But I’ve found that I think of bass playing and laying down the “bottom” differently now than I did when I began playing.  And I thought I’d write about that today.

MELODY & RHYTHM

When I first started playing, I tried to make my bass lines sound like melody lines, or riffs.  And I was experimenting with chords on the bass, and doing guitar like things as I played.  I think of it as two different sides to music.  Melody and Rhythm.  At the time that I first started playing, it was all melody and no rhythm.  What do you expect from a former guitar player?

Now this is not to say that melody isn’t good for a bass line, in fact the best ones are the hummable ones.  Again depending on the song itself.  When does the bass line stand out in the song?  Does the section “build” towards a musical crescendo?  How does the bass help that section?  Without getting into too much western music theory, I’ll just offer this little thing that I think of sometimes as I’m trying to come up with bass lines.  I read this somewhere….

Music can be seen as consisting of two categories… consonance and dissonance.  The consonance is the “tonic” or “key” or first chord of a song.  And the dissonance (in varying degrees of dissonance) is everything else in the song.  In a scale the first note is the “tonic” or consonance.  Then every other note in the scale “wants” to get back to the tonic.  The dissonances are called Supertonic, Mediant, Subdominant, Dominant, Submediant, and Leading Tone.  You’ll never use those phrases again. 

All this to say that the bass can help get the chord progression from dissonant chords, to tonic chords by the lines that are chosen.  Leading into the “tonic” chords by walking up to them, or jumping from the (V, Dominant).  Of course all this is too technical right?  Probably, just something to think about.  Emphasize the different sections in the song that you are going to.  And use your ear to do it.  Do what sounds good.

LOCK INTO DRUMMER

So, then one day while I was recording.  I realized this. 

I really didn’t need to play that much.  Some of the best lines I’ve heard really aren’t melody lines, but they are just notes that are rhythmically locked into to the kick drum of the drummer.  It’s like the bass drum and bass are one instrument. 

When I first did this on a song, it kinda opened up a whole new world in how I put together bass lines.  Because it sounds so tight and locked in, and it freed up the rest of the band to play on top of that rock solid foundation.  The whole band began to play better because I started to play less but totally in sync with my drummer. 

I think drummers appreciate it also, because it makes their bass drum sound huge.

You’re not going to be able to catch all of the hits, but if you and your drummer get together, and figure out the bass kick pattern, then go off of that.  I think you’ll notice a big jump in the sound of the entire band as a whole.

good luck.

You’ve rehearsed a lot, and are ready to lay down some tracks at a nice, or not so nice recording studio.  You’ve probably like I did, paid a bunch of money to have someone engineer the demo and are really wanting things to go well.

Here are just some thoughts about what things to think about once you are ready to go and get everyone together to play.  I recorded some pop songs, and so these are the things that I had to keep in mind, but I guess that the process would be slightly different say if you were recording a hip hop track, or classical concerto, or anything in between.  But for us, it was all about planning…

ARRIVE ON TIME and READY

To me, nothing gets me more aggravated then not having the little things in place before I go and spend money for all the minutes that I’m at a studio.  Most studios charge by the hour, so every minute counts, and if your guitars need to be restrung, or people in your group show up late, it can be expensive and annoying.  My thought is to be overly prepared and ready, because inevitably, setting up the studio itself for a good sound takes time away from playing.  And if you are on a low budget like me, then it pays to have some things good and ready to go.  Here are just some things that I had planned and ready…

1. PRINT OUT A SONG LIST / MUSIC CHARTS marked with verse, choruses, etc.

Even if your band doesn’t need them, it’s a good idea for the engineer to follow them easily with lyrics and all so that she is on the same page as everyone else.  Not to mention at the very least, the engineer will know what to title the ProTools project.

2.  BRING A TUNER, CHANGE STRINGS DAYS BEFORE SESSION

Just do it, have it ready, with cables and everything in an organized place so that the quicker you can set up, the quicker you can get to playing.  No earrings (because of headphones), and no jangly pieces of clothing (because the mic might pick it up).  Everybody turn their cell phones off.

NOW PLAY

Hopefully, as you all are about to play, you’ve been rehearsing with the band by playing with a metronome.  Most likely you will play with one during the recording, so know who will count off the clicks and how each song will start and end.  So, if you are going to fade out a song once its’ mixed, you all need to know to keep playing at the end of the song so that there is enough to fade with.

Stay loose, and try to react to the players around you, and not focus too much on your own part.  Now is the time when all the rehearsing comes in, and if you have rehearsed in a way that it beneficial to the playing now, or if you didn’t rehearse enough.  Your own part should be second nature by now, and the differences between a good take and a bad one have more to do with feel with each other.

Also be very polite to your engineer.  I feel like people in the music world have to deal with too many attitudes and egos.  You generally will be able to get the engineer on your side by being nice.  Just a thought.

SING LIKE YOU MEAN IT

So, my problem when I started was that I was focused on “blending” which is a term used for choir singers to match the tonal quality of the person next to you.  Thereby giving it like a more “rounded” or smooth sound.  When you add 50 people to it, it sounds large and reverby.

However, when you use that technique for rock singing into an SM57 or some other microphone, all that comes out is this wash of a sound.  I think that onstage microphones used for rock, or hip hop, reward staccato ryhthms and “sharp” sounds.  Sounds that are able to cut through the loudness of the stage itself, and the din of live music.  If you have a band, and the bass is taking care of the lows, and the keys, and guitars are in the mids, and cymbals are in the highs… it really doesn’t leave very much frequency range for the human voice (which reside somewhere in the mids).  So, “blending” to get a round sound doesn’t do very much except add to the wash of sound.

I believe that the correct path to take is to sing as if you were the lead singer with your parts.  With conviction.  And try to produce a tone that is clear and bright.  The blending should be taken care of by the reverb and other effects of the PA system.  One important note about that is that it’s important to be sure that the rythms of the melody are in the right place.  That way, things will sound locked in.

PUT YOUR MIC WHERE YOUR MOUTH IS

Another common mistake that I see people do is to sing “across” the mic, rather than into it.  In the rush to setup for a gig, in New york there is like five minutes of time from when the other band leaves to when you have to go on, I’ve seen some people point the mic to set it up and then leave it for the rest of the show as they play their instrument and sing “under” the mic.  Maybe pointing the mic at their eyebrows or something.

Every mic has it’s sweet spots for where it picks up sound the best, but to make it simple, in most live situations, you’ll find a mic not unlike the Shure SM58 or something like that. 

So, Just keep in mind that you want to point your mouth directly into the mic.  Pretend you are singing into the bottom of the mic.  As if you were singing into a paper towel tube. If that means adjusting the mic on the stand and at a lower level than you may be accustomed, then so be it.

I think you’ll find the sound more to your liking.  Good luck.

I find that these days, people need to keep things moving and use their time wisely.  Sometimes, it’s tough to get that many people together in the same space.

So, here are some thoughts on how to get some paperwork together for your indie band.  Two things to get ready.  Lyric sheet and Chord Chart.

LYRIC SHEET

This is pretty strightforward I guess.  Just your words to your original song written out line by line, you know like a poem. If your song falls into these categories, it’d be helpful to put your verses into sections.  So, let’s say, there is a “Verse 1″, or maybe call it “A” section, or whatever idea you got.  Then maybe a “B” section, or “pre-chorus”, or “chorus”, you know.  It doesn’t really matter I guess, just as long as you can say, let’s try this part from the “pre-chorus 2″, or “D” section.  Now all we need is some manuscript paper….

CHORD CHART

A chord chart is just a simple lined manuscript with simple names of chords written out.  For those of you who don’t know, manuscript paper looks like this:

It is just your simple lined music paper that people use to write notes and stuff on, but we’re only going to use it to keep our Chord Chart neat.

Incidentally while we’re here… I found this good place to download free PDF versions of this file, so that you can print out a copy.  (pick the 10 stave version…)

FREE MUSIC MANUSCRIPT PAPER: http://people.virginia.edu/~pdr4h/musicpaper/

or this place too!

MORE FREE MUSIC MANUSCRIPT PAPER:  http://www.blanksheetmusic.net/

So, now, you’re ready to go…

1. Draw your treble clef on the top line if it doesn’t already have one…

2.  Draw vertical lines to divide the music staffs into 4 even sections.  Do this for the whole manuscript page.

3.  Now you’re ready to write chord names in the bars.

4.  Label your sections, verse, “A”, or whatever you might need.

So, really, it’s a simple chart to keep everyone in your band playing the same parts.  And it looks kinda professional once you get the hang of it.  Hope this helps.

]]> http://www.simplemusician.com/how-to-write-out-a-chord-chart/feed/ 0 http://www.simplemusician.com/how-to-practice-music-guitar/ http://www.simplemusician.com/how-to-practice-music-guitar/#comments Wed, 08 Oct 2008 17:31:01 +0000 Michael Wei http://www.simplemusician.com/?p=225 When I was a kid, I was very regimented about the way that I practiced music.  I was break it up in to sections, and train my fingers to do endless scales and such.  And in those years sitting in my basement, I gave up a lot of my high school years.  Now that I am older and have been playing music for years, and briefly went to music school, and then dropped out of music school, been in bands, and played with lots of different people (no one famous), I feel that I was a little misguided back then.

Scales and practicing are definitely needed, but I was way too anal about it, and I feel a little too regimented.  And the net result was that when I went to music school I needed to unlearn stuff so as not to sound stiff.  I guess we got to remember that I grew up in the eighties when “shredding” was king.   Maybe I could have used my practice time as a kid better. 

But if you are starting out, or learning to practice, and don’t really have a plan for practice and want to get better, then here are some thoughts…

PLAYING SONGS NOT BY ROTE

One of the things that I could have done more of was playing songs.  It’s probably been this way all throughout history, where you learn a song you want to play and then you learn to play it.  Rather than spending all your time preparing your technique to learn a song.  Of course, some songs are going to be too hard to play at first, but finding a simple song that you like to strum to, and then practicing it, gives you a sense of accomplishment once you succeed.  It’s much more satisfying than learning to play a scale at 160 bpm.

Here’s a link to guitar tablature on line:

http://www.ultimate-guitar.com/

Or you can just type in guitar tablature into google and go to town.

The trick with learning to play songs is that in order to get better at playing music, you should learn it exactly as it was played.  And try to land every strum, rhythm, beat, note exactly.  The reason is not to be anal, but to train your ears to listen intently to the music.  And listening is something that takes a long time to master, but it will put you on the right path to playing with other people.

THE PLAN

Playing songs doesn’t mean that that’s all that there is.  It is only a part of it, but it’s also important to do the other stuff to get better.  Basically, you need to train your fingers to have some technique.  Then you got to train your brain by learning music theory.  And of course, there is the songs, and playing and listening skills.  ETC.

SONGS-for listening skills, for the fun on playing music.

TECHNIQUE- scales, learning chords, right hand picking excercises.

THEORY- learning how chords, and notes, and reading music and all of that stuff is put together.

Of course, I’ve known people that didn’t have good technique, and didn’t know a damn thing about theory, but when they played, you couldn’t help but listen because it was so beautiful.

So, I guess there’s that.

Along with people’s playing level, there are different styles of playing, and (just like in dating), you have to figure out what to play.  That’s why it’s best if possible to go and see someone play at an open mic to get a sense of what kind of music that they play.

Of course, that’s probably not going to happen if you are going to craigslist it and find someone off of there.  I’ve done craigslist a couple of times, and I feel like there are some ways to prepare to get a good result.  Here are just some ideas that it might help to think about when trying to find a new person to play with…

CRAIGSLIST INTERVIEW

If you are looking for someone to jam with on craigslist, here are some questions you might want to ask…

1. How long have you been playing?  Have you ever played in a band, or with a music project before?

2. What kind of music relationship are you looking for?  (Sounds like dating).  I mean are we going to jam every once in a while, or might it grow into something more?

3. What songs do you know?  What kind of songs do your originals sound like?

4. Do you play with a metronome?  Wanna play with a metronome?

These first questions in talking to another musician to play with really has to do with evaluating if the person can play “in time” with you.  That would be par for the course to be able to play with someone.  If their timing and sense of rhythm is all over the place, then it’s kind of a non-starter.  So, these questions need to evaluate if you will be able to musically communicate on the basic level.  Of course, it doesn’t need to be perfect, but it needs to be in the ball park.

Then there’s the metronome…

METRONOME

So, I’m a big fan of the metronome to play with people at first.  Or at least a part of the time.  I know no one’s timing is perfect, but I believe that doing some training with a metronome is at least good to have an impartial starting point to progress.  When you’re first playing with someone, everyone’s sense of timing is a little different, so it’s good to have a referee to begin.  Of course, if you’re playing with a drummer for the first time… then you’re probably not going to be able to hear it.

CHARTS

So, before meeting up, it would save time to write out a few chord charts.  Even if you both know the songs, it’s good to be able to point to something and fix something, or get on the same page.  Look for another post on how to write out a simple chord chart.

Then, it’s time to play.  Stay loose, be fun.  And hopefully, you’ll bemaking out by the end of the first date!

If you are like me and picked up playing bass guitar from playing regular guitar, then there may be some new things to learn about as you try to lay down the perfect bass line.  It took me a little while to focus on certain things that have helped my playing down low.  Coaxing different sounds to create a mood for a song has made me open up to the instrument and stop thinking about chord changes, and theory.  It has made me focus on feel, and ambience, and drama.

In my experience in indie-type rock, the bass is the dark heart of the music, creating a landscape that the rest of the music plays in.  But technically it took me a little while to see that world.

FINGERTIPS or PICKS

Every instrument has a language that it speaks in.  If you were playing violin, you could bow it, pluck it, legato, or staccato, etc.  The same goes for the electric bass, but perhaps it isn’t so obvious if you are picking up the bass after playing guitar.  There is the finger sound using the meaty part of your fingertips…

REST STROKE

1.  Place your index finger or middle finger on the “bottom side of the string (floor side)”.

2.  Rake your finger through the string and have it land on the string above it (towards the sky).  This is the basic “Rest Stroke”.

This should sound meaty, and thick and warm.  Dulled when compared with playing with a pick, but different.

PICK

1.  Pluck the string with a pick as you would a guitar.

The rest stroke and the picking technique is only scratching the surface of what types of sounds one can make on a bass, but it is good to think about it as a starting point into a world where you are being creative with sounds coming out of your bass.

I was in the orthodoxy when I first started that I would only learn how to play with my fingers and not pay attention to using a pick.  The bass lines and playing in those times started to sound the same.  But as I kept gaining experience, I noticed that certain songs required a certain “touch” when playing with my fingers.  Harder, softer, lazier, “on top” of the beat.  Then it dawned on me that I should open it up to all of the tools that could possibly be used to play music with.  And that not only includes picks, but it includes the sounds that you set on the amp, or on the bass itself.  It all depends on the song and what it needs or how you can be creative with a song.

If you are using your fingers, do you want to use the tip of your finger to get a more staccato sound?  Or the meaty fleshy part to get a warmer sound?  Or the side of your thumb (like Sting does it?). Or partly muted with the palm of your hand?  Or getting a soft pick?  Or a thick pick?

It’s endless.  But it is something that I feel a bass player should start out playing with the intent on being creative with as many tools as possible.  And one day, they’ll be writing bass playing techniques about playing bass with your tongue!

MadMimi is an marketing email creation and delivery service that allows you to manage the email list of your fans.  This quick tutorial will walk through how to set-up an account, import your emails, and send a promotion.

Steps

1. Go to MadMimi.com and click on any one of the “sign up” links
2. Choose the free plan with up to 100 contacts.  But what if I have more, shouldn’t I get a paying plan, you ask?  Well, because you want to test it out and make sure it’s something you’ll actually use and then just upgrade to a paying when you’re ready.  See, we know how commitment-phobic you are!
3. Give them your info, username, password and the like.
4. Figure out how many lists you’ll want to have.  Most artists just need one, but if you have vastly different content to send to say, fans in town vs. out of town, then you may want to segment them.
5. Add your subscribers email addresses.  If you’ve been keeping them in a spreadsheet you have to make sure it’s in the right format and then can upload it.  The quick and dirty way is to click “Add 5 People” which lets you type in up to five email addresses along with first and last names.
6. Once you’ve added some peeps, you’ll notice two tabs on the right side.  Make yourself a “Web Form” to put on your website/MySpace page/etc (”Suppressed” will show you those who are signed up but haven’t confirmed clicking on a link in their email.)
7. Now for the fun part, find the “Promotions” tab and start creating your newsletter.  Upload your logo, pics from your last show, or anything else that will make your promotional email look more interesting than plain text.
8. Click “send”, choose your audience, and watch it fly!

What’s Next?

You’ll want to send you and your band members a test email first to get used to the interface.  Check out the “track” link associated with your promotion to get a feel for what types of statistics you’ll be able to see.

Finally, start communicating with your audience!  Tell them about upcoming shows, a new song, or just a weekly this-is-what-we’ve-been-up-to email.  Don’t go overboard but definitely let your fans know that you’re still around.

I have been playing in the New York City scene for a decade or so, and I have noticed some issues to consider for this particular music scene and I feel that some bands could improve their chances of highlighting their art if they rehearsed in a way to consider some of the factors in playing a live show.  Here are some thoughts on the preparing for the gig.  Please post comments below if there are other strategies that you have encountered.

THE MUSIC

The main event.  People come out to hear your music, so be sure that the music is rehearsed and tight.  Be sure that the accents in the music are together and that the music has dynamics.  Or if it doesn’t have dynamics, be sure that that is on purpose.  The tighter the songs, the better the feel, and hopefully the music will have attitude and energy and you’ll be able to connect with your audience.

In rehearsing the music, I’ve found it helpful not to play a song the whole way through at first, but only rehearsing a “trouble spot” first.  I believe it keeps band members from falling into the rut of just playing the songs by rote during rehearsals and more into crafting the songs.  When you rehearse parts of your song, instead of just getting together and playing, you get band members to start listening more to each other, and that is really important.

SOUND BALANCE

One of my pet peeves about seeing live music is that the balance is never right.  In fact, you’d be lucky to find a sound person at a club who will actually do very much besides turn the PA on.  One of the problems is that less experienced bands play with too loud of a “stage volume”, thereby tying the hands of the sound person who will just try to cut down on the feedback.  If you are at a club with a good sound system, have a chat with the sound person and try to keep your stage volume low enough so that it doesn’t blast.  Sound issues are always difficult, but allowing the sound person to balance your sound for the room is better than the band members trying to do it with their amps.  Inevitably they’ll compete with each other and it’ll be messy.

THE PATTER

Patter are the little remarks of the show that keep things moving, or introduce the band, or keep the audience otherwise occupied while your band is switching instruments, tuning, or just transitioning from one song to the next.  It may be more involved where there is a direct connection with the audience, or as simple as “the next song is….”.  Either way, it is important to think about it at least once and maybe more, because there is often times when there is a lull in the proceedings.   Your guitarists strings may break, or your sound person might be getting feedback, or your drummer starts to OD.

Now, your performance may not need patter at all.  But it is a good idea to have something to say in your back pocket in case something goes wrong, and you are staring at an audience waiting for music that you are temporarily unable to perform for them.  I find that if you are playing at a bar, drunken audiences always appreciate a dumb joke.  Tell the dumb joke, and before the boos, and hisses get too bad, count off the next song.

THE SHOW

Open up.  Rock out!

Is there really still money in this? Also, it looks like EMI, the Rolling Stones’ old label still will retain publishing to their songs. I wonder then, who will make the money when they switch the old catalog to the “digital age”..?

“Universal Music Signs Rolling Stones to Long Term Deal”

Listen to “Rocking the House”

http://www.wnyc.org/shows/soundcheck/episodes/2008/02/21#

New ways to expand your audience…Pretty interesting.

Check out this ridiculousness: Universal Music tried to have a video on YouTube taken down because it shows a, “toddler learning to walk with the Prince song ‘Let’s Go Crazy’ blaring in the background.” Aparently the Big Labels send thousands of these requests a year and most of the time the target just removes the offending video and slinks away.

Well, this time the mom refused to pull it, and decided to smack the label with a lawsuit: Mom fights music giant

Now, I don’t think Prince is going to go bankrupt from this sort of thing. But even if this wasn’t coming from a big label on behalf of a well established successful musician, it is still a baseless and gross use of obnoxious copyright laws. This reminds me of the owners that try to get paid when their buildings are in the background of movies.

We need a new way of thinking about intellectual property and cases like this are forcing us to confront the boundaries of art and commerce.

If you something like this happens to you just add a comment to the video saying you were happy to hear your music playing during such a momentous event… and then add a link to your website.

It takes only a couple of minutes to get a basic site, but give yourself more time customize your store and write good product descriptions.

1. Sign up for a PayPal account – You’ll need the email associated with your PayPal account when signing up for bigcartel.
2. Sign up for a bigcartel account – Fill out the sign-up form and choose “Band” as the “Store type”.
3. Products – Login, click on the “Products” tab at the top, and click “Add product”. Fill out the form and move on to your next product.
4. Design – click on the “Design” tab and then “Basics” to add your logo (”Header image”) and change the colors as your see fit. If your techish, change to “css” and go to town. If you have a paying account, check out the available themes to save some time.
5. Settings – click on the “Store” tab and run through the “settings” to make sure it looks ok. Then click on the “promote” tab and upload a square image for the bigcartel directory.
6. View – Check out your site! Our lame attempt can be seen at http://brokedownvan.bigcartel.com

What’s next?

Once everything is set up, it’s time to start sending your fans to the site. Link to it from your MySpace page and your other online haunts. Stick a link to the store in your signature file so that it’s at the bottom of every email you send out. Print up mini-flyers to hand out at your next gig and maybe include a promotion code to encourage fans to check out the other merch that wouldn’t fit in the back of your van.

http://mashable.com/2008/07/09/streaming-music-sites/

Since free product is plenty, demand for music product must be less, right?. So, it seems to me that the problem is not about distribution, the problem lies in aggregation of audience Much like everything else on the Internet now. I think about the big musicians out there now, and how they are a “brand” of music. They represent a lifestyle and audience. Jay-Z is a brand of music that encompasses his own art as well as the lifestyle image of “successful music mogul” and roots from the street.

Does the music sell the image? Or does the image sell the music?

What I think will and or is happening is that music can’t be partitioned out the way that it has in the past. You know how films sell soundtracks? They benefit from each other. Perhaps “acts” in the future will encompass more than just a recording. Perhaps “acts” will encompass movies? User generated content for concerts? Interactive concert experiences? Sell the image, sell the niche audience, be successful?

In the past music has been a product with many different business models, there was the concert, the tour, the cd, the publishing, the t-shirts. Then came the clothing lines, the sneakers, the branded guitars, and everything else. People are talking about the death of the cd track, and I kind of agree. Music, as a product, is different than it was, and now it is somehow the same as a lot of things. I’ll try to explain.

It seems like our entertainment culture is centered around aggregating audiences, and collecting like minded people together in order to share something. It is simple, and it works for people who attend church, indie bands, as well as people who are into the new XBOX. (Also, this website will hopefully one day do the same thing for the independent artist. Just a little self plug…) So, the “product” is an experience, and attitude, a perspective on…well anything.

Once you have aggregated the audience, then the next step is to sell out. I remember when that was such a bad thing to do for musicians and there are many examples in history where it alienated the true fans and the like. But once you have that targeted audience, people who like your music, artists “sell” them to the advertisers. Your music is perhaps about something specific, and audiences of a Brooklyn Indie band, vs a Texas Alt Country band would be different, and different advertisers would want different things.

What does this mean for the indie artist? Does it mean that tours are all sponsored by Coca Cola?

But I wonder if I’ve gotten more conservative as I’ve aged, or if I feel that advertisers are different in the way that they co-opt an audience. Google itself is run on advertising, and I think anyway, that they are seen as doing something good for the internet and its’ users. Have the tools of the advertisers become more subtle?

Or is selling out, as dirty as it ever was?

Fashion is as a shortcut to self expression. In that way, fashion and music are alike, in that both have the power to unite (and divide) people by allowing them to express something, or as in the case of music to share something together. I feel like that is at the core of music “movements” like punk, grunge, gangsta rap, and on and on. Much like wearing a particular designer expresses something about who you are (in my mind, mostly your financial class), being into certain types of music says something subtle about who you are. Bands have followings that seem to collect a particular marketing group. I’ve heard people talk about Dave Mathews Band and how their audience has become “frat boys” and that is a turn off for them and they wouldn’t go to concerts anymore because of it. I’m sure there are examples that contradict this observation, but in general fashion and music are both trying to do the same thing.

They are “selling” a perspective. Ads for clothing lines really have very little to do with the clothes, but as the old advertising term goes, they are selling a “lifestyle”. Same could be said for music. A particular music is selling the lifestyle, or “brand”. It articulates a particular assumption about what the music is about, who is playing the music, who is listening to the music, and a bunch more subtle areas that is in essence what makes it art.

Of course, it goes hand in hand that fashion business and the music business piggy back each other to help define each other, or probably more accurately to aggregate each others audience/customers.

Since music is essentially a “brand”, how can indie musicians more effectively use techniques of the fashion world in creating their own customers?

Nickelback signs with Live Nation….

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/09/arts/music/09nickel.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin

The Internet is stocked these days with many websites and tools to help musicians, but I believe the first one that can actually help facilitate creating a social network that can get people out to shows will be the one that wins out. Each one is taking the place of the record labels that used to control many aspects of the music industry. Each one has a different take on how we might produce or consume music in the future and now. In the coming months, I hope this site becomes something of value to readers by providing biased reviews of Internet sites and how they are trying to redefine the music industry. It’s just my opinion, but I’m interested in how they will translate what happens when you strum a chord and someone listens.

OK, maybe I should qualify that a little. Up until recently at least, all but a random few musicians were totally fucked. These days, musicians are for the most part still fucked but with a small glimmer of hope. A hope nicknamed the Internet.

A good number of musicians are surviving by using tools already available on the web, from MySpace to iTunes to Rhapsody to homegrown websites. This site intends to help share that information through blogs, website reviews, resource guides and more.

We often ask ourselves, Of what use is today’s music industry? It doesn’t help the best music make it to the most people. It doesn’t match up each listener’s weird tastes with the exact right weird music mix. It doesn’t nurture talent or provide a career path for those who love to make music. If you want to be successful today you are expected to reduce your art to it’s most mass consumer friendly… and then wait around hoping to win the music lottery.

The music industry has, until recently, been flawless at taking an artist (often an “artist”), feeding them into the Big Music machine, and squeezing as much money out of their talent as possible. But the times are a-changing. More and more musicians are realizing that regardless of how successful a few artists are allowed to be, and regardless of how that success is flaunted, it is frustrating and fruitless for the other 99.999%.

A major goal of this blog is to figure out how to keep independent music alive by sustaining the musicans who create it. Hopefully that will help some artists make enough money to cover gas, others to quit their day jobs, others to just throw their sound into the din so that someone somewhere will hear it.

We must beware, the music industry is constantly circling around and patching the holes in its facade. So, let’s grab the internet by the feet, swing it in a circle a few times, and give Big Music a blow they will never recover from!

(P.S. thanks Ani for the title of this blog)

These are the issues that this blog will attempt to discuss until there is an obvious alternative or the future of music and media has another answer for us. As this discussion continues, we’ll try to put up useful links and reviews of indie music supportive sites on the web, as well as industry news to help understand the state of the art in music.

As for me, this is my first blog, but I have been a failed indie musician for a long time. A former music conservatory drop out to failed independent musician, I am not what you would call an “expert” in anything save lowering expectations. But I have watched the music industry change as technology has changed from the 80’s, 90’s till now. And I feel that the musicians will always make music, and people will always listen. But both of those will be done in different ways. This blog will explore and review and note the ways in which music and technology will give birth to music in the future.

My partner in this endeavor has a perfect background in technology and the internet. Together hopefully, we’ll find the balance of music and technology and see if that marriage can be a happy one, or if it ends in divorce.

On this day which I’ll call Indie-pendence Day. We celebrate what musicians and artists will come up with next.