Music Of The Heart: Partnerships With Nonprofits And Advocacy Groups Can Lead To Growth For Everyone

Music is your heart. It’s your soul. It’s your blood. The air that you breathe. The thing that gets you up in the morning. And building your music career is your life’s purpose. It’s what you devote all your time, energy, and effort to.

But giving your all to your music doesn’t mean you can’t also give to your community. In fact, as a musician, you have an incredible opportunity not only for supporting your band’s success but also for making a difference in the world as you do it. You have a public voice, one that’s growing stronger every day. 

Who better to use that voice for people who don’t have a voice? How better to build your band’s image while you draw fans to your cause? In this article, we will explore the amazing partnerships that can develop between musicians and advocacy groups, the incredible force for change that such an alliance can become.

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The 10 Rules Of Networking

An insight Bobby begins his article with is more important today than ever:

“Regardless of how much talent you may have, unless someone hears about what you’re doing you’ll end up creating in your bedroom your whole life.”

This is not surprising given the ever-increasing daily uploads to Spotify (currently 40,000 tracks per day) and the general democratisation of music production, distribution, promotion and consumption through digitisation and globalisation.

In this article, I will go into each of Bobby Owsinski’s 10 rules in more detail without going into the book’s details.

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Networking For Introverts

As a newsletter recipient of Dorie Clark (keynote speaker, author of “Stand Out Networking”) I became aware of a fantastic article in the Harvard Business Review that suits my company tamanguu very well, in which she discusses the challenges and solutions for introverts in business networking.

Many music artists, but also music managers, who I met in my music business career, were introverted people. It sounds as paradoxical as it is when Dorie Clark characterises herself as introverted, despite she is often on stage as a keynote speaker. However, performing on stage is something different than business networking off the stage. Also for extroverts, this article includes some useful hints and insights.

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New Website Launches Connecting Japanese Music Industry With Other Countries

Japan Music Industry Global Network (JAMING) has officially launched its new website, designed to help connect artists and music industry professionals from Japan, with those from other countries. By building a database of individuals and companies involved in the music industry, which includes label executives, artists, songwriters, sound engineers, booking agencies, music publishers and music attorneys, as well as entertainment professionals who are looking for music and artists for t.v., film and video game, members will have a growing resource of others in the industry, to interact with.

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How To Get An Endorsement As A Musician

This guest post by Monique Hernandez-Fuentes of GuitarTricks.com originally apeared on the Bandzoogle Blog.

Recently one of our partners asked for the best way to get endorsed as a musician. We have come a long way in the last nearly forty years from when endorsements were easy to come by for musicians everywhere who simply had an awesome look and a cool sound.

Nowadays, the industry has changed dramatically, so I thought I would offer some pointers for the best way to get an endorsement from the company you love.

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Support Your Scene: The Benefits Of Participating In Your Local Music Scene

“Support your local music scene!”  

Whether you’re in a band, work for or own a venue, are in the business of promoting, or are content with simply supporting your favorite artists and musicians, you’ve probably heard the above admonition at least once in your life.  

And yes, supporting your local music scene is important. Even still, in 2018! Actually, it’s not just important—it’s essential. For bands, fans, and the community as a whole. 

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The Email That Will Get You Access To Anyone

Somebody always has something that you want.

• Better distribution methods
• A particular person’s contact info
• Knowledge you want to have in your brain
• Etc
• Etc
• Etc

It’s just a matter of getting access to it. For me and lots of other independent artists, emails are the most efficient way to go about this, and this one email in particular has opened a lot of doors. 

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Seven Ways to Get a Little Bit Closer to Your Fans

This isn’t new information: People will like you if you make them feel special. INTIMACY, therefore, is one of the key ingredients in creating loyal followers and Superfans. How do you do this if you can’t give each one a gift or a hug? There are so many ways to get closer to your fans.

Here are some of the best ways to establish that warm connection:

SHARE PERSONAL STORIES

The usual blogs of musicians are mostly informative. They simply talk about their gigs and about their latest album. That’s okay since that’s necessary but blogging about those stuff alone won’t help you build any connection to your followers.  You have to share a bit of yourself to your followers even (especially!) the most shallow details of your everyday life.  Check out Amanda Palmer’s blog. The girl is an expert on this.

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Networking: Why it’s So Important and How to Do It

Everyone talks about networking and how it’s so important for your business, but when it comes down to it, not many people know how to do it and why it’s so valuble. Here are a few tips for all the new networkers out there.

No matter what your business, if you’re a up and coming musician, a publicist or an accountant, it’s important to know people in your industry. Industry connections, no matter the context, can make a considerable difference when it comes to growing and maintaining your business. People you meet along the way in life can help you to learn new things, and with our ever changing culture, you never know who you will need in your corner in the future.

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MusicThinkTank.com | October's Most Popular Posts

MusicThinkTank.com takes great pride in being a renowned resource for all who comprise today’s music industry. We appreciate the conversations you start, the advice you share, the projects you promote, and the feedback you share and we want to encourage your continued efforts.

Thanks to our loyal readers and contributors, October was a great month for MusicThinkTank.com - so today, we’d like to share that success with you by highlighting October’s most popular posts. On behalf of MusicThinkTank.com, thank you for your support. We enjoy providing a unique platform where the music industry really can think out loud!

Laura Schneider, MusicThinkTank.com Community Manager

34,708   MTT (Journal) 4,685   MTT - 49 Ways to Get Free Music Promotion (Journal Entry) 4,606   MTT Open - 10 Awesome Independent Record Labels [LIST] (Journal Entry) 3,967   MTT - A&R Tips: The Art Of The Press Kit (Journal Entry) 3,755   MTT - Top 10 Rules For Better Songwriting (Journal Entry)

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8 Effective Ways to Better Promote Your Next Release

There have been a whole bunch of revolutions lately. One of the ones I’m most excited about is the revolution in the area of recording gear and software. I think it’s really incredible how just in the past few years tools have evolved to the point where people like you and I can get REALLY great recordings on our own, in our own homes.

I think a lot of people are aware of this particular revolution and are really jumping on board, which is awesome! But there’s another revolution I want to talk about today that I think a lot of people are missing… and that’s the promotion revolution! Just like in the recording arena, there are tools that are now available to normal people like you and me that we can use to really effectively promote our music.

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The Music Marketing Manifesto. Ten Principles For Success

1. Write, record and play high quality music

It seems like an obvious thing to say, but everything starts & ends with the music. If the songs are poor, the recording is bad, and the live show is dull don’t expect to make a living from music.

2. Continue to only deal in high quality

Some of the best new bands and artists are let down by terrible videos, bad photography and shocking design. Yes it is fickle, but judging a book by it’s cover is a reality. When you are choosing which artist to review, book, or even sign you are invariably drawn to the most attractive presentation. So why not increase your chances of being heard? Remember, you can have the best music in the world but if nobody listens ,you get nowhere.

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Local Networking for Musicians

Networking is the best way to get ahead in “the biz.” It isn’t all about sending your music to Pitchfork and blogs to hope it gets some airplay in the corners of the internet. It’s about talking to the people who matter most in your town to help each other out and to build a core fan base you can build from in the coming months.

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It's all who you know?

When you hear, “It’s all who you know,” it sounds so intimidating - like you need to be a former roommate of Mark Zuckerburg, cousins with Richard Branson, and dating Taylor Swift.

But simply contacting a stranger can lead to a worldwide network of connections.

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