Developing Your Management Skills
Many of you out there are truly interested in becoming a Personal Manager—if you could only figure out how. Well, here's a great, inexpensive and surefire way to develop those managerial skills and see if you've got what it takes. First, find an unsigned artist/band that attracts your attention. Go see them perform at a concert or club and take notes on their performance. Analyze their songs, their live show, what they wore, their rapport with the audience, the musicianship—you get the idea. Then, wait about three months and go see that same artist/band again, bringing your old notes with...
Home Demo Recording
How well-recorded do my demos need to be? Great question. We get it all the time. The answer is actually very simple. For song pitches, the recording can be much less "produced" than it should be for artist pitches. Some people believe that a song pitch demo should leave some room for imagination - let the artist or A&R person develop some emotional ownership of the song by imagining a tambourine part or a vocal harmony. For band or artist pitches, you may want to flesh out more tracks that show the artist's whole vision. Remember though, A&R people are...
How To Present Your Demo
Here is a checklist that will maximize your chances of getting heard and respect the listener's time. https://youtu.be/ftuJHlVhY5c 1. Never send more than three songs unless specifically requested otherwise.Demo listeners like watching the "in" pile diminish and the "out" pile grow as quickly as possible. If the listener has a limited time to listen, which is usually the case, the tendency is to listen to a tape/CD they know they can complete. So if you send a demo with ten songs on it and someone else's demo has one song, you can bet that the "out" pile will grow quickly...
Music Business Attorneys
A good, honest, knowledgeable music attorney is an invaluable asset to an artist, and an important part of his Pro Team. Music attorneys serve many functions, the least of which is shopping tapes to the record companies. And because nowadays the top attorneys in the business (you know, the ones who charge $450 per hour), will work for a fee of 5% of the artist's gross income—why, anyone can afford them! Hold on a minute—I'm not being sarcastic. Start Shopping Now Just recently, this band that I know, decided it wanted to release its own indie record and sell it...
Song Dynamics
The term, "dynamics" refers to whether a sound is "soft" or "loud". The ability of a recording medium to reproduce the difference between soft and loud is called its "Dynamic Range". Vinyl records and cassette tapes have a limited dynamic range of about 20 db, while modern CDs and Digital Audio Tape (DAT) are capable of full dynamic range- that's 100 db! The limiting factor of how much of that range you get to actually hear is determined by the speakers, amplifiers and the room you're listening in. We've all heard terms like "bright", "dull", "deep" and "thin" used to...
Ten Tips for Building Stronger Songs
If you want your songs to stand the test of time, you have to build them solidly from the ground up. These are ten things you'll need: The cornerstone: a unique title, a dramatic situation.The title is the emotional center of the song. Come up with as suggestive a title as you can, one that conjures up a strong emotional situation. If the title itself isn't very dramatic, plot out the most evocative story and situation you can to bring fresh attention to an old title concept.The foundation: a well-defined structure.The structure gives the song shape and is key to...
Writing Television Music
I recently wrote about recognizing opportunity and then seizing it. In this article, I'm going to make it even easier for you. I'm going to show you the fastest, cheapest, and easiest way to make money with your music. I'm surprised you haven't figured it out for yourself yet. You stare at it night after night, and it stares right back at you. As a matter of fact, it even talks to you (and millions of other people). That's right you slackers, wake up and smell the half-caff, low-fat, double mocha-latte, it's your TV! Think about it. In the early...
Recording Equalization Tips
Equalization is the term used to describe the process of changing the balance between high and low frequencies. Equalizers allow us to selectively boost and/or cut specific frequencies or bands of frequencies. With regard to equalization of the instruments you are recording, you must first assign the range of each instrument into its own frequency so that it won't interfere with any of the other instrument frequency ranges. There are many types of equalizers and they get used in many different ways by different people. In general, "Parametric Equalizers" allow for very specific effect with adjustable Q and frequency control...
Copyright Basics
The legal definition of a copyright is a "limited duration monopoly." Its purpose (as stated in the U.S. Constitution, no less), is to promote the progress of science and useful arts by giving creators exclusive rights to their works for a while. As you can imagine, if you created something and everybody immediately had the right to use it without paying you, not very many people would go through the trouble of creating anything (including you and me). What is copyrightable? To be copyrightable, the work has to be original (not copied from something else) and of sufficient materiality to...
Music Publishers: What They Do
To better understand the role of the music publisher (which is, in effect, that of an agent, manager, lawyer, and business advisor to the songwriter), the following represents a brief summary of some of the music publisher's responsibilities: Singles and Albums: One of the primary roles of the publisher is to secure commercially released recordings of the songs it controls. The publisher must have an effective staff of professional managers (those who actually promote the songs) who not only know what artists are recording and the type of material needed for a particular session, but who also have a good...
Increase Your Odds of Getting Signed
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q9dQAT0egKc&feature=youtu.be Most artists dream about getting signed to a recording agreement, yet few know anything about the record company personnel responsible for discovering new talent, what these people look for in an artist, and where and when they look to find it. You might just find that the first step to getting a record deal is to take a do it yourself approach to your career. A discussion on A&R can easily take up hundreds of pages, but here is a brief overview. Who Are A&R Reps? A&R representatives (an acronym for Artists and Repertoire) are record company personnel whose...
What They Don’t Teach You in Music School
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0_vCxSs4DZE&feature=youtu.be Most music schools and books about the music business seem to concentrate on making music and doing deals. While those subjects are very valuable indeed, it's equally important to arm one's self with the knowledge of the street — some practical advice that may be passed over in books and classrooms or passed down incorrectly through "generations" of musicians. While I could probably write chapters on these subjects, I'll do what I can to give you a leg up in the next few pages. Think of this as the Cliff Notes version. If you don't know what Cliff Notes...
Creating An Effective Bio
A bio is the cement that holds a press kit together. It should: 1. Create an identity.2. Define a musical style.3. Lead the reader directly to the music. Who needs bios? Recording artists, songwriters, performers and producers all benefit from well-written bios. "Send your tape, bio and picture," is usually the first request from someone interested in your talents. What if I don't have major credits? Unsigned artist bios often spotlight personalities, histories and creative processes. The bio must be honest, but the truth should also sound as good as possible. Never mistake hype for substance. Can I write my...
Music Business Money-Making Secrets
Why is it that some people in the music business make tens of thousands of dollars a year, while others wallow in poverty most of their lives? Is it because the rich ones are just plain lucky? Or because they were born into a musical family with clout? While these easy-road explanations might be true for a few people, most of the real music business success stories involve everyday people who discovered what it takes to make money and get ahead by doing something they love. It's unfortunate that so many people who pursue artistic endeavors never make much money...