15 Top Tips to Record Like A Professional - Infographic

I love Infographics, especially when they are well designed and informative. So i just had to share this one with you. Here is 15 Top Tips on how to Record Like A Professional. 

 

4 Tips to Get You Acting Like You're In The Music Business.

I have been in the business along time. And I would freely admit back when I started, the industry was a different beast, and being an artist had a definite amount of roleplay come with it.

It seems like a cliche, but that was a time when musicians felt like it all had to be done by someone else and all you had to do was keep on turning out the music, everything else was handled by your management.

The hedonistic lifestyle is still portrayed in the media, but really, how much of it is still true today. The music marketplace has become a very competitive area, and it is important to be on top of your game, as someone else just might be more 'on it' than you and clinch that gig/deal/contract.

Alas there still seems to be a contingent of talented musicians that are following the DIY approach that havent quite fully made the shift.

Things need to tighten up.

Cheryl B. Engelhardt is a musician and has written an interesting article with basic points to help you to start acting like you are in the business.

Her four very simple points are:

1. Don't Flake Out

2. Be On Time

3. Craft Your Emails, Don’t Spit Them Out

4. Keep Your Receipts Organized, Finances Clean

She states:

So here’s the cold, hard truth: you are in a business now, so play the part. As a musician, I see more responses (which lead to more results) when my communications are clear and professional. I tend to be [annoyingly] persistent, so I want to make sure my messages are not annoying to read or decode. When I’m on the other end of those messages, I have an easier time reading a longer email that is well-written than reading a short-hand email, trying to figure out if the writer meant “there” or “they’re.”

Seems like she has some advice well worth following and reading, i suggest you keep an eye on her and check out her  “In The Key Of Success: The 5 Week Jump-Start Strategy,” an incredibly effective, result-oriented eCourse for independent musicians who are serious about breaking through plateaus in their careers.

You can read her full blog post here

and check out her music here http://www.cbemusic.com/

8 Skills That Your Social Media Manager Needs

So, with your schedule busying up, and with alot of deadlines to meet before the upcoming tourdates, maybe you should leave the running of your acts social media to someone else?

Social media is changing on a weekly if not daily basis. New technologies come and go, some successful, some not. How on earth do you have the time to try each one of these and see which is effective for your act/band/project.

Well maybe it is time to hire someone to take on this ever growing list of tasks, but with the whole world offering you solutions out there, how can you make a descision on who is right for the job of taking care of your online presence?

Here are some keys attributes here which were selected by writer Stephanie Winans in an article she originally wrote for her website that you can check to see if the person or company you are picking is the right one.

1.    Is An Online Social Butterfly

2.    Has An Understanding of Your Target

3.    Gets Customer Service

4.    Knows What’s Going On

5.    Can Spell

6.    Knows The Devil is in the Details

7.    Is At Least A Little Techie

8.    Is Okay With Being “Plugged In”

Music marketing master Micheal Brandvold has also expanded on her list, he added the following comment to her number one item 'Is An Online Social Butterfly'

This is definitely the number one item you should research. Is the person who is going to help you walking the walk and talking the talk? Do they live what they preach? If they are going to help you with Twitter see how they use Twitter. How many followers do they have? How well do they engage with their followers? How well do they use all of the various sites out there that they are claiming to help you with? Here is what it comes down to… do you want someone who has only 35 followers to advise you on what to do?

You can read Michael Brandvolds article here.

Written by Steve

Links

http://michaelbrandvold.com/blog/2012/05/what-skills-does-your-social-media-manager-need-start-with-these-eight/

http://stephaniewinans.com/2011/06/11/8-skills-your-social-media-manager-must-have/

Rizzle Kicks' Top 5 Tips for Getting Noticed as an Artist

It was the BBC Radio 1 Hackney Weekend in London this weekend, the UKs largest free ticketed festival over two days on Hackney Marshes. 

Brighton based hip hop duo Rizzle Kicks played on the main stage on the afternoon of the first day, not even a year after the release of their debut album Stereo Typical (released on 31 October 2011). As of May 2012, Rizzle Kicks have sold 1 million singles and 300,000 albums in the UK. Not bad, they must be doing something right.

In a TV interview for BBC 1 Jordan (pic left) listed the top 5 tips for getting noticed as an artist, definitely something worth sharing with you, as he seems to be 'keeping it real' and looks like he has his feet firmly on the floor.

You can see the video here

 

link

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00tx50c

Key Points for Success in Todays Music Business

This came to my attention from Clyde Smith at Hypebot. 10 top tips from the horses mouth so to speak. 

Originally sourced from article in American Songwriter, they asked a range of industry professionals what is needed after you have written some great tunes but haven't built a sizable following or become visible to possible music industry allies.

There is some excellent advice here

Kendel Ratley – Director of Marketing, Kickstarter:

"If you're still establishing your fanbase, check out where your peers, favorite artists, or bands you want to emulate share their music and follow suit. There are countless platforms and venues to debut your work. Identify your audience, think about where you discover music, and post accordingly.".

The top tips have been sorted in Clyde's article here, but for more depth check out the full article on American Songwriter here.

 

Links

http://www.hypebot.com/hypebot/2012/04/10-tips-for-succeeding-in-todays-volatile-music-biz.html

http://www.americansongwriter.com/2012/03/dream-big-how-to-succeed-in-todays-volatile-music-biz/

 

Passion and Persistence

Image by woodleywonderworks

We have unwittingly had a theme in two of the last three posts on the main site:

Is my music good enough?

Never Give Up

Although the article that this post links to is about productivity (and it's very long - 6000 words or so), it's also very close to that theme we've been writing about - whether you have the passion and persistence to commit yourself to what you hope to acheive. Will you learn how to improve your material and will you keep going relentlessly?

Have you got the passion and persistence that you MUST have if you're going to get there?

I'd recommend that you find the time to read it - the central message is very well put and ought to make you consider whether you're going about your music career the right way.

Please read the whole thing here.

Here's one section that I found particularly good - I hope the author doesn't mind me clipping such a big chunk, but it ought to make you want to read the rest!:

Myelin, neurologists have recently discovered, is basically the key to all human talking, reading and learning skills. If you view every human movement or thought as an electrical impulse travelling through a circuit of neurons, then think of myelin like the insulation which wraps around these fibres and increases their signal strength. “The more we fire a particular circuit, the more myelin optimizes that circuit, and the stronger, faster, and more fluent our moments and thoughts become” recaps Coyle.

He then looks at research by Simon Clifford into why South America (specifically Brazil) is a hotbed for footballing talent. His findings showed that the popular way of playing football there, known as Futebol de Salão, had a big influence. The game is played on a small court and uses a ball that is half the size of a regular football yet weighs twice as much, so rarely bounces.

A study by the University of Liverpool found that Futebol de Salão players touch the ball six times more per minute than people training with a normal ball on a regular pitch. Futebol de Salão players were able to wrap their football talent circuits in more myelin over a shorter period of time. It also meant that when they played on a full-sized pitch, players felt like they had “acres of space”.

The book also highlights the story of the Brontë sisters, and their love for character creation and writing short stories as children just to keep themselves entertained. Juliet Barker, a six year curator at the Brontë Parsonage Museum revealed that the sisters wrote “twenty-two little books averaging eighty pages each in one fifteen-month period”. That’s a lot of writing.

Coyle once again links this back to Myelin, noting his belief that the sisters’ talent was developed through little more than constant practice. To add even more legs to that theory, Barker says that “The first little books weren’t just amateurish – a given, since their authors were so young – they lacked any signs of incipient genius. Far from original creations, they were bald imitations of magazine articles and books of the day.”

Many of you will know that Charlotte Brontë went on to write literature classic Jane Eyre with her sister Emily producing another, Wuthering Heights.

Coyle comes to the conclusion that passion and persistence are the key ingredients of talent and success. Why? “Because wrapping myelin around a big circuit requires immense energy and time. If you don’t love it, you’ll never work hard enough to be great.”

Do go and read the whole article here.

Turn your fan base into your army

Mic Control's first webinar last week was a great success with all attending loving the event and the detailed follow-up notes.

So, they're doing another on August 24th - and, again, we aren't being paid to tell you about it, but just think it's a hell of a good way for any musician to spend $10 and a few hours learning some stuff that might make a radical difference to your career.

The topic this time is all about how to turn casual fans into avid fans and how to encourage them to spread the word about you and your music.

As before, attendees will get a pdf of notes and, on this occasion, Ariel Hyatt will be joining the webinar at the end to give her experienced insight on the topic.

Here's Jon's pich:

The topics covered within are:

1) Understanding the different types of fans

2) Exploring the importance of Super Fans

3) Creating a set of metrics to determine who and where your super fans exist

4) Converting your casual fans into super fans (building your army!)

5) Supplying your super fans w/ the proper tools and resources to market your music for you

Find out about it and register here.