Music Blog

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.

Hip hop blogs are growing in popularity and will continue to do so in the future. Let’s take a look at some of the most popular blogs out there today:

Rap-Up is one of the largest and most trusted. Primarily focuses on rap and R&B, it also includes interactive content, exclusive video clips, interviews with bona fide music starts and a running podcast. Their posts are short and to the poinht and really cover hip comprehensively.

CultureBully Based in Minneapolis, this blog offers features on local talent, including reviews and polls. Not just hip hop, but provides solid underground rap articles on Midwestern music groups like Atmosphere, Eyedea, Brother Alia and MF Doom.

WoooHah focuses on hip hop culture in general such as fashion, music, movies and lifestyle. They also have a business section (unique in this list). The presentation is professional and journalistic in nature.

Hiphopisread. Great blog with a great title! This is one of my all time favorites, as the blog really gets into issues and topics that only true rap heads would appreciate. If you’re into the underground/classic/lyrical side of rap, you gotta check them out.

Boombox Music Blog. The Boombox is a high quality hip hop blog with a great layout. The writing is top notch and covers everyone from Beyonce to Ghostface. You can track your favorite artists and receive updates when they are touring in your area. In addition, you can listen via AOL playlists to your favorite rap and R&B songs.

Crunk and Disorderly. Offers up to date reporting on Southern rap with a lot of video posts covering a wide variety of topicss (basically anything they can poke fun at). This website is freakin’ hilarious and comes highly recommended.

Hip hop blogs continue to grow, but these are some of the major players. There’s a definite divide between the slick production of blogs like Boombox vs the low maintenance high quality of HipHopIsRead, but all of them certainly capture the essence of rap music, its people and its culture.

There is certainly something for everyone in this list, so check them all out and see for yourself which are right for you. You can learn more about hip hop blogs using the search engine Technorati. Visit their site and enter a term your interested in, and Technorati serves up the most trusted blogs in the blogosphere.

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.