How Creating a Set List is Exactly Like Creating a Mix Tape for Your Girlfriend

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How Creating a Set List is Hot Topics in the Industry

How Creating a Set List is Exactly Like Creating a Mix Tape for Your Girlfriend

How Creating a Set List is Exactly Like Creating a Mix Tape for Your Girlfriend

A Guest Post by Crowd Audio

There is this scene in “High Fidelity” with John Cusack where he obsesses over the perfect mixtape to give to a girl.

It might be in the book, but in my memory it’s still played by John Cusack because he’s just so good at being confused, flabbergasted and cool, all at the same time.

But you need to take care when you’re making a playlist for your girlfriend. You can’t just mess around with that without some serious brainstorming. And you definitely don’t want to accidentally put a song on there that’s a reminder of your last relationship.

Girls pick up on that because they know they’ve never heard the song and they’ll put two and two together. Because they’re smart like that.

And you need to put the same amount of care into structuring your set list for your next show. The DIY musician blog over at CD Baby has some good points on choosing the right songs in your setlist, but I’m looking at from a different standpoint. The set list has to convey a journey. It has to be a show. Therefore it has to have dynamics and contrast.

Let’s look at some examples.

Start Off Strong

If you’re an unknown band, then start off with a powerful and catchy tune that’ll catch the attention of the audience. Especially if you’re the opening act.

If you have a following and they all like that “one song” you wrote, don’t even think about opening with that. Make the audience wait. Otherwise they’ll just leave like if Journey played Don’t Stop Believin’ at the start of their show.

Keep the Momentum Going

Once you’ve nailed the audience in a trance of musical euphoria, keep going. I would say the first two songs should be interchangeable. They should be just as powerful and catchy to keep the audience glued to the stage.

Sidenote: I realize “catchy” doesn’t necessarily reflect what every musician is trying to evoke with his music. What I mean is “memorable,” “eye-opening,” or “exciting.” Basically pick the song that you think everyone will think is awesome.

Relax

Now it’s time to lay back and enjoy yourself. You’ve caught the audience in your musical web so you can afford to take a side-step into a slower song or a ballad. Think of it like a surfer: It’s the time you spend paddling back out after catching that big wave. You give yourself and the audience a welcome change of pace.

Depending on the length of your set, this might be more than one song. It might even be a separate subset of your concert. I remember this Smashing Pumpkins gig where Billy Corgan came out and played a whole acoustic set by himself in the middle of the show.

The band I am in use this technique as well to lengthen our set when we haven’t rehearsed every single song together. Instead of everybody playing all the time, the drummer and bass player take a break in the middle of the set and the two of us(guitar player and singer) sing a few of our quieter songs.

Pick Up The Pace

Once you’ve nailed that big chorus in your ballad, it’s time to start winding up the dynamics of your set list again. Pick a song that’s a little different than a ballad but not super energetic. Think of it like the eye before the storm. Play a song that’s groovy but subdued.

Funny story, but I was at White Snake a few weeks back and they followed this sort of structure almost exactly. After they played their relaxing ballad “Is This Love?” they played “Here I go Again,” which is kind of a massive rock song.

However, it’s not as ferocious as “Still of the Night,” that they ended the show with. And that leads me to…

End With a Bang

Whatever your single is that everyone came to listen to, this is where you play it. If every band in the world only played their hits at the beginning nobody would stick around until the end.

And again, if nobody’s even seen you play and they’ve stuck around for the end, rewards with an ace of a song up your sleeve.

Alright, I’m clichéd out.

If you’re serious about taking your music to the next level but have no idea on what makes a professional mix, use Crowd Audio’s competition service to launch a contest around your music where you can pick the mix you like the most out of dozens of submissions.

Crowd Audio helps you take your music to the next level. They connect independent bands and musicians with excited audio engineers eager to help them with their music.

If you’re a musician, Crowd Audio gives you access to a community of audio engineers eager to mix and master your music, giving it that professional sound.

If you’re an audio engineer, Crowd Audio creates a community of like minded individuals looking to gain experience by doing the audio work they love.

Through community and crowdsourced competition, bands get a professionally produced sound while audio engineers get exposure and experience.

Crowd Audio helps you take your music to the next level. They connect independent bands and musicians with excited audio engineers eager to help them with their music.

If you’re a musician, Crowd Audio gives you access to a community of audio engineers eager to mix and master your music, giving it that professional sound.

If you’re an audio engineer, Crowd Audio creates a community of like minded individuals looking to gain experience by doing the audio work they love.

Through community and crowdsourced competition, bands get a professionally produced sound while audio engineers get exposure and experience.

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Like Creating a Mix Tape for Your Girlfriend

How Creating a Set List is Exactly Like Creating a Mix Tape for Your Girlfriend

A Guest Post by Crowd Audio

There is this scene in “High Fidelity” with John Cusack where he obsesses over the perfect mixtape to give to a girl.

It might be in the book, but in my memory it’s still played by John Cusack because he’s just so good at being confused, flabbergasted and cool, all at the same time.

But you need to take care when you’re making a playlist for your girlfriend. You can’t just mess around with that without some serious brainstorming. And you definitely don’t want to accidentally put a song on there that’s a reminder of your last relationship.

Girls pick up on that because they know they’ve never heard the song and they’ll put two and two together. Because they’re smart like that.

And you need to put the same amount of care into structuring your set list for your next show. The DIY musician blog over at CD Baby has some good points on choosing the right songs in your setlist, but I’m looking at from a different standpoint. The set list has to convey a journey. It has to be a show. Therefore it has to have dynamics and contrast.

Let’s look at some examples.

Start Off Strong

If you’re an unknown band, then start off with a powerful and catchy tune that’ll catch the attention of the audience. Especially if you’re the opening act.

If you have a following and they all like that “one song” you wrote, don’t even think about opening with that. Make the audience wait. Otherwise they’ll just leave like if Journey played Don’t Stop Believin’ at the start of their show.

Keep the Momentum Going

Once you’ve nailed the audience in a trance of musical euphoria, keep going. I would say the first two songs should be interchangeable. They should be just as powerful and catchy to keep the audience glued to the stage.

Sidenote: I realize “catchy” doesn’t necessarily reflect what every musician is trying to evoke with his music. What I mean is “memorable,” “eye-opening,” or “exciting.” Basically pick the song that you think everyone will think is awesome.

Relax

Now it’s time to lay back and enjoy yourself. You’ve caught the audience in your musical web so you can afford to take a side-step into a slower song or a ballad. Think of it like a surfer: It’s the time you spend paddling back out after catching that big wave. You give yourself and the audience a welcome change of pace.

Depending on the length of your set, this might be more than one song. It might even be a separate subset of your concert. I remember this Smashing Pumpkins gig where Billy Corgan came out and played a whole acoustic set by himself in the middle of the show.

The band I am in use this technique as well to lengthen our set when we haven’t rehearsed every single song together. Instead of everybody playing all the time, the drummer and bass player take a break in the middle of the set and the two of us(guitar player and singer) sing a few of our quieter songs.

Pick Up The Pace

Once you’ve nailed that big chorus in your ballad, it’s time to start winding up the dynamics of your set list again. Pick a song that’s a little different than a ballad but not super energetic. Think of it like the eye before the storm. Play a song that’s groovy but subdued.

Funny story, but I was at White Snake a few weeks back and they followed this sort of structure almost exactly. After they played their relaxing ballad “Is This Love?” they played “Here I go Again,” which is kind of a massive rock song.

However, it’s not as ferocious as “Still of the Night,” that they ended the show with. And that leads me to…

End With a Bang

Whatever your single is that everyone came to listen to, this is where you play it. If every band in the world only played their hits at the beginning nobody would stick around until the end.

And again, if nobody’s even seen you play and they’ve stuck around for the end, rewards with an ace of a song up your sleeve.

Alright, I’m clichéd out.

If you’re serious about taking your music to the next level but have no idea on what makes a professional mix, use Crowd Audio’s competition service to launch a contest around your music where you can pick the mix you like the most out of dozens of submissions.

Crowd Audio helps you take your music to the next level. They connect independent bands and musicians with excited audio engineers eager to help them with their music.

If you’re a musician, Crowd Audio gives you access to a community of audio engineers eager to mix and master your music, giving it that professional sound.

If you’re an audio engineer, Crowd Audio creates a community of like minded individuals looking to gain experience by doing the audio work they love.

Through community and crowdsourced competition, bands get a professionally produced sound while audio engineers get exposure and experience.

Crowd Audio helps you take your music to the next level. They connect independent bands and musicians with excited audio engineers eager to help them with their music.

If you’re a musician, Crowd Audio gives you access to a community of audio engineers eager to mix and master your music, giving it that professional sound.

If you’re an audio engineer, Crowd Audio creates a community of like minded individuals looking to gain experience by doing the audio work they love.

Through community and crowdsourced competition, bands get a professionally produced sound while audio engineers get exposure and experience.

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Make Videos That Fit The Artist and The Audience [Leadership Music Summit Panel]

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Make Videos That Fit The Artist and The Audience [Leadership Music Summit Panel]

An unlikely sounding panel at this week's Leadership Music Summit in Nashville, "Bringing Content to Fruition," kicked off a lively discussion about videos, music marketing and even a bit about building and monetizing a relationship with an audience for the long haul. Opinions varied but all seemed to agree that most choices come down to creating videos that fit both the artist and the audience.

Tuesday's Leadership Music Summit featured numerous talks and panels. A discussion focused on "creating video content...to expand a band/brand's message" touched on a number of interesting points.

Moderated by Hit Shop Records' David Ross, the panel included:

Stokes Nielson - Stokes Tunes/Country Now

Dez Dickerson - The Pavilion Group

Jamin Guy - Streamweaver

Brody Harper - Skorinc

Jared Scheel - Populr.me

High Points of the Discussion

Stokes Nielson got things going early with the audacious statement that musicians should be making videos because they're the "most effective way to communicate with other human beings."

Later Jared Scheel pointed out that video is an "incredible storytelling platform."

But to unleash the power of video, from music videos to backstage chronicles, many of the panelists spoke to different aspects of authenticity.

Dez Dickerson shared the first of many concepts he uses, in this case, to understand the act's "DNA" as a way of maintaining authenticity:

Who are we?

What do we do?

What are we doing it for?

By discussing such questions a band and team can then more easily evaluate a video project and whether or not it's appropriate for the act and the audience.

The panelists also discussed the fact that fitting both the act and the audience can affect such issues as production values. A new act has less money so a low-budget look is appropriate. More established acts are expected to have higher and therefore more expensive production values.

But this was one of the spots where panelists resisted formulating a one size fits all approach.

Stokes Nielson pointed out that first looks are so important that it can make sense for an emerging act to spend more money to make a strong first impression.

While Brody Harper says they've found with bigger stars that more off-the-cuff videos can work cause it offers a more human connection than fans are feeling from social media. On social media, they don't know if a tweet is actually written by an artist or by a team. When the artist is sitting there adjusting their webcame, it's a much more intimate moment even when watched by a large audience.

Other Tips and Insights

Stokes Nielson encouraged musicians to do collabs on YouTube to reach their audiences. In particular, he pointed out that YouTube stars are likely to be open to a collab with a musician as simply a cool thing to do, so reach out.

Jamin Guy suggested making sure your video works for all devices. Sure, it plays, but how does it actually look when played on a big screen vs. a smartphone screen.

Videos are a powerful tool for building relationships with one's audience. Dez Dickerson maintained that the long-term play is a shift from a transactional approach (i.e., buy this new release) to a relational approach (i.e., let's get to know each other so we can be friends for a long time).

As Dickerson pointed out, a hit doesn't necessarily translate into a music career. But if you have an audience, you can have a career.

Hypebot Senior Contributor Clyde Smith (@fluxresearch/@crowdfundingm) also blogs at Flux Research and Crowdfunding For Musicians.

Related articles

• Make Videos That Fit The Artist and The Audience [Leadership Music Summit Panel] (hypebot.com)
• Lady Antebellum's Dave Haywood and Associates Discuss Working Together On Digital Initiatives (hypebot.com)
• REWIND: The New Music Industry's Week In Review (hypebot.com)
• "Data Is The New Hustle" - Is The Music Business Getting Any Fairer? (djduece.wordpress.com)
• Musicians: Why Your Self-Presentation Is An Important Part Of Your Music (djduece.wordpress.com)
• Analysing Music video - Ed sheeran 'A team' (mo10man.wordpress.com)

7 Ways to Avoid The Psychological Hazards Of Music Entrepreneurshi

7 Ways to Avoid The Psychological Hazards Of Music Entrepreneurship

Building a career in music is often much more about becoming an entrepreneur than getting a job. And like entrepreneurs in other fields musicians face many emotional ups and downs that can derail their progress. Psychiatrist Michael A. Freeman recently shared some tips for tech entrepreneurs on dealing with emotional roller coasters that many musicians should find relevant.

Silicon Valley has become more away of the psychological hazards of entrepreneurship in the wake of a number of tragic events involving tech entrepreneurs. The world of music has also seen far too many tragic outcomes even for musicians deemed successes.

In many ways, the high pressure world of tech startups places similar pressures on entrepreneurs to outperform and to forget about their own needs that musicians face when taking their careers seriously.

Former entrepreneur turned psychiatrist Michael A. Freeman has some tips for entrepreneurs of all types in an article about the "Psychological Price of Entrepreneurship" (via Wes Davenport).

7 Ways to Avoid the Psychological Hazards of Music Entrepreneurship

1) "Most important, make time for your loved ones" - Friends and family can be a powerful source of support.

2) "Don't be afraid to ask for help" - Mental health professionals come in all shapes and sizes.

3) Limit Your Financial Exposure - "Set a limit for how much of your own money you're prepared to invest."

4) Take Care of Your Health - "Cardiovascular exercise, a healthful diet, and adequate sleep all help."

5) Cultivate an "identity apart from your company" - Defining yourself by more than your music career is key to maintaining stability when things are going wrong.

6) Learn to "reframe failure and loss" - Understand that the failure of a music project such as an album release is one step along the way that doesn't define you as a failure.

7) "Be open about your feelings" - This advice may sound odd given the often vulnerable nature of both songwriting and performance but it's far too easy to react to that exposure by closing yourself off emotionally to those around you.

Excellent advice for those facing the uncertainties of entrepreneurship. But at least entrepreneurial musicians know they'll always have music whatever direction the business takes.

Related articles

• 7 Ways to Avoid The Psychological Hazards Of Music Entrepreneurship (hypebot.com)
• Entrepreneurship development (slideshare.net)
• Entrepreneurship has become too fashionable (ricardodsanchez.com)
• But what is a Social Entrepreneur?? (ksamsays.wordpress.com)

Setting S.M.A.R.T. Goals for Your Music Career

Setting S.M.A.R.T. Goals for Your Music Career
BY: SHAUN LETANG
This is a chapter from my book The Independent Musician’s Survival Guide. You can see more chapters here.

So now you know that it’s possible to make money from your music career, and you also know you should take things one step at a time. But before you go out and start trying to earn money from your career, it’s important you take time to set goals for what you want to achieve.

While it’s easy to say, “I want to get a lot more fans” you have to ask yourself, how is saying this actually going to help you achieve your goal? It’s a non-specific “want,” rather then a well thought out business plan.

Studies have shown you’re more likely to achieve your goal if you have a clear visual understanding of what you want to achieve in life. This is where S.M.A.R.T. aim and objectives come into place.

S.M.A.R.T. is a tool we can use to better map out what we want to achieve. It stands for Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, Timed. That means all of the aims we have for our music career should be specific, we should be able to measure them, they should be achievable, they should be realistic, and we should know how long it’ll take us to achieve this aim. These aims should be written down, so we have a goal to look at and refer back to when we feel a bit lost as to what we’re doing.

You can run a few S.M.A.R.T. aims alongside each other, and they can vary in size in terms of how big they are. One may refer to how you’re going to hit the 100 gig mark (which is more long term), and another may be how you’re going to set up all the necessary social media profiles you need to promote your music (which is more short term).

Make sense? Hopefully it does, but if not, here’s an example.

Let’s take the above aim of:

“I want to get a lot more fans.”

This is a very vague aim to have, as it doesn’t give us any idea of how we’re going to achieve this goal of ours. By applying the S.M.A.R.T. formula to it, we can edit it to be an aim we can refer back to and get a better idea of how we’re currently doing. This will make it easier to achieve it.

So first off, let’s make our goal Specific. We want to specifically state what we need to do to achieve this goal. There’s no point saying we want more fans if we don’t know how we’re going to go about getting those extra fans, is there? It won’t make it any clearer how we’re going to achieve that goal; it’s sort of like saying, ” I want to be rich.” The majority of people who say that have no further ideas in their plans to get rich, and therefore never take any real steps to achieving that goal.

OK, so how Specifically are we going to go about getting more fans? Let’s say you have the means to create home made videos of you performing cover songs, and have a YouTube channel via which you can showcase your material to the world. By uploading your videos and encouraging people to like your Facebook page if they enjoy your song, you will get a percentage of people taking you up on this offer. Tell them they will find out about your new videos there first, and that they will also get exclusive bonus videos not shown publicly on YouTube. This will encourage a larger percentage of your video viewers to Like your Facebook page.

You could also get those new Facebook fans via gigging or other means, but for this example we’ll stick to the cover songs strategy. So we can change our aim so it looks like this:

“I want to get a lot more Facebook fans by doing cover versions on YouTube.”

Now every time we look at this aim, we know what we should be doing to achieve it. If you want to get more fans by doing other things, you can make other aims to go alongside this one.

Next, we need to make this aim Measurable. After all, how will we know if we’ve achieved our aim if we haven’t got a clear goal to aim for? What does “a lot more” really mean? Is that 20 new followers? 100? Or 1000?

In this example we’re using Facebook followers as our measuring point, although you can aim to get more mailing list subscribers, more gigs, make more money, etc. Sticking to the Facebook example though, I will change the aim to:

“I want to increase my Facebook subscriber count by 100 followers by doing cover versions on YouTube.”

Now this is something we can actually measure, and can look at to see how close we are to achieving our aim. We don’t want to stop there, though, as there’s more we can apply to make our aim even more useful to us.

Next, we want to make sure our aim is Achievable. Well, is it? In this case, it is. Gaining 100 Facebook subscribers is something most people can do if they offer something of value or interest. It will take some people longer then others, but it is something you can achieve. It is also Realistic, which covers the next section in our S.M.A.R.T. formula as well.

If you was to say you want to increase your Facebook subscriber numbers by 10,000, though, while it may be humanly achievable, it’s not really a Realistic aim for the average independent musician. Therefore, this number would have to be cut back to one that’s a lot more realistic.

Don’t try to cheat with the numbers; they’re only there to help you take manageable steps to advancing you music career. You don’t want to aim for the end goal straight away; this will lead to you not hitting your targets soon enough and only leave a feeling of disappointment and failure. This often leads to people quitting music and believing it doesn’t work, so initially aim for something that is Realistic and Achievable. We don’t have to change our above version of the aim in this case (“I want to increase my Facebook subscriber count by 100 followers by doing cover versions on YouTube”), as it is both Achievable and Realistic. That said, if you’ve made an aim and it isn’t achievable or realistic, change it accordingly so it is. The last stage is to make sure it’s Timed. By this, I mean it’s something that we can time, and has an end date.

There’s no point having an aim that will go on forever; if you don’t achieve that aim, you need to know when it’s time to say it’s not working and modify it to something more realistic. This is why we will give it a time limit.

For this example, I think 4 months is a reasonable amount of time to get 100 new Facebook fans. You may want to aim to do it quicker if you already have a starting fan base that you can transfer over to Facebook, but for this example let’s stick to 4 months. So, let’s edit our aim to reflect this:

“I want to increase my Facebook subscriber count by 100 followers by doing cover versions on YouTube. I will do this within the next 4 month by [insert date].”

And that’s it, our S.M.A.R.T. aim is complete! Instead of just saying you want to achieve something, you now know how you’re going to go about achieving it, when you should have it done by, you can measure how far along you are with your aim, and you know that it’s an aim you can realistically achieve.

You should carry out this process with all the aims you have for your music career, whether in terms of how you’re going to get more gigs, how you’re going to reach a certain pay rate, or how you’re going to finish an album you’re making. Apply this to all the things you want to achieve, and you will have a much clearer view of what you need to do to succeed.

Important Note:
When you set your music career aims, do them in manageable steps. Don’t say you want to earn a million dollars and be rich; take things in baby steps and achieve one goal at a time. So initially aim to break even, and create a S.M.A.R.T. aim for how you’re going to achieve that. Once you’re at a break even level, next aim to make, say, $100 a month from your music career, and do a S.M.A.R.T. aim for how you will complete this aim. As you achieve it, keep building things up and work toward new aims in manageable and realistic steps.

What Happens If You Don’t Meet Your S.M.A.R.T. Goals (and What Happens If You Do)?
So, you’ve mapped out your S.M.A.R.T. goals, and you’ve been following the plan to achieve your written down goal. But at some stage of following this plan, it becomes apparent that you aren’t going to hit your target. What should you do?

Well the thing about these goals, is you can make them flexible. You will of course want to try and make your goal as realistic as possible when you’re drawing up your plans, but sometimes it’s easy to underestimate how difficult something really is.

If this happens, you should go back to your original aim, and edit it as needed. By now, you should be more clued up as to what a more realistic aim is to have in terms of this part of your music career. Let’s say for example 100 new Facebook follows was too much to aim for. Why not reduce that number to 50 if you feel that’s a goal you really can reach?

On the other hand if you hit 100 fans well before you time limit is up, why not set a new aim for more Facebook fans in a new time range? Only if you feel it’ll benefit your music career of course, you may instead decide to increase interaction with your current followers before you actively try and get any more.

At the end of each S.M.A.R.T. aim, there are a couple of things you should do. Firstly, you should analyze how things went. What worked and what didn’t? Is this something you can scale up to get even better results? Is it worth aiming for this goal again?

Once you decide this, you should make a new aim to keep you busy in your newly free time. Alternatively, you can use that time to work more on another aim you have going on.

After a while, you will start to see what the best place to put your efforts is. You will find that by doing some things, you will be gaining more fans (or making more money) quicker than when you do other things. It’s in these areas that you should start to put more time, as they will give you more rewards for your time. Work smart, AND hard.

Related articles

• Setting S.M.A.R.T. Goals for Your Music Career (djbaymusic.com)
• FarStone RestoreIT S.M.A.R.T makes it easy to remove viruses and fix Windows problems (prweb.com)
• Setting S.M.A.R.T. Goals for Your Music Career (hypebot.com)
• S.M.A.R.T. Goals in Social Media (socialmediaclub.org)
• S.M.A.R.T errors can't install OS X Mountain Lion (discussions.apple.com)

What Can A Musician Learn From Chipotle?

What Can A Musician Learn From Chipotle?

Chipotle may seem like a bit of a stretch as a source of music industry knowledge but Joy Ike, a musician and creator of the excellent Grassrootsy music marketing blog, makes the connections in "4 Things Every Artist Can Learn from Chipotle." Ike combined her own love of Chipotle with insights from the founder to get down to some basics for musicians as well as entrepreneurs.

Joy Ike used a feature on Chipotle founder Steve Ellis to inspire her post "4 Things Every Artist Can Learn from Chipotle":

1. "Hard Work Always Pays Off"

Apparently founder Steve Ellis had to work a lot harder than he expected to make Chipotle a success but it paid off in the end.

While hard work may not inevitably lead to the success Ellis experienced, it's an obvious prerequisite for having a shot at stardom or even simply making a living as a musician.

2. "Your Game Will Change Over Time"

Ellis started out with a single taqueria and began to build a chain. He later partnered with McDonald's to grow rapidly but eventually had to part ways to follow his own values.

Some artists leave major labels with a brand that allows them to keep building in their own way. Others stay indie but connect with major label distribution. The right deal is only right in the context of your own development.

3. "Good is not Great"

Ellis separated from McDonald's in part because he didn't want to rely on adequate workers. He wanted everyone to outperform.

This perspective should guide any musician from choosing who to play with to building one's team. Sometimes you have to make do but always go for the best.

4. "Integrity Matters"

Ellis chose his values over those of McDonald's and gave up some cash in the process. But he found a way to grow Chipotle on his own terms and he's doing just fine without McDonald's.

Though you may not associate the word "integrity" with the word "business," you don't have to give up your values to be a success in the music industry. You might not be able to make a major label happy but that might not be a bad thing when all is said and done.

Sound pretty basic? You don't have to be a big Chipotle fan like Joy Ike to recognize that, despite the complexity of the music industry, some things remain simple.

Related articles

• What Can A Musician Learn From Chipotle? (hypebot.com)
• Chipotle Faked A Twitter Hack In Order To Get More Followers (businessinsider.com)
• On Chipotle vs. Mickey D's (shortformblog.com)
• 'Hacking' of Chipotle Twitter account revealed as publicity stunt (upi.com)
• The End of Fast Food As We Know It (fool.com)

Do musicians need to interact with their fans?

Now, musicians are busy people. Often they play in several projects, or have day jobs, families, or all of the above. So whenever there is talk about social media, newsletters, and marketing in general, it’s understandable that it can seem a little overwhelming. It takes a lot of work just for the artistic side of things, between writing music, rehearsing, playing shows, and all of the logistics that go into those creative endeavors.

But the days of the reclusive rock star hiding backstage, letting record companies and managers do all the promotion and communicating with their fans, is long gone. It’s not enough to write, rehearse, and perform music to develop a sustainable career. Fan interaction has now become part of the job description for today’s musicians.
How We Got Here: Technology
So how did we get here? We’ve seen recording technology reach the point where you can record professionally from the comfort of your own home. You can now take music you recorded at home and easily distribute it to online stores like iTunes and Amazon for a small fee. And the internet, with tools like websites, email, and social media, gives you access to a potential global audience of fans.

The result of these technological advances? A level playing field for all musicians where you can record for cheap, distribute your music for cheap, and reach a potential global audience of fans for practically free. Hooray! Everyone gets a career in music!

Unfortunately, it’s not that straightforward. The flipside of all of this has been that music fans also now have an unlimited choice of music. They can listen to whatever music they want, whenever they want to. Musicians are now competing for the attention of music fans, who are distracted more than ever by the thousands upon thousands of options available to them at any given moment.
3 Reasons to Interact with Your Fans
So do musicians need to interact with their fans? In a word, yes. But here are 3 reasons why it’s important that you do:

1. Keeps fans aware of you

The biggest reason to interact with your fans is to simply keep them aware of you and your music. As previously mentioned, fans have unlimited choices when it comes to music, so it’s extremely important to keep them aware of your music on a regular basis.

2. Solidifies relationships with fans

More and more, fans want to feel a direct connection to the artists themselves. So interacting with your fans not only keeps them aware of your music, but gives you the opportunity to solidify your relationship with them. Every time a fan makes a comment or asks a question on your blog or through social media, you have the chance to respond and make them feel like they’re an active part of your career. But if you don’t respond, they just might pay more attention to an artist that will.

3. Creates "super fans"

As you solidify your relationship with fans and they start to feel like they’re going on this musical journey with you, some of them will become “super fans”. These are the fans that will buy almost everything you put out; from buttons to t-shirts, to limited edition items. They will also come to all your shows, and probably bring their friends. But most importantly, these are the fans that are going to talk about you and promote you through social media & blogs.

Whereas marketing used to focus on finding ways to communicate the value of your music to potential fans, now the key is getting fans themselves to communicate the value of your music to other people. Here’s why that’s so important:

Nielsen recently conducted a study that found that 54% of people are more likely to make a purchase based off a positive recommendation from a friend.

People are tuning out ads and giving more weight to the recommendations of their friends for what movies to watch, which books to read, and what music to listen to. So if you can get to the point where your fans are actively promoting you to their friends, chances are, your fan base will grow, and with it, the attendance at your live shows as well as your music sales.

And one of the best ways to create this kind of word-of-mouth marketing? Developing a relationship with your fans by interacting with them on a regular basis.

Hypebot contributing writer Dave Cool is the Director of Artist Relations for musician website and marketing platform Bandzoogle. Twitter: @Bandzoogle | @dave_cool

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6 Income Stream To Become A Full-Time Musician

6 Income Streams To Become A Full-Time Musician [INFOGRAPHIC] and more...

6 Income Streams To Become A Full-Time Musician [INFOGRAPHIC]

The Seattle Office of Film + Music took a look at the annual revenue of up-and-coming fulltime local musicians and how they do it. Three musicians, each from different genres, opened up their 2012 financial records. "It was important for us to find musicians who modeled a middle class living," said James Keblas, the Director for the Office of Film + Music. "We are trying to show that this kind of a living can be done without having to be rockstar."

Top 6 Musician Income Streams & Infographic

From the financial analysis, six primary areas were identified which bring most musicians income. While the percentages varied, the categories held true. The musicians also shared tips on how to find success in each category:

1. Licensing and Publishing - Companies, TV, Film, Commercials buy your music. Tip: Send out a monthly digital newsletter of your music to music supervisors with new songs ready for licensing.

2. Music Sales - CDs, downloads, streaming. Tip: You and your fans give away one free song on social media platforms to hook folks to buy more songs.

3. Merchandise Sales - T-Shirts, branded band-aids, condoms. Tip: You will increase merchandise sales by over 50% if you're sitting at the table where the goods are being sold.

4. Live Performances - Concerts and touring. Tip: Don't dismiss the earning potential of busking. Musicians at Sea-Tac Airport and the Pike Place Market are averaging over $100/hour in tips.

5. Studio Work - Film & video game music, back up musician. Tip: Make friends with people in the tech world who need music scored for game or app development.

6. Instruction - Teach others music. Tip: Do group lessons and get the biggest paycheck for your time.

click on image to enlarge

The take away for Keblas from this research?

"It's clear that if you want to make it as a musician, you need to have a business strategy for a majority of these revenue streams, if not all of them. No one said it was easy, but if you have the musical skills and the perseverance, you can do it."

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