I spent yesterday morning in a voiceover session with our friends at Jimi Allen Productions, tracking and editing VO for a promotional video they're doing. I stumbled onto a producer's trick I haven't used for a while. Ever find yourself tracking a vocal that needs to be a little brighter and higher? Coffee's great, but here's something even cheaper to try while the beans are grinding.
Get those eyebrows up.
Try it. This works witn singers and readers alike. It sharpens notes, it brightens tones and it peps up on-tape personalities. Get your eyebrows up - and keep 'em up for the duration of the vocal take.
Just make sure everyone in the control room can keep a straight face.
All it takes is a quick self-google - don't pretend you haven't tried it -
to see what kind of impression you and your music are making on the Web.
(You'll may also suffer the annoyance of discovering other, weirder artists
with your same name - never mind; your mama loves you more.)
Aside from your own website, there are three major places you should be if
you're serious about promoting what you do. Here's where you ought to be - and
how to be there better.
1. Myspace.
Chances are good you're on myspace already - and chances are equally good your
myspace page is an ill-tended, spam-infested, visually offensive bad acid trip
of an experience. Check out Wired's excellent wiki on how bands should use myspace - then swing by Andrew Dubber's
excellent blog and read his lectures on what not to do.
2.Wikipedia. Didn't think of this one, did you? Wikipedia's a colossal resource - do an
internet search for your favorite band and you'll almost certainly see a
Wikipedia entry on the first page of results. If the same's not true for you,
what does that say about your legitimacy? Anyone can write a Wikipedia entry,
but it's considered dubious and distasteful to write or edit one about
yourself. Get a fan who really knows your work to do it for you - or hire me! I'll write your
myspace bio while I'm at it, and I do this sort of stuff for cheap.
3. Facebook. You may be hanging out here too, but if
you're promoting music then you want a Facebook
Page for that.
Moving beyond those three, you'll find there are a zillion other sites. Virb,youtube, PureVolume, FameCast... the
list goes on, and it seems it's always changing. If you find you're maintaining
a lot of profiles, check out Atomkeep or ArtistData - tools that allow you to update
multiple profiles at the same time. Maybe you can save enough time to cram some
actual music in.
Clearly, last night's meeting of the Guild provoked enthusiasm (more photos here). And why not? We were talking about venues - places to play or hear great music in Chicago, Aurora or the suburbs. Unsurprisingly there was a level of frustration in the room - at first blush, most local gigs break down into either the "great crowds and no money" category, or the "decent money and unattentive crowds who want only covers" category. But hope springs eternal, and a little discussion uncovered a host of new gigging ideas.
In no particular order, here are some of the performance opportunities we chatted about:
bars/restaurants clubs coffeshops casinos festivals (start at the city chamber of commerce) universities hotel circuits (start with the chain's regional event manager)
We also touched briefly on the importance of collaboration - getting a group of like-minded (and like-sounded) musicians together and cross-promoting shows, whether at a local venue or at a more unconventional spot (the amphitheater in downtown Naperville rents for $100, apparently). A fine idea. Who's running with it?
A handful of the online booking resources we discussed last night: www.sonicbids.com www.intothehill.com www.musiciansatlas.com
And finally, a few member websites, listed here by request: www.benthomasonline.com www.soelated.com www.willowfair.com www.myspace.com/willowfair www.cruisemachine.net www.myspace.com/cruisemachine www.nccunion.com
If you’re new to the recording process – or if you’d like a glimpse into the evolution of a recording – you’ll want to swing by our recently-updated MySpace page. The third track posted there, “The Production Process,” is a guided tour through the life of a song at Backthird Audio. We play you samples of the same piece, from first tracks to final master, with brief explanations of what happens along the way. Think of it as time-lapse photography for your ears.
The Production Process” is one of three new tracks on the studio page – we’ve also added a general introduction and a new demo reel. Props go to Backthird interns Sean Doty and Joe Levon for their fastidious editing work; those tracks wouldn’t have happened without them.
This morning I set aside some time - ok, I got distracted - and caught up on some online reading. If, like me, you're looking to make a living in music, try feeding your head with the following: 1. 1000 True Fans was last week's Internet superstar (which I suppose makes it this week's old news). Kevin Kelly's thesis is that you don't need a million fans to have a great career - you need a thousand who'll buy everything you do. That isn't easy - but it is personal. 2. Marketing guru Seth Godin wrote earlier this year about lessons learned from the faltering record industry. All 14 are helpful, but the zingers for me were 0 (you heard me), 2 and 4. 3. Chicago's music sceneis the third-biggest in the nation, putting both Austin and Nashville to shame - not that anybody really knows that. Part of the problem is a history of competition and hostile relations - both within the music community and with city government. As The Reader reported last month, a lot of folks want to turn that around. (Think community's important? See you March 24 at The Guild!)
I spent last
weekend at SEA, a regional conference for professional - and aspiring professional - artists of all types that focuses on the business side of arts careers. While I was there to give a seminar on vision, the true upside was the chance to meet and learn from other folks who're farther down the art-as-business path than I am. Here are three lessons that stood out over the weekend.
1. Spend 20% of your time on your music -- and 80% on your business. Matt Boresi, a librettist who teaches theater at North Central College, didn't just rely on his own experience for this one - he called the Lyric Opera to find out how much of their annual budget goes into actual opera productions. The answer: about a fifth. It takes a lot of effort to make music -- but four times as much to sell it successfully.
2. Narrow your appeal. St Louis marketing guru Bob Baker said breaking into any market is like busting through a wall -- you'll do better pushing with an icepick than with a piece of plywood. Creating a brand for your music that people remember works the same way -- if you do everything, you're not likely to be remembered for anything. Distill your music into one sentence that will stick in people's minds when you describe it to them - you'll stand a better chance at making them actually want to hear it.
3. Make it no-risk for them. Whether you're pitching a CD, a show, or a business opportunity, you're going to have trouble getting anyone to take a risk on something they've never heard. Pianist Tim O'Neil got himself a gig at his neighborhood J.C. Penney before the department store even had a piano -- by working deals with a local music store so he could offer the piano and his services completely free. In short order, O'Neil's company had pianos in more than 100 J.C. Penneys nationwide - and he was raking in cash from sales of his CDs hand over fist.
Here are four tools I picked up at last weekend's SEA Conference for you to keep handy as you're working on the business side of your music. Play your cards right and they won't cost you a dime.
1. Get Educated. Artists House Music is my new favorite hangout - a Web site devoted to educating musicians about the music business. Experts explain everything from marketing strategies to royalty payments in easy-to-digest 3-minute video installments.
2. Get a Lawyer. Lawyers for the Entertainment Arts is Chicago's answer to your artistic legal woes -- and they'll work pro bono if your income's low enough.
3. Get Optimized. If you've got your own Web site, breeze by DomainTools.com and type your domain in the box to make sure the registration's in your name (if someone else - like a designer - registered it for you, you'll want to get something in writing pronto to ensure you keep the domain if the two of you go separate ways.) Then check your Search Engine Optimization score, which measures how well prospective fans are likely to fare when they hunt for your site on Google. The Domain Toosl "SEO Text Browser" will even recommend changes to your site to help you fare better. Because if they can't find you on the Web, you may as well not be there.
4. Get in touch. If you don't use e-mail to consistently correspond with fans, it's time to start. There are a lot of great paid services for email publishing (we use Constant Contact), but you can get started for absolutely free by going the Yahoo! Groups route.
Outside of Pixar comedies, you don’t see a lot of animals
with existential crises. Dogs seldom pause to question their place in the
world, and geese are almost never heard to quack, “she’s cute, but am I really ready to mate for life?” It’s not
for animals to question why – theirs is but to eat, mate, and die.
You and I are different – we tend to wonder, now and then,
whether we’re doing something meaningful with our lives. This is especially
true with artists, since we deal more with intangibles and spend much of our time doing
things that don’t serve much practical use. Your neighbor spent all Saturday
putting a fence up – you spent yours making up a clever jingle about potato
salad. No wonder he wants that fence.
For me, it’s helped to have a vision – some grand sense of
how I contribute and where it might all be heading. This inspires me – perhaps potato-salad
songs have an important role in the universe after all! It also makes me better
at explaining to others what I’m about. And if you want someone other than your
mom to care about your music, that’s another skill you need.
I’ll be speaking about vision next month in a seminar called
“Dream or Die” at the SEA
Conference in Lisle. Just like art – and people – vision is a work in progress.
Here are some of the questions we’ll be asking. What are your answers?
It starts with you.
What are you good at?
What do you long for?
How would you like to change the world?
It’s bigger than you.
Who resonates with what you do?
Who longs for the same things you do?
What do you have that others want or need?
Reality is a harsh
mistress.
What should you not be doing? Whose help do you need?
Do you need money? (Hint: yes.) Where will it come from?
What habits do you need to build? How are you going to build them?
If last week's post on online distribution wasn't enough for you, check out TuneCore. The service forgoes a traditional "percentage" approach - they let you keep 100% of the proceeds of your music sales. Instead you pay an annual per-store rate to have your music placed in as many (or as few) online stores as you'd like.
Check out my column this month for a host of distribution ideas, most straight from the mouths of local artists and label types. The links in that piece lead straight to pages with info on various online retailers' programs, in most cases.
Here are still more options to check out:
IODA is offering distribution to all the online services, not unlike CD Baby -- but with marketing and some other options attached too. Their site is clear and easy to understand, with some good information.
Discrevolt seems to have cornered the market on a hybrid idea: digital music that can still be distributed face to face. The company makes your songs available for download, then sends you download cards with your own imagery on them to sell at shows for any price you choose -- even free. It's a way for bands to cut weight on the merch they haul, but it's also being used to give away bonus songs or samplers at events. An idea with cool potential.
The MusicBizAcademy is a decent source for more ideas and links.
Finally, Snocap is familiar to most of us as the company that builds those widgets that let bands sell songs directly from their MySpace pages. But if you distribute through CD Baby, it's worth noting CD Baby doesn't distribute to Snocap -- you'll need to deal with them directly if you want your music there.
