Are Musicians Really More Likely To Use Drugs?

I used to do social work for a living, the kind of social work where you work with people in the field to reinforce what they’re learning in therapy. I was also (and still am) a musician. Throughout my time as a social worker, and really throughout my life, I’ve noted the pervasive picture of the musician as addict, the musician as drug user, and the musician as junky. 

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Kurt Cobain & Elliott Smith – Seattle & Portland: 2 Songwriters, 2 Cities, 1 Spirit Of DIY

Kurt Cobain and Elliott Smith are two musicians who share more than just a North West residency. Fiercely independent, and committed to doing things their own way, they epitomize the vibes of Seattle and Portland respectively.

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MusicThinkTank Weekly Recap: Why I Quit The Music Industry

• Nat Danger | Why I Quit The Music Industry To Join My Local Music Scene
• Warren Fowler | How To Prevent And Deal With Arthritis As A Musician
• Rachelle Wilber | Fortunate Musician: How Your Band Can Get More Gigs
• Brian Clark | How Music Affects Your Memory

Why I Quit The Music Industry To Join My Local Music Scene

In the spring of 2009, I was a college senior staring down the barrel of graduation, and I was clueless.

I knew just one thing: I wanted to make music. 

So I did the best thing I knew. I moved to Chicago, where I knew a few other musicians who had been making a living. I moved in with some friends in Wicker Park, built a home studio, and got to work.

I spent my days rushing across town to get the best busking spots, making phone calls to label reps, promoters, and distributors, and playing shows. In what little free time I had, I worked on my album. After a while, I had to get a day job to afford to live in the city, which made my music routine almost unmanageable. 

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How To Prevent And Deal With Arthritis As A Musician

Arthritis is a chronic condition that can jeopardize your career as a musician, but it doesn’t have to be so serious if you learn how it works and prevent major symptoms. In this post, we described the most common types of the disease and explained how to deal with it.

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Fortunate Musician: How Your Band Can Get More Gigs

Every band has to start out somewhere—even today’s most popular bands were once local bands looking for gigs to play. While you may get your fair share of shows here and there, you’ve probably found that combing through Craigslist and posting on social media isn’t enough to find the right shows. If you’re ready to get to the next level, read on for four ways you can guarantee that your band gets more gigs than ever before.

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How Music Affects Your Memory

Has it ever happened to you that you hear an old touching song that brought up beautiful memories? The power of music is so strong that it creates some special links in our minds, especially during the earlier stages of our lives.

Music can help people with damaged memory remember some events from their past. This is most useful with people suffering from Alzheimer’s disease and dementia.

On the other hand, playing a musical instrument can improve your memory as well. In this article, we’re going to discuss these topics and show you the major benefits that music can bring to your memory.

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MusicThinkTank Weekly Recap: Weird Mixing

• Michael Hahn | 7 Weird Mixing Terms And What They Mean
• Hazel Ramsell | Do You Still Think You’re A Music Expert After This Vinyl Challenge?
• Casa Palmera | Learning To Love Music Festivals As A Sober Person
• Victor Taylor | Crash Course On Using Spotify And Other Streaming Services
• Nate Talbot | Do I Need A Manager Pt. 1
• Lisa Occhino | How To Get Your Music Featured On Spotify Playlists

7 Weird Mixing Terms And What They Mean

Guest post by Michael Hahn. This article originally appeared on Soundfly’s Flypaper

Engineers can get pretty fired up when they’re talking about mixing music. Your sound is a difficult thing to describe — throw in a layer of technical jargon and it can be downright frustrating just to talk about your tracks.

Fortunately, there are some common terms engineers use to help communicate mix issues and the qualities of sound. I’ll go through seven of the most common “odd” mixing terms, what they mean, and how to deal with the elements of your mix they refer to.

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Do You Still Think You're A Music Expert After This Vinyl Challenge?

Think about some of the most iconic albums in history… The sound. The artist. The cover art.

Real music fans will be able see the hear the music and visualise an image when they think about some of the bestselling albums in history.

But would you be able to spot these vinyl albums out of a crowd?

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Learning To Love Music Festivals As A Sober Person

Music festivals and nightclubs may seem like places to avoid if you’re recently sober. That might be true, if the scene is a specific trigger for your addiction. However, attending music festivals sober can be a fantastic experience and a welcome opportunity.

Here is a series of tips and tricks for joining up with your peers in recovery who also love music. Keep safe and protect your good health by learning to attend music festivals clean and sober.

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Crash Course On Using Spotify And Other Streaming Services - For Independent Acts

The subscription-based music streaming model of Spotify and others – at the moment – makes it extremely unlikely for independent artists to make any significant money from sales of their music directly via those services.

It’s still also yet to be proven as a viable business model in itself, even after hundreds of millions of pounds invested in it. However, subscription-based streaming (although it will change and evolve) is here to stay, for the foreseeable future.

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Do I Need A Manager Pt. 1

Is it time for a manager? Well, before we answer this, let’s quickly describe what a personal manager really does. Now the requirements can vary from case to case, but in general, the manager guides the artists career by becoming your business front. The manager is the one with…

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How To Get Your Music Featured On Spotify Playlists

This guest post by Lisa Occhino originally appeared on the Bandzoogle Blog 

Stream counts are a big indicator of success on Spotify, but there’s another factor that plays an enormous role: the number of times your tracks have been added to playlists.

According to BuzzFeed, one out of five plays across all streaming services happens within a playlist, and that number continues to grow. Half of Spotify’s global users listen to human-curated playlists (as opposed to algorithmic playlists), which generate more than a billion plays per week.

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