MusicThinkTank Weekly Recap: Saving Money In A Band & More

• M Banks | How To Save Money While In A Band
• Joe McLean | How Listening To Music At Work Can Boost Your Productivity
• John Merigliano | Strategies For Songwriting: The Anti-Artist Way
• Anica Oaks | How To Choose The Right Headphones For The Casual Music Listener

How To Save Money While In A Band

Being in a band is an exciting adventure. From touring and meeting fans to recording your own album, creating music with others is a one-of-a-kind experience. However, even if your shows bring in buckets of cash, you may find it difficult to save — especially with all the fun restaurants and bars you’ll find on tour.

Plus, if you’re touring full-time, odds are good you won’t be able to keep a full-time job.

Therefore, if you want the band to make it, you’ll have to find ways to save money. Luckily, there’s a number of things you can do to cut costs and put money in the bank while still having the time of your life.

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How Listening To Music At Work Can Boost Your Productivity

Music has existed since forever. It may sound odd, but our ancestors were listening to music too. Only in other forms. The birds chirping, the splash of the waves, the fire burning, or the sound of rain can also be categorized as music. Especially nowadays, when all these basic sounds and many more are combined to make relaxing tracks. 

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Strategies For Songwriting: The Anti-Artist Way

Are your songs starting to sound the same? Do you find yourself covering similar ground, reinforcing old tactics in your creative process? We’re habitual creatures. It feels safe to tread on familiar ground. I’ve often thought of going to the same vacation spot every year. Although repeat visits could deepen my understanding of this place, I wonder if it would all become too familiar. How long before the sense of adventure and mystery is lost? If you’d like to develop your creative work, it helps to get to a place of excitement and danger again. One way to do this is to oppose, modify, or destroy previous habits or strategies, or as I like to call it, become an anti-artist.

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How To Choose The Right Headphones For The Casual Music Listener

Like the music they play, headphones come in all types and styles. Studio-quality headphones are perfect for serious audiophiles who want to be able to hear every nuance of every note they listen to. For the casual listener, though, these high-end headphones aren’t necessary or even ideal. To help make a great choice for everyday listening, here are a few tips for choosing the right headphones for the casual music listener.

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MusicThinkTank Weekly Recap: Streaming Engagement & More

• Juri Kobayashi | How Listeners In China Drive Streaming Music Engagement
• John Mergliano | The Creativity Danger Zone
• Rowan Langlery | 4 Reasons Why You Should Invest In Studio Headphones
• M Banks | How To Plan An International Tour For Your Band

How Listeners In China Drive Streaming Music Engagement

The future of streaming music and consumerism is in China with interactive social virtual environments that drives users to engage three times more. Music streaming is focused on banking on fandom not consumerism, like it is in the West. A very social virtual environment makes it happen.

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The Creativity Danger Zone

Creativity can be dangerous. It is fraught with anxiety, peril, isolation, displacement, boredom, dread, pain, and damnation. At the same time, the desire to create things seems to come from a joyful place. It’s the joy we experience when we accomplish the goal of finishing our work. Of course, there is the happiness we experience during the process. Then where’s the danger in undertaking a creative endeavor? Setting out on a creative journey is dangerous in that it’s a lot like exploring the bottom of an ocean.

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So, You’re A Muso? Here Are 4 Reasons Why You Should Invest In Studio Headphones

If you are serious about music, that is, you consider yourself somewhat a professional when it comes to mixing or recording music, it’s probably a good time to invest in a set of studio headphones if you haven’t done so already.

We would even say if you just want to enjoy music at a casual level, studio headphones are a great choice because of their amazing sound production!

Here are 4 reasons why you should get on the studio headphone bandwagon.

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How To Plan An International Tour For Your Band

Touring is an excellent way to build your following and interact with your fans, but we live in the internet age. Your fanbase isn’t limited to local or even domestic fans anymore. Putting your music on the web means people from around the world can find you with the click of a mouse or the tap of a screen. 

These overseas fans will be just as excited to see you live, but planning international tours can be challenging. Here are a few things you should remember before you start booking flights. 

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MusicThinkTank Weekly Recap: Translating Song Lyrics & More

• Tomedes | Translating Song Lyrics: How To Take A Good Song And Make It Meilleur 
• David Figueroa | Common Visual Branding Mistakes 
• David McLean | This Is Why Your Brain Will Thank You For Being A Musician
• Kevin Gardner | Ways To Improve Your Music Talents

Translating Song Lyrics: How To Take A Good Song And Make It Meilleur

Musical lyrics are notoriously difficult to translate. Tastes in music are profoundly affected by culture and language, and those tastes don’t cross linguistic borders easily. We’ll consider options for composers, producers, and labels seeking to globalize their lyrics or adapt foreign songs to local ears. We will consider several approaches to translation: language service providers, freelance translators, and AI-driven machine translation, considering the pros and cons of each. We’ll also explore another option: using subtitles in music videos to maintain the integrity of an original version while making the meaning of the song accessible to foreign audiences.

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Common Visual Branding Mistakes

When you’ve got your music ready, you want to send it out into the world for everyone to listen to it, but the worst thing you could do is to send it out in shoddy clothing. It’s important that you get your branding right. You only get one shot. Here are some common mistakes that I see over and over again. And how to avoid them.

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This Is Why Your Brain Will Thank You For Being A Musician

If you’ve ever played an instrument, you know how staying focused feels like. Research shows that music and productivity are strongly correlated – the more music you play, the more creative and productive you’ll get. Being immersed in a state of creativity only enhances your chances of understanding the world, which helps you become mindful in the long term. “Music breaks mental barriers,” many musicians would agree. Besides that, it improves your brain’s cognition and boosts memory. There are many reasons why you should start playing music. In this article, you’ll find some of the most important. 

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