The 5 Most Important Questions Every Serious Musician Needs To Ask Themselves

At some point, every musician hits a wall. The worst part is, sometimes you don’t even realize it. You’re trudging along, so stuck in the day to day and what you need to do to keep your head above water that any room for growth is instantly stunted. And before you know it, you’re beating your head against the wall trying to figure out why there hasn’t been any real progress in six months.

When a venture is new and everything is still fresh and exciting, it’s easy to get swept up in the potential of it all. But when dreaming turns to reality, and the stress of day-to-day life hits us, we forget how essential it is to step back and really focus on the future – not just the now. So before you go throwing in the towel, try asking yourself these five questions.

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6 Dead Giveaways That You're Uncomfortable Onstage

This post originally appeared on the Sonicbids Blog

Performing live music is a nerve-racking experience. No amount of singing in the mirror or head-banging in the garage can quite prepare you for the moment when the lights come up and you’re there. The center of attention. The subject of scrutiny. “Here we are now, entertain us.”

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How To Be Yourself In The Music Industry

People are so weird. Last week, I was at this amazing barbecue restaurant and the table next me to opens up their bags, pulls out some ribs, and asks the waiter: “Uh excuse me, can we get some plates? We brought our own food.” WHY WOULD YOU BRING YOUR OWN FOOD TO A RESTAURANT After I wondered how this …

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How Songwriters Can Emotionally Connect With Their Audience

Dave Grohl, arguably one of the best songwriters of his generation, highlights the importance of being able to connect your songs to your audience. The best songs, and the longest lasting songs are the ones that are able to connect to listeners across generations, and across popular fads. But how can modern songwriters accomplish this? In today’s world, everything is constantly changing, and what people want from their music is constantly changing with it. By following these simple but yet helpful tips, you will find your songs become deeper, and more accessible to your audience.

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MusicThinkTank Weekly Recap: Beware Of The Controlled Composition Clause

• Larry Butler | How To Be A Successful Performing Artist In The New Millennium pt. 2
• Gillian Driscoll | 5 Creative Ways To Keep The Buzz Going After Your Show
• Wallace Collins | Beware Of The Controlled Compositions Clause
• Dylan Welsh | 5 Things Serious Musicians Should Do Every Day

5 Things Serious Musicians Should Do Every Day

When you desire to improve upon a skill, regardless of what the skill is, consistency is key. Practicing your instrument for 90 minutes every day will produce much better results than trying to fit six hours of practice into two days per week. This holds true for every aspect of the music industry. Consistent, daily work will be much more efficient and keep you much more sane than trying to fit a week’s worth of work into your single day off.

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5 Creative Ways To Keep The Buzz Going After Your Show

In my last post, I discussed five creative ways to build buzz before a show. For this edition, we’re focusing on ways to maintain momentum after a gig.

Any music fan knows about the high you get after seeing a killer show. That feeling makes you want to listen to the band even more, purchase merchandise, and vow to see them perform again. Artists shouldn’t let these moments pass them by, as this is one of the best opportunities to connect with your fans (new and seasoned) face to face. 

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Beware Of The Controlled Compositions Clause

Under U.S. Copyright law, Congress has seen fit to legislate a minimum statutory mechanical royalty rate for songwriters and their publishers.  Based on an upward-sliding scale tied to a cost-of-living index, the minimum mechanical royalty rate is set by the Copyright Royalty Tribunal on a per song per record basis. The current rate in effective is $.091 per song.  However, most record companies use their substantial leverage over fledgling recording artists to cause them to enter into record contracts which purport to reduce this minimum rate pursuant to the “controlled composition” clause - and this provision might also be made to apply to producers and songwriters who do work for those artists.

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How To Be A Successful Performing Artist In The New Millennium - Part Two

Last month, in Part One, we established that the only money in the music business right now is in performing your own songs and owning your own publishing and merch. We looked at the eleven things an aspiring singer/songwriter needed to do in order to be able to take the next step into learning how to become an entertainer and communicate and connect with an audience. Part One involved a lot of hard work and long, boring hours of practice and re-writes with little to no payoff. Now it gets interesting, although there’s still plenty of hard work ahead. Part Two assumes that the artist has completed all the steps in Part One.

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MusicThinkTank Weekly Recap: 5 Solid Ways To Check If Your Music Is Really Good Enough To Release

• Alex Cowles | 5 Ways To Check If Your Music Is Good Enough To Release
• Sonicbids | 4 Old-School Promotional Methods That Still Work
• Jeremy Lescombe | Guide To Improving Home Studio Acoustics [INFOGRAPHIC]
• Jack McCarthy | 6 Ways To Build An Engaged Audience On SoundCloud  
• Ledgernote | What Goes Where? Setting Up A Recording Studio

5 Solid Ways To Check If Your Music Really Is Good Enough To Release

Music appreciation is subjective. We all know this, and it’s one of the reasons why you can spend endless nights debating with your friends over whether the latest Flying Lotus release is really better than his production work with Thundercat or whether there is artistic merit in the Cloud Rap niche and how it might do better to integrate some of the sounds of drum & bass.

It’s rare to find someone who likes *exactly* the same kind of music as you, especially once you start delving a little deeper than “yeah, I guess I like to listen to all sorts of stuff”.

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4 Old-School Promotional Methods That Still Work

Step right up! Step right up! You don’t need to hire a carnival barker, but you shouldn’t spend your entire life online. 

We live in an age where fans receive hundreds of Facebook event invites, and artists see dozens of people click “going” only to perform to crowds that include very few of those people. Artists tweet links to events and send out e-flyers on Instagram, and while everything I’ve just mentioned is a free way of promoting an event or album, is it as effective as some of the tried-and-true ways of the past?

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Guide To Improving Home Studio Acoustics [INFOGRAPHIC]

There have beenLeaps and bounds in music technology over the past decade; giving the run-of-the-mill musician a new found set of applications and musical suites at their fingertips.

This has seen a sharp increase in the number of recording spaces popping up in domestic dwellings. A pair of cheap monitors, a budget microphone and some clever configuration of increasingly intuitive recording programs is the usual plan of attack for those forgoing the professional recording experience in favour of a DIY-approach.

It takes more than a random arrangement of recording equipment in a granny flat to create a studio that will actually sound good, however.

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6 Ways To Build An Engaged Audience On SoundCloud

SoundCloud is a fantastic resource for your music. The platform is great for hosting music privately to send to promoters, record labels, or any stakeholders that you might hope to get involved in your musical endeavors since most interested parties do not want you to email them mp3 attachments or physical CDs. However, if you are only using SoundCloud to host and share music links you might be missing out. It serves a greater purpose as a music streaming and social giant. Here are six ways to start taking advantage of the social nature of SoundCloud and build an audience:

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