Song Placements Blog

Take Your Social Media to the Streets The web seems to be the defacto when it comes to networking with like minded individuals and initiating relationships, but social media is supposed to strengthen our offline ties not replace them. We've all been guilty of networking with management, A&Rs or other industry execs online but failing to truly merge the online networking with the offline equivalent. John Jantsch gives the run down on 5 ways to use social media activity online to make it pay offline.

Tick Tock, The Copyright Act of 1976 is About to Expire. It's always entertaining to me to watch the money traps that the labels set for artists, back before information was freely available, EXPLODE! Welp, that's exactly what's about to go down. The Copyright Act states that an artist or author who sold a copyright before 1978 can take it back 56 years later and If it was sold during or after 1978 they can take it back 35 years later. Assuming a correct and prompt filing of paper work, the record labels could lose sound recording copyrights they bought in 1978 starting in 2013. How does this affect you? If the labels don't wanna lose the contents of their entire library you can make a for sure bet that the new copyright law will be negotiated in your favor. Higher royalties anyone?

If you're singing your own demos...STOP! I'm sure you have all heard of Murphys Law, right? Well have you heard of Murphys Laws of songwriting? Probably not, so let me acquaint you. Ralph Murphy is currently ASCAP's Vice-President of International and Domestic Membership, as well as a legendary songwriter and publisher with more than twenty number One hits under his Levi's. I stumbled across his website the other day and came across this article outlining why it is best not to sing your own demos, and the reasons are not "obvious". Head over to Ralph Murphy's website to check out the advantages of not singing your own demos as well as many more valuable pieces of advice on crafting your hit song, like [this one] for example.

American Idolizes The Money, Not Your Music Eleetmusic's Kevin English had a chance to hear out some of the past american idol finalists at one of the panels held at the recently passed CMJ 2009. The topic, an interesting one mind you, was a look at entertainers who have been to the top of the mountain only to look down at how far they had to fall. Artists such as Kimberley Locke (remember her?) talk about their idol experiences as well as life after the season has wrapped and the cameras have powered down. The gist? Sometimes being an independent artist carries with it the invigorating feeling of carving out ones own musical destiny. At the end of the day you have a pretty good realization of who you are, who your fans are, and you can proudly boast that you aren't just a number in a label of numbers.

You Are Not Alone What keeps you from achieving your gaols? Here is a compiled list of responses from indie artists from around the web, of what they find keeps them from achieving their goals. Do any of these things look familiar to you? If so realize that many other people are experiencing the same road blocks as you are, it is how many of these things that you can knock off of your list that is going to make you stand out from your peers and make the transition from good to great!

Increase Your High End with Low End Dollars. As the number of home studio's drastically increase, the hunt for the best amps , turntables, speakers and cables are on. Everyone musician would with out a doubt welcome the highest end equipment into their studio with open loving arms, but the price is usually the main deterrent. The audio/video guide is currently showcasing what they believe to be the 18 best bargains for high end home studio equipment selling at bargain prices. So if you need that new speaker cable or power amplifier, i suggest you take a peep at this, before you wind up buying the low end no name module for the same price. Ouchy.

What exactly does a music library do. Music libraries are becoming more important to the indie musician as money gets tighter and the demand for indie placements rises. Songplacements.com is now the premier music library in southern California, helping artists land opportunities previously only available to the majors. With that being said, the insider has a great piece on exactly what a music library is and does. Knowing how company's such as Songplacements.com operate empowers you, the independent musician, allowing you to better exploit our services, and hopefully land more placements!

The iPhone is one of the biggest innovations of this decade. It has single handedly connected people from all around the world, offering a rich web presence and an "app for everything". Creating an iPhone app used to take at least a general knowledge of some programming experience, until now that is. MobBase is a web application that makes it easy for your band to create an inexpensive, customizable and feature rich iPhone app. Indiemusictech has a few screen shots of how easy it is for your band to get distribution on iPhones worldwide.

Explore music has recently published the results of a poll determining the scariest theme songs in film. As a songwriter i find this list as an invaluable tool that you can use to compare songs in your library that you have deemed scary. Take a listen to each song in the list, most can be found on Youtube, and listen carefully to what instruments are being used and how they are being used, then mimmic these styles and sounds in your productions. Music supervisors are constantly basing their selections off of similar sounding songs, so having songs that mimmic the top 5 should definitely help with increased placements. Remember good artists copy, great artists steal. Landing at number 1 by the way, Psycho Theme (Psycho) by Bernard Hermann.

You've performed many-a-times, rocked shows with 10 people in the crowed, rocked shows with thousands in attendance, but tonight for some odd reason you are experiencing an unexpected attack of stage fright. Professional Vocalist Judy Rodman touches on the two prime causes for uncharacteristic stage fright, and what you can do to prevent or defuse a sudden attack of nerves.

Forget the Record Deal, What about the Publishing Deal. While labels are understandably trying to mitigate their risk, by targeting artists who are already as "developed" as possible, it seems that publishers have taken on greater roles as nurturers of talent. Taylor Swift go her start by honing her songwriting abilities under the guidance of Arthur Buenahora at Songy/ATV Music publishing. Keri Hilson speaks about having first developed as a songwriter with Universal Music Publishing, and how that experience helped her launch her solo career with Interscope Records. HERE is a full interview with Eric Beale, who began his tenure in the industry as a songwriter, writing songs for the Jacksons and Diana Ross. Hopefully this interview gives you some further insight into the world of publishing and some hints on how you can either get into the publishing business as a working artist or as a career, helping other artists hone their skills!

As someone dies, someone else is born. I'm sure by now you've heard the big news. Aerosmith is now looking for a new lead singer. 50 years later, Steven Tyler, lead singer of Aerosmith has decided to pursue a solo career. The announcement follows an interview that the band's frontman, Steven Tyler, gave to a British music magazine in which he said he was interested in "working on the brand of myself - Brand Tyler." If you've always wanted to be a part of the legendary rock group now might be your chance. I have no clue on how the band is preparing to fill the lead singer gap, but in todays media centric world, i'm betting either world wide auditions or a reality show. All i'm saying is be prepared, thats all.

An organized hustle for placements.

Below you will find 100 valuable pieces of advice (in blog form) that every artist should consider.

Interested in getting your music on iTunes? Well how about a 30% discount. Simply visit the Tunecore discount page and use the coupon code: beheard30. via renegadeproducer blog.

7 Ways to Destroy Your Music Career Bob Baker takes us on a very entertaining journey, by revealing the 7 ways to best destroy your music career. He sarcastically touches upon everything from "being fearful of being perceived as a greedy, capitalist pig" all the way down to "using lack of time, money and connections as your biggest excuse". Wanna destroy your music career before it even gets off the ground? Follow these tips.

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.

The Great Balancing Act Between Art and Business Both art and music require a great deal of energy and time, the balance is how and where you spend it. There are many different factors that go into creating a successful business around your music, including record keeping and bookkeeping. The insider has a great post about the difference between these two chores as well as some good advice on multi tasking business and music creation. Einstein said that one definition of insanity was repeating your actions and expecting different outcomes, if you wanna try a new approach to being a successful songwriter then all you gotta do is READ MORE.

Imagine international corporations new noise-canceling headphones that are priced to provide max functionality without breaking the bank. The tech behind the product category basically works on the premise of minimizing the amount of ambient environmental noise that intrudes on a headphone user's listening experience. If your looking for a cost efficient pair of noise canceling head phones these might be a solution worth checking out.