I don’t know about you, but in my background, the term “self-promotion” was kind of like a four-letter word. Except with 13 letters. And a hyphen.
Really, promotion wasn’t a bad thing. It was the “self” in front of it that made it a four-letter word. It just seems distasteful to blow one’s own horn. Better to have someone else do it for you…right?
But here’s the thing. In the indie music business, especially starting out in it, nobody knows who you are–and hiring someone to promote you is usually out of the question. So if you don’t tell people who you are–who else will?
Donald Passman is one of the most prominent music/entertainment lawyers in the business, and is the author of All You Need to Know About the Music Business. In this video clip from Artistshouse Music, Passman discusses the changes in the music industry and where he thinks it is going in the next few years. Bear in mind as you watch this–the video was shot four years ago. It’s interesting to note how much of what he predicted is already happening.
Indie musicians: have you heard of SoundExchange? If not, you should know about them. What’s more, you should sign up with them–especially if you have recorded material that’s been released.
Why? You ask. Because you might be making money right now, without even realizing it.
Okay, musician friends, time to make your brains hurt a little. If you were to describe yourself as a musician, who you are, what you’re about, what your particular niche is…what would you say? Who are you, really?
As I’ve been covering the music scene as a blogger, I hear a lot of independent acts, both live and on record. A lot of them are fairly good, actually. Lots of talented people out there, and I respect and admire good talent when I see it.
Here’s something to make your brain hurt early on a Saturday morning: when you create music (or any other form of art)…who is the music really for?
Another way of asking this question: are we creating for our audience, or for ourselves? Or…is it art for the masses, or art for art’s sake, or somewhere in between?
This is a question that I think is always under the surface with artists and musicians–phrased in a multitude of ways, yet always there somehow. It’s a question artists have grappled with for centuries, and where they land on the issue determines the kind of art they create.
A few weeks ago, I was talking with a local musician whose band is regrouping. He was talking to me about the band’s new philosophy. “We used to be basically a studio band,” he said, “but now we aren’t going to record anything we haven’t tested out live first.” I thought that was wisdom, because it adds a measure of objective feedback to their song selection process.
From ArtistHouseMusic…the widget below contains a series of video clips of Chris Blackwell, the founder of Island Records (think U2) as he talks about various aspects of the music industry today–including a lot of insight for independent artists. These clips were filmed at a seminar at Loyola University in New Orleans. There are a lot of clips here, but it’s worth taking the time to watch them. See what you think.
Did you know you can learn something from rejection?
One time early in my career, I was given a music industry “in”, a friend of a friend in the A&R department at a record label in Nashville. I called and got permission to send in a demo of some songs I’d written, which I thought (on a purely objective level, of course) were pretty good.
A few weeks later, I got a rejection letter. It definitely stung, but I didn’t let it end there. I actually had the nerve to call the guy at the A&R department to ask what it was that caused him to turn me down.
Let’s face it–as artists, we love affirmation, even if it comes in the form of flattery. We want people to like what we do, and we want to believe people genuinely mean it when they say they like our stuff. And some genuinely do. But this need we have for affirmation can be our downfall if we don’t exercise a bit of wisdom. We need to be just a little bit suspicious of flattery, because there are people who will use this need of ours to their own advantage.
