Song Placements Blog

Fact #1 - Youtube is the 2nd largest search engine next to Google. Fact #2 - Many people search for music on Youtube and other online video websites. Now that you know these two facts. The renegade producer suggests there is no better reason for you to develop a business strategy which includes online music video distribution. Now what type of videos are we talking about here, not everyone has the money to shoot a MTV style music video let alone a couple. Well the renegadeproducer suggests uploading not just clips of your band but clips of your brand. You can create clips from the audio, backstage, with members of your tribe at shows or even while having breakfast. Having content that can visually engage your fans while your not on the stage can help strengthen the overall brand. Time is obviously a factor, so for this you should check out TubeMogul that group distributes your videos to many video sharing sites at once, but first you gotta create the content.

Seth Godin has a name for the modern day equivalent of ADD on the internet and it's called "Driveby culture". Seth chalks our driveby culture up to being a huge distraction and waste of time. "We're creating a culture of clickers, stumblers and jaded spectators who decide in the space of a moment whether to watch and participate (or not). As an internet savvy musician you now have two audiences to inadvertently worry about. Those that help increase your traffic to your content and those that regularly see your content as valuable to their lives. As an upcoming indie artist, what is more important to you, selling out to the masses, such as the Huffington Post (pushing down thought provoking stories for linkbait and sensational celebrity riffs) or searching for that niche audience that actually appreciate your gift. Don't get distracted on being BIG, your true influence may only lie with a small dedicated group. Make sure that group is well nurtured.

If the unexpected was to occur have you thought of any backup plans? Jazz musician David Baker was an up and coming trombone star when his lip was irreparably injured in a car accident. Instead of give up music entirely, he learned the cello, and built a career as a composer, string player, teacher and author. Even after the unexpected snatched the dream he was still able to flourish! The savvymusician blog wonders how many options we would open up by embracing our full capacity's.

Ways for musicians to make money in their sleep. Place your songs with other recording artists. Let them do the touring and the twittering, while you earn money. Place your songs in films and television shows. Not only does it publicize you as an artist-it generates sync fees and performance income. Place your songs in video games or other products. The licensing rates are pretty low, but the exposure is ridiculously high. And you don't have to travel in a van, tear-down or set-up. Place your songs in advertisements. It's not only about grabbing that Apple iPod spot. There are national, local and international advertising opportunities that could fund your band's next road-trip. Create new music for film/TV libraries, which license "needle-drop" music to a wide variety of media. The sync fees are virtually non-existent, but because these are non-exclusive licenses, the same piece can be used again and again, generating significant performance money....

Since the go-to spot for every up and coming musician is the Myspace, i thought that grant you fly on the wall access @ the myspace HQ for one day. Techcrunch has the dirt on the internal crumblings Myspace.com from the perspective of 3 anonymous employees. What each employee reveals is a bit shocking, but after about a minute of mentally pretending to sift through many of pages on myspace music seem to make %100 percent sense. Internally, Myspace sucks, and it's ever-so apparent on the outside. The accounts state that there's lots of yelling and confusion going on behind the scenes and one employee even compared it to a poorly run enterprise development shop than an Internet company. I think the only thing holding Myspace together right now is the independent musicians back (they should pay us) and we can only take so much weight, before it's time for a lighter load. Facebook Fan Pages anyone?

Radio tagging is supposed to be Radio's next big thing. The only problem is that currently, most consumers aren't widely tagging and downloading songs. I don't even think most consumers are aware that radio has enabled this feature. Most people are too busy surfing the stations trying to find a song that they haven't heard a begillion times. Radio seems to be naive of this fact, and have been moving full steam ahead with their song-tagging project. It works by using HD Radio and the Radio Broadcast Data System signals to tag songs with identifier metadata, called a Unique File Identifier (UFID) code. iPods or Mp3 players docked to the specially equipped radio can store the song metadata and indicate tagged songs available to download from the iTunes or Microsoft library, once the player is synched with a PC.

raising money

The Nydailynews says that radio is not supposed to be here right now. First, the TV was supposed to kill the radio by changing it from an audio to a visual medium, that didn't work so much. Then MTV was supposed to be the radio killer back promoting a product that sucked the magic out of songs by pre-empting the listener's imagination - again the radio withstood the test of time. To be fair MTVs claim was that television and radio could work together, promoting and enhancing the other and thats exactly what happened. iPods, and social media are the disruptive technologies now but something tells me many other mediums will kick the bucket before our good ol friend the radio lays its head to rest.

The techdirt blog goes for the jugular of John Conyers, not the same dude from the terminator movies, but one of the RIAAs biggest backers of forcing radio stations to pay to help promote music. It all started with John delivered a speech at an event put on by the recording industry lobbyists, Conyers made the analogy that the lack of a performance right mandatory fee for radio stations was comparable to slavery and indentured servitude. Techdirt sheds some light on the old practices of shady labels paying off radio stations to spin records fully knowing the momentum that radio promotion can lend to a project. But that was years ago when (the only way to steal music was to run out of best buy with a stack of cds in hand and hope you didn't get spotted by the surveillance)you actually went to jail for stealing music. Techdirt goes on to say that the argument of the lobbyist groups are completely made up and ridiculous, just an excuse for the labels that are unwilling to actually do something to properly capitalize on free promo. As artists who's arguments are more valid the RIAAs or the Radio stations?

Are you ready for Myspaces audio ads? Regardless if your ready or not they're on the way. Myspace has teamed up wth TargetSpot to find the right balance between music and advertising that will keep listeners and attract investors. Basically the strategy -Short audio ads, increase overall value. As the exclusive audio sales rep for Myspace Music, Target spot, which represents a network of both internet radio providers and some of the largest radio groups has doubled in reach from 20 million unique monthly listeners to as many as 40 million. Target Spots plan for us listeners who still find ourselves on myspace from time to time is to have a "sensitivity to the space" and ensure a good user experience. I hope this solves all of Myspaces problems, so that they can focus on their next task, helping the musicians of it's myspace music service.

Just because your making noise doesn't mean you are getting better. Silence is golden because it provides the perfect setting to reflect. Silence in your practice routines should be equal to the amount of time spent on playing in your practice routine. Meaning that everytime you play a passage it should be followed by slient analysis. The howtopractice blog has a list of questions that your silent time should be based around to get you thinking about so your hands will follow.

"The difference between theory and practice is that in theory, there is no difference and in practice, there is." (practiceofpracitceblog) As a musician you can't always have your instrument in hand, especially if music is only your part time gig. But being instrumentless doesn't mean that you can't practice. It's called mental practice and it's the best use of your time ever, especially if you hate your job.

Failing is inevitable. It is impossible to go through life without failing but it is the way that you view failure is what makes the difference between the successful and unsuccessful. The Practice of Practice blog has a really good piece on attribution theory. When you fail, where does the cause of the blame lie. Is it external or internal? Is the cause unchanging over time or something that changes? And can it be controlled? It turns out that successful people in all field tend to see causes as internal. As in, there's no excuse for failure. Dig deep in your mind to revisit your past failures and see what valuable lessons you can chalk up in the name of self improvement. what we achieve inwardly will change outer reality.

Public Servants Arlene Goldbard raises some compelling ideas about how artists can help the economic recovery. Arlene, a writer and a social activist suggests that in order to help spark the recovery of the economy we have to recovery culturally, and who better to help us do that than the most creative ones in our society, the artists. She reasons that government initiates that put artists and musicians gifts at the service of schools, communities, hospitals and prisons are a good investment that worked in the 1950's to spurn recovery. Follow the link to check out the video, and if these are ideas that you support then there is a petition to support Art & The Public Purpose: A New Framework in the comments.

JamSession provides a fun new way to practice without a physical backing band. Guitarists or other solo instrumentalists looking for a backing band to practice their lead should look into this app. Personally i haven't used the application but it should be an easy way for musicians to practice with the robot you call your iphone.

How nice of Alicia Keys to lend Alicia's Keys to the rest of humanity. Grammy winning award winner Alicia keys has teamed up with KONTAKT to release new software that recreates Alicia Keys' personal grand piano with outstanding authenticity and playability. Now musicians can use Alicia's acclaimed signature piano sound in their own music production, live performance and recreational playing. Using vintage microphones, high-end outboard studio gear and two years worth of meticulously recorded key sampling, Alicia's custom Yamah "C3 Neo" can now be passed down through the community instead of selfishly being hoarded away in some fancy million dollar studio.

Do you practice perfectly? If not you might need a little push in the right direction. The howtopractice blog advises you not to open your music and bash your way through it but instead break your practice up into many tiny tasks that you can aim to improve -only then will you see rapid results. The best part of this post is the colorful circle of "perfect practice" that holds your hand through the 5 steps of mastering your pieces. Save the chart to your computer or hand draw it in your practice notebook if you have to. Once you have begun practicing with this colorful piece of wisdom don't be shy to scribble the answers to each of the 5 questions out. Seeing is believing, plus writing it down always seems to work for me. Toodles.

The Greatful Dead knew a thing or two about business. "A group of stoners who somehow got more things right than the suits running the record industry, radio and even some high powered new media businesses." Some great business lessons that could be learned from this group are sprinkled through an article on indisdemusicmedia comparing their biz model to that of the Radio Industry's. Some of these points should be laser sketched into your brain (if you simply can't remember). According to the Atlantic Magazine article your fans are key to your ultimate success. But not all your fans. As with every musician you have different levels of fans, cater to only your most loyalist fans because their the ones that are going to purchase your music. Get a team together consisting of the band the road crew and and other organization members and periodically rotate the final decision makers. Your not the only one with good ideas on how to run things. Give it away until they buy it. Some things in life are uncontrollable (death, natural disasters and file sharing fall into this category) Don't try to fight against it. Rather embrace it and exploit it for your own benefit. The greatful dead exemplified this by not having an hernia upon the realization that their fans were taping their shows. Instead they used it to increase demand and drive the sales of other revenue streams. The same way that humanity doesn't fight against death but instead uses it to make the quality of life better the same way a musician should approach the death of the CD. Just because the CD has to die, doesn't mean that your career has to go to.

Suspend Vocal Technique Momentarily Have You heard those songs when it sounds like the vocalist is whisper-singing and wondered "man how do they do that". It's not quite singing and its definitely not a full blown whisper, its actually a track that a lot of Pop vocalists keep in their bag of tricks. Vocal Coach Judy Rodman has some bad news for you wannabes, the trick can either be executed expertly or poorly. I'm guessing the poor one sounds like somebody choking on a rice grain. To find out more about delivering vocals with authentic emotion rather than just "singing" head over Judy's blog and check out a couple videos.

Malcolm Gladwell ,author of the book Outliers, is pretty adamant about his 10,000 hour rule. The rule states that in order to master any craft 10,000 + hours of practice must be accumulated. And getting in that many hours of practice can take 10 years or more. Basically, you gotta put in your work. The music promotion blog has a piece on Steve Martin that really attests to the decade journey that one must take to reach celebrity over night. By the time Steve was propelled into great public awareness he was a well oiled machine, ready to deliver the goods. Television (tell a lie to your vision, particularly shows like american idol and other media sources are very good at trivializing the years of work that some of our greatest icons put in to achieve icon status. Record Labels have even been fooled forgoing development for the young inexperienced (We've seen how well that works). Thats actually the equivalent of getting hired for an entry position and then getting promoted to CEO of the company a few weeks later, needless to say, that company's going to fail. I guess the point of this is if you want to increase your chances of success, not being signed but actually be icon status (being remembered for the many things you've done, not just the first thing), then you have to sleep in that car, perform in front of an audience of empty chairs, bounce from label to label because when god finally taps you on the shoulder and says its go time your going to outshine all of the others not even half way through their 10,000 hour mark. Put in the time and you will be rewarded.