Song Placements Blog

Myspace is now officially a joke? The Hitler meme videos that have been floating around on the internet picking up victims to parody just committed another crime. This Hitler meme is a video about the firing of Myspace CEO Owen Van Natta after just 9 months on the job. The video is speculated to have been an inside job and repeatedly mentions News Corp Digital Chief Jon Miller and newly promoted co-presidents Jason Hirschhorn and Mike Jones. Man, Myspace is falling apart over there.

Growing your brand on the internet should be similar to growing a tree in your back yard. The internet is an intimidating place when growing your brand as a musician, many bands have already have already racked up hundreds if not hundreds of thousands of fans, followers, myspace plays and you want nothing more to turn your 100 into as many as possible, you know, to catch up. Don't get caught up in the hype. Many of these followers are are faux. Some experiment's finding that 200,000 followers only led to 25 clickthroughs, because their following wasn't grown virally. Conversely, if you grow your 100 fans like a delicate plant it doesn't take long before your true fanbase overtakes the faux disconnected user base. On the internet Viral growth

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!

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

A music quiz that i could possibly use for members monday

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

Your Friendly Neighborhood Myspace Myspace is back. Ever since they dropped the ball on their no-money making music service, myspace music, they've been at listeners throats with all the advertising they can throw at us. First there was that annoying thing that started happening when trying to get a decent session out of an artists myspace player. I vivdly remember a picture of ugly lil wayne popping up everytime i tried to enjoy a couple songs in succession. Now there's word of experimentation with audio ads that must play before users can listen to free streaming music. Isn't myspace bogged down enough with bad user html and full page million dollar advertising slots? I guess my biggest worry is that more ads will just decrease the number of listeners trying to get an enjoyable experience from my myspace player.

The how to practice guide goes over the essence of simplification, and how exactly it is applied in music. Music simplification is a method of practice that visually breaks music notation down to it's simplest parts. The 7 step example covers 1. Removing dynamics 2. Removing other markings 3. Get rid of tricky notes 4. Taking it further 5. Removing yet more notes 6. holding repeated notes 7. Putting it all back together. Of course it doesn't do justice without the pictures.

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.

Here's an interesting one. Remember when the labels were on Apples heels to allow for a more flexible pricing structure than the 0.99 cent that apple had set? It even got so out of hand that _ started removing content from the iTunes store (Like a big baby!), only later to put it all back in, remember this? Well ever since apple conceded in allowing labels to increase popular tracks from .99 cents to $1.29 digital revenue has slowed. Warner saw and 8 percent growth in the holiday quater verses 20 percent the year before while digital album downloads gre 5 percent in december, down 10 percent in the sept quarter and 11 percent in the june quarter. Warner CEO Edgar Bronfman seems optimistic thought saying that the price change has been a "net positive" for warner, but agreed that a 30 percent price increase during a recession probably wasn't the best move. No duh.

Pre Mastering Last week we saw a lot of interest in our mastering explained article, so this week we thought we would being you the prequel of mastering explained, preparing your songs for the mastering process. These tips are in no way a doit yourself guide for getting your songs to killer quality. Mastering should be done by the master, mixing should be done by the professional, let these tips serve as a guideline for being able to participate in the conversation with whomever you've hired to take your recording to the next level. http://musicproducersforum.wordpress.com/2010/02/03/tips-for-the-mix-to-the-master/#more-693

Measurement is the key to success. In the industry this measurement is called (intimidating music please) - THE SOUNDSCAN. Fortunately i've never had to judge my artistic worth based off the soundscan, but for those of us lucky and unlucky enough to under go this tracking system it can be a psychological torment, sucking the creativity and positivity right out of a project. Happily we have a new form of measurement that shifts from pessimism to optimism. READ MORE to find out what they are.

The 10 Commandments for getting into the Composing Game There is no magic bullet, i repeat, there is no magic bullet to getting a foot into the composing industry, but what you might be able to find is a healthy formula that when applied - just makes sense. www.scorecastonline.com has posted 10 huge tips on getting into the composing game, and since TV and Film is a large part of our business these tips could definitely help you land more placements. I'll leave you with tip number 9 which i consider to be the most important tip. Don't give up your dreams.

The Sustainable Musician Its such a great feeling that we can look past the grammy awards and come out saying "that's not MY music industry". Musicians are excited that they now have the opportunity to create a sustainable career without the permission of the gatekeepers we all know as the recording industry.

Have you ever heard of the legendary Abby Road Studios? If your not familiar, tons of great albums have come from Abby Roads including albums from Radiohead, Muse and the Zombies Panic At The Disco, grew their own audience by distributing their music through the internet and now you can see some great live recording, as well as some interesting insights and discussions with the band.

I can honestly say that watching well over 2 hours of 2010 grammy broadcast actually made me feel a little bit out of touch with todays mainstream music. Gone, was the incredible feeling of wanting to be apart of the celebration, replaced with skepticism and doubt. Was it just me or in a night full of elaborate duets in which the spectacle overshadowed the performance, did it seem like the Grammys were doing a bit too much, for a bit too long? Trent Reznor of the Ninie Inch Nails summed up the Grammys nicely in one tweet "Grammy asshole weekend in LA. Yuck..."

Napsters Impact a Decade Later If you watched the Grammy Awards Sunday night then you probably witnessed the Academy's plea to US music consumers, encouraging the purchase of "great" music. Cnn Money took a 10 year look at the RIAA's 8 billion dollar decline, the free movement and most importantly, the label anti-christ, Napster.

Learning musical notes in a flash. As musicians have we put much thought about the ways in which we will pass down or knowledge of music to our children? It always surprises me when i look at a piece of music and realize that this is a language that not everybody knows how to speak. There are many acronyms and mnemonics that help facilitate the learning of an instrument but they don't encourage the instant note recognition that flash cards do. Try out these simple flash card naming and timing games with your little ones and you just might find your musical skills increase as a result.

MXL ASS KICKER the "A-55 Kicker" which is also a visual reference to the phrase "ass kicker" is a dynamic mic intended for use on kick drums. The mic has been making a lot of noise (or should i say picking up a lot of noise) since its last year release. The recordinghacks website has a little break down on the mic, which boasts features such as the lowest mic sensitivity ever seen and tailored EQ. READ MORE.

Power, Path and Performance is a three pronged approach that if maximized could give artists more voice than they could ever need. The approach which centers around breath, open throat and authentic communication of message are three synergetic areas that when mastered can prove to be a dangerous weapon in your industry tool bag.