies, photos, and sound files. We then make those artists featured artists. To date, nearly 300 artists are featured on this site. And dozens and dozens of the artists featured on this site are multiple award recipients.
We encourage and welcome any Canadian artists that would like to have their music posted on this website. For our address, go to the 'About Us' - 'Contact Info' tabs. You can also send your digital music. Please contact ryder@robertwilliston.com.
If you are the owner of a sound recording that has been posted on this website and you do not want people to be able to hear the music here, kindly contact me and I will remove it.
Our History:
The Museum of Canadian Music was started in 2005.
The Museum of Canadian Music was Trade Marked in February, 2009.
Robert Williston started cataloguing Canadian music in 1988. The project became a life’s passion to attempt to collect, catalogue and document every Canadian recording. That database eventually grew to approximately 45,000 entries.
The website went live on July 1, 2010.
The site is now approaching 50,000 titles listed (we keep track in the upper right hand corner of the website).
Sales:
Please support Canadian music and buy music from the artist's preferred distributors. Artists may also choose to sell their music on this site and will receive 100% of the gross sales proceeds.
We do not sell any physical media (no CD's or LP's). All sales of music are digital download only. All sales and downloads of digital media available on this website are made possible and approved by Canadian artists themselves and are protected by Copyright Act of Canada. Other sound files are made available to be heard through the Fair Dealing provision in the Act.
Memberships:
Here are the benefits of becoming a member:
-You can sleep better knowing that you are doing your part to help protect Canadian culture and to help bring this project to fruition.
-ability to create and manage playlists using the Cantunes music organizer. These playlists can be listened to anywhere - at the home, office, or on your handheld device.
-ability to view Canadian Collections with photos and juke boxes in each room.
-view all recently added titles.
Traffic:
We are seeing a steady rise in traffic to this site since our inception. We have visitors from every corner of this land and beyond. So far this year (at April 30th, 2013) 23,200 unique people have visited more than 131,000 pages on this site. We are on a dedicated server so we have no problem handling the traffic.
Our Future:
We are pursuing a physical location to house and display the collection. We have a five year plan to be up and running in a physical location by 2018. We will be seeking government and/or corporate funding at some point in the future.
Thanks all for your support of Canadian Music and Canadian culture. We hope you enjoy your visit.