Independent Music Advice

Welcome to Independent Music Advice, the number one music advice resource for anyone who makes independent music. We provide quality guides and tips for independent musicians wishing to learn the music business inside out. Through this site we hope to empower more musicians to make money from their music career independently, and without the help of a record label.

On our sister site (Music Industry How To), we now also offer a step by step study course for musicians wanting to make more money and gain more fans from their music career.

We've got a lot of useful information coming for you over the next few months, so
sign up to the mailing list so you don't miss a thing! You'll also get a free ebook, & exclusive weekly guides & tips. Enjoy :)

Shaun,
Independent Music Advice

How To Tour With A Band – Tips For Your First One

This is a guest post from Jeff Fields of Allcases. If you have the knowledge to contribute to this site, find out how to write for us.

Three bass players and two vocalists later, you’ve finally put together something that resembles a tour-worthy band. Congratulations. Now all that remains is to tour the world, score a radio hit, and
live the rock star life, right? Not exactly.

If becoming a rock star was easy, everyone would do it. A huge radio hit is not out of the question, but for most bands, a lot of tours in vans are part of the long road to success.

I’m not here to tell you how to make great music. Chances are, you’ve got that down (And if you don’t, this blog post won’t help). What I can do is offer some useful tips to keep you playing together long enough to give yourself a shot.
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Posted in Getting And Performing Gigs | No Comments »

The Importance Of Investing In Your Music Education

This is a post contributed by Coco O’Connor. If you think you’ll be able to provide a useful guide for a bunch of talented independent musicians, submit one here.

As an artist who has self produced three CDs , had film / TV placements, and still performs on occasion, I’d like to share my thoughts on marketing music with Topspin and Nimbit, as well as the benefit of investing in some education as opposed to a new piece of gear.

From my personal experience, I found that Topspin has given me better results than Nimbit. I do not have a big email list or a boatload of fans on Facebook, nor do I have a big email list. And until I used the Topspin platform, I never sold a single ticket to any shows.

But just a few weeks ago, I did a pre-sale and sold 6 tickets. That was HUGE for me!
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Posted in Music Business Courses | No Comments »

How To Build A Drum Room For Beginners

This is a guest post from Mike Sorensen of Acoustic Fields. If you have a music related guide that you feel will be useful to our readers, please submit them here.

If it gets to the stage where you’re making money from your music career, you may want to consider creating a rehearsal space to practice and record your music. There are two main things I’ve seen that can hinder bands:

Money issues. As in not having enough of it.
Finding a place to practice where everyone around doesn’t complain about the noise.

Rehearsal and recording studios can prove expensive to hire in the long run, and can be a real drain on band finances. As a result, a lot of bands look to set up their own space in a garage, an empty warehouse, or at the local railway arches.
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Posted in Building A Recording Studio, Getting And Performing Gigs | No Comments »

Do You Need A Manager For Your Music Career?

This is a guest post by Christine Infanger from Thirty Roses. Want to write for this site? Find out more here.

No matter your taste, everyone likes music. Perhaps some are more passionate about it than others, but everyone has a favorite song; a song which they relate to more than any other.

Music is a powerful, almost mythical force. And, while you often read and hear about the amazing talent of the men and women responsible for the sounds that mean so much to us all, we seldom hear about the people who make it possible for us to hear them; their managers.

It may sound like more than a slight exaggeration to say that without managers, we would never hear music. But if you know anything at all about how the music industry works, you know this isn’t much of a misstatement.
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Posted in Music Management, Music Promotion And Marketing | 2 Comments »

Rap And Hip Hop Beat Making Theory

This is a guest post by Marcel van Ling from Hot Beat Store, and a follow up to our beginners guide on how to product music. This lesson is more advanced. You can write for this site too.

Learning To Produce Hip Hop Instrumentals

Rap, Hip Hop and R&B beats are important for recording artists, and not hard to find on the internet. If you do a Google search for ‘hip hop beats’ for example, you’ll get hundreds of websites offering them for your use.

Beats, or instrumentals as they’re also known, are musical arrangements without the vocals. Because of their popularity, there are a lot of producers making rap beats. This however doesn’t mean there’s no space for you in the music production market. As you can imagine, the quality of these instrumentals vary very much. Some are at a very high quality, while others are extremely poor.

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Posted in Make Your Own Beats | 2 Comments »

IMA Music Business Re-Opening, Win Your Own Music Website Worth Over £500, And New Posts Every Day

Hey guys! I’ve a few very important announcements to make today, so please make sure you read to the end of this post.

First of all, I want to announce that the IMA Music Business Academy has officially re-opened as of today! For those that don’t know, the Academy is an online music business course that has helped well over 100 independent musicians, managers and industry figures progress their music career through better music business knowledge.

The course has been shut for a while while we’ve focused on existing members and improving it based on their feedback, but we’ve now re-opened it to a new set of members.
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Posted in Competitions, Other | No Comments »

How to Market Your Band With Little Or No Budget

Hi guys, I’ve got something very special for you today! This is a fantastic guest post by Christine Infanger, one of the most helpful and knowledgeable members in our members only forums. She has left more then a golden nugget or two for forum members, so I had to approach her for some information she could share here for free. If you read and enjoy this article (Which you should), please follow her on Twitter as well as sharing this article on your favourite sites (Facebook, Twitter etc). Ok, so without wasting any more time, here’s Christine:

How to promote your music with little or no budget

In an era where social media is a finger-click away and virtually everyone has a smart phone of one kind or another, it’s hard to make your band stand out in a sea of artists fighting for a chance to be heard.

A few years ago I was offered the opportunity to head up the marketing and promotion for an agency based in New York City. They needed a competent go-getter (me) to handle not only the Chicago market, but the Midwestern United States as a whole. Additionally, I was in charge of establishing and maintaining Street Teams for a number of the artists on their roster – both well known and unknown – for the entire US.

This was a prospect which had me giddy with anticipation until the catch came: I was to do all of this with virtually no budget (Read: Money).

Here are a few things I learned. Hopefully, enumerating on my experiences will prove helpful for a few.
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Posted in Music Distribution, Music Promotion And Marketing | 6 Comments »

The Musicians Union – Support And Advice For Artists

This is a guest post by Sam Chapman. If you have useful advice and want to share it in front of thousands of independent musicians, click here.

If you are a musician trying to making a living in the competitive music industry, you may have come across the Musicians Union (MU). The Musicians’ Union is an organisation that protects the interests of musicians in the UK, providing legal advice, education and training, insurance, and much more. Even if you aren’t from the UK however, you may still want to read this article. It can give you an idea of the type of services that are out there for musicians, and allow you to know what to look for in your own country.

So, what are the benefits of joining such a union? Well, this is exactly what we look at below. I hope this article will give you a better idea of what help you can get as an independent musician, and show you that professional help isn’t as unobtainable as you may have first thought.
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Posted in Jobs In Music, Music Business Courses | 2 Comments »

A Bit More About Independent Music Advice (IMA)

Sometimes I get emails asking about IMA and the work we do. Because of this, I thought I'd show you a bit more about what we do and why we do it. In short: This site is there to help independent musicians learn the business side of the music industry. Why do we do this? Because a lot of people could be making a lot more then what they currently do, but simply don't have the knowledge to make it happen. That is why we provide this information, to help guide you and make your music journey a much better one.

Why Learn The Music Business?

If you've ever tried to release a song or even give your music away for free, you'll know how hard it is to get people to listen. You need to ask yourself, are you making money from your music? Do you know who your biggest fans are in terms of sales and dedication to your cause? If you have a gig today, do you know which of your fans are most likely to turn up? Furthermore, would you even know how to get people to come down to your gigs?

The music industry is a lot tougher then a lot of people think. It's not as simple as creating a CD, telling people to buy it, and a load of people magically find your website and buy your music. There's a lot more to it then that, and certain things need to be done before people will be interested in buying your songs. In fact, there's a lot more that needs to be done before people are even willing to download your songs for free these days!

The freedom of the internet has meant that everyone has a voice, and the average music fan has got fed up of listening. So what can you do to get fans interested in your music particularly?

This is where independent Music Advice (IMA) come in! By learning the business of music, you will be in a position to properly market yourself in a way that will make people listen. You will learn key business practices to get your music on the map, and start making money from your music career.

We offer a lot of free music business advice on this website, but if you really want to take the music industry by storm and have your career take off, you need to check out the IMA Music Business Academy. This is where we give you a step by step guide on what you need to do to make it as an independent musician. It is possible to make a part time or full time living from your music, and it's possible to do that without the help of a record label or getting signed.

The problem I see a lot however, is musicians promoting in the wrong way. They are convinced that their marketing efforts are moving them forward, when in fact they are simply wasting their time and energy. We aim to put a stop to this, and only focus on what is proven to work in the music industry. While in IMA we cover a load of topics that people have requested from us, in the IMA Music Business Academy, we only cover things that are proven to move your music forward. No time wasting, no fluff: Only the good stuff!

Music Industry Knowledge

Independent Music Advice provide you with all the knowledge you need to tackle the music industry by yourself. The music industry can be a tough one, and one where good knowledge and advice isn't freely available. This is why we decided to set up this site, so you could find everything you need in one place.

Music Industry Jobs

If you want a job in the music industry, you need to be able to have a good working knowledge of how things work. There are a lot of different jobs you can take up in the music business: A musician, a ghost-writer, a wedding singer, a music producer, a blogger, and much more. Each of these jobs has pros and cons, so it's up to you to decide which is right for you. We give a lot of advice on all different types of music business jobs, so have a look around the site for more information.

If you like the information we provide on this website, please share it around via Facebook, Twitter, your own websites, or anywhere else you think other people will find it useful. This is only quick for you to do, but will mean a great deal to us. Thanks again for visiting Independent Music Advice, bookmark us and enjoy your stay.

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