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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.

Demands have changed in the last decade, too. Volume levels have increased in concerts, although the key to good sound is not volume, according to Wyland. What is important is the dynamic range, or being able to hear the softer and detailed sounds just as clearly as the louder riffs. - A good piece for our is music getting too loud segment.

The good the bad and the ugly of the academy awards. Last week i touched on how the music industry was not MY industry in a basic attempt to relay how i felt while watching the Grammys. It was an okay post, but i was really waiting on Eric Beall of the berkleemusicblog to really take the reins on this one and go in. Fortunately we walked away from the grammys with practically the same message. Music has become a spectacle, The recording industry doesn't know how to invest in its future and music is going global. Hit the jump to READ MORE

welcome feedback this new renovated tune appreciate it alot if ya do:)!! cheers and a good eve Tompaz

Wanna start playing more shows, gather an email list and once it's full swap your email lists with artists that are similar in musical style. That way you can increase the chances of getting some new faces out to your shows. Venues want to know that you can gather a crowd, so an extensive email list is a very good start.

Checked out the informant over the weekend. Overall a pretty good movie, although it did drag on. Here's a review of the soundtrack, look carefully at what the reviewer touches upon, it may give you some insight to creating even better music for placement.

1000 true fans. Even 500 sounds like a good number.

You hear about your friends, family and friends-of-friends enlisting in the military everyday, you see the recruiting commercials and can even witness them on CNN in the background from time to time, but one opportunity that is never widely publicized is the military path for the working musician. the savvymusician.com solid rundown on the opportunities available to the working musician such as premier bands and regional bands complete with the pros and cons of undertaking such opportunities. "This is a good four year job for just about anyone. It can be a GREAT 20+ year job for many" Michael Mench - Commander of the US Air Force Band of Flight

EMI has issued a statement saving the good graces of the abbey roads studios, lets preserve history.

The powerful effect of rebranding

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.

Eric Beall hit it out of the park this time with his incredible article walking you through just exactly how you would make a connection on the other side of the big record label doors. His advise offers walk arounds to from being unsolicited to solicited, direction for who to actually approach with your recorded material, finding the people who's tastes are suited to your music and always looking for the alternative way into a project. The article does such a good job of explaining how to get your music heard that i'm sure you will start applying this knowledge right away!

Street Music How indie are you? Thats a good question to ask, because i believe that there are certain level of indie. I actually really enjoy the street performer, simply because sometimes walking down hollywood blvd. needs a soundtrack. What about the street merchant? At the same time you do have those artists that feel that they can sell you or even worse trick you into buying their product with a few nifty words, i think we're all in agreement on this, but there's nothing that inspires me to reach into my pocket and slip a few dollars like hearing them working for it. When trying to market your music on the street words just don't cut it.

NARAS can do for YOU. If the name NARAS doesn't ring a bell then maybe the GRAMMYS does. NARAS is responsible for the Musics Biggest Night, but the organization is also noteable for helping members receive additional benefits such as networking and exclusive behind the scenes opportunities as well. Read More to find out how becoming a NARAS member has it's perks. Oh yeah the membership is only 100 dollars, that's pretty good!

If you were a little shy of completing your goals for 2009 then maybe refining your focus should be the mission for 2010. Multitasking is known to be good for doing many things at once, but generally sub-par results are achieved. Pick one thing that you want to improve this year, break it down into manageable chunks and find out how a narrowed focus can put you way ahead of your fellow multitaskers.

Grooveshark is a music streaming service that is accessed through your browser, and is driven by users who upload their record collections. Currently Universal has initiated legal action against the service for failing to pay royalties, which is bad news for the shark. The good news comes to indie musicians looking to capitalize on increased exposure. Since it is a free service to access indie bands can upload their music to the service in hopes of extending their fan base. Users who wish to purchase your music can also be referred to Amazon or Itunes. In 2010 have your music in more places.

Potential Artist Revenue Streams David Sherbow music business visionary has a good outline of ALL POTENTIAL ARTIST REVENUE STREAMS. The list covers publishing, digital sales, merchandise, live performances, sponsorships, endorsements, fan clubs, and the list goes on. It'd be great if this list could actually link to articles that explain how to work the revenue of each stream. Hopefully we'll see this in Potential Rev Streams list 2.0.

Get Famous enough and Fans could actually be on tour to see you. Matin Contempree is driving this innovative concept with the Rock and Pop tours. The very first tour, 'Good Vibrations Tour of Los Angeles' is kicking off in April (2010). Offered is "the chance to delve behind the music industry: to hear the music live, taste the excitement and experience the iconic locations and famous venues where rock and pop history was created and still lives on". READ MORE

the machinery of culture is constantly changing and i hate to say it but that means as a creator of music you gotta be constantly changing too. To help soften the blow of the many more cultural changes down the road, then surrounding yourself with a real social network of musicians and partners that may be able to understand certain shifts more easily than yourself could be a good step in battling your future market woes.

Mastering proffesional Adrian Carr of ACMastering recently posted a good article explaining mastering in fairly simple terms for those who are still convinced that "mixing and mastering" is one word. One thing that really helped me to understand mastering back when it was a big question-mark to me, was the differences in the files types each technique used. When mastering a song your are working off of the final exported two-track (that Wav or Aiff file all your hard work went into), whil with mixing you are working with each individual track that you laid individually during your recording, at this point your song is probably still sitting on some virtual sequencer like cubase, garage band or protools. I dunno, it helped me understand it a little more.