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.

So here are some tips that will not only help you be in a better position to tour, but also help you when you do actually start touring.

You’ve Got To Sell Yourself For The Gig

Every band feels bigger than the Beatles when they’re jamming in the garage. Unless you find a way to get your music in front of other people though, it doesn’t really matter how good you are.
Even if you have a manager, you have to be able to sell yourself.

If you’re already gigging, one way to do this is by taking the time to develop relationships with the managers, booking agents, and even bar staff of the venues you play at. Without being pushy, ask the owners or managers for referrals. You might be surprised at who they know in other towns.

Taking the time to thank these people and get to know them a little can pay off big time. The biggest reason bands don’t get asked back to venues isn’t because they can’t play. Rather, it’s usually either because they can’t bring people in, or because the owner or manager didn’t like working with them.

When To Say “Yes,” When To Say “No” To Tour Gigs

When you’re starting out, you should jump on just about any chance you get to play. The exception to this is when someone asks your band to pay to play at their venue. Play for free if you have to in order to gain exposure, but don’t shell out money to play any venue.

As your band becomes better known, you’ll be able to expect bigger payouts. By that time, you should hire a manager to handle the business end of things. Not only can they free you up to focus on making music, but chances are they’ll be able to get you more money for the gigs you do play. Just PLEASE make sure to do plenty of research into who this manager may be. Recommendations from other musicians can be a good way to find out about a good manager who actually has the connections and people skills to get you better gigs than you could get yourself.

Sell Merchandise On Your Tour

Selling merchandise can turn a mediocre paying gig into a high paying one. T-shirts, bumper stickers, CDs, mp3/iPod downloads. If you don’t already have them available, why not? Even bands that play coffee houses should have something available for sale.

The initial cost of offering products is nothing compared to the potential income you’re throwing away by not having them available.

One of the biggest reasons bands don’t get far once they get on the road touring is that they run out of money because they never learn to merchandise. Every time you play, you should have product on hand. No exceptions. If your band is good enough for people to come listen to, it’s good enough to sell CDs, T-shirts, and song downloads.

Staying Fit When Touring

It’s important to keep yourself in good shape while you’re on the road. Other than the obvious long-term benefits of healthy living, a healthy lifestyle on your tour can help keep your energy up and your mind clear.

One of the best things you can do for yourselves on the road is watching what you eat. Unless you want to be a novelty band of four fat guys, limit how often you do pizza, tacos, and burgers.

You can’t always avoid hitting the drive thru when you’re on the road. Fortunately, most fast food places have healthy options. Get to know what your healthier options are at your favorite generic chain restaurants and take advantage of them.

Don’t guzzle sugared soda or beer all day, drink lots of water instead. If you’re going to drink, save it for after the gig so you’re not tired all day.

You go long stretches without much chance to exercise (other than on stage) when you’re on tour. Take advantage of the chances you do get to take walks, do jumping jacks, run up and down venue stairs. Whatever!

Tips For Your First Tour With A Band Conclusion

There’s nothing wrong with partying and having a good time on tour, but a little common sense goes a long way for both your physical and mental health. Play great music and follow the tips outlined above, and your band just might survive their first tour.

About The Author:
Jeff Fields contributes writing to Allcases, a company that manufactures high-quality custom road cases. These are great for musicians and DJ wanting an easy way to carry their gear. When he’s not writing or working, he can be found practicing away on his trusty Gibson ES-135.

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!

I had the knowledge to do this as I took the Topspin course at Berklee. I also took 2 additional courses:

1. The Future of Music (Taught by the founder of Hypebot, Bruce Houghton) and
2. Music Marketing: Retail, Press, Promotion in order to be “certified” as a Topspin Marketer.

I believe my success is mainly due to my new found knowledge regarding certain marketing practices. Probably, if Nimbit had a course at Berklee I would have taken it and had satisfactory results with that tool as well.

I see it like building a house. It’s one thing to have the tools, but you don’t start building a house without building plans do you? Plus, you can’t just build a house with only a hammer. You have to have nails, saws, wood, etc etc.

The Cost Of Music Education – Is It Worth It?

I hear many artists complaining about the cost of the courses or the cost of promotion in general. Let me ask you this; How many thousands of dollars are spent on gear?

I am married to a keyboardist who owns a number of vintage keys , outboard gear, mics, cables, the list goes on. I mean, even if you are not a “gear-head”, you probably have a guitar or maybe a drum set that cost at least $2000 right?

I have made 3 CD’s, spent $1500 on both to be professionally mastered, plus had 1000 of both printed up at Discmakers. Tally it up. It’s well over what my education cost at Berklee. In the long run, I will actually save money because I will never make these expensive mistakes again. I wish I would’ve taken some classes before I got in the studio.

The thing is that us creative types are dreamers. We sometimes can’t (Or we just refuse to) see things as they really are. I will say that I was kind of depressed after I took the courses because it made me see that it takes nothing short of a small miracle to “write, record, and release” plus a small fortune to promote / market. After whining I just realized that if I believe in my art, it’s my responsibility to simply do the best I can with what resources I have been given.

The truth is that we have to be open to income coming in from multiple streams:

• Direct To Fan,
• Film / TV placements,
• Joint ventures,
• Etc.

Just like other successful artists Jimmy Buffett (Who has Lagershark, Margaritaville liquors and restaurants, and his own label), Justin Timberlake (Invested in an LA restaurant), Beyonce (New perfume line Heat). These artists are doing thing, just on a larger scale. They are nothing more than “artist-preneurs”, which is something we all can and should strive to be.

Artists should think about having their own “music business”, and that includes everything from creation (Of a product; songs), to marketing (Advertisements of your services), which will convert into more sales.

In the end, no matter if you are on a label or DIY, you got to look at the bottom line. If there are no sales, you’re going to get dropped. And if it’s DIY and there are no sales, it’s a hobby, not a business.

If you do treat it like a business, you have to wear many hats. Yes that’s frustrating sometimes, but successful business owners learn what hats they want to wear, and find others who’ll wear the hats they don’t want to wear.

The most important thing is to be a professional. When you act like a pro, then success, no matter how you define it, will find you eventually.

Editor’s Note: If you like the idea of taking a course to help you learn the music business, check out the IMA Music Business Academy. This is our course, and one that 150+ musicians have used to forward their career.

About Coco, The Author

Currently, I am a Web Producer for AEG ( Anschutz Entertainment Group ) and the new ticketing website AXS. You can find out more about me on either of my websites below.

Artist Website: http://cocooconnor.com Portfolio Website: http://zumuloo.com

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.

Whichever route you choose, you’re still going to need to make sure you don’t disturb the neighbours too much. Because of this, you may want to consider building your own dedicated drum room into the space. Drums are often the instrument that cause the most noise, and the cause behind all those neighbour complaints and knocks at your door.

Building A Drum Room

When building a drum room, we must keep a few objectives in mind. Firstly, we’ll need to isolate the drums so that all of their energy is somewhat contained from the outside world.

We may want a big drum sound or a tight, clean sound, depending on what we are recording. Because of this, we’ll need to be able to adjust the pressure levels the room gives off whenever we want. Doing this will give our drums a different energy, and therefore a different sound at the microphone position.

Ok, so now we know some of the features you’ll want in your drum room, let’s look at how big you’ll need to build this area.

What Drum Room Size Should You Build

Without going in to all the calculations, lets choose a room size for our new room that is 8′ wide and 10′ long. Lets make the ceiling height at 11′. This is a decent amount of space for your average drum kit and all of the features we’ll require.

Our drum room will need a door and window placed somewhere which best fits the studio’s use. All doors and windows should have high sound transmission loss values.

Since drums produce lots of sound and vibrational energy, we need to isolate the floor of our drum room from our existing studio structure. We do this through a process called “floating”. We raise the floor up, and place it on vibration isolating feet that reduce the drum room floor to existing structure floor contact. This is actually an air space between the two floors.

Floor thickness should be at least 8 inches, and filled with sand to minimize vibrations to the existing building the drum room is to be placed in. Our floor insides are tongue and groove hardwood. This should be at the 2 inch thickness level for the tongue and grooved flooring.

Drum Room Walls and Ceiling Requirements

Our walls and ceiling have the hardest task of all. They must be designed in a way that absorbs lots of low frequency energy at fast rates and levels, so the drummer can have adequate personal return of his drum sound while within the room. There are times when the drummer needs to be able to hear how the drum sounds separately from the room, yet be able to hear both the room sound and drum sound together. The walls can help with this.

We will need to make our walls and ceiling 12 inches deep for our drum room. Inside those walls, we could place insulation type material or activated carbon. Insulation materials will give the wall its lowest absorbing frequency capabilities, but will not do much for the walls rate and level of absorption. It is the rate and absorption levels that is more critical for recording within the room.

If the low frequency absorption rate and level is predictable and consistent, it will be much easier to achieve the different drum sounds the room is capable of producing. Activated carbon placed in the correct amounts inside our drum rooms 12 inch thick walls will provide those predictable rates and levels of absorption. We can still keep the insulation material in the walls.

The interior walls of our drum room are really an open palette for acoustical treatments. We can use absorption here, with acoustical open celled or closed celled foams. We could use a combination of absorption in some areas, and the regular wall finish in others to provide a different sonic mix of reflections at the microphone position.

The main element we must deal with are the low frequencies produced by the drums themselves, especially the bass drum. This drum creates huge pressure waves and the room must be able to handle it in a consistent, ‘every time’ manner. To use this pressure to our benefit, we use little trap doors installed in the drum room walls at the 8′ height level to release some of this sound pressure in a controlled manner.

Using Pressure Release Valves For Different Sounds

At the 8′ level of our 11′ ceiling height, we install three horizontal “windows” or rectangular openings on three of our four drum room walls. This “window” or opening will measure 6 inches high, 36 inches long. It will be this opening in the top section of three walls that will be sealed when closed, but when opened will release sound pressure and create a different pressure level at the microphone position. This is turn gives off a different drum sound at the microphone position.

Open one door get one drum sound. Open two doors and get a different drum sound. One can even experiment with opening opposite windows or adjacent ones and listen to the sonic differences.

A drum room must be built and designed to isolate and contain sound energy from the drums. Once isolated and contained within the room, the sound needs to be adjusted and managed so we can create different drum sounds at the microphone position.

Whilst this might all seem daunting to begin with, it can prove a pivotal decision in a bands development. The upfront costs will soon be offset by recording and rehearsal fees, whilst also giving the band a focus and space to call their own. Many a famous band have developed from such humble beginnings before getting gigs, will yours be next?

About The Author

Mike Sorensen has worked in the music business for some 30+ years as a studio engineer and audio technician. He is the author of the www.AcousticFields.com audio blog, which provides tips for bands on soundproofing a room and studio.

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.

The one thing everyone in the music industry agrees on is this: Management is everything.
Good management will allow a talented artist to realize their fullest potential and make sure the public becomes equally aware of it. They allow room for creative development, rebirth, and career longevity in an industry that is fickle on its best day.

Shirley Bassey Reborn Thanks To New Management

While no one would dispute the storied career of Dame Shirley Bassey, I highly doubt anyone anticipated her remarkable 2009 comeback.

After having been away from recording and performance for a number of years, Dame Shirley blew everyone away with her 2007 Glastonbury Festival performance. It was after this that former PR guru turned manager Paul Carey approached her with a concept for a new album. Not only had Mr. Carey been in touch with a number of top contemporary artists regarding writing tracks for the record, he had a plan for the entire project: from the album itself, to the marketing, promotion, and tour.

This is an prime example of two key traits any manager must have; foresight and organizational skills.

Mr. Carey thought out every aspect of the project before a note had been sung, and that played a huge role in its overall success.

As relaxed and whimsical as performers look on stage, a lot of difficult business goes into getting them to that point. This is why managers are so important.

While artists are establishing their careers, it isn’t uncommon for a band member or close friend to take on the management duties. While this is fine, in theory, there are a few things that are very important to keep in mind.

Being a manager is quite a lot like being a parent in that you assume many different titles and roles simultaneously, and are seldom fully acknowledged and appreciated.

When a band becomes really successful, you’ll have a bigger budget to work with and can delegate responsibilities to others to assist you. In the early stages, most of the work will lie with one or possibly two people.

For this reason, be certain that your manager possesses a few key qualities.

Key Qualities That A Music Manager Should Have

Here are some key qualities that your manager should have.

They Should Be Trustworthy.

Your manager will prove to be the most important person in your career. Always. For this reason, you must be able to trust them with absolutely anything and everything. If you can’t, then you need to get a new manager. While it’s crucial for artists to stay abreast of the business aspect of their careers, they must also be able to rest assured that their manager is always looking after their best interests. Remember, this person will be handling your income, negotiating on your behalf, and representing you to the public. You need to feel confident that they are doing so honestly.

Your Music Manager Should Be Organized.
There will be dates, order information, venues, contacts, travel, and a myriad of other minutiae to keep track of at all times. Make sure your manager (or potential manager) is equal to the task, because if they can’t keep it straight, everything will end up in shambles. Ultimately, that will reflect negatively upon you, the artist.

A Good Manager Is Always Punctual.
This could probably fall under the “organization” category, but I feel it’s important enough to warrant its own paragraph. Tardiness is annoying enough when you’re meeting a friend for a tea or coffee, but imagine having a manager who is constantly late for important meetings and negotiations. Your manager is a reflection of you and should be a positive one. If they’re constantly keeping people waiting, venues and companies will want to stop dealing with your band, NOT your manager. This will mean fewer gigs and interviews, and ultimately less revenue for you.

They Should Have A Good Business Sense.
That isn’t to say all managers have to have a degree from the London School of Economics, but let’s face it – musicians want to focus on music. Managers serve as the right-brain advocates of the artists they represent. It stands to reason that your manager should have a good sense of negotiation, contracts, accounting, and be well versed in current music industry happenings.

Take Courtyard Management, for example. Bryce Edge and Chris Hufford, and co-manager Brian Message have been with Radiohead from the beginning of their career. They have provided an environment in which the band can thrive creatively, all the while making sound business decisions and giving advice that allows them to maintain a career as one of the most innovative and respected bands of the past twenty years.

Final Tips When Hiring A Manager

It obviously takes a lot to find a good manager but the most important thing is to remember that ultimately, it’s business and needs to be treated as such.

Even if a lifelong friend ends up in charge of your career, be sure to have a contract drawn up.
At the early stages of a career it may not seem important, but stating expectations, responsibilities, and salary in a contract will ultimately protect all involved.

Finally, be sure to trust your instincts. No matter how highly regarded someone may be or what credentials they may have, if the chemistry doesn’t feel right or you don’t feel they can take your career in a direction you’d like to go, don’t sign on with them.

They may be the greatest manager in the world on paper, but if you can’t agree on what projects you should focus on, little will get done and everyone’s time will be wasted.

With the right guidance and support, the potential for artistic growth is exponential. Finding the right manager, however, is the one time when musicians absolutely have to use strict business sense in making the right decision.

If you want to hear more music business advice from Christine Infanger, check out her site Thirty Roses, a Music Industry blog advising on trends, technology, and more.

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.

For a lot of amateur rappers and singers, this is not a big problem. For musicians who are making money from their music and want to take things to the next level though, many require higher quality beats. These high quality beats are often made by professional producers with years of experience who know how to make a decent mix.

The structure of your instrumentals are important. If you want to make your own hip hop beats or just want to know what goes into them, this article is the one for you.

Equalization – The Basics Of What You Need To Know

First of all, you have to understand the basics of equalization. According to Wikipedia:

Equalization (British: equalisation) is the process of adjusting the balance between frequency components within an electronic signal.

In humans, the range of frequencies we can hear is usually said to be 20 Hz to 20,000 Hz (20 kHz). In other words, the human ears are sensitive to sounds in that range. To make it somewhat easier, we can divide this spectrum into four frequency bands: 1: the low end, 2: the mid-lows, 3: the mid-highs and 4: the high end.

As we grow older, we tend to hear fewer high ends. If you’re less sensitive to some frequencies, you should keep that in mind when you’re mixing. Don’t boost frequencies that are already in the mix too much. If you want to make beats professionally, it’s a good idea to test your ears to find out if you have any hearing problems.

Instruments And Their Frequencies

There are a lot of instruments used in rap and R&B beats, all of which have a different sound. This is because the characteristic sound of an instrument is made out of different frequencies. This is called the timbre of the instrument.

A bass guitar or bass synth has a lot of energy in the low frequency band, i.e. 80 to 160 Hz. An acoustic guitar has most energy somewhat higher, around 200 to 300 Hz. Keep in mind that all instruments have a ground-note with lower and upper harmonics. So a violin has most of its energy around 200 to 400 Hz, but this instrument has a lot of upper harmonics that creates its characteristic sound. Because of this, these upper harmonics are very important.

Take a look at some frequency charts before you start choosing instruments and mixing. These charts are very useful for beginners. A good idea is to pick one or two instruments from every frequency band to create a nice balance. You can use the following instruments for the different frequency bands:

Low Frequency Instruments.

• Kick.
• Sub Bass synth.
• Bass synth.
• Bass guitar.
• Lower keys of a piano.
• Bass strings.

Mid-Low Frequency Instruments.

• Snare.
• Cello.
• Organ.
• Piano.
• Guitar.
• Electric Piano.
• Synthesizer.

Mid-High Frequency Instruments.

• Violin.
• Viola.
• Trumpet.
• Upper keys of the piano.
• Flute.
• Synthesizer.

High Frequency Instruments.

• Hi-hats.
• Cymbals.
• Chimes.
• Synthesizer effects.

If you have a frequency chart, you can look up frequencies for all the instruments you want to use.

Now that you know these frequencies, you can use this knowledge to separate them from each other, and properly equalize everything. Try to boost the frequencies that are important for that instrument to get a better sounding instrumental.

Don’t cut frequencies, unless you need to get rid of problems in the mix (But you might instead want to thing of using other instruments instead). Ears tend to be more sensitive to boosting than cutting. By doing some balanced equalization, you will get more definition for each instrument used in your beat. This will result in a better separation of your sounds. A better separation means a cleaner sounding song.

Sorting You Panning And Using Reverb

Now that you have done proper equalization, you can further separate the instruments of the beat by panning them and adding reverb. Try to visualize the beat in three dimensions, and give all instruments a position that fits well.

Panning Music:

Panning music is where you make the sounds interchange from one speaker to the next, or make it only appear in one speaker or the other. For example, if you may only hear a sound in one speaker, but you can make it pan and go to the other speaker. When producing a beat, you can make it so it pans as far left or right as you want. Surround sound systems especially take advantage of this feature.

You want the lows, for example the kick and bass, in the middle of the mix. The human brain can’t calculate the direction of low sounds because of its long wavelength, so there is no point panning them left or right. On the other hand, you can place the claps or the snare slightly out of the middle to make room for the rapper or singer.

Don’t place too many instruments in the middle that have the same frequency as vocals. For these instruments, there are some nice doubling effects you can use to create a good stereo image. There are a lot of stereo effects and tricks you can apply, so experiment with them till you get the right sound.

Use reverb to place any required instruments in the back, and further away from the listener. The more reverb you apply, the further away the instrument will sound. You can also use equalization to bring instruments closer or further away. The human ear is very sensitive to speech in the range of 300 Hz to 5000 Hz, so if you cut those frequencies you will bring that instrument more to the back.

Compression

Using compression is very important, as a compressor takes the peaks out of the mix. Sound levels that exceed a certain (Bad) threshold are flattened out by the compressor. You can also use compression as an effect, for example think of the pumping effect which is often used in dance music.

Play around with the settings of the compressor, and listen what it does to the overall sound. You can really make your rap beat come to life with proper compressor settings, so see which levels work best for your mix.

Make Your Own Hip Hop Beats Theory Conclusion

These are some basic mixing techniques you can use when producing beats and instrumentals. Keep in mind though that these are not hard set rules, just guidelines. You can apply it to all different kind of beat genres like R&B, Hip Hop, New School, Underground, and many more. It takes a lot of experience to create masterpieces, but even the greatest producers started with nothing. Have a nice time mixing beats.

About The Author:

Marcel van Ling finished the School for Audio Engineering (SAE) in 2005, and has a lot of experience as a musician. He produces R&B instrumentals and knows a lot about music production software and music theory. Listen to examples of his music on his website HotBeatStore.com, where you can buy rap beats. You can contact Marcel by sending him an email: info (at) mosound.nl.

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.

If you want to get on the course before the doors are shut again, you can get more information and enroll here. And if the thought of progressing your music career wasn’t enough to make you want to sign up to the Academy:

Win Your Own .com Website Worth Over £500 By Enrolling This Week!

As a bonus, anyone who signs up to the Academy by the end of this week (By Sunday the 6^th of May 2012) gets entered into a draw to win their own .com website made by myself! I will buy you your own .com domain name of your choice, get you unlimited web space to be hosted on our server, give you a premium site design, and install all the best plugins that will make running your website as easy as possible! In other words, I will make you your own professional music website free of charge! It will be free for a year, after which we’ll help you transfer it over to your own hosting which you can get for a few dollars a month.

This prize is worth over £500, so isn’t a prize to be sniffed at. You can see full terms and conditions of the prize at the bottom of this post.

What’s New In The Academy

So, what’s new in the IMA Music Business Academy this time round?

• Updated Lessons.
  We’ve made small updates to some of the lessons based on previous feedback. This means better lessons this time around!
• Different Location.
  We’re now delivering the Academy via the Music Industry How To website. This will give you a cleaner learning environment, and an easier to use system.

Other then that, it’s the same well received course that has helped a lot of independent musicians progress their music career.

New Posts Every Day This Week Only

Ok, so onto the next point. We’ve had a lot of very knowledgeable people sending us useful guides to publish, so instead of putting them out once a week like we usually do, we decided we’ll put out a new guide every day this week!

Sound good to you? If so, make sure you check Independent Music Advice back on a daily basis!

Some of the guides include setting up your own recording booth, how to make your own hip hop beats, tips on what to look for in a manager, and more. So make sure you check out this website every day this week for an article that could help you!

Make Your Own Music Website

For those that don’t want to wait and see if they win one, you can learn how to make your own music website by clicking here.

That’s it for today. For those that are interested, here are the terms and conditions for the above mentioned competition. I’ll see you tomorrow for a new guide!

Win A Music Website Competition Terms And Conditions

1. Competition closes Monday the 7^th of May 2012 at 00.01 GMT (London time). Anyone joining the Academy after that will not be entered into the draw.
2. Winners will be picked at random (‘Out of a hat’) 8 days after the competition closes.
3. Only people that join the Academy and stay past the trial period will gain an entry in this competition.
4. All enrollments into the Academy will count as a competition entry, regardless of what price plan you sign up on.
5. The winner will be informed of their winning status on the week beginning the 14^th of May 2012.
6. The domain name you win and hosting will be up for a year. Before the end of the year is up, it’ll be your responsibility to buy your own hosting and transfer your website across to it (Which we can help you with). You can get hosting for around $10 per month, a lot less if you buy for more years. If you do not transfer the domain over to your own hosting before one year is up (You’re advised to transfer it over at around the 9 month mark), you website could go down once the year is complete.
7. The website will be build on WordPress. While we’ll show you how to use the basics, it’ll be your responsibility to learn how to do everything you want on it.
8. You will have to provide the content for your website.
9. Only one entry allowed per person.
10. We withhold the right to change terms and conditions at any time without warning.
11. The decision of Independent Music Advice is final.

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.

Ask For Help Promoting Your Band

This may seem rudimentary but it really is that simple.

If you aren’t yet at a stage in your career at which you’ve got managers, promoters, and a PR team to help you with such things, ask around to see who may be willing to lend a hand. There are always students at universities studying music business, management, marketing, or advertising who need proverbial guinea pigs to learn the basics from.

I myself have began working with and for several people this way. The beauteous part being, such people will typically help you for free.

You can also ask within your family and circle of friends – can someone pass out flyers advertising an upcoming gig? Can you get a group of friends together and give out sampler CDs or mix tapes?

See if shops, clubs, cafés, restaurants, hotel lounges, and any establishment you can possibly imagine will play your music for their clientèle. One band I was promoting played music that was very avant-garde, yet still calm and a bit serene at times. I read about a new “hotspot” hotel that everyone was going to and went to talk the manager about them. I told him about the band and how I thought the music would be a great addition to the ambience. And guess what? He played their music!

A band that would have gotten virtually no radio play in Chicago still got heard by hundreds of people, because I asked. Manners and a smile go a very long way. that will never change.

More importantly, it’s free!

Many college students have spare time and are fairly open to new music. Take advantage of this!

I would literally walk around college campuses with an iPod and headphones to let people hear the new artists I was promoting. I got response on the artists and the people got to listen to new, up and coming acts (And let’s face it, who doesn’t like to say they heard someone before they were “known”).

If possible, I would hand out stickers, buttons, and CD samplers. Any swag that I had, no matter how small. People love getting things, even something as simple as a sticker to say “Thank you for your time, give our band money”.

In my travels, I also found that college radio stations are more than willing and eager to work with artists on just about anything. They have airtime to fill, requirements to meet, and they want to host the “hottest” radio show around. If they can get a few handfuls of CDs, free download codes, or the aforementioned stickers and buttons to give away to listeners, they are often very grateful.

If you have upcoming gigs, even better. Everyone wants to say they were on the guest list for the “insert your band name here” show last night. Letting a person or two into a gig for free could pay off en masse if they tell all of their friends to join them and make a night of it (Which, in my experience, frequently happens).

Get A Street Team For Your Band

Street teams can be a wonderful tool for an act with a slightly established following. Music fans talk about the music they enjoy, and you don’t have to pay them to do it. Use word of mouth chatter among fans and peers as a powerful marketing machine!

If your band alone hasn’t quite established the fan base for an entire street team, why not partner up with similar artists in your city and create a “your city” street team? (Editor’s Note: Great tip I hadn’t even thought about, thanks Christine ).

Do keep in mind, for street teams to be effective, organisation is key. Keeping track of what members are where and what they’re working on (I.e. Passing out flyers for an upcoming gig, emailing local radio about getting your track played, etc) is very important. Delegate tasks to people according to their strengths and comfort levels. Some people love talking to people and would love to hang out at a venue and pass out flyers to the audience of a gig letting out. Others may be better at emailing and making phone calls for you. The more at ease someone is, the better they’ll be at the task at hand.

Be Social With Fans

By “social” I’m not necessarily referring to social media. While sites like Twitter and Facebook are invaluable tools, I don’t believe they are a replacement for actual, human contact (Gasp)!

While it’s wonderful for artists to be actively involved in communicating with fans on the internet, I believe it takes many elements to successfully promote a project, and therefore requires several different approaches. A huge part of why fans love to follow their favourite artists on Twitter on Facebook is to get the sense of being involved and feeling connected to them.

Nothing can provide this more than actually interacting with them in person.

Many artists figured this out long ago. They aren’t playing stadiums, but do enjoy a successful career as full-time musicians with a devout fan base. After each show, you’ll find band members at the merchandise booth signing autographs, taking photographs, and generally chatting it up with their fans.

It may be nice to get a Twitter update from someone, but those are the types of interactions that fans really appreciate and which will lead them to them spending more money on your product.

It also takes very little effort for the artist to spend a few minutes before or after a gig to say a few “hellos”, shake a few hands, and be pleasant to the people paying their wages. You can be a multi-platinum selling act with the greatest management and promotional team behind you, but nothing can replace the artist-fan relationship. Use this to your advantage!

What Happens If You’re Not Part Of The Band?

For those not in the band but rather promoting them, the same basic principal applies. It really all comes down to being kind and friendly, as it’s amazing how far this will go. Again, manners and a smile go a very long way.

Also, it’s important to keep in mind that you’re representing the artist(s). Whether working directly for an artist or for a marketing firm or label, remember, it’s still business. You can absolutely have fun while promoting music, be it your own or someone else’s, but always, ALWAYS be professional.

The key to any of these tactics is to utilise any resources available to you. It’s amazing how many fans you can find if you’re willing to do a bit of work! That’s all for now, I hope you found these tips useful. Please leave any additional advice in the comments section below.

Christine Infanger is a music and music industry devotee based in Chicago. In the past, she has worked for various Indie labels and marketing companies promoting a range of artists.

Find her on Twitter @NoraBarnacle or contact here via crinfanger @ gmail.com

(The video can be seen here if you’re reading this post via a feed).

This is the first of many videos I will be doing. Make sure you subscribe to Youtube.com/iMusicAdvice to be kept up-to-date with any new guides. Feel free to ‘like’ the videos as well.

Here’s the transcript of the video:

How To Upload Your Music To Facebook Transcript

Hi guys, my name’s Shaun from IndependentMusicAdvice.com, and today we are going to be looking at how to upload your music to Facebook. Before we start, there are a couple of things we need to do. First of all, you need to make sure you have a Facebook page page. If you have not got one of these already, you can check out www.Google.com and search for ‘Create a Facebook fan page’. The first result will allow you to do just that.

Second, you need to make sure you have a SoundCloud account. If you have not got a SoundCloud account, you can go to SoundCloud.com, create an account for free, and upload your music from there.

Next you need to go to BandPage.com as you can see I’ve done here. We need to click on this big blue button in the middle, ‘Create My BandPage’, and a new window should pop up asking us if we want to connect our Facebook and our BandPage. We click ‘Allow’ because we want that to happen. It’ll take a second to load.

If you’re already logged into Facebook, this should happen straight way and automatically. If you’re not logged in, they may ask you to log in. Just click ‘allow’, log in and give your details. Next, you should be taken to this screen right here.

As you can see, our Facebook page and our BandPage are now connected. Next, we have to click ‘Add Track’. We choose ‘SoundCloud’ from the drop down menu because we want to take the tracks from SoundCloud.

As you can see here, BandPage has uploaded both of our tracks as I’ve got two tracks on SoundCloud. What we need to do is hover over track 1 (Or whatever track you want). On the right hand side here, it says ‘Add To BandPage’. We click that.

From here you can change the name of your track; I’m just keeping it Track 1.

If you have a link for people to buy your music, say for example on iTunes, you can add the link here. Let’s just say my link is www.Buy.com, but you can add whatever link you need.

If you want people to download your music (Be able to download it), you can click ‘download’, but I’m not going to do that. Next we click ‘save to BandPage’, as you can see it’s saving here.

Next, for example, I’m going to upload my second track. So let’s just do the same thing again: Add to BandPage, people to buy it(?), no, no link, save to BandPage. And that should be done.

Now we have two tracks on my BandPage. You can also change your appearance, for example if you want to upload an image you can do so here: Upload New. You can change the colours, say for example you want red or whatever colour. I’ll just keep it white.

You can also see what other tools BandPage has.

When you’re finished, click back to Content. Come on the left hand side, and as you can see, it says “This is not your real Facebook Fan Page, click here to see it”. So I’ve click and it’s opened up. And now you can see my Facebook Fan Page.

As you can see, it has my first track, and it has my second track. People can play there tracks right here. You can buy it if you have the link. And yer, that’s it.

So that’s how to upload your music to Facebook. If you enjoyed this video, please subscribe to the channel: Youtube.com/iMusicAdvice, and check out the website www.IndependentMusicAdvice.com. Thank you.

End Of Transcript.

Please let me know any thoughts or question about the video in the comments section below. This is my first video of this type, so go a bit easy on me. I’m sure as I do more video guides for you I’ll sound that bit more relaxed.

So what do you prefer: Guides via video, or guides via text?

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.

Legal Advice

A lot of musicians are only really interested in one thing: Making great music. Most of us are creative types, and don’t always like dealing with the business aspects of the industry. While professional legal advice is something any level of musicians making money should have access to, these kind of services can be expensive. Music industry lawyers, for example, can easily cost in excess of £100 per hour.

This is far too expensive for most musicians, and a ‘luxury’ that most people don’t end up taking. With the Musicians Union however, professional legal advice comes as part of the package. They can help with contract disputes, fees recovery, and many other legal matters. If this is something you’re interested in, make sure you contact them first to make sure they can offer the legal support you require.

Careers Guidance

As an independent musicians, it’s becoming increasingly important to diversify your income streams. There are a lot of jobs in the music industry that can tie in with your role as a musician. Sometimes, during early stages you may need to do more then one music related job to earn a full time living.

The MU can offer career advice, and assist you with realising opportunities. They will be able to offer advice about the expectations of different areas of the industry, as well as inform you of relevant training available.

Contract Advice

As a musician, you may find yourself dealing with performance contracts, record contracts, publishing contracts, and other types related to the music industry. The contract advisory department at the Musician’s Union can offer you advice and guidance regarding the terms of the contracts offered to you.

As mentioned before, music industry lawyers are expensive, so it’s wise to get professional advice before signing any type of contract. As a MU member, you also get access a catalogue of ‘ready-made’ contracts that you can download and use. These are legally binding, and hold more weight than a contract you may have put together yourself.

Networking

As we all know, the music industry is built around contacts. By joining the Union, you are putting yourself in the ideal position to make new contacts. You can do this by attending their in-house events, and by getting involved in their online community. You can also discuss industry related matters with other professionals in your sector, which can be hugely beneficial. The MU has regional offices, making it even easier to network with musicians in your local area.

Insurance

As a musician, getting appropriate insurance to cover your equipment etc can be a challenge. Many insurers see musicians as high risk, as often you have expensive equipment travelling around from location to location. Once again, this is something the MU can help you with.

They have negotiated special insurance schemes for musicians. In fact, by becoming a member, you are automatically given public liability insurance up to 10 million pounds. This means that if someone injures themselves as a result of your actions, you have some protection in place. This covers you at a range of locations and in a range of situations.

Industry Contacts

Often, finding the right person to talk to within a company can be difficult. To help with that, the Musicians Union publishes lists of contacts to their members. This is a reliable source of up to date contact information of managers, labels and much more.

Education and Training

As I previously mentioned, the Union puts on a range of industry events themselves. These include seminars and workshops, and give you access to training that call help you in the music industry. They also provide a lot of advice specifically for music teachers.

A good amount of musicians earn money from teaching music. The MU advises music teachers on the issues of teaching in schools, colleges and from home.

Musicians Union Rates And Conclusion

If you’re at the stage in your career where you’re looking to deal with contracts and need additional support, the Musicians’ Union could be for you. You can access all of the above for £177 per year, or only £20 per year if you’re a student. If you’re still studying, there’s no reason not to snap up this low rate asap. If you’re not a student, you may want to think about whether the MU is worth the cost at this stage of your career.

If you have the money and want additional help from experts, the benefits are clear. If you are earning money from music, joining the Union may well be worth the outlay. Even if you’re an amateur musician, it may still be beneficial for you to sign up. You can develop your knowledge of the industry, and make contacts to enhance your career. Ultimately, whether or not you decide to join will depend on your personal circumstances and goals. One thing that is clear, is the Musicians Union plays a vital role for UK musicians. After all, 30,000 members can’t be wrong.

This has been a guide by Sam Chapman of Music Live UK, the place to go to hire great wedding bands or wedding singers for your big day.

For a while now, I’ve been using Twitter to drive new fans to IMA and a few other websites I own, both music and non music related. If you’re reading this now, there’s a good chance you’ve found a link somewhere on Twitter or Facebook, and have followed it to this page. If you have, congratulations, you’re about to learn the secret to dominating Twitter!!

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Sound good? It should, as you’re about to get a whole load more people in front of your music or whatever it is you’re promoting! In order to download Twitter Domination, simply click the below button and share the message on Facebook or Twitter. You may need to log on to your account before you do so:

I hope you enjoy Twitter Domination. If so, please share this article around on your favourite social networking websites, or write a unique post about it on your website.

Please Note: Some of this ebook may look familiar to some of you, as part of it has been posted on IMA before. Despite that, I’ve also included some never seen before tips and tricks which is key to making this strategy work. It’s because of this, that I recommend you still check Twitter Domination out.