Photay On Being Terrified By ‘Flight Of The Bumblebee’ And How To Mess With Song Form

On his latest release, Onism, Photay’s Evan Shornstein combines his study of West African percussion with a heavy grounding in ’80s and ’90s beat-driven electronic music. And in the process, he diverges from popular, tried-and-true song form through a series of irreverent arrangements, arresting textures, and a radical withholding of the conventions of the “drop” and “release” that the uninitiated might expect from contemporary dance-inflected music.

Shornstein’s charge is, as he says, “to explore unfamiliar musical realms,” and he manages to do so with respect and reverence for the myriad traditions he’s moving through, resulting in music that’s both “incorrect” and deeply informed.

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5 Questions For A Music Industry Expert - Ariel Hyatt Interviews Julie Flanders Of October Project

Julie Flanders is an expert in Creative Leadership, Self Expression and Change. She provides creative business consulting, excellence training, whole life coaching balanced-lifestyle approaches and dream achievement. She is also the founding member of the influential pop rock group October Project. 

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Cyber PR Q&A: 5 Questions For John Kellogg, Esq. Author Of Take Care Of Your Music Business

John Kellogg is a practicing entertainment lawyer and assistant chair of Music Business/
Management at Berklee College of Music in Boston. I met him when I spoke at Berklee and my firm was delighted to represent him for the release of his book Take Care of Your Music Business, Second Edition.

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Band Interview Tips: How to Make the Most Out of Your Interview

If you do a scan online, you can find many articles about how to interview a band and what kinds of questions to ask a band, but there aren’t many things about what bands can do to prepare for and leverage an interview. I’ve done a fair share of them, both as the interviewer and the interviewee, and wanted to share some experiences with you so you can maximize the interview.

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Hit Songs Deconstructed - The Right Chord Music Interview

Mark Knight is the founder of Right Chord Music, a management and consultancy business. In this article Mark interviews David Penn, the Founder and Editor-In-Chief of Hit Songs Deconstructed a website dedicated to analysing the structure and composition of hit songs. The insight from this analysis is used to help mentor new song-writing talent.

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Tom Hess Music Career Advice Interview And Review

Build A Successful Music Career By Reading This Tom Hess Interview & Review

By Ryan Buckner

Are you determined to fulfill your potential as a musician and build a successful music career? If so, it is likely that you continually hear various “words of wisdom” from the people you know on how to make it in the music business. These people often wish you the best, but the fact is: People who have not already had extensive success as a pro musician, likely do not really understand how the music industry works. On top of that, their advice may be detrimental to your music career dreams.

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Charting the Course: A Radio Promo Discussion – Adam Lewis of Planetary Group

Welcome to the fourth of our seven-part interview series ‘Charting the Course: A Radio Promo Discussion’.

The purpose of this series is to explore the world of radio promo, with insights from 6 people who work in and outside of the realm of radio promo, but all of whom have dedicated themselves to advising independent musicians.

Yesterday we spoke with Dave Cool, Director of Artist Relations at Bandzoogle.

Today we hear from Adam Lewis, Co-Founder of Planetary Group, an artist development and radio promotions firm based in LA and Boston!

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NEW Interview Series! Charting The Couse: A Radio Promo Discussion

It’s that time again kids! CMJ in New York City starts TOMORROW.

I’ll be there and so will Jon Ostrow, as we are both speaking on panels and in commemoration I decided to interview six of the best and brightest people, some of whom work directly in radio promotions and some do not, but they all advice artists daily. Here is my take:

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7 Burning Social Media Questions

Ariel Hyatt Gets The Answers From Corey Denis

Corey Denis is a woman I admire deeply. 5 years ago, and I hired her as a consultant when I took my traditional PR firm to digital and she was instrumental in helping me to get my head around how to think differently and embrace social media (Yep, even I hated it at first too). Here is just a sampling of Corey’s brilliance:

Ariel Hyatt: Why is it important that artists participate in social media?

Corey Denis: At the very least, using social media as part of an over all marketing strategy has a direct impact on Music Discovery Optimization and Search Engine Optimization, creating exposure which increases the chance of sales. In the digital environment, artists have a new chance to interact with, and sell to fans surrounded by unlimited shelf space and unique experiences online and off. Authentic participation in the “social media” space is a lot like going to the merch table after a show and selling your own merch, signing record albums or cds or shirts or USB drives…

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From the Mouth of a Artist, Tend to Your Social Network Daily and Watch the Roots Take Hold

Lisa Sniderman from Aoede is one of my past clients and for the past few months I had wanted to interview about her experience and growth using social networking to grow her fanbase. Well we were finally able to make it happen. I felt it was important to have a artists say all of this, sometimes hearing it from a peer carries more weight. So take a couple minutes and read about how Lisa went from essentially zero to social networking wiz and grew her fanbase over the last 1o months.

Lisa set the wayback machine to December of 2010 when we first talked. You were a couple months away from releasing your most recent album Affair With The Muse and hired me to help you with your website and online marketing efforts. Your online world at that time was fairly small; less than 1000 on your email list, a handful of Facebook fans, less than 100 Twitter followers. We talked about what you would need to do to grow your fans. How you would have to spend time engaging with everyone on Facebook and Twitter. How you would have to write articles to post on your new blog. How you had to open up and talk about yourself personally more than you talk about the new album. I remember at the time you said you were not sure you could do all of this, that you didn’t know if you had the time. But, you forged ahead.

Now not even a year later and looking back what do you think about that journey?

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On Being An Entrepreneur - Ariel Hyatt Interviews Andy Bernstein Founder of HeadCount

Last week I went to Nashville to guest lecture at my Cyber PR® Course at Middle Tennessee State University (MTSU).  The class has 18 amazing students in it.  17 of them are certain they want to create careers in the Music Industry.  I believe that they can.  I told them hat the best way to do this is to follow the path of the entrepreneur and not the path of the CEO. They shared with me their visions for their own futures and I will be posting much more about them here in the coming weeks. This is the 4th installment on entrepreneurial leaders in the music business for Music Industry and Music Business students, so that they can begin to follow their paths and look to them for inspiration.  This weeks inspiration comes from a man who inspires me deeply.  Why?  Because of him and his vision (which was born out of just one frustrating political conversation) there are now 175,000 new registered voters and a network of 8,000 volunteers working to make a difference for the future of our country. Please meet Andy Bernstein who like so many of us started as a fan…

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New In MTT Open: Andrew Heringer Interview, Social Networking, & Making It In One Year

Josiah Mann continues his year-long monthly series about his journey to be fully supported by music within one year. Josiah Mann is the lead singer and founding member of the band Sufficient Cause. Their goal is to become fully supported by their music, recorded or performed, within 12 months without signing to a label. Since the last post, the band has played 7 shows and distributed 600 CDs.  The post details the good things that have been happening and the things the band is learning along this hard, but exciting journey. Josiah emphasized the importance of telling a story through music. 

“One of the big problems with hearing music online is that it’s just a song. Don’t get me wrong, music is great, but stories are what draw people in. If a song is not connected to any experience, the song, as well as the artist, is quickly forgotten among the mass of music that exists online.” (Read on.)

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An Interview With Zoë Keating

I recently had the chance to interview acclaimed musician, Zoë Keating. Zoë has been called a “one-woman orchestra,” layering her cello into unique and captivating works. She has worked with Imogen Heap, Mark Isham, The Dresden Dolls, Rasputina, DJ Shadow, and Paolo Nutini. Her self-produced album “One Cello x 16: Natoma” soared to #1 on the iTunes Classical charts and #2 on the Electronica charts. Continue reading to get a glimpse into the mind of one of today’s musical greats.

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