CDs and DVDs - Contrary to Belief They Do Not Last Forever

I remember back in the seventies on a British TV show called Tomorrows World a presenter showing us what the future of music will be.

DIGITAL SOUND!  I watched in awe as he presented a small silver disc, 12cm across and said you can fit 74 minutes of music on this. I could not believe what I was hearing. 74 minutes of pristeen sound, that would never wear out on a robust medium that you could scratch get finger prints on, (oh yea they got that wrong) and nothing will happen to the music on it. This definitely was the future.

I remember when the first CD players came on to the market, quite a few years later, and trying this for myself, and yep for the best part, he was right. It seemed like we had finally got a medium for music that would not wear out, last for ever, create exact copies, (that's another issue) and store any recordings we had made in the 'analog' age so our music can last forever.

Well it looks like he was WRONG!

CDs and also DVDs are not the things we thought they were. It appears they can rot and go moldy, just like tape does, (ok not quite but you see what i mean), so it could be time now for you to check out your old cds and see what condition they're in.

So how can you tell if something's up? Tina Sieber has written an article on the subject, she says,

You can do a simple visual check. If you see light shining through tiny little holes when you hold a disc against light, then the reflective layer has started to disintegrate. Also check your CDs for discoloring, especially around the edges. See whether the different layers are still tightly together or have started to de-laminate.

If you are getting worried you better check out the rest of her article here.

Written by Steve

 

Links

http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/cds-truth-cddvd-longevity-mold-rot/

The Friday Five - 29th June 2012

Yep it's the end of the week, and here are this weeks five things we thought you might just want to take a look at.

 

1. Fanfunding Tip: Offer Imaginative Incentives to Entice More Fans

The DIY Musician have created a great list of pledge ideas to hook in new fans.

http://diymusician.cdbaby.com/2012/06/fanfunding-tip-offer-imaginative-incentives-to-entice-more-fans/

 

2. Musical ‘Stock Market’ TastemakerX Puts Your Money Where Your Ears Are

An Iphone app/game that allows you to invest in your favourite acts with virtual currency, sort of like the stock exchange meets the pop charts.

http://evolver.fm/2012/06/22/musical-stock-market-game-tastemakerx-is-now-public/

 

3. Get Venues to Ask You Back: 8 Tips You Can Use For Your Next Show

Nice small article from Reverbnation on how to get a venue to ask you back. Could be useful....

http://blog.reverbnation.com/2012/03/21/get-venues-to-ask-you-back-8-tips-you-can-use-for-your-next-show/

 

4. How To Make Your Facebook Timeline POP!

Ariel gives a whole bunch of tips on getting your Facebook timeline to work better for you.

http://arielpublicity.com/2012/06/19/how-to-make-your-facebook-timeline-pop/

 

5. Free Music Making Samples Download

There are beats and hits aplenty for you in this week's bundle, plus a collection of FX stabs.

http://www.musicradar.com/news/tech/sampleradar-13154-free-sample-downloads-217833/111

 

 

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

Stop Putting It Off! - Top Tips To Help Beat Procrastination

Come on, we are all guilty of it. Always finding a reason not to do the things we should be doing right now.

Why do we do it?  Thinkers philosophers and psychologists come up with many reasons why you and I don't do the things we need to attend to that can help us achieve more in our life, and our carreer goals.

A common one, especially in the music business is 'Fear of Success'.  Writer Steve Pavlina gives a good explanation on this aspect here,

Fear of success can be far more insidious because it’s almost always unconscious. But it’s not fear of success itself that is the problem but rather fear of the side effects of success, many of which may be genuinely unwanted. Fears that are never evaluated consciously have a tendency to grow stronger. The reason is simple behavioral conditioning — when you avoid something you fear (either consciously or subconsciously), you automatically reinforce the avoidance behavior. So when you (even unknowingly) avoid working on your goal because of a hidden fear of success, you actually reinforce the habit of procrastination, so as time goes by, it becomes harder and harder to get yourself to take action. Insidious!

It's like a self destruct button that completely screws things up, months, years of work completely wasted because of an inabilty to act when you need to.  It is a form of self sabotage that you as an artist can really do without, and if you suffer from bouts of procrastination there are ways you can beat it.

I did a bit more research on the subject and found this very interesting article with a whole bunch of cool explanations and tips on dealing with it. Leo Babauta wrote this for DesignTaxi.com, which i think is relevent for all creative types. My favourite tip from him follows....

Enjoy the process. When we dread something, we put it off—but instead, if we can learn to enjoy it, it won’t be as hard or dreadful. Put yourself in the moment, and enjoy every action. For example, if you want to go out to run, don’t think about the hard run ahead, but about putting on your shoes—enjoy the simplicity of that action. Then focus on getting out the door—that’s not hard. Then focus on warming up with a fast walk or light jog—that can be nice and enjoyable. Then feel your legs warm up as you start running a little faster, and enjoy the beautiful outdoors. This process can be done with anything, from washing dishes to reading to writing. Enjoy yourself in the moment, without thinking of future things you dread, and the activity can be very pleasant and even fun. And if it is, you won’t put it off.

You can read the full article here

Links

http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2004/12/fear-of-success-what-will-happen-if-you-succeed/

 

http://designtaxi.com/article/101868/The-Little-Book-Of-Procrastination-Remedies/

Future of Music

Go and read the brilliant presentation by JWT on the future of music in our new post on the main site.

It's full of insight and great ideas that you can use.

Read it here.

20 pieces of bad advice for musicians

Links to two posts on the Tunecore blog that each list "10 Inaccurate, Erroneous and Irrelevant" pieces of advice that musicians are told.

Now, being as everyone is entitled to hand out advice, I don't agree entirely with all 20!

The one I have the most beef with is this:

With the rise of the Internet/social media I can build an audience online

Remember that the articles are stating that these are pieces of bad advice.

To be fair, the point made is that you can't just expect to build an audience online - that your online efforts amplify and add to your offline effots, and that I do sort of agree with. However, I (as you'd probably guess) do give a lot of weight to what can be achieved purely online. Indeed, in our personal experience with our clients a lot of initial momentum is built entirely online.

So, generally, these posts are great advice, but rememeber that your own experience and interpretation of ANY advice you get is as important as the advice itself.

Here are the two posts.

The original 10 pieces of bad advice.

The follow up 10 pieces of more bad advice.

And, of course, or the best advice - visit our main site - Make It In Music!

10 seconds is all you have

I went to a talk by Jay Frank last night put on by @thisisnewmusic.

It was very revealing.

Jay is a respected authority on what makes a song a hit in the post filesharing, online music dicovery world. This is all revealed in his excellent book - Future Hit DNA.

I encourage you to go and check out Jay's site and if you're serious about writing hits, try and see him speak or buy the book.

Here's a few nuggets from last night. Apologies to Jay if I miss the detail!:

• All music discovery online occurs at 0 seconds because an embedded player, YouTube video etc starts at the beginning. This might seem obvious but it was never like this before when you would usually switch on the radio and maybe hear a song halfway through.

• About half the people only hear the first 10 seconds of the track, no matter how they discovered it. But, if they get past 10 seconds they are likely to listen to the whole thing. Possible exit times are at about 2 minutes (normally after the second chorus, in the bridge) or towards the end, where you may have a fade that bores them. Abrupt endings are better.

• The first listen is easy to get these days - there are vast numbers of ways to be discovered whereas in the past, the first listen meant a very hard to come by radio play - but it takes 5 - 7 plays to embed a song with a listener and the repeat plays will only come if the first play hooked them and made them listen all the way through.

• After the birth of Napster the average length of Intro dropped from 14 seconds to 7.

• If people jump out of listening to a track at any point this sets a negative connotation in their mind that makes them exponentially less likely to listen again. Avoid this!

• There is some evidence that the communal experience in listening to songs and discussing them is declining in the web 2.0 world. Perhaps enhancing the communality of the song itself can help - eg - gang singing or 'call and response'.

Seriously, check out the book!

The Who, The What, The Where and the Why

Four great posts from Loren Weismann in which he distills four key concepts that every band needs to get to grips with

The Who - work out who you are!

The What - what are you putting out there to tell people about you?

The Where - where are you playing and promoting?

The Why - give people a reason to come or buy!

Lots of great nuggets of advice in there - check them out.

Don't do anything that I and those like me advise.....

...if you're truly brilliant!

Just to be contrary, I had to post this article about Adele from today's Indie newspaper.

It tells us that she doesn't Tweet, won't play festivals and doesn't do brand tie-ins or advertising hook-ups.

Pretty much three cornerstones of what I and those like me who peddle advice for the aspiring musician would all be telling you to do.

So how come it works for her and yet we tell you to do it differently?

Well, the truth is that she got IMPORTANT THING NUMBER 1 right ages ago, and this allows you to ignore everyone and strike out for all your goals secure in the kowledge that you'll get there in the end.

SHE IS HUGELY TALENTED and she has some GREAT SONGS.

I don't care whether you agree with me or not. If you don't agree, you're deluding yourself and will carry on deluding yourself when you should be taking stock and perfecting your art!

And, don't forget that this is not overnight sucess - this is 'Album 2' and nearly 5 years after she left a performing arts school and thre years since her first Album.

Where does that leave all the advice that we 'musician bloggers' hand out?

Well, it all still works - and Adele would still be where she is if she followed those suggestions. But, don't mistake my advice for a 'magic bullet'. It will give you the best chance of building a fanbase and getting noticed by the wider public if used properly and if you put in a lot of hard work.

But it won't work for shit if your music's shit!

Read about Adele here.

A modern musician's handbook

Image by j_lai

Great guest post on Thorny Bleeder from Jeff Odeja that takes the form of 5 things that Jeff wishhes he had known when he was in a band trying to 'make it'!

1 ) How can I get signed?
Well, How many people are coming out to your live shows on a regular basis? How many 'records' or singles are you selling? Is this generating enough of a buzz to interest industry professionals? How about generating an income? In most cases, to be honest, no one wants to sign you unless you're really worth their while. Are your sales going to amount to paying for some of the marketing costs / salaries associated with hiring a team? Having a label behind you is essentially just having a big team of experienced professionals (in some cases) working your music for you. If you're not making tens of thousands of dollars, why bother?

Read the tips here.

The secret of Sade's success

From the Guardian website - read the post here.

After the previous post that suggests that you need to pander to a standard view, this is the antidote - and proof that the opposing view (a resolute and steadfast belief in yourself and your material) can winn through - big time.

It doesn't matter that this story is about Sade and whether you like her material or not, nor that it's about the old industry - there are things to be learnt here.

What they needed was some DIY thinking. Sade's boyfriend played the tracks to friends who worked at style-bible the Face. They liked both Sade and the music and put her on the cover with the headline: "Sade, the Face of 1984." The band quickly organised a gig at the club Heaven, inviting journalists who witnessed 1,000 people being turned away at the door. The next day all the record companies tried to sign them. Most of the labels wanted to send her to the US to work with big producers such as Quincy Jones. But Sade had a clear vision of what she wanted to do – so instead of the biggest offer, she took the deal that allowed her to finish what she started.

Read the whole piece.

5 tips for emerging artists

This fits really well with the posts we've been doing today and earlier this week.

It's from Hypebot and it's the Sonic Bids' boss's view of the industry as it is today.

His final five tips are pretty much exactly what we've been saying all week!

• Think of music beyond just “the stage.” Music is everywhere.
• Build meaningful relationships with your fans. They’re your best friends.
• Know who those fans are… Like any business, the more you know your customer, the better you serve them.
• Treat your music like a business. Find time to make your music, but also time on how you’re going to market it. Create a plan.
• Have a social media strategy. Facebook and Twitter are powerful tools for connecting with your fans and creating new fans virally.

Read it all here.

 

Learn to be great

Two posts from Bob Lefsetz, but I'll also link to an article that he refers to.

The point of the first article is that greatness is within your grasp if you can be bothered to work hard enough.

I'm sure many people who read this post will have heard about Malcolm Gladwell's theory of '10,000' hours that he sets out in his book 'Outliers'. If not, get to Amazon and buy a copy since it's a phenomenal book that will inspire.

In short, the argument, backed up by lots of evidence, is that experts, geniuses, superstars are all made and not born, and it's the effort, application and practice that makes them so - and generally to get to the standard that marks you out as different, takes 10,000 hours.

Just because you have a hard life, just because you’re willing to forgo the spoils of the middle class, that does not mean you’re good.

You’re only good if you work at your craft.  And that does not mean learning how to play "Stairway To Heaven"…that’s just the beginning.  How do you get to the point where you know all the notes, have practiced the scales and can come up with something innovative and new that will make our heads turn?

By spending a lot of time picking.

Your move.

Read that piece from Bob here.

And the old NYT piece that sets out the theory that Gladwell developed is here.

But, go on from there and read Bob's piece about why making singles rather than Albums is the way to develop and then get your self noticed.

It follows on from the need for practice.

It's called 'focus'!

And by making singles and trying to make them amazing you'll also be putting in the hours.

Bob makes other points about why the Single is better than the Album in the modern music business - all of which are valid.

Concentrate on making music.  Focus on making the best music you can.  And release it when it’s ready, don’t hold it back as a result of some sales scheme.   Once again, that’s major label thinking for dead bands.  That’s how they sell the Stones or the Beatles or…  All that hype about the "Exile On Main Street" anniversary set…  Have you heard anybody talk about it recently? It’s set in amber.  Whereas the music of a working band must be in the ears of listeners on a regular basis.

Read that here.

In short - practice forever, become great at what you do, learn to innovate and then make great music regularly and feed it to the world to build a long term rabid fanbase.

Simple, but not easy!

Secret diary of a band

This piece in the Guardian promises to be the first in a series where an anonymous band tell all the ugly truth about what went wrong in their quest for success - it may well be worth keeping an eye on.

More interesting than that is the thread of comments that it has attracted - and what they tell us about the aims of musicians.

The general themes can be split into two:

1. That 'making it' isn't the point. Make music, create art for the process and let it take you where you will; and

2. If 'making it' is the point, then the DIY model is starting to show true success and some artists are now truly cheiving success without the old model.

Read the comments here!

How to succeed as an artist - the secret!

I saw this post courtesy of @thornybleeder's very good daily music stories round-up email - worth signing up for.

And it's great - insightful and inspiring words that should encourage all artists to keep going, perfecting their art and never giving up.

There's loads of great stuff in the post - here's just one litle bit:

If there was a secret formula for getting an audience, or gaining a following, I would give it to you. But there’s only one not-so-secret formula that I know: “Do good work and put it where people can see it.”

It’s a two step process.

Step one, “do good work,” is incredibly hard. There are no shortcuts. Make stuff every day. Fail. Get better.

Step two, “put it where people can see it,” was really hard up until about 10 years ago. Now, it’s very simple: “put your stuff on the internet.”

Read the whole thing here.

 

 

Failure is an option

I left a long comment on this post at The DIY Musician yesterday - in which I said that if your attempts to build a fanbase by giving away music for free weren't working, the most likely reason is that your music isn't good enough.

Yet.

I mean it, but I don't mean that you should therefore give up.

But, rather than pushing all the time to get people to like what you have already done, reflect on why they might not be biting.

And, if you decide that I'm right, and it's because you're not good enough (yet), then go back to the drawing board, learn some more skills, hone your talent and come back for round 2 and round 3 and round 1005, just like Colonel Sanders did with his fried chicken recipe.

If you want it bad enough and you are prepared to work hard at it, those failures are what will drive you to improve until you are good enough to achieve your aim.

And that's what this post on BitRebels wants to point out. That failure is an essential component of eventual success.

It's well worth looking at the videos in the piece and getting encouragement from them, like the one at the end of this piece.

Everyone in life faces failures ever now and then. It’s part of being alive and being human. However, I know from experience, when we are actually going through the trying times, it’s no fun. The hardest battles we face in life are with ourselves, and there is nothing more challenging than going out into the world each day with a smile when you want to give up on the inside.

However, I want to promise you that whatever failures in your life you might be going through right now, with tenacity and perseverance, you will either eventually succeed or they will lead you to another opportunity and a different door will open.

Read the whole piece here.

And here's why Michael Jordan was a huge success - watch the video here.

 

10 observations from watching 200 bands play live in one day!

Marcus Taylor of The Musicians Guide writes on Mic Control about his experience of seeing 200 bands play live in the course of one day and what he learned by seeing so many in such quick succession.

There are some great tips as well as a few things that ought to worry bands that 'aren't with the programme'!

A few weeks ago I had the pleasure of being on a judging panel at Live & Unsigned at the Birmingham NEC in the UK, which was an amazing opportunity to gain some insight into what makes a band stand out from the crowd as I had to watch over two hundred auditions in a single day - a very, very long day.

Here are ten observations I made whilst watching the 200 bands audition, and some tips on how you can stand out from the crowd of mediocrity at your auditions and gigs.

Read them all here.

Music Nomad - Bookmark this resource

I hadn't ever seen this site until @vonBrucken tweeted it the other day.

And, now, I've been back to it every day since!

Music Nomad is a collection of links and summaries of sites that every musician will find helpful, split into sensible categories.

It's an incredible resource and I can't recommend it enough.

There's also articles and tips on all sorts of topics.

Check it out and bookmark it.

 

How to be amazing

I'm always banging on about how you need to be amazing or all the marketing advice we peddle won't be any use.

If you've not read it yet, you can get our full version of this view in our free eBook for musicians.

This post has a simple formula that will tell you whether you're good enough.

So just how good do you have to be to make a career out of your music?

Damn good.

Any advice that I, or anyone else, give out on how to advance your career will only help you do so if the music is amazing.  That’s why it’s important to beware of any books or courses that guarantee success, because without outstanding music, the advice won’t do you much good. You may see minimal success, sure, but it probably won’t last or grow.

So how do you measure outstanding? I was discussing my theory on this topic over the weekend with a talented local songwriter, and I thought I’d share it with the rest of you. I know, ‘theories’ can be boring, but stick with me…

Read the post here.

Musicians Question Time - The real deal!

Another video from the BBC Introducing Masterclass.

It's a Q&A from the delegates with a panel made up of A&R men, radio director, promoter and an agent.

It's an hour long, but it's well worth your time.