Thank you for supporting our mission by purchasing a digital download or joining our Friends of Folkways program to stream our catalog. We hope these notes below will provide the assistance you need to access the recordings in our collection. If you need further assistance after reading this, please contact us at smithsonianfolkways@si.edu and we will do our best to assist you.

Streaming our collection

By becoming a Friend of Folkways, you gain access to our collection via streaming. Please note that not all of our catalog is available to stream, but the vast majority is, and we are adding to it all the time.

A computer or mobile phone with an Internet connection and web browser capabilities are required. JavaScript must be enabled to access streaming. Some browser plugins or extensions may conflict with the streaming feature and affect functionality.

To access streaming:

1. make sure you are signed in by clicking the SIGN IN button on the top right-hand side of the screen. (make sure you scroll all the way to the top of the page for the black band at the top to appear).
2. Search or browse to the release you are interested in and look for the PLAY ALBUM button to appear to the right of the album cover art.
3. Clicking PLAY ALBUM does simply that: a player will launch at the bottom of the screen. You can use the player to skip tracks or pause in the middle of a song. You can also click the PLAY button to the right of any track to hear only a track.
4. While listening, you can read the album liner notes (click the "Download Liner Notes" button on the right-hand side of the page), and continue to browse the collection. The player will remain streaming.

What's in a download?

Available in both MP3 and FLAC (Free Lossless Audio Codec) formats, we give you the opportunity to choose the best format for your preferred downloaded audio players.

Our website offers single tracks and full albums for download. We provide 30-second previews of all tracks available for download. Simply click on the triangle-shaped play button to the left of each track to listen. The preview will play in a small pop-up window, so make sure pop-ups are not blocked in your browser.

A single track download is simply the audio file, MP3, or FLAC, which contains audio and track information.

An album download is supplied as an easy "one-click" download as a .zip file which includes all of the audio tracks for the album, plus a scan of the original liner notes as a .pdf file and a .jpg of the original album cover image. For more information on how to download .zip files, see below.

Whether you are purchasing or not, we provide free liner notes for download at the album detail page of each of our albums.

What file format is best for me?

So you’ve purchased some music, but now you don’t know which file type to download. First things first, you are entitled to download BOTH file types, and they will be available to you in your Download Manager for one week from the date of purchase. But which file type will you use the most, and what are the requirements of your audio player? Below we describe what each file type is and suggest some players that will play each file type.

MP3 (MPEG-1 Audio Layer 3) is the most common format for music downloading. The audio is compressed to form a smaller file for easier storage and transfer, by reducing accuracy of certain parts of the audio that are generally beyond normal auditory levels. Our MP3's are encoded in stereo at 256k.

You should choose the MP3 format if you will listen to your downloads on an MP3 player. iTunes, VLC Media Player, and Windows Media Player are just a few of the many free players available online.

FLAC (Free Lossless Audio Codec) accomplishes data compression without sacrificing the integrity of the audio source. To put it plainly, FLAC audio is the same quality as CD audio. FLAC files are larger than MP3 files since there is less compression of the original audio. FLAC may be listened to in an audio program that supports FLAC or, once downloaded, it may be converted to a .wav file or .aac file for playing in iTunes or burning to a CD. Because of the larger file size of FLAC, downloading FLAC will take longer than downloading MP3’s.

You should choose FLAC if you prefer a high standard of audio quality and have an audio program that supports it. We highly recommend the VLC Media Player for listening to your FLAC files.

.ZIP files are the method in which we provide full album downloads. The album, including audio, liner notes, and cover art, is compressed into a .zip file for one-click faster downloading. This also means that when the file is downloaded to your computer, the whole album will be neatly stored in one folder which you may name what you like and place wherever you prefer on your computer. .zip files need to be "unzipped" or "expanded" to retrieve the audio files for listening. If your computer does not already have compression software, you will need to download one of the free software tools available online. We recommend WinRar, Winzip for PC, or Stuffit Expander for Mac.

How do I download?

You will receive a thank you note on the webpage immediately after purchasing your downloads. This provides your order number and list of items purchased along with individual download links. Said links read “Go to Downloads” and are located directly underneath the items listed. (See below screenshot).

You will also receive an email confirmation of your order at the email address you provided. That order confirmation email features a link to your downloads as well. The link will read “Download Files.” (See below screenshot)

Once you click on either of the links mentioned above, you will be taken to the download page featuring both FLAC and MP3 file formats. You are welcome to choose either format and you will be given 365 days or 3 tries per format to download your files (See screenshots below). After 365 days or 3 attempts are made, the files will no longer be available. We always recommend backing up your downloads on your personal computer or an external hard drive just in case!

Tips and tricks

Playing the tracks on your computer. There are a few methods of playing and importing your newly downloaded tracks in your preferred media player. Choose which one is best for you and is compatible with the media player you are using. If you are not sure which method to use, look in the help section of your preferred media player for directions.

1. Double-click on each individual track. One of 2 things will happen:
• Your default media player will automatically open and start playing your track.
• You will be prompted to choose which application to run in order to listen to your track.
2. Import the tracks into your media player. Open your media player and choose to import from the menu within your media player. Be sure you know where your new downloads are located (e.g., Desktop, Download Folder, Documents Folder)
3. Drag and Drop. Highlight all of the audio files you wish to transfer and play in your media player. Drag them over your opened media player and release.

Back up your download. Once your files have downloaded, it is important that you back them up. We make the download items you purchased available for one week from the time of purchase. After one week the items are removed from your Download Manager and you no longer have access to download them.

"Backing up" means to make a copy of the original file and store it somewhere other than your computer’s internal hard drive. This is an important safety measure for securing your files in the event your computer crashes. Some methods for backing up your audio files are:

• Burn them to a CD (FLAC files need to be converted to a CD-compatible format before burning to a CD),
• Copy them to an external hard drive,
• Copy them to a USB or Zip Drive.

Keep a special folder of your Smithsonian Folkways downloads as a back up copy and as reference so you know what you have already purchased.

Be sure to read user information from your preferred audio player as that will be the determining factor as to how your tracks get stored and played within the player once you have downloaded them from our website.