Bob Lefsetz Tuned Into My Wavelength Today

He said ‘…every great artist will testify about frustration and insight, and if you haven’t been tempted to give up, your work is not worth a damn.’ In the article ‘Chance Favors The Prepared’, he talked about Jonah Lehrer’s book, “Imagine: How Creativity Works.”

I will probably never read that book. But I’ve lived it. In 2011, when I wrote songs everyday, I also tried to learn how to navigate the music industry.

I wanted to know how to properly register a song in all the appropriate agencies.

I wanted to know how to sell my songs online in the cheapest but most effective way possible.

I wanted to understand how people could cover my songs and how I could cover some of theirs.

I spent quite a bit of effort trying to understand how royalties work.

How the music charts work.

I investigated all sorts of new and old technology to share my music and I found there are lots of companies feeding on the misinformation and confusion in the Independent Music community.

Eventually, I wanted to change that. I wanted to share what I was learning, but I realised the more I understood, the less I knew.

Then I found the 42 Revenue Streams in Music as listed by the Futures in Music Coalition. But their list was not actionable. You couldn’t just click a link and actually USE the information and a lot of it was mainstream oriented. It was all about labels and publishers. What if you didn’t have representation, but you regularly sang original songs at gigs, got some airplay for your albums, made some amazing music videos etc… How could you earn a living?

I discovered places that pay artists and filmmakers directly. I found online and offline distributors that work with Independent musicians and DONT charge a fee upfront! I found radio stations that only play new and emerging artists. I found venues that showcase touring bands. I even found places that will feed you if you come sing while you’re on the gig-trail!

RhondasSongs is too personal for the serious business stuff to be stored here, so I launched theIMA.co and it’s there that I’m putting together a cohesive alternative for anyone in music.

I found some researchers to help me and some virtual assistants too. When we’re done, I’ll present everything to the Coalition, the Musicians Union, and my old university of music.

Bob was right in that one thing EDUCATION is the key. But technology goes hand-in-hand with it.

It’s taken nearly 2 years to figure this out. I hope my ideas will impact generations of people in music.