Why Your Attitude Stinks

This article originally appeared on the Internal Affairs blog.

I’ve noticed that a lot of marketing blogs completely forget to teach their readers the basics and jump straight in to the deep end with marketing. The readers look on bewildered, yet gagging for their marketing “quick fixes” - I know, I was (kind of) one of them when I was younger. 

Understanding the very basics of marketing will allow even the most inexperienced “musicpreneur” to take the most basic concepts and create a unique, creative and effective marketing campaign from them. Therefore, that’s why my goal at Internal Affairs is to introduce the very basics before anything else.  

Now, before we begin talking about the nitty-gritty side of marketing and the music business, you need to understand a few things about being an entrepreneur.

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8 Reasons To Enter A Band Competition

Band contests don’t pay, but can be useful if they fit in your plan to invest in your band.

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Why It's Important To Develop Your Strengths If You Want To Grow As Musician

Yesterday I saw a great quote:
“Success is achieved by developing your strengths, not by eliminating your weaknesses.”
It’s from Marilyn vos Savant. She’s known for having the highest IQ.

Think about it. It sounds quite logical. Weaknesses can be distracting. Eliminating your weaknesses is like eliminating the weed around a young tree. By eliminating your weaknesses, you eliminate some of the distractions that prevent you to focus on your goal, like growing your career as musician.

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Pay To Pitch? Money In The Ditch? Good Idea Or Bad For Licensing Music?

HI I am Michelle Lockey, award winning songwriter and composer for Film & TV.  You can see a breif bio below.  I write a blog on Writing & Licensing songs for Film & TV.  In this weeks episode I am talking about the Pay to Pitch model. Is it a good idea or bad? This is my experience and opinion only.  Here you go!

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Innovation, Our New Job As The Music Industry

I released my first music video, “Rocket to the Moon” today. As a new artist with a low starting fanbase I understood I wouldn’t be able to get much press write up for my music video unless I presented something never seen before. So that’s what I did, I created “The World’s First Portrait Music Video”, and the press followed. It is our new job as the Music Industry to lead innovation.

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How to Increase the Reach of Your Music

Clients on board of Symphonic Distribution have a lot of offerings, but above all, they have choice. Our clients can choose when they want to deliver their content and where they want to deliver it. That choice is not easily found with our competitors, as some won’t even let clients have a direct account on a partner that the distributor is not delivering to (we call that ridiculous).

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How to create a professional sounding audiobook

Creating a good audiobook is fun and challenging at the same time. For first time producers it can be quite daunting. Here are some basic steps to help you produce a crisp, clean and professional sounding audiobook.

Fine tune your material: make sure your material is edited and ready to be recorded. Make a list of things you want to include, like preface, acknowledgments etc. This is very important as re-recording and editing the audiobook again can be quite cumbersome and expensive.

Decide who is going to voice it: Are you going to voice your own audiobook? You definitely can, but before you record, it is better to learn to record good voice overs. If you are planning to hire someone else to voice it, there are tons of VO artists available who can do a fantastic recording.
You also need to decide if you want a female/male Voice and if you need any voice characters.

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New Start-Up Provides Independent Musicians and Labels with One-Stop Solutions

Happy Dog Music is one of a handful of marketing centered music start-ups that are a product of the seismic shift that has taken place in the music industry in the last ten years. Happy Dog Music crafts and implements custom marketing campaigns and provides any other ancillary support clients may need during the course of the agreement. Unlike the typical record label deal, Happy Dog Music clients retain 100% of all rights. Happy Dog Music provides major label support without all of the strings that come attached to a major record deal.

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Post-Show Procedures: 8 Things Every Band Should Do After the Performance

Do you have a post-show plan? Is there a set of procedures that you work on after each performance? Or, does your band simply work on the next upcoming event – the next show, the next rehearsal, time in the studio, etc.?

In almost every professional endeavor, there is some kind of routine or review period to measure performance or follow-up with customers:

• In sports, the coach diligently sits down with the entire team to review footage of the previous game. Team member celebrate successes and most importantly, look for areas of improvement.

• In corporate business, the board of directors and executive staff look over stock performance and make decisions to keep their shareholders satisfied.

• In the arts, performers carefully review each element of the show to see what delighted audiences and what could use work.

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Music as a Product versus Music as Art

If you’re studying modern music, particularly popular music, you’ll want to learn a bit about marketing and how the information related to marketing might be skewing your view of music a bit. Remember that, where popular music is concerned, music is a product. It’s designed to be marketed and sold to a particular demographic. As a serious student of music, you’ll need to learn to separate the music from the marketing that goes along with it.

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THE DEMO IS DEAD

Why I don’t do demos.

Arif Mardin, Mutt Lange,Trevor Horn, Berry Gordy, Phil Spector, Brian Wilson, George Martin and Quincy Jones are gentlemen who have shared a common philosophy regarding recording contemporary popular music.
That philosophy is - a respect for spontaneity however, not making it their deity.More than being record producers, these guys have been consummate ARRANGERS and editors of recorded music. 

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One Book To Rule Them All! The Elusive "It" Factor in the Music Industry

I have always been a creative entrepreneur, and not allowed the world to get the better of me, but instead, let the world fuel me. Throughout 13 years in the music industry I’ve worked with some of the best in the business: Anita Baker, KC Porter, Jim Henson Studios, Never Land, OK GO, George Duke, Lauren Mayhew, Pomplamoose, and as far as I can remember, I’ve heard of “it,” this elusive thing setting apart the extraordinary from the ordinary. These people encapsulate: auras, energy, and empower all that are near; you’re drawn to them.

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7 Tips to Increase your Exposure and Potential

By now it’s apparent that there is a ton of music out there – over-saturation is a term you may hear often these days. For anyone getting involved with the music industry there is always a need for more exposure and promotion. If an artist or a record label has it, they will sell better, simple as that.

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Before You Sign...

What You Should Know Before You Sign the Deal can be found in this book…

Unlike any other book about the music business, “Music Business: It’s a Dirty Game!”,

this book is not a ‘puff piece’ about the glitz and glamour about the music business.

This book takes you on a journey from the excitement of having a music publishing contract with a major music publishing company to the legal battles that followed.

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