April 21, 2018 
April 19, 2018 “Support your local music scene!”
Whether you’re in a band, work for or own a venue, are in the business of promoting, or are content with simply supporting your favorite artists and musicians, you’ve probably heard the above admonition at least once in your life.
And yes, supporting your local music scene is important. Even still, in 2018! Actually, it’s not just important—it’s essential. For bands, fans, and the community as a whole.
Advice, Career, Networking tagged Community, local scene, networking April 19, 2018 Playing the electric guitar can be a lot of fun for many reasons. It can help you perform some of your favorite tunes in the world. It can even help you write a few incredible songs you can call your own. If you want to take complete advantage of your guitar proficiency, though, you need to make sure to invest in these four vital pieces of equipment.
Advice, Education, Guitar tagged Equipment, amps, guitar, music equipment, music tech, tech April 17, 2018 In a music-theatre context, there are a number of questions that must be answered before any song can be completed. Often when lyricists and composers collaborate on songs for a new show, these questions may be answered unconsciously or internally by each collaborator or not at all. If one person were writing a show all by herself, that might be just fine. But in a collaboration with one or two other artists, it’s critical that everyone on the team articulate these questions together, discuss them and come to agreement on each answer. If this is done before starting work on a given song, it can save everyone a lot of extra work, frustration and other unpleasant feelings. Take the time to be just a little bit pedantic when it comes to songs you’re co-writing for a new musical and you’ll be much happier with the results.
Publishing, Songwriting tagged collaboration, publishing, songwriting April 17, 2018 If you’re like most musicians from humble beginnings, you likely don’t have a very large pool from which to gather money to support your dreams in the early stages. Here’s a collection of affordable, often free, resources to help you get your feet off the ground and save as much money along the way.
April 14, 2018 
April 12, 2018 When it comes to selling merch and music at live shows, it’s not uncommon for musicians to feel uncomfortable and out-of-their-element. This unsettling feeling usually causes musicians to avoid sales altogether.
After all, we musicians are creatives. Deep down, we believe that the quality of our creative products should speak for themselves.
And yes, it should…
But only if people know about it.
That’s where marketing comes in.
Marketing, Merchandise tagged Merchandise, merch sales, merch table, music sales, sell, selling merch April 12, 2018 To dedicate a good amount of your time, energy, and resources on music is to accept that the financial reward rarely even doubles the sacrifice you put in. If you want to take your music seriously — even as a serious hobby — this makes some of your personal expenses a little bit harder to come by.
Whether it’s food, travel, or healthcare and insurance, the musician life is not always an easy one. However, hard is not the same thing as impossible. Here are some basic life hacks for saving money as a musician.
April 11, 2018 What if your job isn’t flexible enough for you to take the next step in your music career? You’re going to have to find a way to make the band your priority. Only bands who truly want to bring their music to a wide audience will get there.
Advice, Career tagged a career in music, career advice, freelance, job April 10, 2018 Contracting with minors in the entertainment industry can be a legal minefield. From talent bookers and modeling agencies to technology start-ups and other computer software companies, the predicament of employing or contracting with a party under the age of eighteen has become an increasing problem. The minor is not bound by the contract and may disaffirm the contract at any time during minority or within a reasonable time after reaching majority. Without a valid written agreement the employment is “at will” under the law of most States which means the minor can depart at any time. The dilemma created by a minor’s ability to disaffirm a contract is that it may seriously jeopardize the employer’s financial investment in the services of the minor whether it is the ongoing efforts of an agency to develop the career of a young talent or the technology company’s expectation that is owns the copyright in the code created by the teenage whiz kid it employs.
Advice, Legal Advice tagged contracts, minors April 9, 2018 Business cards, we’ve all had them. Some of us swear by them, others say “neh” and do away with them. Whatever type you are, I’m sure someone’s handed you one at some point. And you probably thought, “what the hell am I supposed to do with this?” Or maybe you were like “sweet dude, I’m gonna call you right away.” Either way it probably got you thinking. You may have thought, “wow this person really comes prepared.” I seriously doubt you thought, “heh, look this guy, what a dinosaur, still uses business cards.”
In this article we’re going to take a look at a few things you can do with business cards to stand out amongst the sea of musicians out there, and why business cards for musicians still can be used today.
Advice, Marketing tagged Creativity, DIY, Marketing, business card, networking April 7, 2018 
April 4, 2018 Five years ago, we were asked to write a simple marketing guide for unsigned bands and independent artists. We came up with ten principles for success and it was shared on the Unsigned Guide Music Blog. Since then the music industry has changed dramatically with the shift from music sales to music access. iTunes has been replaced by Apple Music and downloads with streaming. Spotify is increasingly becoming the default music service for the masses. With these developments ringing in our ears, we decided to update our principles for success.
Marketing tagged DIY, Marketing, music business, promotion, success, unsigned artist April 3, 2018 I had started writing some posts and giving advice on my social media pages, as my way of giving some advice regarding some of the things that I see and hear, both at shows, and on artists’ social media pages. It always seemed to be the same things, coming from “artists,” who excel in playing the blame game: making excuses for why they aren’t succeeding. So, I thought that I would try to be helpful, by calling artists out on their behaviors! It may not be popular, or politically correct, but if an artist can’t handle the truth and some constructive criticism, then they are in the completely WRONG business.