THE BIG FOUR
There are four principal elements of the music industry that anyone doing it HAS to be aware of. These are the building essentials:
CREATION OF THE SONG
There are a BILLION SONGS A MONTH uploaded onto the Internet. There are over THIRTY MILLION writers, artists, poets, college and high school students, part timers, people interested in songwriting, singing, entertaining. Want to find out? Sit next to anyone in a restaurant, on an airplane, coffee house, anywhere. Tell them you are a songwriter. See how fast they come up with "My niece (nephew, son, daugther, you name it..) is a (singer/writer/actress/actor....), or... "I have this idea that would make a GREAT SONG!"
The fact is that EVERYBODY now is a writer or thinks they are. So writing a song that GETS AND KEEPS ATTENTION in a world of shorter and shorter attention spans, is nearly impossible.
Songs HAVE to GET AND KEEP ATTENTION. THAT IS THERE JOB.
And to do that takes patience, attention to detail, learning the craft. Anyone can write a song. Writing one that other people PURCHASE, with their time, money, whatever, is a different deal altogether.
PRESENTATION OF THE SONG
Once it gets outside of our brain's, we have to present it to other people. They haven't yet come up with "Mind to Midi" where we place a sensor on our temples and our songs come out through our iPods. Maybe with the iPhone 35, but not yet.
So we have to think about our live performance, our demos, our master recordings. You have ONE CHANCE to make a BAD FIRST IMPRESSION. And everything we do is someone's first time to hear us. Can't leave anything to chance. Want to be taken seriously as a professional. Act like a professional.
NETWORKING
Networking is simply MAKING friends. The music industry is two things:
The ART OF THE HANG.
THE ART OF THE REFERRAL.
HANGing is just becoming friends, talking to people. Letting them know what you do, finding out what they do.
REFERALLS are when someone else places THEIR reputation on YOU. When they want to hear your songs, when they tell someone else about you, send a link to your web site or song, view your YOU TUBE video, or attend a show of yours. When they invite you into a songwriter's "round", party, or anything in their world. Getting them to do that is NETWORKING.
BUSINESS
That is where COMMERCE takes place. Either people paying for songs, CD's, performances, t-shirts, signing up for fan clubs, being a part of your life. Or if they are paying attention with their interest. That is business.
A person writes a song. That is the CREATION.
They start performing that song around or have someone who performs it. They record it on a demo or CD. That is PRESENTATION.
They are out in clubs, parties, coffee houses, meeting other people that invite them to more things. They get bigger and bigger crowds to come to their shows, view their web sites, those people tell other people who come to shows, buy CD's, view videos, and those people tell OTHER PEOPLE about them who buy CD's, view videos, tell other people about them. The next thing you know, you have Taylor Swift and Justin Bieber. That is BUSINESS.
That is how all this works. Over this blog, we will analyze HOW to do that. Then YOU have to do it.
I can lead you to water. Can't make you drink.
MAB
There are four principal elements of the music industry that anyone doing it HAS to be aware of. These are the building essentials:
CREATION OF THE SONG
There are a BILLION SONGS A MONTH uploaded onto the Internet. There are over THIRTY MILLION writers, artists, poets, college and high school students, part timers, people interested in songwriting, singing, entertaining. Want to find out? Sit next to anyone in a restaurant, on an airplane, coffee house, anywhere. Tell them you are a songwriter. See how fast they come up with "My niece (nephew, son, daugther, you name it..) is a (singer/writer/actress/actor....), or... "I have this idea that would make a GREAT SONG!"
The fact is that EVERYBODY now is a writer or thinks they are. So writing a song that GETS AND KEEPS ATTENTION in a world of shorter and shorter attention spans, is nearly impossible.
Songs HAVE to GET AND KEEP ATTENTION. THAT IS THERE JOB.
And to do that takes patience, attention to detail, learning the craft. Anyone can write a song. Writing one that other people PURCHASE, with their time, money, whatever, is a different deal altogether.
PRESENTATION OF THE SONG
Once it gets outside of our brain's, we have to present it to other people. They haven't yet come up with "Mind to Midi" where we place a sensor on our temples and our songs come out through our iPods. Maybe with the iPhone 35, but not yet.
So we have to think about our live performance, our demos, our master recordings. You have ONE CHANCE to make a BAD FIRST IMPRESSION. And everything we do is someone's first time to hear us. Can't leave anything to chance. Want to be taken seriously as a professional. Act like a professional.
NETWORKING
Networking is simply MAKING friends. The music industry is two things:
The ART OF THE HANG.
THE ART OF THE REFERRAL.
HANGing is just becoming friends, talking to people. Letting them know what you do, finding out what they do.
REFERALLS are when someone else places THEIR reputation on YOU. When they want to hear your songs, when they tell someone else about you, send a link to your web site or song, view your YOU TUBE video, or attend a show of yours. When they invite you into a songwriter's "round", party, or anything in their world. Getting them to do that is NETWORKING.
BUSINESS
That is where COMMERCE takes place. Either people paying for songs, CD's, performances, t-shirts, signing up for fan clubs, being a part of your life. Or if they are paying attention with their interest. That is business.
A person writes a song. That is the CREATION.
They start performing that song around or have someone who performs it. They record it on a demo or CD. That is PRESENTATION.
They are out in clubs, parties, coffee houses, meeting other people that invite them to more things. They get bigger and bigger crowds to come to their shows, view their web sites, those people tell other people who come to shows, buy CD's, view videos, and those people tell OTHER PEOPLE about them who buy CD's, view videos, tell other people about them. The next thing you know, you have Taylor Swift and Justin Bieber. That is BUSINESS.
That is how all this works. Over this blog, we will analyze HOW to do that. Then YOU have to do it.
I can lead you to water. Can't make you drink.
MAB