Digital Music

Digital music is music saved as computer files. You can play it on phones, computers, and tablets. Before digital music, people listened to CDs, tapes, and vinyl records. Now billions of songs are available at your fingertips.

How Digital Music Works

Sound waves are turned into numbers by a computer. These numbers are stored in a music file. When you play the file, the numbers are turned back into sound. MP3 is a common type of music file. Streaming services send these files over the internet to your device.

How Music Changed

In the past, people bought albums on CDs or tapes. Each CD could hold about 15 to 20 songs. Now one phone can hold thousands of songs. Streaming means you do not even need to download songs. You can listen to almost any song ever recorded from anywhere.

Fun Facts

• The first song sold on iTunes was "Somethings Gotta Give" by the Beastie Boys in 2003.
• Spotify has over 100 million songs in its library.
• An MP3 file is about 10 times smaller than the same song on a CD.

Did You Know?

Before digital music, the most popular way to share music was on cassette tapes. People would make mix tapes of their favorite songs for their friends!