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1. The best approach is slow and cautious. Right now, we are in the jungle. In the jungle, you don't rush blindly ahead. You dip a toe in the sand, and see if you sink. We have no hope of predicting which of these services might catch on. We need to move slowly, with very short-term agreements and see what works and what fails. And we need to be sure not to undermine our other business partners while we do that. Which leads to… 2. We should support our allies and punish our enemies. Rob McDaniels for InGrooves estimates that it takes 150-200 streams of one song to equal the royalty income on a single download. Right now, our industry still relies on the sale of physical product (believe it or not, it's still the primary source of revenue) and on digital downloads. Perhaps streaming is the future. Perhaps not. But we would be very unwise to cut ridiculously low-cost rates to a business model that obviously threatens both physical retailers and iTunes. Let's take care of the people paying our bills. At the same time, we should continue to press ahead with legal efforts against things like Pirate Bay- efforts that are finally starting to show some results. 3. We need to recognize that "bundling" and ad-revenue sharing is a marriage, and it works both ways. If we bundle the cost of music access into the cost of a mobile phone or the sale of a computer, we're now not only in the music business, we're in the electronics business. Any economic factors that hurt the sales of phones and computers will now hurt us as well. 4. Most of all, we need transparency in the negotiations and setting of rates, so that everyone in the music community understands what they're being paid and how it's being calculated.

Would you mind your child being taught by a computer music teacher? I was taught to type by a computer mavis beacon...could work.

At Access4Artists you will find a unique online comedian showcase that brings you the best laughs you've ever had from the comfort of your computer. Whether you are a budding comedian or just a fan of comedy, you will find the comedian showcase at Access4Artists to be your new favorite place to be online.

The Bonnaroo music festival cleverly cleverly uses its myspace page to unveil its latest lineup. If you head over to www.mysapce.com/bonnaroo right now you'll be greeted with cuckoo clock that reveals another act every 6 minutes or so. During the course of the day artists will be making their own announcements through the myspace page. Acts that have magically appeared from the cuckoo include: Cross Canadian Ragweed, John Foogerty, Medeski Martin & Wood, Weezer, The Flaming Lips with Stardeath and Wite Dwarfs perfroming The Dark Side of the Moon and the Avett Brothers. Head over to the bonnaroo myspace page and see how long you can wait inbetween announcements before you ADD kicks in and forces you to destroy your computer.

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.

Do you use a Gibson guitar to craft your hit songs? If you do then FREEZE your under arrest for aiding in the smuggling of illegally imported wood. The manufacturing facility of Gibson guitars in Nashville was recently raided by the police, who took computers, files and other things to build evidence that Gibson shipped illegal rosewood from Madagascar via Germany.

Labels put more musicians in the poor house.

You just made a new CD, your goal get it into as many itunes playlists as possible. Getting into digital playlists such as itunes could be the same as getting your newly released CD into Walmart (and other retailers). The AirStream now gives you a comfortable way to access your iTunes music library from all the way up stairs in your cramped corner office. If this is the source component of the future then digital music just made a new friend.

Loiterers Should Be Arrested. The CMJ Music Marathon ended last week but the lessons learned have just begun. Kevin English, blogger at eleetmusic.com took some time to talk about the lessons that he took away with him from the many panelists. His conclusion; there is no concrete answer to surviving in todays music industry. Old school pundits stressed the importance of networking and buzz generation by any means possible while New Media progressives represented new media applications, widgets and digital services that promised to strengthen direct to fan relationships. It wasn't until the Sudanese rapper Emmanual Jai took to the stage that he realized industry survival was about constantly adapting, bending the industry to specifically cater to your needs. Figure out what your number one need is right now as an indie artist and exploit that need. Kevin's short but enlightening read this morning brings me to the idea of a (wait for it, wait for it) digital manager. Not loading up all of your tracks on myspace, but actually hiring a manager to surf the web all day and submit your music to opportunities world wide. Has anyone tried something like this yet? let me know how it works, and what you have been doing to try to adapt.