Get Your Music Distributed On iTunes And Amazon.mp3

Get your music on iTunes, Amazon mp3, Napster, eMusic and many other online sales channels using TuneCore.

   Today it’s easier than ever to get your own original music recorded either at home or at a professional studio. Once you have the perfect recording of your original song it’s easier than ever to sell your music to your fans. The beauty of current online music distribution channels such as iTunes or Amazon.mp3 service is that anyone can get their music sold through those channels. Today I’m going to tell you about a very easy way to get your music distributed through iTunes, Amazon.mp3, eMusic and many other major online music distributors.    Continue reading “Get Your Music Distributed On iTunes And Amazon.mp3”

How To Make It As A Professional Musician

Making it as a professional musician is as easy as getting out of your comfort zone and start talking to people that can help you.

Madonna - Top Of The Promotional Heap
Madonna - Top Of The Promotional Heap

   Ask any musician that you know if they would like to make a living playing music full time in a live band or even as a studio musician and I’m pretty sure their answer will always be an emphatic “yes”. Every guitarist I know dreams of making their living playing guitar. The thing is, great musicians are a dime a dozen. You can find excellent musicians living on every block. So how come so few of them are doing any professional playing?

   The answer is incredibly simple, it’s because they have failed at self promotion. So how do you self promote? Again, the answer is a simple one. All you have to do is get out of your practice room and go talk to people! Musicians are notorious for staying in their own little world and dreaming about making a living playing music. All it takes to get out there and make it playing music is to get speaking to anyone and everyone that can possibly help you in your quest.

   So where can you find people that will help you with your quest to play professionally? The first place is your local music store. Get down there and start talking to the salespeople. Find out who the top players in your area are. Try to find out where you can meet the best players and highest level musicians in your area. Maybe they come into the local music store regularly. If so, see if you can find a time to talk to them while they’re at the store.    Continue reading “How To Make It As A Professional Musician”

Market Your Band With Social Networking

Using social networking sites like MySpace, Facebook and LinkedIn is a perfect way to market and promote your band and music.

Visit Matt's MySpace Page
Visit Matt Rushton's MySpace Page

   There are so many ways for live musicians to reach our audience today that there’s really no excuse not to be using some of them. Today I’m going to discuss using the social networking sites out there for marketing you, your band and your music. I’m talking about using MySpace, Facebook and LinkedIn to connect with your fans as well as other musicians and bands. There are a lot of social networking sites and some that are dedicated strictly to music and musicians but I’m going to focus on Facebook, MySpace and LinkedIn.

   Of those three big social networking sites the one that caters the best to musicians and bands is MySpace. MySpace allows you to create a musician specific profile about you or your band and upload your own original music for playback on your profile page. You can also allow people to download your songs for free. The big advantage to MySpace is you get a unique URL that incorporates your name, or a version of it in the URL. For example, my MySpace URL is http://www.myspace.com/mattrushtonmusic . It’s fairly short and it has my name in it. Continue reading “Market Your Band With Social Networking”

Market Your Band By Giving Out Free Swag

Giving away free items at your gigs is a very effective way to market your live band.

Personalized Wristbands
Personalized Wristbands

   Constant marketing is essential for every live musician to promote their music and their band. With marketing your goal is to be able to keep your name and and logo in front of as many people as you can as often as you can. That brings me to the topic of giving away free swag. Yes the term “Free Swag” is a current buzz phrase on the marketing scene especially among the young and the hip. In case you were wondering, the term “Swag” as it’s used here means cool free stuff. Traditionally, swag means booty, goods or money stolen by any thief and is most commonly associated with pirates. Yo-Ho! As I said, it’s really just appealing to the young hipsters of today.

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The Key To Successful Band Marketing, Network

Networking In Action - Eric Clapton's All-Star Jam

   Probably the single most important thing a live musician can do to successfully market themselves, their band and their music is to network with as many other musicians as they possibly can. I can tell you from experience that I’m able to keep playing gigs because of who I know and associate with in my musical realm. I’m not a big self-promoter but I have contacts and friends in the music world that are really good with promotion and finding gigs. Networking with these types of people have really helped me advance my career. By networking with other bands and musicians you can increase your chances of hooking up with them for all sorts of gigs and musical projects.

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Playing A Charity Function Gig

Charity Show For Children's Hospital Autism Program

   Playing a charity gig can be a fantastic way to do some good in your community and give you an excellent opportunity to do some band marketing. Every live musician is looking for as much exposure as possible to be able to market their band and music to as many people as they can reach. If your band gets the chance to play a charity benefit you should take a good look at the potential of reaching a large audience that you normally wouldn’t get to come to your regular shows.

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How To Get People To Come To Your Shows

Shufflin Noah Flyer

   One of the biggest challenges you’ll face as a band is getting people to come out and see you when you play. It’s not as big of a problem when you’re in a cover band that’s playing in clubs where there’s a regular crowd every weekend that enjoys music by live musician‘s. If you’re playing original music, it can be difficult to fill up a room consistently. Whatever type of band you’re in, there are a few methods you can use to get people out to your shows.

   The first thing you need to do of course is network all of the bands friends and family. They’ll be your biggest source of quality audience because they should already like you, at least personally. In a lot of clubs you can set up a guest list to get family members in for free. It’s always nice when you can tell your family that you’ll get them in to see you for free and it’s a way to encourage them to show up knowing that they’ll be expected at the door. Continue reading “How To Get People To Come To Your Shows”

Which Songs To Put On Your Demo Recording

Billy Joel Demo Tape

   One of the most important pieces of marketing material you will produce for your band is your demo recording. I’ve already discussed using a live recording in your marketing kit as opposed to a studio produced recording. Today I would like to discuss your song selection that you will be including on your demo. The songs you choose for your demo can sell your band in many different ways.

   I guess it’s a no-brainer that you will want to put your best songs on the demo recording. What determines your best songs? A combination of different things. Obviously you want the songs that you actually play the best. These would be the songs that the band knows like the back of their hand. Songs that you play perfectly every time you play them. It’s very important that you give a great consistent performance of your demo songs so when you play them in another club you will sound like your demo.    Continue reading “Which Songs To Put On Your Demo Recording”

Putting Together Your Band Demo CD

Make A Live Recording

One of the most important parts of your bands marketing strategy is your Demo CD. The Demo CD is going to be one of your biggest selling points in getting new gigs for your band. I’m going to give you a few tips for putting together a Demo CD that will help sell your band to club owners.

   I was listening to Demo CD’s one night with a club owner who was trying to sift through prospective band for his club. I remember he kept saying things like “Studio recording”, “Studio Effects”, and “Too Produced”. And he would toss those Demo CD’s in the trash. What the guy was looking for was a live representation of how the band would sound when they played in his club.

   So the most important aspect of putting together a successful Demo CD is to make a good live recording of your band. Preferably with a lot of crowd cheering mixed in. Club owners want an accurate snapshot of how you’ll sound playing in their club. They want to hear how you talk to the crowd and how the crowd is reacting to you. So a live CD is the must for getting into clubs.

   If you do want to mix a few studio tracks on your Demo CD that’s okay, but put them at the end. Club owners really don’t care what you sound like in the studio. The best thing to do is have the live demo for the club owners and a studio demo to give to fans at your shows. The studio demos should also have some live tracks at the end because you never know when one of your fans is going to put a Demo CD in the hands of someone who can line gigs up for you.

   There are a couple ways to capture a good live CD. One is to record your show at a club that you regularly play at and hopefully you’ll catch a good night. Another way is to control things a bit more and invite a rowdy crowd of friends to a more controlled environment for recording. I’ve done both and the demo’s we’ve recorded with a crowd of friends has usually turned out better just because the band was more relaxed and interacting easier with the crowd. Remember, the club owners want to hear some stage banter.

   Finally, put your best songs on the Demo CD. Make sure they’re the songs that everybody will know and recognize. If you want to really show off your skills with a highly technical song, only put one on. Also, unless you want to play weddings, only put one slow song on the Disc.

   It’s really excellent practice to record all your live shows because you never know when you’re going to have that perfect gig. You just may get the live recording of a lifetime. So be prepared by having a recorder at the gig recording your show.

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