Gettin’ Indie With it – EMI sues Grooveshank

I just read a blog from Hypebot that talks about yet another war between majors and start-ups.  The roadblocks are extraordinary.  If I had a catalog numbering in the millions I would do anything I could to proliferate the music in any way possible.  The major 4 labels have no trouble making deals with Google or Virgin Records, but God forbid, a new start-up is on the horizon and all they can think of is sabatoge.  Have they looked at their sales lately?  Makes you wonder.

It’s not that I dislike major labels – I LOVE THEM.  There are times like these that make me scratch my head and think, huh?  Music is a medium that’s perfect for sharing.  Of course, there are certain tunes, you want to keep to yourself because they hold some special meaning in your life…but the majority of the time, you want to reach out to your friends and say, “Look what I found!” .  Does it really matter if you share you music through iTunes or NewTunes (I just made NewTunes up).

Sharing music is  a completely organic experience.  You can talk about a tune for days…you can be surprised by hearing the tune as you are out for lunch at a restaurant.  What else but music can cause a table of people can say in unison, “I love that song!” or “Who is that?”, or “I really want to get that”.  How often do work mates get together and sponteneously react to the same thing?  It’s rare and something only music can evoke.

My thinking is that rather than fight with a major and get all distracted by law suits and red tape…why not just add Indie Music to the mix and direct license with them?  Better yet, try something like I’m doing where I don’t even offer major label music.  Not because I don’t like majors, but because they already have enough distribution to last a lifetime.

It’s the Indie Musician that will rise to the top after these wars are over.  You can do your own thing and stay out of the fray.  You can team up with sites like mine and build your own following.  And, after the spoils of war are over, you’ll be left standing and music people will respect that you took the high road.

The music business is not always friendly and people don’t often get to be ‘rock stars’.  It’s publicity like a war on music that gets music fans in a cynical mood.  Music lovers are just that.  People who love music.  Why keep it locked away in a vault where only a handful of people have the combination?  If major labels want to see their sales soar, trust the people who love music and open that vault.  Otherwise, the catalog will get dusty and go bad, like an untended winecellar.

Generation Free Social Networking for Music Lovers

Rising Star Artists

First Impressions in 30 Seconds

Animoto is a really clever web based movie making tool.  Just download a few photos, add some music and animoto does the rest.   You can make free 30 second movies but will need to upgrade for full length movies.  Most TV commercials are 30 seconds, so this could add great value to your website or online marketing efforts.  If you decide to join, the promo code is OGKWXZBU

Trouble Selling Your Music? How to put that “Shake, Rattle, and Roll” into your website!

Here’s a staggering fact for you to ponder.  Netcraft reported there was a 6 million…yes, an increase of  6 million websites from March 2009 to April 2009.  Even more shocking is that there are well over 231 million active websites all trying to get your attention.  Think about the odds.  You have a 1 in 231 million chance to get noticed on the web.  Where do you think that puts you on a search engine …?

I’ve done some research to help you get your music noticed and looked for ways for you to stand out in a very crowded e-market.  I want you to be noticed because you’re taking a big risk.  Music is a window to your soul and you’ll need a tough skin combined with an open mind to reap the rewards from all the blood, sweat and tears you’ve devoted to your art.

The tips are listed as shake, rattle and roll. There is no particular order for taking action.  You don’t need to shake before you rattle or roll.

SHAKE

It’s the music – not you – that potential fans are interested in.  I know…I know…you want a website with your name on it and you definitely need one.  Music is what you want to sell, yes?  Then tell people about your music.  Before you select a name for your CD, do a domain search to make sure you can register a domain just for your CD.  Do this for every CD you release.  Here’s an example of a CD title,  ”Thundering Turkeys Burning in Hell”.  I checked on the name and amazingly, this name hasn’t been registered.  Congrats!  You’ve accomplished your first step.  Differentiation.  You’re already more noticeable.

Next,  you’ll need to identify your sound.  Of course, no one sounds like you or has ever written anything that sounds like your music, so let’s stipulate that’s a given.  Give people who haven’t heard of you or your music get a sense of style by how you describe your music.  Your potential fans need a reason to compel them to click.  Imagine looking for new music and seeing this description, “You’ve never heard anything like this!”.  Is it rock, classical, jazz, pop? There are millions of Cd’s to choose from and I know I don’t have the time to fish for something I’ve never heard before.  It could be alligators mating.  I don’t know what an alligator sounds like while mating and I’m not anxious to find out.   So, I skip right past the unknown and move on to a description that grabs my attention.  You’ve got your shake on.

RATTLE

If I were the musician that recorded “Thundering Turkeys Burning in Hell”, I would come up with a few words that capture the essence of my sound.  Try this on for size,  ”Thundering Turkeys Burning in Hell” is an in your face Marilyn Manson meets Joni Mitchell album.  Now I’m curious.  I may not like Marilyn Manson’s lyrics, but I love Joni Mitchell.   This is a combo I need to hear and definitely worth a click.  A music critic/editor/blogger may pick up on the title and say something like:  ”Thundering Turkeys Burning in Hell” is devilishly clever and written as profoundly and poetically as any Joni Mitchell song.  Regardless of a music lover’s musical taste, you’ll definitely get more clicks. Don’t get stuck in the “there’s nothing out there like this” rut.  It’s the carpool lane to invisible-ville.

Invite reviews or comments rather than a simple 5-star rating system. I say give away 100 downloads and instead of payment, ask for an opinion.  Maybe even 150 downloads.  A common measuring stick for live performances says that if you can get at least 150 people to show up for a gig, you have reach.  Reach that’s beyond, family, friends, and associates.  Those 100 or 150 downloads is your launching pad.  If you can get 100-150 people blogging, writing and talking about you, your reach will expand.  If you do this consistently, your next release will go much smoother.  If word has gotten out that you give away the first 100 downloads for opinions, fans will be waiting at their screens for the track to appear.  Cost to you; $97.50 in advertising that you didn’t have to reach into your pocket for.  That’s assuming you gave away 150 downloads and would have earned $0.65 per download.  If the tracks had been streamed, your cost would be $4.50 assuming $0.03 per download.  Again, not out of pocket and dramatically less expensive than typical advertising.

When the reviews start coming in, don’t take the bad opinions personally.  If someone took the time to write, it means they’ve clicked and most importantly, listened.  Those opinion writers will talk about your music to others.  My take on bad reviews is they may be just constructive criticism written poorly, so read carefully and with an open mind.  Even if the review is mean-spirited, you can use it to get attention.  ”Here’s what people who hate my music have to say about me”.  There’s going to be a buzz about you and the tweets will start flowing. People will want to listen just to see for themselves if it’s really all that bad.  You’ve got your rattle on.

ROLL

How often do you reach out to your fans on a personal level?  Is it daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, every 6 months, once a year, whenever the mood strikes you?  There’s nothing better than an authentic consistent connection to your fans.  Why?  Sustainability, loyalty, tolerance.  You will produce more than one CD.  They may not all be as popular as “Thundering Turkeys Burning in Hell”.  How can you keep your fans from thinking you’re a one hit wonder and drop you like a Polaroid picture?  That’s where consistent contact comes into play and remember the authentic part.

Sustainability applies to you, your sound and your ability to produce music that people will buy.

Loyalty is built by developing relationships and loyalty allows for tolerance.  What if your follow-up CD,  ”Ant Eating Flesh”, where you’ve experimented with an electric harp, doesn’t quite make the grade?  The reason isn’t important for this example.  You need tolerance to experiment with an album or to have a bad idea so that your fans will buy it even if they know it’s not your best work.  That’s not to say you have license to get lazy and produce bad music, it does mean that you can have a rotten egg and not fall off the radar.

When you reach the part where your shake and rattle are on, then you’ll need to keep on truckin’.  Google adwords is a great free place to look up the traffic on keyword searches.  You’ll need to keep attracting new visitors to your site. First, keyword your name and the Cd’s title.  But, the remaining keywords should be relevant to you and your music and rank highly in the keyword search world.

Let’s suppose that your focal instrument is the electric harp.  Before using up my keyword space, I’d check it out on Google adwords or any other free keyword look-up website.  I did a keyword search on electric harp and it didn’t make to the top ten searches. However, there were 1 million searches for the word “harp”, so I’d drop the electric.  Use this logic for your keywords and you’re sure to increase traffic and bring curiosity to your site.  You’ve got your roll on.

These tips are just to get you started. Now get down to business and shake, rattle and roll!

HD Radio ~ Alluring, Sexy (in a radio way) and HERE!

What would you say if I told you that analog radios will soon occupy space at the Smithsonian Museum? Radio’s on the brink of a renaissance. Think about it… there are 1,800 broadcast stations and 900 more local FM HD2 & HD3 stations on the way, some are already here. What’s going to occupy all of that air space? Is there enough programming to fill up the time or are we going to hear rebroadcasts of shows aired earlier in the day?  Music lovers instantly warm up to the idea of static-free radio and don’t mind making the transition to a new HD format, unlike the feet dragging that’s going on in TV.

Satellite radio gave us an appetite for more interesting programming and fewer commercials. It’s sweet to drive from city to city and never have to change stations. But, HD radio doesn’t require a subscription. It’s sexy, it’s edgy and it’s here. Yes, you’ll need to buy a new radio and yes, it’ll cost you about $500 to buy your Sonic ES2 radio. I suggest you start saving or sell your dining room set … you don’t really eat in there do you? This is not an advertisement for Sonic ES2 radios, it’s just a very cool bundled set of options that happens to be a crescent shaped iPod dock, alarm clock, power bass, iTunes tagging, AM, FM and HD radio. What if you just heard a song on the radio you really like? No prob, just push a button and tag it. Then you can buy it through iTunes in just a couple of button pushing minutes. How cool is that?

So why should Indie Musicians care about all this? Think. Think really hard. Think about a commercial, non subscription radio station looking for programming. Think about an Indie Top 40. Think about a whole station devoted to experimental, alternative, prog rock 24/7. Think about a talk show on AM radio that has the quality of an analog FM station. Think about the number of local stations that are going to need content and need it soon. Are you ready for this? Is your music mastered in HD+? There’s still a window of opportunity to re-think production and sound quality. HD radio will be able to pick up those little nuances in your music, so it needs to be tight and flawless. Otherwise, music fans will start a blog about all the flaws and start dissing bands that don’t sound as good as they do on analog.

Now for the alluring, sexy part. In the very near future, Indie Artists with vision, skill and business saavy will be on the forefront of the music scene. The music scene will literally explode by the addition of choice – a Declaration of Independence for Indies. Over 2 million independent artists are chomping at the bit to find a home for their music and HD radio may be the next frontier. HD ushers in the future and the future is now. We know major labels are losing market share every day because of their business model. Major labels are not bad businesses; it’s just that their size is not change friendly. In all fairness, their overhead is huge. Flip the coin and suddenly it’s an Indie’s world, because you have one great advantage – you can turn on a dime.

Now is the time for Indie Musicians to assemble a virtual dream team. You’ll need someone to remaster your current catalog, you’ll need promotion, marketing, press releases and advertising to let the radio people know you have content HD ready. You’ll need to join a forum to get ideas about mixing and production in an HD world, if you’re a do-it-yourselfer. If you’re not, you may need to find a producer familiar with HD and the possibilities you now have at your fingertips. You’ll want to be attractive to those hungry ears that look for little nuggets in every track.

So here we go. Give away 100 free HD+ downloads. Get people jazzed. Have your fans call in to local HD stations and start asking for your music. The fan has one track in their pocket and if it’s well produced, they will let other people know about it.  Make sure you’re using a service that keeps track of the IP and the number of downloads so that when the max is reached you can auto respond with a message that sets up a sense of urgency when the fan gets email from you. They won’t want miss a chance for a free download again.  Consistent urgency is a good way to put you on the must open email list.