"I Want To Work In The Music Industry"

You know the saying: if you love what you do, you’ll never work a day in your life.  It’s not 100% accurate (there will always be aspects of your job that you’ll hate… I’m looking at you, accounting), but I do think people need to follow their passions and make careers out of them.

I meet lots of people who tell me they want to work in the music industry.  After all, music is something that’s easy to be passionate about, so why not make a career out of that?  Makes sense.

I get lots of people asking me advice on how to get started. I was just speaking with someone last week who graduated with an MBA who wanted to work in the industry, and he asked me “Where do I start? Who’s hiring? What kind of jobs are out there?”

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10 Simple Ways To Sell More Music Online [INFOGRAPHIC]

10 Simple Ways To Sell More Music Online

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Aaron Harris is a marketing strategist in Nashville, TN. Follow him at @aaronharris

The Blueprint: A checklist for starting a band

If you’re a new band and serious about a career in music, here’s a quick list of things you need to have down.

I get a lot of musicians asking me about what they should do next or what they are missing from their band operations. I figured that it might be a good idea if put a basic blueprint together of things you should have down to effective pursue your career in music. This is not the “end all be all”, but it is definitely a good foundation.

I’ve arranged the items in order of a timeline, from recording to touring for an album…

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6 Ways to Put on a Great Live Show

Last month I took in the Jane’s Addiction concert at Massey Hall in Toronto. It was a great event and a fantastic show which started with a frenzy and built its way towards an all out love fest. Regardless of what you think of Jane’s Addiction as a band, as individuals or of their music, it is undeniable that they put on a great and memorable live show. So let’s take a look at what your band can learn from one the best in the business.

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What the Ek? Music Metaphors and Meaning

How do you place a measurable value on music? Thanks to a tweet from Hypebot I came across an interview with Spotify’s Daniel Ek on Grammy.com, posted in early February. Aiming to keep this post shorter than my last; I won’t dwell beyond this paragraph on how awkward it is for Grammy, the self-appointed standard bearer for artistic expression in music, to be asking anything of Ek. Shouldn’t it be the other way around? Representatives of music distribution services should interview Grammy insiders about trends in popular music - to gain insight into the creative forces behind music. Or not. Anyway, the interview was pretty typical Ek; Too focused on technology and consumption for my tastes. He is the future as he sees it. Best to read it for yourself though.

I’m trying not to be a Spotify hater. It has done a lot to innovate in the music space - especially on the consumption side. The social integration part is well-executed, though it too has its detractors. I have met some of Spotify’s developers, ran into them at an industry conference hosted by Amazon. They are nice folks, very enthusiastic about advances in local network caching and reduced edge-server latency. They are also particularly fond of that “bringing the pirates into the light” narrative. The story about how people do not need to torrent/file-share/steal music anymore, thanks to Spotify. It seems to come up a lot. It is probably in their welcome packet for new employees. Whether or not they are misguided is debatable, but they certainly aren’t all bad. Spotify is not the “Death Star”, back to destroy what’s left of the music industry. It also isn’t the industry’s savior, it is no Luke Skywalker, if you will.

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A Music Conference in the Netherlands Wants to Change the Way We Think About Music

OK, so we’ve all heard about the impending end of the music industry brought about by piracy. We’ve also been privy to the industry’s reaction, which took the form of PIPA/SOPA and more recently, ACTA. It’s clear how these measures might benefit a few established labels, but how does this help amateur musicians trying to make a living off their music?

A young team of music enthusiasts decided to tackle these issues by organising an event centred on the future of music distribution, which will take place in Maastricht, the Netherlands. The conference is titled M3 Event and set to take place on Friday, the 1st of June, 2012.

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SongTrust: “We need more people to pay attention to their publishing”

Songtrust is a music publishing organization that helps indie artists and working songwriters register their songs with agencies around the world while collecting royalties for radio play, television play, online play and other sources.

For a flat yearly fee of $50 for a solo act and $100 for a band, Songtrust will register 15 songs, create exposure for sync licensing opportunities, collect on U.S. and Canada royalties, while the artists keeps 100% of their copyrights and royalties. I first heard about Songtrust a few weeks ago, as I started to notice that they are doing some pretty heavy online campaigning with banners on just about every music related website on the web. So, curious me decided to reach out to them via email and I was able to have a brief interview with Songtrust’s Marketing Manager James Aviaz.

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Mix reference

I often suggest using a good sounding mix reference track to compare your own mix tone to. This is often in response to receiving a mix which has far too much or too little low frequency content for mastering. In these instances it is best to address the core problems in the mix down by using a mix reference.

I would use a track which relates to the genre of the mix your are working with. Select a track based on tone, clarity, space and definition, not it’s perceived level. This will help when getting the right tonal balance for the track, i.e. balance of lows, mid range and highs. I suggest bringing a track into your mix session with it’s own separate stereo track. Ensure the file is a high quality .wav file or .aiff file. Choose a track that you feel has a great mix which works on a lot of different playback systems. It helps if you like the track but don’t just choose a track where you love the song itself, try and discern what qualities give the track a good mix down.  

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Radiohead team-up with legitimate ticket exchange

Radiohead recently bought some exciting tour news to music fans in the UK, after announcing large arena shows in London and Manchester.

However, a more interesting development for many was the fact that the band also announced that they will be teaming up with the Ticket Trust (a legitimate ticket exchange) to allow fans to sell tickets to other fans at face value if they are unable to go to the gig.

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Ego Vs Identity: Improving Artists' Awareness

We are in the Globalization era. Although its idea is sometimes misleading, it has undoubtedly helped to unify the world, the markets, merge people together and increase the circulation of ideas, languages and popular culture. The key is to unify.

Unify may express wave the same flag, connect different people or have something heterogeneous becoming homogeneous. The risk of a system of unbridled globalization, which is a system of unification and agglomeration without distinction, is conforming to the “herd”, as Nietzsche warned us years ago.

I think there should be always a need to preserve our identity, our essential nature, express ourselves, what we are. That should be a primary need for everyone.

Some of the most tangible aspects and forms in which globalization manifests itself in everyday life are the Internet, advertising, fashion, the expansion of world markets. So it may happen to celebrate hallowen in Italy,  taste Napolean pizza in NYC, and eating Chinese in Naples. All these experiences are very common in today’s world and I think that ultimately improve the quality of our life because they increase the possibilities of choice of an individual.

 

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Take this Idea – The Buy One, Give One Album

I have always been fascinated by the buy one, give one model of doing business. As far as I know, it was pioneered by Tom’s Shoes and it’s brilliantly simple. When you buy a pair of Tom’s shoes for yourself, another pair is given to someone in need. It works because people like doing nice things for people, especially if they don’t have to make any additional effort. So I was thinking recently how this model might apply to music. While it’s no secret that I think emerging artists should not charge for their music, I had an idea for those who are either not ready for that idea or who are already selling enough that they don’t have to give anything away. It’s simple – the “Buy One, Give One” album.

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EXFM MOBILE. BETTER THAN EVER.

NEW YORK, March 5, 2012 - Extension Entertainment Inc. (exfm) announces the immediate availability of our newest iPhone and Android apps. Version 2.0 allows for discovery, playback and sharing of an endless feed of the best music on the web wherever you go. Available now for free worldwide on iPhone, iTouch and iPad iOS 4.0 or higher and Android devices version 2.1 or higher. (exfm screenshots/logo)

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Jango Airplay Brings Unsigned Hip Hop to the Limelight

Jango Airplay has recently begun promoting several unsigned Hip Hop artists including DeScribe. Mattisyahu and DeScribe recently collaborated and released their song together on www.airplay.jango.com. Brothers in Christ another Hip Hop duo, was recently featured as a hot band to watch. Emerging in the Christian music radio network as an up and coming band the team is seeking to use Jango Airplay as their main launch pad into the Christian music world.

Hip Hop bands work without rest recording music in Hip Hop studios, so why not work just as hard with your music promotion for the song.

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Music Marketing: It's More Than Just Putting a Bird on it

The comedy series Portlandia kicked off their tv show with a brilliant music video entitled “Dream of the 90′s.” There’s one punchline that has become a running joke in the city: “In Portland, you can put a bird on something and call it art!” Of course, this kind of shortcut logic doesn’t work in most areas, let alone indie-hipster art created in the City of Roses.

In the world of musicians, it’s easy to think that we can just sign up for social media or put a QR code on something and call it online marketing.

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