I received this email this morning:
Hi. My name is XXXXXXX. I was wondering if we could maybe strike a deal. You see, I have no money because I am not famous yet. If you can help me become famous, then instead of giving you 30 dollars, I will give you 500 dollars!
Scott Ginsberg, author and motivational speaker, writes:
Because of our instant gratification culture, we’re impatient.
Because of our privileged upbringing, we developed a mediocre work ethic.
Because of our self-reliant, entrepreneurial bent, we don’t offer loyalty easily.
Because of our abundance of choices, we’re quick to quit and pursue something better.
No wonder we can’t stick with anything for very long.
Now let me ask you this:
Are you sticking to your plan to achieve a successful career in music?
And what do you do when your plan doesn’t go according to plan?
“Lior, I couldn’t be more grateful for the connections you made for me with Beth and Jon. I signed a contract with Imaginary Friends this week, and also talked to Jon. I was nervous to work with both of them at the same time, but Jon called Beth yesterday.. and everything will be working out fine. Jon will be pitching my music to MTV and ETV! and Beth will be licensing for other TV networks. Jon says there are new shows opening for June, and placements will happen really quickly. I will let you know if I have more good news! Thank you so so much.”
- Hee Young
MusikPitch offers free song contests for songwriters. Simply select a free song contest and submit your songs. There’s no cost to take part, it’s a great way to get your music heard, and there’s a cash prize for the winner.
Over the weekend, I was thinking about the many artists out there that don’t have the means to write with others, learn from others, and finance a demo or live showcase.
You see, at We Are Listening, we look at an artist’s musical merit. But we also realize that in order for an artist to demonstrate his full potential, he has to have support and encouragement from family and friends, access to venues and recording facilities, and a little money to travel, record and self-promote.
Many artists simply don’t have the opportunity to be heard, let alone get signed or published. Some come from broken homes, dead-end jobs, and unmanageable debt.
I was thinking that creating a scholarship program where we finance a talented artist based on his or her financial circumstances – not just musical merit – would be an excellent initiative for We Are Listening.
A We Are Listening scholarship program would provide a handful of struggling artists with an opportunity to rise above the noise and ease the harsh realities of their day to day lives.
I’d like to think that it would make a difference.
This is a guest post by Dave Kusek
Again and again, I have heard this sage advice when asking producers, label executives, and publishers about artist development. Take your time. The first and most important thing to do is to get the music right: love your music, immerse yourself in it, and live it.
As an artist/writer, your coin of the realm is your songs, and they need to be great, polished, and professional. The worst thing you can do is go to market too soon. Without careful preparation, practice, understanding, listening to others, testing your material, developing its quality, and crafting and articulating a unique story to tell, you will probably enter the marketplace too early and will most likely fail. Start out slowly. Practice. A lot.
Another critical component of artist development is live performance. Any venue will do to get started. Play the smallest clubs to get used to performing and being in front of an audience. Everybody gets better over time, and live performance in front of a crowd does many positive things for your career. When you play live, you develop sets of songs that you play and expand your repertoire. Don’t be afraid to play other people’s material mixed in with your own. Covers create a sense of familiarity that you can use to build your audience. You are also learning by playing the songs of other great artists.
Performing live helps you build your confidence and song quality, lets you interact with an audience, and experience their reactions to your songs. Also, when you play live, you can test out different material and approaches to your songs. You can experiment and find out new things about the song, tempo, bridge, chorus, lyric, etc. You can see which songs are the most popular, what should be the rhythm of your set, where the audience loses its attention, and how best to open and close a show.
Live performance and touring is a major cornerstone to any artist’s career and is one of the best ways to develop an audience. Over time, your audience will grow with you as you refine your art. Superstars Bruce Springsteen, Billy Joel, James Taylor, Paul Simon, and countless others all played small clubs for very minimal dollars at first, refining their approach, music, and brands to small audiences that grew over time. Just look at the size of their audiences now.
Many successful executives have told me that good music finds an audience and is very difficult to keep under wraps. If you want to have a long career in the music business, take a good look at yourself, who are you, and the package that you bring to the table. Do you have the songs, do you have the talent, do you have the charisma, and are you really ready to go to market? Develop, refine, write, practice, play live, listen, and collaborate.
Listen To Others
Great artists and writers take the time to develop, but they also listen to people around them who they can trust to give them feedback and keep them honest about what they are trying to do and how well they are accomplishing it. This is role of the A&R person, record producer, publisher, and artist manager. You simply cannot believe your own press and expect to be successful. You also cannot rely on your mother or family to be objective about what you are doing. You need to get honest opinions from a lot of different people who will tell you the truth. Listen carefully to them as a sounding board for your career and ask hard questions like the following: Do you like my songs? How do I look on stage? What do I need to do to improve? What advice can you give me?
Your fans are the ultimate source of feedback. Set up a blog or some other means of creating two-way communication. Encourage people to tell you what they think. Hand out postcards at your gigs, collect your fans email and cell phone numbers, and ask them what they think of your set, your songs, your performance, etc. Don’t be afraid of what you might hear, and use the feedback to learn, refine, and further develop your brand and music.
Collaborate
Having a band is a great way to collaborate, and hopefully you will find other musicians to play and write with at various points in your career. Another hallmark of great artists and writers is that they work with different musicians to write songs, perform together, cover each other’s songs, and most importantly learn from one another. Collaboration and the exchange of ideas are the life-blood of creative artistry.
Collaboration does not mean that you are joined at the hip with another artist forever. You can move in and out of collaborative partnerships when you need something new to spark the creative juices or just get you going in another direction. Working with other talented musicians can be a challenge. Quincy Jones has great advice for when you walk into the studio to work with other artists. He says, “Check your ego at the door.” Find people you can work with, who you enjoy being around, and who make you feel good.
There are many examples of great songwriting collaborations, including Holland, Holland & Dozier, Lennon and McCartney, and Elton John and Bernie Taupin. The list is long. Don’t be afraid to cowrite with other people or to record other songwriter’s material. This can help you reach a broader audience, develop your talents in new directions, and potentially open up your brand by association with other great artists.
One of the most successful songwriters of the last 30 years is Don Henley of the Eagles. He talks about identifying your strengths and weaknesses through collaboration with great writers like Jackson Brown and Glen Frey, and being willing to put someone else’s songs on your record if they are better than your own. Seems to have worked for him.
Many of the most successful songs of all time have come out of collaborative partnerships that were organized on a formal level at some of the songwriting factories of the past, including the Brill Building, Motown, and Philadelphia International. Collaboration helps you to stand on the shoulders of others and to peer over a horizon that you might not be able to see on your own.
About The Author
Dave Kusek is the Founder and CEO of Music Power Network and Vice President at Berklee College of Music. He is also the co-author of the best selling music business book, The Future of Music: Manifesto for the Digital Music Revolution.
In his book, Future Hit.DNA, author Jay Frank establishes that:
The rock fan that likes some country is more apt to like country that tends to have a hint of rock to it. This could be a country based artist who produces his songs with a bit more electric guitar, such as Keith Urban, or it could be a rock artist who tiptoes into country waters, like Bon Jovi. A traditional country fan may like these artists, but he might not readily acknowledge them as bona-fide country performers. Yet to a rock fan, they become as country as Garth Brooks.
Shakira’s “Hips Don’t Lie” is the perfect example of a song that really went out of its way to contain elements of multiple genres. At its heart, it is a clear and simple pop song. The rhythms, however, are club oriented, and lean toward Latin beats, specifically a light version of Reggaeton. Producer Wyclef Jean’s intro and brief raps, accented with a sample from the classic hip-hop anthem “Déjà Vu” (Uptown Baby),” tie her neatly into the hip-hop world. Put it all together, and you no longer hit just one element of Shakira’s fan base, but nearly every potential fan. With no other songs exploiting these relationships to this degree, “Hips Don’t Lie” easily became the most-played song of 2006.
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Should You Use A Rhyming Dictionary?
Focus Groups For The Music Industry
Music Publishing, New And Old Skool
In his book Songwriting: Essential Guide to Rhyming, author Pat Pattison writes:
Occasionally when I’ve asked writers what rhyming dictionary they use, some have been indignant, as though to say, “I do not cheat. I am self-sufficient.” Others have looked at me sadly, as if hoping that someday I will abandon my artificial crutch and get in touch with my creative inner self.
Use a rhyming dictionary. This is one place where self-reliance and rugged individualism is silly. Finding rhymes is almost never a creative act. It is purely mechanical search. On those few occasions where it is creative (finding mosaic rhymes, for example), a rhyming dictionary can still stimulate the creative process.
The self reliant writer who thinks rhyming is a spontaneous expression of personal creativity can usually be seen gazing into space, lost somewhere in the alphabet song, “discovering” one-syllable words. This “alphabet process” is certainly at least as artificial as a rhyming dictionary. Nothing about it is creative or pure, nor is it spontaneous. The worst part of it is its inefficiency.
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Since the release of his debut album, “The Living Room Sessions”, in April 2008, Andrew Allen has toured and played live in more than 200 venues throughout Western Canada and the UK, secured airtime on the UK’s BBC Radio 1 as well as on Canada’s own CBC radio, and, most recently, won Round 1 of The 2009 Singer/Songwriter Awards from We Are Listening. His winning entry, “Not Loving You”, draws striking resemblance to “I’m Yours” by Jason Mraz, while other tracks from his setlist gravitate toward the sound and songwriting style of Maroon 5, John Mayer and Jack Johnson. Congratulations Andrew, we look forward to working with you!
After winning The Singer/Songwriter Awards in the last quarter of 2008, Jesse Terry opted to work with We Are Listening’s accredited music supervisor and founder of Tinderbox Music, Jon Delange, as his prize package. With only ten copies of Jesse’s latest release, “The Runner”, Jon secured no less than nine network-sized television placement licenses on Jesse’s behalf, including MTV (Road Rules, The Real World, Road Rules Challenge, The Hills, The City, Human Giant, My Super Sweet Sixteen, Teen Cribs, Parental Control); E Network (Keeping Up With the Kardashians); and Oxygen Network (Bad Girls Club). The relative ease in which Jon placed “The Runner” is a reflection of Jesse’s adaptive songwriting style and compatibility with today’s leading pop-culture entertainment.
“Just got news that nine TV shows (including The Hills and The City) are interested in using music from my record. I am holding the licenses in my hand!! This is all possible because of We Are Listening and your investment in my career. I’m so grateful. I feel like things are really starting to line-up…” — Jesse
More Success Stories by We Are Listening.
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