Music Blog

As a musician you know that marketing your work is extremely important if you want people to purchase your work. One particularly good way of marketing your music is through the Internet, though many musicians are left confused as to where they should start. So just how do you market music online, what are the best ways to go about it and why exactly should you market your music online?

Why Market Music Online?

While many musicians have found the Internet to be extremely helpful when it comes to marketing their work, others are left wondering what exactly the benefits would be. After all, surely you want to target the people in your area and marketing to people that you can actually see is surely better than marketing to virtual people? Well, not necessarily! All you really want to do is encourage people to buy your music, so it doesn’t really matter where they live, just as long as they like it.

The fact is, by marketing your music online, you are getting your music noticed by a lot more people than you would through marketing offline. There are literally millions of people who use the Internet daily. Some are in your own area, but you also manage to market your music to a much wider audience too. This means that more people from around the world are likely to purchase the music that you have made and you will become much more widely recognized because of it.

Marketing online gives you a much larger chance of becoming a successful musician than marketing offline. So if you have not yet considered it, then now is the time!

Tips on Image and Relationships

As with every other type of business, if you want to market to the right type of people then your image is everything. You need to be able to create a web presence that shows potential clients exactly what you and your music is about. The best way to go about doing this is creating your own website.

Creating a website allows you to link potential customers to your website whenever you post on forums, or whenever you create a web presence elsewhere such as on MySpace, etc. It is basically a space where potential customers get to see what you are all about and as first impressions are everything, you need to be able to leave a good image of both you and your music on your website.

So how exactly do you do this? Well, think about what type of music you are making. Is it Indie/Rock/Pop/Country music? The type of music you are making will reflect entirely on the image you want to give out. So if you are creating Country music, you will want to have a country theme to your website, not something with a modern and retro type style. Think about it, if you were visiting a musician’s website that created Rap music, you wouldn’t expect to see a Country theme on it would you? So create a website that reflects your theme and that is the first step to marketing both you and your website.

Using Blogs, Podcasts and MySpace

If you really want to draw in a lot of potential customers, then blogs, podcasts and websites such as MySpace and YouTube are certainly the way to go.

Blogs are great because you get to add a voice to your music. Allowing you to link back to your website, people will get an idea of the type of music you make, who you are and what is new with your music. People love getting to know musicians before trying out their songs and so if you do create a blog, it will draw in a lot of new customers for you. Another advantage to a blog is that if you use the right keywords, you can get it recognized by search engines and therefore more people will discover your music. It is by far one of the best methods of online marketing.

Podcasts are also very popular and you can create your own quickly and easily by visiting MySpace and selecting “MySpace Music”. Literally millions of people use MySpace and they are constantly looking at new music on there. So if you want to get recognized fairly quickly, creating a profile and releasing your music on there is definitely a good idea.

Using websites such as the ones mentioned above, you can easily market your music online. YouTube is another website that allows you to record yourself or whatever you like and millions of people will view your video. So get recording, place your songs online, set up a website and start blogging and you should end up with potentially thousands of new customers!

It is a good thing to be on the right place at the right time, is it not? Sometimes we call this ability timing. When you play piano this is a very important skill. The result will be music!

To play the notes at your piano on the right keys and with timing does not mean that your notes will be played with mathematic precision. That would probably not be music.

This is why a metronome will only help you halfway to this goal.

You have to learn timing together with other people and by listening to good musicians.

You learn timing when you learn to react musically upon other musicians playing.

In music there is usually a pulse. To be able to discern this pulse and become a part of this groove is something we can develop. When you have acquired this skill your own playing will contribute to a good end result musically.

Well, how then can you feel this pulse in music?

You can dance or just move to music. When your whole body feels the pulse you are certainly on the right track. How the actual dancing is performed is no big deal, at least not as far as developing your pulse is concerned.

I guess the most important matter is to cultivate the feeling of floating or surfing on the waves of music without any effort.

Another important and effective way to develop timing in your piano playing is to play drums.

I think this would be of great benefit to all musicians. To be able to create rhythmic patterns when drumming will help you a lot as a pianist.

Actually, drums are not necessary! They can be quite expensive as we all know. You can improvise rhytmic patterns on you laps using you own hands. Quite cheap solution, really.

Just one example, try to play eights by alternating between your hands and place the accent in different hands as you play. I feel that this is a very stimulating exercise for my mind. Maybe a form of meditation.

Another way to develop your sense of pulse in your piano playing is to buy a metronome. This is nowadays a very little musical device that will give a 100% even pulse and it will help you learn to play in different tempos.

As it is 100% accurate it is best not you use it all the time you play. Another more sophisticated rhythmic aid is a rhythm machine. Can also be bought as software to your computer and it has nearly unlimited possibilities.

As before mentioned the art of timing is not the same as mathematically perfect piano playing. Well, in some music styles it might be appropriate to play piano in this way.

When I use my recording software and for example take a look at the bass parts I produce I can see on the graphic representation on my computer screen that I often play before or after the beats on my bass guitar.

As you probably know the notes can be quantisized with the help of the software to play exactly “accurate”. Well, what mostly happens is that the whole production loses something very important. The music disappears.

I usually play the bass guitar parts either ahead of the beat or a bit laid back to create energy in the music.

My definition of pulse is something that is musical and a form of painting feelings with rhythm and notes. To be on time in music is to share your musical feelings with others.

Music aggregators work wonders when it comes to MP3 blog readership and accessibility by skillfully using the RSS technology. It basically collects data from MP3 blogs and links to the individual blog posts instead of directly to the MP3s.

Today we have aggregators such as The Hype Machine and Elbo.ws. They usually track MP3 blog posts and display the most recently updated posts on its front page. The services provided by aggregators have been useful in providing a snapshot of the latest innovation in music blogging which makes it easier to search through recently posted MP3s.

With respect to “The Hype Machine”, it features a list of the most popular tracks, blogged bands and popular searches of the last three days. It enables users to play the music directly from the browser. But it does not list blogs whose writers or editors are involved in the music business or associated public relations industry.

“Elbo.ws” has a similar feature listing to “The Hype Machine” and lists Bands, Tracks and Videos which are currently “hot” and/or “most wanted”.

There are many benefits of music aggregators. Today there are plenty of aggregators on the market which are turning out to be good for competition and money making opportunities.

If music aggregators possesses a good digital music browser that can hit random sites to get new music then they can cash in as a hosting service. Many of today’s music listeners are moving towards the relatively new and thriving trend as music aggregation sites evolve.

It turns out that owning a self music aggregator site is profitable. Music aggregator sites have proven to be very useful in tracking favorite bands. There are a handful of established sites in existence and more are expected to come by the end of the year — if the current trends are accurate.

Also, for musicians, using a music aggregator is a terrific way to track how their album is being received by music bloggers across the net.

In order to be a successful aggregator of music, one needs to be organized as a digital media business with extensive music catalogs, soundtracks and master recordings which can be distributed digitally under license in the games, broadcast, film and music industries.

These are known as business-to-business (B2B) applications. The successful music aggregator must operate digital warehouses and hold licensed content in various formats for distribution to media and retail businesses.

It is also pretty easy to become an independent music aggregator since they too have a similar role as the big warehouses, handling more titles and artists but distributing to lower volume outlets as well as the bigger ones. Independent aggregators tend to be global.

MP3 Music as we know it now has been around since since 1991. Now over 15 years later has become the want of every child, teen & adult. Even my Dad has an MP3 player and spends time every week buying MP3 Music online to add to his player. Yes, he actually pays for it and why not, with all the controversy on freeware you can end up with a virus on your computer and hey, isn’t that what we all want.

For me, it started with my son who wanted an iPod and to download iTunes music for it. Well it was expensive to say the least. So I went the route many others have gone. I purchased an MP3 player with half a gig of space for much cheaper. Excited to give this great deal to my son I decided to download music first and being of the same thinking of my father I didn’t want to chance getting a virus so I downloaded the iTunes software and purchased about twenty dollars worth of music. Now, I was getting excited, I have great MP3 Music, a cool new MP3 player and some knowledge on file transfers considering I am a webmaster by trade.

To my surprise I kept getting an error and I could not get my new music to play. What I soon discovered was that my MP3 music was mpeg4 encrypted. All my excitement went away in that very moment. What I have now is a tool to listen to music that I have to download from programs that are not safe and have such controversy that I decided to take the MP3 player back.

Here is a great question, why would manufacturers make a music player that would encourage illegal downloads of music? I couldn’t figure it out and still can’t. Really, now the only other way to get the MP3 music I wanted was to either go bite the bullet and spend the money for and iPod or go buy CD music and convert it to mp3 music. The whole idea was I can buy just the song I wanted and not the whole album.

Well lets face it Apple has this market nailed down hard. You can find players that are compatible with mpeg4 but are just as expensive and after some great research I believe the iPod is the best player around. So my next thought process was as anyone else would think “refurbished iPod”. Yes, this is a great idea and I know they are out there. Sure enough they were which made me feel a little better. Honestly, it is not worth spending all my hours trying to download music from other sources and not know what would happen and spend time converting music because I have better things to do with my time.

I am hoping this article about MP3 Music will help you understand best practices of downloading MP3 music so you can enjoy other things in life. Besides if you are like me with kids they don’t have much patience for waiting around while we try and get them something so simple.

Music Success in Nine Weeks by Ariel Hyatt has just been released in its second edition. Many of you indie musicians have wondered if the book is worth the purchase, and I’d like to break down the chapters in order to help you make an informed decision. Ariel Hyatt is the founder of Ariel Publicity & Cyber PR, a New York-based digital firm that connects artists, authors and filmmakers to blogs, podcasts, Internet radio stations and social media sites. Over the past 13 years, her firm has represented over 1,400 musicians in all musical genres.

In my own career as an indie musician, I have had to be mindful of my business, not only my music. To be an indie musician requires an entrepreneurial mindset, and I read a lot of books on the music business, and being an entrepreneur that have helped me reach my goals.

As a client of Ariel’s, and an owner of the first edition of the first edition of Music Success in Nine Weeks, I was eager to learn how the editions differed from each other. While the concept of breaking tasks into nine weeks is the same, it is obvious to me that the second edition has even more meat than the first.

Week 1: Getting Mentally Prepared

The first week of Ariel’s Music Success in Nine Weeks program is all about setting goals, and getting into the right mindset. The music business is not for the lazy or weak-hearted, and you need to be prepared for the long haul. This means getting into the correct mindset for success, and creating realistic goals that you can work towards.

Week 2: Your Perfect Pitch

The second week teaches you how to create an elevator pitch: a description of your music that you can easily repeat in the time it takes to travel one floor of an elevator to another. The best music pitch is memorable, and one that you are happy to use again and again.

Week 3: Optimizing Your Website

The purpose of your music website is not just to hold music clips and display your next gig date. Your website needs to pull potential fans in, and enable them to join your cause. Ariel offers practical suggestions for how your website can be used to build your fanbase.

Week 4: Social Media For Musicians

With social networking sites like MySpace, Facebook, and Twitter, the potential to build a global audience via the internet has grown exponentially. Week 4 of Music Success in Nine Weeks defines “Web 2.0″, and shows you which social media sites a musician needs to create an online presence.

Week 5: Blogging

Back in the day, a static website containing your music, photo, and bio was enough. Having a blog on your website enables you to show your personality, connect with other bloggers, and also be found by search engines. Week 5 explains the importance of having a website that updates frequently so that your fans can return to your site, and connect with you.

Week 6: Connecting with Fans Via Your Newsletter List and Conducting Surveys

Your band newsletter can be used for more than blasting out the dates for your next gig. Your newsletter should be used to build and grow your relationship with your fans. Once your have their trust, you can also reach out to them to ask them what they want from you. It’s a lot better than guessing.

Week 7: How to Build Your Mailing List

Once you have an email list, it’s also important to add more names each month. Week 7 shows you tips and tricks to grow a healthy fan email list.

Week 8: Real Live Networking Tips

In addition to having an online presence, it is still important for musicians to meet people offline, and make connections with them. Week 8 teaches you how to make an authentic connection in person.

Week 9: Creating a Continuum Program

As enlightening as the rest of this book is, in my opinion, Week 9 of Music Success in Nine Weeks is the high point of the book. Once you build your fanbase, and have permission to contact them regularly, it’s time to get your fans to purchase merch from you on a regular basis. Whether it’s CDs, t-shirts, or any other kind of band swag, creating a product line will make the difference in your band’s bottom line.

Another bonus of purchasing Ariel Hyatt’s Music Success in Nine Weeks is that you get free lifetime membership to Ariel’s closed online Mastermind Forum. In the forum you meet other musicians like yourself who are working the program, and you have the added support of Ariel and her staff. In the spirit of full disclosure, I am also one of her forum moderators, but as a musician myself, I receive as much as I give, and I recommend Ariel Hyatt’s book and services to any musician who wants to take their career to the next level.

I remember a phone conversation I had years ago while I was driving around downtown looking for a new bartending job. I was talking with a friend of mine, and I don’t remember exactly how we got to the subject, but we ended up talking about that we believed in… She asked me if I knew anything about theoretical quantum physics, and yes, I have an epic fail in Stephen Hawking’s Black Holes and Baby Universes because I don’t even understand half of it, even though I read it all.

So she went on talking about string theory (String theory has become the most widely followed theory to explain why everything works on a microscopic level. It emerged as a way to explain the theory of gravity, but it promises to explain… Well, literally everything. Vote’s still out on that one.) and she went on talking about the implications of the theory, that everything at it’s deepest level really consists of the same substance.

I’ve always enjoyed that idea since the first time it was introduced to me when I first watched What the Bleep do we Know?. It’s a documentary that tells a very different story about time and space. By using the ideas from String Theory, it delves deeper into the possibilities of the Universal Mind or the collective consciousness. Hey, I’m a skeptic myself even though I know that anything is possible. It’s a lot more feasible than Scientology, huh?

I’ll never forget how the conversation ended, she told me that on a molecular level she believed that everything consists of music. My response was silence, because at that moment I knew that I agreed with her, or at least that I wanted to…

I carried that with me for years and still think about it often, especially when I’m driving around in downtown Houston.

Everything is made of music.

Music = Life.