10 Steps to Safer Sampling

Sampling is a song production (and sometimes writing) technique that has slowly appreciated in universal legitimacy over the past few decades. Although it is still far from epidemic-levels in the music community as a whole, those who are in-the-know have been hearing it in almost countless hit songs every year. For those who compete in a genre that lends itself to this practice, it can be very tempting since it is essentially a critically validated shortcut through the songwriting process. But be forewarned; the road ahead of is littered with legal issues and aesthetic pitfalls - then, more legal issues. The short answers is that you need to do by the books but the best advice would be to learn all you possibly can before planning to make even a dime with the unwitting help of another artist.

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Send Lawyers, Guns and....CPAs?

If you're music career has recently become lucrative, than I do not need to congratulate you since you've already probably gotten slightly more kudos than you deserve. I also do not need to tell you to hire a lawyers since several people have told you this already. On the off chance that no one has; stop talking to everyone you know immediately and go out to meet some new people who know about lawyers. Once you've done that, the next person you should consider hiring is a CPA (Certified Public Accountant). It may seem a little "lame" or "grown-up", but when it comes down to it, the point of having a lawyer is to protect/collect money. So why wouldn't you want/need someone who specializes in exactly that?

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Know Your Audience

One of the most important parts of a well-designed marketing strategy is a confidently made estimation of who you are marketing to. Musicians are sometimes asked (or dream of being asked) who their music is for and the most common answer is “anyone who wants to hear it”. There are several things wrong with this. First, very few people are particularly interested in hearing any new music, especially when there’s thousands upon thousands of musicians stating the same generalized purpose. Second, if you’re marketing to anyone and everyone, then you might as well be marketing to no one. Have you ever seen a restaurant advertisement reading: “We have food! Eat here if you’re hungry!”? What about a clothing store ad declaring: “We have clothes! You can wear them!”? Those sound like some pretty stupid ideas, right? So why would it be okay for you to say it as a musician? It wouldn’t. You need to start thinking about what other bands your fans might like, what they’re interests are outside of music, consider and identify their general demographic. Once you have answered these questions and others like them, dig deeper and assemble a picture of how these people see themselves, how they see the world, what they want out of life and most importantly, what they want out of music. To learn more, follow the link below:   

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Don't Leave Home Without...

Touring is a fundamental component of any musician’s career. Many young bands are chomping at the bit for their first chance to go on tour. However, if they’re not fully prepared to deal with the day-to-day realities of touring beyond the romance of highway rest stops and an ongoing car-party, then they quickly learn why many more established groups dread it. There are quite a few things you’ll need to bring beyond the obvious (clothes, instruments, merch) or the experience will take a very quick nosedive. Having a smartphone and external battery pack are still in the ‘fairly obvious’ realm. So are sleeping bags, pillows and air mattresses, but there are a few things that may have crossed your mind as luxuries but they are just as important as your instruments. First of all: extra instruments. Take two or three of everything – guitars, drumsticks, guitar strings – these may seem like things you’ll be able to borrow from another band if something goes wrong but it’s one of the many lessons about touring that you REALLY don’t want to learn the hard way. Also on the not-so-obvious list is AAA/car insurance and a 24-hour gym membership. The value of AAA/car insurance is self-explanatory but the gym membership gives you, at the very least, a near-guarantee of near-regular showers. You may already be practicing near-hygiene but you won’t believe what it can do to your positive attitude (another important ‘item’) when you’re on the road for weeks at a time.

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Time Is On Your Side…If You Know How To Manage It!

When people start a band or begin an endeavor to become a solo artist, there is usually a selective imagination comes into play. It is easy to let the mind frolic among images of tour buses, trashed hotel rooms, sold out clubs, hanging out in recording studios and of course, piles of money. In fact, I would be highly suspicious of anyone who claimed to dream of things like booking tours, marketing or content creation but nonetheless, in order to make the aforementioned dreams come true, you’ll have to endure the aforementioned nightmares as well. The key is balance and managing your time effectively. Layout your goals, arrange your priorities and commit to them! To learn more, follow the link below:  

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A Musician's Economy: The Math and Beyond...

Recently, I posted about the necessity for investments of both time and money in your potential music career. While we've all heard the maxim; "Time is money", you might want to put the objective truth of the statement aside during rehearsals and the songwriting process as both activities have famously slow turnarounds. Moving on...each investment decision should be accompanied by the question, "Is it worth it?". This is true of projects you might carryout yourself such as merch or hiring a promoter, as well as any opportunity that is offered to you. Not every show or tour you're asked to play is going to bring enough new fans to offset costs like gas, time off from work, or lack of guaranteed payment. However, it is not all about money. Sometimes playing a benefit for a non-profit can be rewarding on its own if you share an interest in the cause and can also serve as good publicity. Sometimes you might want to play a show that may hurt you financially but because of who might/will be there, may be a fruitful networking opportunity. I would even advice that either of these situations are good times to strongly consider a pay-to-play situation. What it comes down to is a need to establish your own metrics to refer to whenever a proposition comes along to keep your career moving in a positive direction.


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In Case You Didn't Believe Me...

One of the underlying messages I have tried to convey on this blog is that for a band/musician to reach success in the music industry, you need a multi-faceted marketing approach to carve out a space for yourself in the daily lives of the ever-fickle record buying public. This transition is crucial towards making your music a sustainable career. Canadian singer/songwriter Robyn Dell'Unto has launched herself from moderate popularity and critical acclaim to being a force in the Canadian music scene by exactly that. In the interview linked at the bottom of this post, she describes her income as being 30% from live shows, 40% from publishing and licensing, 25% from an online songwriting workshops she started and 5% from music sales (a typical figure these days). She laid the groundwork for all this through a longterm, ambitious and well-presented crowd funding campaign and she keeps her fans engaged by not just being active on Twitter, but interactive. She is not afraid to show her fans pieces of herself and is more than willing to respond to them personally, creating a connection that someone who might otherwise be a passive appreciator can't help but become invested in as a True Fan. To find out, follow the link below:

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