John Lennon Remembered

Today I’m featuring a vintage guest blog post by my dear friend Andrew Hand. Enjoy!

Remembering John Lennon
by Andrew Hand

Today is the anniversary of the tragic and untimely death of John Lennon. It was thirty-one years ago that Lennon was killed by Mark David Chapman outside the Dakota. I often visit Strawberry Fields in Central Park, across from the Dakota, where the Imagine circle lies and where so many come to pay tribute to John.

I’m struck by how many people visit in tourist droves. This was part of their sight-seeing rounds and as I reflect on John’s impact I thought of this…

John Lennon had a profound impact on the history of the world. He first was a member of the most popular band in the world, which got him seen and into the conscious of so many, but he then took all that attention and used it to spread a message of peace and love and a message that still impacts so many people. He stood up and put his heart and soul out to the world through his music and became a catalyst for people who felt the same way he did, who wanted to see a better world.

As John said, “Some might say I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one.” Lennon knew there were many, who felt the same way he did and he made them feel he was speaking directly to them. What better human interaction can one have than speaking with other human beings? That is what we all seek in life, quality human interactions. Feeling that there is another being on this planet that feels the same way we do. That is community, tribes, and friendship.

So as I reflect back on my morning and all those people that John has touched and continues to touch, I think to my own music/life and how I can apply the idea of “I’m not the only one” into my conversation with others. How can I be of service, of kinship to my fellow beings on this wonderful journey of life and strike a common thread in their lives?

I am so thankful to have found music (at the late age of 24) and the road it has taken me down has been nothing short of amazing. My musical heroes speak to me even now despite their passing. John Lennon is the biggest of those heroes that I have and so today I pay tribute to the man who has asked so many profound questions and offered such wonderful answers. He spoke from his heart and has touched mine.

Thanks John, your spirit lives on.

Peace to the World (A Tribute to John Lennon) by Andrew Hand

###

About Andrew Hand:

Andrew Hand writes with a passion for lyrical truth, connecting to the listener drives him forward. His musical journey started at a later stage in life, at the age of 24. This late start supercharged a voracious appetite to delve deeper into lyrics and composition through studying theory and writing. Andrew’s style is best described as: John Lennon’s mind, Jim Morrison’s voice and David Bowie’s theatrics.

Andrew Hand.com

All images courtesy of Andrew Hand.

Happy New Year 2011!!

Don’t you love the clean slate feeling of a New Year??

After spending relaxed holidays with my family in Atlanta, I’m fired up with new vim and vigor. To keep that feeling going, I’m psyched to share a New Year’s blog post from Ariel Hyatt, music publicist extraordinaire, and co-author of our upcoming book: The Musician’s Roadmap to Facebook and Twitter: Your Complete Guide to Being Liked, Followed, and Heard

You’ll be hearing lots more about our new book in the next couple of months, but Ariel’s article should tide you over!

7 Things I Hope For The New Music Industry In 2011
by Ariel Hyatt

The Cliff Notes’ Version:

1. More Support For Each Other
2. More Artists Making a Living
3. More Rocking the Social Media Strategies
4. More Consistency
5. More Fan Funding
6. More Young Entrepreneurs
7. More Reality Checks

Ariel’s blog post is much longer, and includes tips on achieving the above, but you gotta read it! 7 Things I Hope For The New Music Industry In 2011

Ariel Publicity Website

The New Music Seminar Meets David and Goliath!

Last week I attended New York City’s New Music Seminar, and even wrote a little wrap-up article about it. I called it The New Music Seminar Meets David and Goliath.

The ever-resourceful Greg Rollett has posted it as a guest blog on his Gen-Y Rockstars Blog, and I’m totally excited!

Click to read The New Music Seminar Meets David and Goliath.

Remembering John Lennon: 28 Years After His Death ~ Guest Blog by Andrew Hand

Remembering John Lennon: 28 Years After His Death: “Peace to the World” A Musical Tribute
by Andrew Hand

Today is the anniversary of the tragic and untimely death of John Lennon. It was twenty-eight years ago that Lennon was killed by Mark David Chapman outside the Dakota. I just came from Strawberry fields in Central Park, across from the Dakota, where the Imagine circle lies and where so many come to pay tribute to John.

I was struck by how many people came by in tourist droves. This was part of their sight seeing and as I sat there in the bitter cold reflecting on John’s impact I thought of this…

John Lennon had a profound impact on the history of the world. He first was a member of the most popular band in the world, which got him seen and into the conscious of so many, but he then took all that attention and used it to spread a message of peace and love and a message that still impacts so many people. He stood up and put his heart and soul out to the world through his music and became a catalyst for people who felt the same way he did, who wanted to see a better world.

As John said, “Some might say I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one.” Lennon knew there were many, who felt the same way he did and he made them feel he was speaking directly to them. What better human interaction can one have than speaking with other human beings? That is what we all seek in life, quality human interactions. Feeling that there is another being on this planet that feels the same way we do. That is community, tribes, and friendship.

So as I reflect back on my morning and all those people that John has touched and continues to touch, I think to my own music/life and how I can apply the idea of “I’m not the only one” into my conversation with others. How can I be of service, of kinship to my fellow beings on this wonderful journey of life and strike a common thread in their lives?

I am so thankful to have found music (at the late age of 24) and the road it has taken me down has been nothing short of amazing. My musical heroes speak to me even now despite their passing. John Lennon is the biggest of those heroes that I have and so today I pay tribute to the man who has asked so many profound questions and offered such wonderful answers. He spoke from his heart and has touched mine.

Thanks John, your spirit lives on.

Peace to the World (A Tribute to John Lennon) by Andrew Hand

###

Andrew Hand in front of The Dakota

Andrew Hand writes with a passion for lyrical truth, connecting to the listener drives him forward. His musical journey started at a later stage in life, at the age of 24. This late start supercharged a voracious appetite to delve deeper into lyrics and composition through studying theory and writing. Andrew’s style is best described as: John Lennon’s mind, Jim Morrison’s voice and David Bowie’s theatrics.

Andrew is also busy at work with his Songs for Oprah project. Says Andrew, “The master vision for this project is to have a wide group of artists contributing to a yearly or quarterly CD of songs that have a positive message that can be shared with the world: with the proceeds of sales primarily going to charity.

Each week I have committed to writing and recording a new song live and uploading the video recording of that to YouTube. I then send this link on to Oprah each week on Tue with an email describing the focus of the song and my mission.”

Andrew Hand.com
SongsforOprah.com

All images courtesy of Andrew Hand.

Put That Guitar Down! ~ Guest Blog by Chris Standring

Today’s article is one that I had originally chosen for last month, but since it didn’t exactly fit the theme of “The Recession Proof Musician”, I added it to this month instead. Another cool thing about Chris Standring is that he’s written a couple of great eBooks on website promotion, and selling your music. Since I’ve decided to focus on online promotion next month, stay tuned for more great info from Chris.

Put That Guitar Down!
by Chris Standring

For all the words of encouragement you have ever heard pertaining to picking up the guitar and practicing, either from me or your own sources, this article may come as a bit of a surprise to you. For once I am going to tell you to put the guitar down!

A little confused? Don’t be, I’ll try to explain. And the best way I can get my point across is by sharing an experience I personally had some time ago.

Back in the 80’s, I went to music college in London. I feverishly studied classical guitar for 3 years. Practiced for hours each day. During this time I really developed some good disciplinary skills as far as practice was concerned. I would split up the day. Morning playing Bach fugues or whatever torturous classical guitar piece that had enslaved me at the time. A break for lunch, and in the afternoon I would pick up my electric guitar and plough through violin and flute music, which I’d rented from the music school library, to get my sight-reading together. Reading jazz and pop music is very different from classical music because phrasing interpretation is relative to the genre being played. So it is as much about listening to the band as it is reading the note values. So I wanted to get that together. Finally I worked on jazz harmony, specifically vocabulary for playing over changes. The Charlie Parker Omnibook was my bible, but I would also listen to be-bop players and steal their phrases and try to figure out how I should work them into my own playing. I remember stealing from Cannonball Adderly, Miles Davis, Mike Brecker, and I fell in love with the swinging styles of pianists Red Garland and Wynton Kelly, both of whom played on Miles Davis’ album “Milestones”, a record that had a profound effect on me. Just as importantly, I listened to the way these musicians would feel the music. It wasn’t just about the notes.

Wynton Kelly in particular had a certain thing about playing over altered chords. He would play 4 note phrases that would be repeated in thirds going down. Sometimes in whole tones. In fact many jazz guys I knew at the time would make fun of his style a little bit by singing his name as they played those motifs, going “Wyn-ton-Kell-ey-Wyn-ton-Kell-ey” and so on. After I got the hang of his ideas I would find myself sitting at the guitar and working out my own variations of those ideas. Pretty soon I had a whole bag of Wynton style ‘tricks”.

And then something interesting happened…

I would practice and practice these new motifs and melodic ideas and really try to work them into my playing. Pretty soon I had a pretty broad library of resources I could draw from. And I would practice them over Jamie Abersold records and so on. The woodshedding continued. Over time, I realized that some of those phrases were technically difficult to play on guitar (at least for me) and when I tried to pull them, off half the time I messed up. Other times I managed to pull them off but because I was really having to concentrate, the ‘technicality’ of it all would take me out of the moment and I didn’t like it. I wanted to improvise without thinking after all. So some stuff stayed with me, some stuff didn’t.

About three years after I left music school I felt completely ‘educated out’. I was by no means at the level where I could rest on my laurels. Absolutely not. But I had had enough for the time being. I needed to get out of my little London flat and live life a little. Communicate with people. Maybe learn some social skills! I had been locked up in the woodshed for too long. And so I took a break as I slowly joined the professional world of music which, as I soon found out, involved much more than pulling off Wynton Kelly licks! I simply let things go. I went with the flow for a while.

Now don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t giving up on practice, I was breathing in air, allowing nature to take it’s course, that’s all. I concentrated on ‘playing’ rather than practicing. I would do gigs around town and simply just play. I stopped worrying about whether the hip notes were going to come out. I just wanted to play and enjoy playing without competitiveness, whether it was with myself or others on the bandstand.

And a fascinating thing happened. Fascinating! During those three years my guitar playing took on a new life! I improved in leaps and bounds and in ways I couldn’t have done had I continued practicing the way I had. Phrases that wanted to remain with me did, phrases that didn’t want to didn’t, and it was all OK with me. I simply stopped forcing things and allowed nature to take its course. And as far as I can remember, this was the best thing that I could have done at the time to grow as a musician. I even started to get a style of my own because I had stopped trying to force my heroes into my playing.

Now I am happy to say that from that time I have gone through many periods of practicing and letting go, practicing and letting go. Personally I like music to breathe, I don’t like it cluttered, so if I want the music to breathe I feel it is necessary for me to also. It’s as simple as that.

But everyone is on a different path so you must assess whether this pertains to you at this time in your journey or not.

Finally, I do want to point one thing out and I have thought about this a great deal. Jazz musicians can be intense and insular. They can get lost in their own bubble because they spend so much time thinking about music, practicing and so on. This intensity can, and often does, come out in a musician’s playing and makes it hard or uncomfortable to listen to. I have always thought that jazz musicians should spend more time socializing with non-musicians to really open themselves up. Opening the mind opens up the soul and the soul is what needs to be bared if we want to really communicate the music.

And I am not saying I am right, by any means. All I know is that putting the guitar down once in a while really worked for me!

###

Chris Standring is a recording artist and the owner of Play Jazz Guitar.com – check out the website for his ground breaking home study guitar courses.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Chris_Standring

Social Media Dashboard – Bloomberg for Social Media ~ Guest Blog by Christopher Penn

In my old days as a trading floor assistant for an investment bank, I used to marvel at the huge Bloomberg terminals that supplied the traders with up-to-the-moment market information. Inspired by those terminals, Christopher Penn has created a Social Media Dashboard with iGoogle that can be used to keep you up to date with your social media networking. I include his post here because it’s a genius idea that anyone can use.

Social Media Dashboard – Bloomberg for Social Media
by Christopher Penn

This morning started off thinking about Bloomberg’s wonderful but hideously expensive terminal, and how it gives you insight and also a dashboard to instantly know what’s going on in the markets. I thought, wouldn’t it be interesting to have a Bloomberg for social media? Sure enough, a platform exists to manage all your social media in one place, and that’s iGoogle.

Take a look at what we’ve got here.

Facebook, GMail, and Google Finance on the left, because if I’m doing this for a purpose, for, say, the Student Loan Network, it’s more than just conversation, it’s also understanding what’s happening in the bigger picture. Thus we see a public portfolio of companies in the student loan sector and broader market stuff. Not only does this keep on top of things for my client (the company I work for) but it also gives me the ability to be current when I participate in social networks.

In the middle, a mashup of Yahoo Pipes culling from Twitter Search on specific topics and keywords relevant to the industry. This can be anything at all, but for this, it’s all financial aid stuff, so I can stay on the pulse of financial aid as reported by customers and consumers. Below that, Feedburner for the podcast and customized Compete analytics to monitor what’s happening on my sites and my competitors’ sites.

On the right, Twitter replies to see if anyone needs my attention, and Digg to see what’s buzzy in the world. Obviously, swap this out for Reddit, Stumbleupon, Yahoo Buzz, or whatever your buzz-watcher of choice is.

This, incidentally, is social media with a purpose, highly focused for one specific task – being a financial aid expert in social media. It’s most assuredly not a fishbowl setup where I watch social media for social media’s sake.

Try it for your own vertical and niche, and see if it works for you!

###

About Christopher Penn:

Christopher Penn is the Chief Technology Officer of Edvisors, Inc, and the Student Loan Network, founder and producer of the multi-award winning Financial Aid Podcast internet radio show, co-founder of the groundbreaking PodCamp New Media Community unConference, and co-host of the Marketing Over Coffee marketing podcast.

Christopher has also been featured in many books, newspapers such as the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, and the New York Times, magazines such as BusinessWeek and US News & World Report, television networks such as PBS, CNN, CNBC, and ABC News, and publications for his leadership in new media and financial services.

Visit Christopher’s blog, Awaken Your Superhero

When Did the Beatles? ~ Guest Blog by Seth Godin

I was first introduced to marketer Seth Godin when I downloaded his free Ideavirus eBook years ago, and it changed the way I thought about marketing in general, but especially music marketing. His article below makes a lot of sense, and I’m excited to share it here.

When Did the Beatles Become THE Beatles?
by Seth Godin

When did the Beatles

…become THE Beatles?

I was looking through a day by day biography of the group last night, and it quickly became clear that the image that we have of the four youngsters running away from their screaming fans didn’t happen overnight.

At the beginning, they were playing two or three clubs a day, dives, making a few pounds if they were lucky. Not for a month or two, but for years and years.

As they got more traction, the thing you notice is how often they showed up on the radio. They were constantly on one radio show or another, or one multi-billed concert or another. The marketing picture probably looked like this:

Outbound marketing in every possible direction. Auditions for record labels, rejections, pitches to media outlets, concerts on spec, concerts for anyone who would show up. This is classic marketing, stuff that’s easy to forget when we listen to the Shea Stadium concert or see the flickr guys on the cover of Newsweek. It’s easy to imagine that suddenly, everyone knows you, wants you and makes it easy for you.

The next stage was brief but essential. That’s when people started noticing them, started showing up, started screaming. At this moment, the Beatles didn’t stop marketing. They didn’t stop doing radio shows at the BBC or flying all night to play a concert in Denver (empty seats) or Kansas. During the transition stage, in fact, the Beatles and their management really poured it on.

One of the most misunderstood and misused phrases in marketing (okay, in business) is Malcolm Gladwell’s, “the tipping point.” The Beatles didn’t tip. Nothing magical happened. Instead, gradually, they shifted from being the chasers into being the chased.

These were the Beatles on Ed Sullivan and the Beatles on tour and the Beatles making wigs and the Beatles making movies and pioneering music videos. It was the Beatles in a frenzy, not sure what was going to come next, but pretty sure that it could all disappear in a heartbeat.

Many organizations reach this stage and stop. They harvest. They take profits and remind themselves that they are geniuses, all powerful and immune to the laws of boredom.

Only by pushing through this stage and by using their newfound power to create the last stage of their career did the Beatles actually become the Beatles.

When we rewrite history (and we do it every day) it’s easy to imagine that Starbucks and JetBlue and all the other poster children for new successes just got blessed. It’s almost never the case, though. It’s just that it’s easier to think of them as winners.

###

Seth Godin is author of ten books that have been bestsellers around the world and changed the way people think about marketing, change and work. His books have been translated into more than 20 languages, and his ebooks are among the most popular ever published. He is responsible for many words in the marketer’s vocabulary, including permission marketing, ideaviruses, purple cows, the dip and sneezers. His irrepressible speaking style and no-holds-barred blog have helped him create a large following around the world.

Seth’s latest book, Tribes, is already a nationwide bestseller, appearing on the Amazon, New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestseller lists. It’s about the most powerful form of marketing–leadership–and how anyone can now become a leader, creating movements that matter.

Seth is a renowned speaker as well. He was recently chosen as one of 21 Speakers for the Next Century by Successful Meetings and is consistently rated among the very best speakers by the audiences he addresses.

Seth was founder and CEO of Yoyodyne, the industry’s leading interactive direct marketing company, which Yahoo! acquired in late 1998. Godin worked as VP Direct Marketing at Yahoo before leaving to become a full time speaker, writer and blogger. Seth is also the founder of Squidoo.com, a fast-growing recommendation website.

He holds an MBA from Stanford, and was called “the Ultimate Entrepreneur for the Information Age” by Business Week.

The Emerging Musical Middle Class ~ Guest Blog by Bruce Houghton

At the musician website Hypebot, agent Bruce Houghton has been leading many discussions to help define what the musician middle class looks like. As these debates are very encouraging for musicians who seek to make a full-time living, I’m including one of my favorite articles of his on the subject, which was a two-part series. Feel free to chime in below with your comments.

The Emerging Musical Middle Class
by Bruce Houghton

I wrote on Monday about the emerging Musical Middle Class – a world populated by more artists selling 20-100,00 copies and making a living through direct sales, touring, merch and other streams; and because there are fewer outsiders taking a cut. They are empowered by the viral marketing and direct sales that the net enables. In my work as an agent, its a new paradigm that I see clearly even though its just starting to take shape.

Some great debate has ensued because others see such a glut of lousy music that it seems impossible to gain traction without the help of a label and because they can find so few success to point to.

Fair points, but the bands I see forming the emerging musical middle class are not the indie buzz bands that go it on their own and fail to sell the units that label bands do. Those were acts of trying to play the old game with new rules. The bands I’m speaking of (examples in the original article) are flying below the industry’s radar and by selling via gigs and their web site, the majority of units never reach Soundscan.

The skepticism may also come in how we view the term middle class. I see it defined as having “a comfortable standard of living, significant economic security, considerable work autonomy and rely on their expertise to sustain themselves.” We may not know exactly what the Musical Middle Class looks like or how they will get there. We do know it’s not about limos and private jets. But that still beats having to make music only on weekends.

Part 1 of this article

###

Bruce Houghton blogs daily on the new music industry and technology at Hypebot.com. He is also a 25 year music industry veteran who owns booking agency Skyline Music and the tour marketing company Skyline Innovations.

With Pat Woodward and Duncan Freeman, Bruce also co-hosts ArtistDish, a 30 minute podcast about the state of the indie music industry, its trends and tools impacting independent artists, labels, managers, etc.

Bruce also consults on the topics of Music Industry & Technology, and serves on the Visionary Committee of MidemNet.

Follow Bruce on Twitter

Focus on a Few ~ Guest Blog by Andrew Goodrich

One of my best recent finds on Twitter is @artistshouse, also known as the team of Andrew Goodrich, George Howard, Brett Cooper, and Evan Stoudt from the indie musician site Artists House.

When I found this article of Andrew’s on the Artists House site, I knew I had found a kindred spirit in the indie music world. Andrew is currently studying music business at Loyola University in New Orleans, and by the looks of his writing, his future is promising. Enjoy!

Focus on a Few
by Andrew Goodrich

My proposition to you is to spend less time worrying about the number of friends or followers you have on social networks. Instead, focus on fewer but more valuable people.

Online social networking tools can be powerful, but numbers are just numbers and don’t necessarily represent your real “reach.” Does having 500 friends on Facebook mean that 500 people are paying attention to what I do and value what I say? Maybe. Maybe not.

At worst, putting your faith in the stats can mislead you into taking steps you (and your bandmates) might not yet be ready for (e.g. We have 5,000 MySpace friends in Chicago, so we should divert our tour there!). Do those numbers really represent the group of people that will actually show up to a show when you make it into town? Or if you are leveraging your friend stats to try to get a label deal, do those numbers actually represent how many people will fork over the money to buy your album when it finally gets released? If not, do you know about how many will?

You know what I’m getting at. Even though it’s extremely tempting to use your friend statistics to measure success and reach, in reality I think those numbers are typically misrepresentative because the systems are so highly diluted.

Consider another scenario: I could fill my Rolodex with thousands of music industry contacts that I’ve managed to scour from websites, e-mails, chance meetings, etc. These people represent the movers in the industry, but unless I have developed relationships with those people on some kind of meaningful level, their information represents absolutely no value to me whatsoever.

So instead of trying to befriend the masses, just befriend the individuals you can build genuine relationships with.

Pay attention to these people first and foremost, because they are the people that will go out and spread the word about what you do – especially if you have convinced them that you are a real, authentic, and valuable person. They are the ones that will actually show up to your shows and purchase your albums.

Plus, if you spend your time developing good relationships with smaller numbers of people, you’ve effectively reached thousands. Each one of those unique people that you now have a personal rapport with has the ability to reach and influence possibly hundreds of others. If you give them the tools to do so, they probably will. Now that you’ve developed a really core group of committed people around what you do, you can rely on them to represent you to more people than you could have ever reached by mass marketing in the beginning.

Don’t waste your time trying to reach the masses – that’s what your friends are for!

###

Andrew Goodrich is currently studying business and music industry at Loyola University New Orleans. He’s an aspiring music business entrepreneur, casual musician and photographer, and an avid supporter of artists.

He has interned at Alan Ett Creative Group and 20th Century Fox’s Newman Scoring Stage and Post Production Department. In the future, he hopes to find himself where film and music meet.

He currently resides under the roof of Artists House Music as a video editor and regular contributor to the Artists House Music blog. Artists House Music is a free educational resource for musicians and music entrepreneurs.

The $52.45 Music Marketing Plan ~ Guest Blog by David Rose

The $52.45 Music Marketing Plan
by David Rose

If you’re a musician working to build a career in the music business hopefully you have already covered the basics like getting your own website, setting up a MySpace page and signing up for distribution through a company like CD Baby or TuneCore.

There are numerous solutions now available for marketing music at a minimal cost but keep in mind that none of them can offer a magic bullet for success in the music business. Below are a few categories and companies worth considering when you sit down to develop your music marketing plan.

Radio

Online radio is growing quickly in popularity among music fans as many of the providers have greatly improved their music recommendation technology and added social networking options to help their members discover new music. Here are two popular online radio providers that accept submissions directly from artists, have a large base of listeners and feature links that allow fans to buy the music they are enjoying.

Pandora – Accepts artist submissions only via mail but it’s definitely worth the effort. They only add songs into rotation that meet their quality standards. Their address is: Music Genome Project Submissions, 360 22nd St. Suite 440 Oakland, CA, 94612. Cost: $2.50 (for postage)

Last.FM – Artists can directly upload their music to the site, create an artist page, join genre based groups, add friends and build their own station. Cost: $0

Licensing

Licensing music for television, films, video games or advertising has emerged as one of the best ways for independent artists to actually get paid for their work plus gain exposure from a wide audience. If you control the rights to your music, a non-exclusive agreement can be signed that typically pays 50% of the licensing fees collected. Two of the leading licensing companies that accept submissions directly from artists are:

Rumblefish – Rumblefish features an online music licensing store that makes it easy for buyers to search and purchase licenses directly from their catalog of available music. They also allow artists to keep 100% of their PRO royalties Cost: $0

PumpAudio – PumpAudio was recently acquired by Getty Images and is now able to offer Getty’s existing customers access to their music licensing catalog. Cost: $0

Gigs

Playing live shows is one of the most important things an artist can do to build a fan base and create momentum for their career. Of course it’s very difficult to get booked if you are not widely known, regardless of your talent level. A couple of online tools that can help artists improve their chances of getting booked are:

Sonicbids – Sonicbids allows artists to create an electronic press kit (EPK) that can be submitted via email instead of mailing costly and environmentally unfriendly traditional press kits. They also feature a list of promoters and gig openings where artists can submit their EPK for consideration. Cost: $49.95 annually.

Eventful – Eventful is a leading provider of local community events calendars where artists can upload their tour dates. Their unique approach allows fans to create demand for a specific artist to play in their town. Artists can use demand information to help them plan a successful tour. Cost: $0

Mobile

Many music fans now spend more time on their mobile device than their PC: It only makes sense to develop a mobile strategy for promoting your music. Mobile marketing solutions can include text messaging, ringtones, ringbacks, full track downloads, wallpaper and mobile fan clubs. Two solution providers that make it easy for artists to start marketing their music through mobile devices are:

Broadtexter – Broadtexter lets independent artists easily create mobile fan clubs plus text fans with artist news and regionally based tour date alerts. Costs: $0

MyxerTones – MyxerTones allows artists to create mobile phone ringtones and wallpapers that can be bought directly from a mobile device or the artist’s website. Artists can set their own prices and keep 60% of the revenue collected for their content. Costs: $0

Awareness

Building a strong fan base is the key component to a successful career but simply finding a way to get noticed by fans can be quite challenging. There are a lot of great options for promoting your music on the web and here are a few that you should definitely consider:

OurStage – OurStage features a monthly competition where fans use a voting system to determine the best song and video by genre then select an overall winner. There are several monthly prizes, including a $5000 grand prize. Fans of your specific genre will get exposed to your music and even have the option of purchasing it. Cost: $0

Artist Data Systems – ADS can automatically synchronize an artist’s information, news and tour dates across several social networks and music related sites. This allows an artist to expand the number of places where fans can discover their music without the hassle of individually managing the same information on multiple sites. Cost: $0

ReverbNation – ReverbNation offers a vast assortment of promotional and viral marketing tools for artists including email newsletters, media players, street team programs and embeddable widgets. They also provide detailed reporting and statistics on fans, songs, traffic and widget use. Cost: $0 (they actually pay artists a share of ad revenue from their site)

###

David Rose is a former technology industry and music business executive and currently the Managing Editor at KnowTheMusicBiz.com

Follow David on Twitter

Visit Know the Music Biz Website