Today's Independent Musician - Building A Team

Teamwork For Songwriters And Musicians

Musicians working together goes way beyond just being in a band. What many musicians are not aware of is just how much strength lies within working together with other musicians, bands, songwriters, and other music professionals towards common goals.

Think about it.

One major thing that large record labels and publishers have over independent bands is their ability to draw together a team of people all working towards a focused goal, synchronised to a schedule. That is where a major part of their costs lie. People. Their money pays for lots of people.

You Do Not Need To Go It Alone

Individual musicians, or even bands, are but a speck in the music universe. The internet may have provided you with the ability to get your music to untold millions, unfortunately the number of bands and artists who are using those tools to reach fans has gone through the roof. Take a look around MySpace, Twitter or Facebook and the number of bands out there is staggering.

With top music industry commentators and music industry insiders now actively recommending bands to do it themselves, not go looking for record contracts etc, there are many professional level bands competing for the attention of fans on the internet. Only the best and most clued up get anywhere. This is your competition.

The simple fact is that with so many bands trying to get attention it is becoming harder and harder to get fans to hear your music. There are several ways to do this but doing it on your own reduces your chances greatly.

Being a speck is all well and good but when you dream of being something more, why not maximise your chances?

I would go into explaining the benefits of a team but seriously, I think everyone understands that a properly coordinated team can achieve great things. The problem within the music business is that too many make a stand on their own (as an artist -  band or individual). Each artist is an island, fighting over getting fans. In addition too many bands stumble along with absolutely no plan, no direction. Planning tends to be limited to "getting some gigs" and the occasional push towards something more out of their comfort zone.


The thing is, if the same old thing is not working... why keep doing it?


Time To Try Something New

There is no super secret. Collaborating with other writers, musicians and producers is common place within the music industry. What we are talking about is working collectively towards common goals. Using strength of numbers as well as harnessing the skills of individuals within that collective. A cooperative group.

So why not apply this mechanism towards your marketing and promotion, graphics, video editing, mixing, mastering, session work and more. They are all easy skills to trade.

Mechanisms to help manage such groups vary to help ensure all group members get treated fairly, including any financial implications. You could for example work on a credit based system, or indeed a financial system, quid pro quo or completely loose and informal. It's up to you what arrangement works best for you. The overhead in setting it up depends on which you choose but it doesn't need to take a lot of effort.

Often what works best is some form of credit system combined with a basic tracking of what is done and by who. Neither takes much to put in place. A set of rates, a credit usage speadsheet, a task spreadsheet and an action spreadsheet are all that is essential.

The whole point in doing this is to save you time and effort, to allow you to play to your strengths, and to allow you to trade those strengths with others. A small investment of time will allow you to do that and give you a net gain in what you achieve.

A Quick Example: Promotion Trade

Lets just look at the promotion side as a simple example. As an individual there is only so much you can do in terms of promotion tasks, either online or within the real world.

How many web sites are you active on? How long has it taken to grow friends or fans on those websites? How long has it taken to get to know those people?

So why not work with some other individuals or bands? Those bands would perhaps love to get their music exposed on those networks, and likewise you might want to get your music exposed to people on websites those individuals and bands hang around on. In a matter of moments you could multiply your web footprint, the amount of reach you have (the number of people who you can touch).

A Second Example: Skills Trade

You  have an agreement with 16 individuals to work as a team. You plan to release a new album, perhaps graphics and video work has been carried out by or via the team, in exchange you have carried out some session work and carried out a small amount of song promotion. In addition over the last few months you have helped promote some of the others in the network. Sometimes this was within the forums and social networks you are a member of. Sometimes by following exact promotion instructions detailed by other members in the team and once by sticking up some some posters in your neighbourhood. All this has gained you creit with the team.

Now your release is ready to roll. You have a promotion plan to help get the message out there quickly. The peak of traffic as people are exposed to your music will help push you up the download charts, which in turn exposes your music to a higher number of people. You prepare the team members to be ready. They have links and promotional materials. They know where and how they will promote.

On the release date you call in your promotional credit. 16 people are available to promote on that date and for 7 days after that, Perhaps only 30 minutes each on each day. So each day 8 hours of dedicated work is collectively carried out on your behalf, reaching people you wouldn't have otherwise reached

A Third Example: Collaborative Products

You meet and form a team with a graphics artist, a video producer and a music marketer. None of them are currently known for their work, but they are all talented individuals trying to make a name for themselves.

Each want to be noticed. As a team each member can benefit by working together.

The graphics artist does an album cover, logo etc for an album he knows will be promoted.

The video producer is at college and needs a video to submitted as acredited work. That video needs music. In producing that video together (they do the video and editing and you supply the music) you both get what you want.

The music marketer has a quality product she can promote, plus a team she can direct to carry out specific tasks.

You get graphics for your album a video and a professionally designed marketing campaign all in exchange for those individuals being named as part of the team.

The team members get to add it to their work history / achievements which in turn gets them some paid work.


Building Your Team


It may take some time to find the right people with the right attitude. Part of the time to find them may simply be learning where to look. Time and determination will get you there.

What Sort Of People Should Be In My Team?

Ideally you want your team to be:

• motivated
• skilled/talented
• prepared to work hard 
• prepared to learn
• reliable
• friendly
• prepared to work for nothing or at cost

Resources

Look to local art and music schools and colleges to provide potential team members. Students tend to be cutting edge, have low overheads and have access to quality tools. They also want experience!

Visit this Music Industry Community now to help you get started with finding some potential team members. Songstuff has thousands of members with many willing to collaborate. Most have valuable creative and business skills they may be willing to trade.


Conclusions

When it comes to your music career it doesn't take much imagination to see how useful teamwork can be. It doesn't need a lot of effort to set up, and your ongoing contribution will either educate you or be built on your strengths and easy to do. Financially it doesn't need to cost you a cent.

The only real risk with this is the time you spend on tasks for other team members in a trade. When working in a collaboration there isn't a huge risk at all, assuming you have high standards when selecting team members.

This is a solution for bands and individuals that can work with both the real world and the internet. As a strategy it can allow you to achieve far more than you could otherwise achieve, allow you to work faster, cover more ground, and more intensely.

 

Why Is My Band Not Famous Yet?

"Why is my band not famous yet?" Have you ever asked yourself that question? It's a common enough question between band members where their band has been around for a year or two and they still haven't got anywhere.

I was thinking about the different kinds of approaches to being successful I see from bands and how those approaches impact their success. Not for the first time I looked at a number of successful bands at different staes in their career and compared their activities with unsuccessful bands and my observations of many bands through the years.


Are You Serious About Your Music Career?

Do you stumble along playing gigs and looking good, waiting for the right place right time or situation to find you and change your life? Or wait until someone hires you? Wait for a band or promoter to contact you about performing, or maybe wait until you see a band that you could work with when you just happen to be out at a bar?

Or perhaps you work at your music career with as much dedication and dependability as you would any other job? Do you try to come over as a professional musician? A professional recording engineer, producer, band, band manager?

The essential question is:

Do you make it happen?


Approaches To Band Business

In a business sense there are 5 typical categories of approach taken by bands overall. Bands can move between categories given the right circumstances, but few bands intentionally change their approach and follow through on it:

• Bands who claim "it's about the music" and refuse to do anything really "career development" related
• Bands who wait for success to be handed to them on a plate.
• Bands who would work, if only they knew what to do next.
• Bands who do work, but have no big picture giving their actions direction
• Bands who work hard, know where they are going and how to get there.

Unsurprisingly, bands with little interest career related who believe it is all about the music and bands who wait for success to be handed to them on a plate represent the largest groupings of bands, and the smallest rate of success.

For bands who, career wise, wait for success to find them it purely comes down to luck, and the odds are not good.

Bands who would work if only they knew what to do next is still a fairly large group. At least they have potential to move to forwards towards something more meaningful, but too many get stuck hiding behind the "if only" excuse. In that circumstance they often slip back towards doing nothing meaningful at all, waiting for success to find them, as they realise much of their effort has gone to waste as it lacked direction. Don't get too hung up on this, the fact is that bands in that have the smarts to at least understand that they should be doing something at least have a chance to help themselves.

It will come as no surprise that bands that know what to do, when to do it with a clear direction in mind and who are prepared to work hard is by far the smallest group. This group has a far higher success rate within the music industry AND in the alternative scene.


Taking Your Music Career Seriously

If someone tells you there is an easy way, they are lying to you.

If someone says that it is guarranteed they are lying to you.

There are tools that can help your chances, but they are only that. Tools.

You'll notice that I use the term work quite a bit. The reason is that it takes a lot of effort to do what is required.

You need to be organised to take on the music industry. Without organisation you simply tread water, and as you know with treading water it buys you time but gets you absolutely nowhere.

Band managers are a possibility, but if you take one thing from this blog post, don't wait for anything. There is no "easy way". If a good manager comes along, and they bring good value to you, then great, but don't wait for them to find you before you start planning (yes I really do mean plannning) and organizing exactly how your band is going to progress.

Smaller bands do not need a manager. They may be nice to have, but you will serve yourself far better in understanding the music industry and how it works if you learn to manage your own band first.

This means learning about some very unglamorous topics, hours spent working on tasks for your band when you could be playing your instrument or partying.


How Are Bands Organized?

Most bands are driven by only one or two individuals. These are the people that arrange rehearsals, find gigs, get things fixed and generally come up with most of the band's promotion ideas. Often these are the ones that also come up with most of the songwriting ideas too. Many band members are quite happy that they are not doing these tasks and someone else has the hassle. After all they might get lucky, right?

Even where bands are ruled by votes, and everyone contributes to the writing of the songs there are issues with members carrying their weight.

The fact is that all the band should be pulling together. That might mean that an individual leads the way, but all should be involved in planning, buying into what should be done. Every member, no matter their level of musicianship should take part. Every member should learn about the business.


Why Do All Band Members Need To Work On the Business Of Music?

Lets try and underline this. Your band is competing with millions and millions of other bands. Hundreds of would be startlets posting on Facebook, Twitter, Myspace and YouTube. There is no easy way. If you are going to stand out from the noise of all those other bands, you need every single advantage you can get. You need the advantage of pulling together in the same direction.

After the stage of standing out from the seething masses, at that point you are in competition with other bands who also relatively have their act together. To stand out from them you really will need to know what you are doing. To stop your band imploding or ripping itself apart you definitely need to be bought into what you are doing and where you are going.


Recommended Resources

I recommend the following top music resources:

• Music Business / Music Industry Articles
• Music Industry Forum

Experience And Advice

If you are looking to talk to other bands, or music industry professionals of many kinds, then you will get some from professional bodies of various kinds on different aspects of your career. you also need access to a quality community of musicians with a broad range of experience where you can get the chance to discuss your career, gain the knowledge of your peers and seasoned pro's alike.

Don't wait. Make it happen!

Visit The Songstuff Songwriting and Music Community Forums right now and take a step towards the lights.

5 Tips To Become A Successful Band

Here are 5 tips to become a successful band. There are many pathways to success but the following tips will substantially improve your chances of achieving success as a band.


5 Tips To Become A Successful Band

1. Follow Success

Rehearse and record where local signed and successful bands rehearse and record.

Look at what the successful bands do in terms of promo, venues they play etc, and do something similar, play the same venues etc. Don't exactly copy the idea, just the actions.

It is a great idea to get to know local bands. It gives you a great opportunity to benefit from each other's experience and contacts.

For example: A band has a gig in a new area and they have a very successful marketing effort, resulting in a gig with a sell out attendance.

Get the answers to these questions:

• What was the quality of the leaflet? (design, paper etc.)
• Where were the leaflets dispersed? What streets, times etc?
• How many leaflets?
• How long before the gig did they distribute the leaflets?
• Where is the gig?
• What day is the gig on?
• What else did the band do to promote the gig?
• Where and when before this has the band played "near" this gig?
• Do they have any contacts they could / would pass on? Give you an introduction to?
  

Gathering this sort of knowledge from bands you know, meet etc can be highly valuable. Make sure you ask the right questions and note down the answers. It's definitely worth your while.


2. Get Smart

Educate yourself on standard music industry processes, procedures and organizations. You can get a lot of help and support, source funding etc plus gain understanding of contracts and how the various music industry businesses interact.

When it comes to negotiating contracts this sort of info and understanding is invaluable.

Gather intelligence on your local and national scene. Knowing the key venues in not only your local area is not enough. Get to know the key venues in the main cities you would like to play in. Where are new bands breaking on the scene? Where do the A&R men go? The tastemakers and song pluggers? Music press? Local celebrities and bands? Where do they all go to see new and exciting bands?


3. Network

Networking and cultivating local and genre specific music industry contacts can make a huge difference. Learn to Schmooz.

Who are the important people? Local DJ's and radio program controllers, music journalists, band managers, promoters, agents, music lawyers, indie labels... even music gear manufacturers!

Get to know them! Go to gigs, parties and events where you can mix with these people.

Networking brings not only contacts but opportunities. Opportunities that you otherwise would miss out on. So make sure you network!

4. Build A Mailing List

Keep in contact with your fans, give them the news about your band directly. this is your best chance to have an active fan base and to minimise the impact of illegal downloads on your recording based income.

Build your list online, and by getting people to sign up at your gigs. I would recommend that at gigs there is an extended band member (manager, roadie etc) who will man a "stall" with info about the band, any merch, and getting people to sign up to your mailing list with their email addresses. Ideally whoever is manning the stall should have internet access and be directly able to add the email address to your database.

5. Build An Online AND Offline Presence

It doesn't need to be either / or. Build both!

Make your efforts pay off in both worlds. For example using your online mailing list to get fans to a gig, but video the gig and then post it or parts of it up on the web. For example, 1 song is available to the general public, but for members of the mailing list they perhaps get to see the whole (edited) video.

Build a website for your band. Include music, videos, images, news, special offers to site members etc. Use social networking, forums, blogs to get breadth and then focus on a few to build some depth. Consider hiring an online music promotion servce to help promote your band.

If you are a bedroom musician obviously the internet offers the more obvious option, but you should perhaps think about what you can do in a real world sense, even if that is playing acoutic or unplugged gigs. Videos of these can be a nice bonus for fan club members, and they can raise awareness of your music on a more local basis.


Following The 5 Tips To Become A Successful Band

It doesn't take much to write out, but it takes dedication, hardwork, creativity and time to apply all of the above tips. That is why bands have helpers!

Resources I recommend to help you become a successful band are:

Music Industry / Music Business Info
Music Industry Community

Nothing can guarrantee success but rest assured that your chances of success will increasingly improve if you apply all 5 Tips To Become A Successful Band

5 Critical Elements Of Your Band Bio

One of the fundamentals of the modern band and band web site is the Band Bio. Many bands struggle to write an effective bio.

With a little thought and by paying attention to the following guidelines your bio will stand out by it's quality alone.

5 Critical Elements Of Your Band Bio

1. Who Are You?

The most important elements to include are fundamental to any bio. You should include:

Your band name

Your location

Your contact information

A description of your music

Your influences

First impressions really, really count. Your bio is often the first impression that people get of your band. Simply put, the first paragraph of your bio is very important.

Your first paragraph has to grab attention and hold it. It has to be interesting, informative and engaging.

Don't make huge unfounded claims about how fantastic you are, that sort of bio text does not give a good impression. In fact unrealistic or fantastic claims actually work against you as people often read it as "unrealistic". Far better to tell them the facts in an interesting way and let them be impressed by that.

2. What is your Band Doing Currently?

You should also include some info on your current band activities. For example do you have a planned tour or are you touring just now? Are you releasing a new album? Or busy recording songs towards a new album? Are you writing new material? You get the idea.

3. Background

If you include any other background information, make sure that it is relevant.

One of the most common mistakes is to include information along the lines of “Rick has been playing violin since he was 4 years old. At 7 he began learning the guitar and performed his first gig at only 9 years old. At 10..."

Uggh.....

Industry pros will just toss your bio in the trash as soon as they stop yawning.

By all means include something about your relevant musical history but be brief, keep it interesting and present it in a way that it doesn't simply become a list!

4. Highlights and Achievements

You definitely want to list your successes. You may have had your music played on the radio, have collaborated with a musician or music producer, won a battle of the bands or similar competition.

Make sure that the most attention grabbing, flattering story about your band is featured in your bio!

5. Your Band in the Press and Media

You can include press quotes in other parts of your bio, for example to help describe your band sound, or the power of your performances, but you should try and include at least one press clip in your bio.

General Band Bio Tips

Apart from the critical elements of your bio mentioned above there are some more general things that you should be aware of:

No Typos

If you think that a typo or two would not count against you, think again. A simple rule: NO TYPOS (now that I have mentioned that, I bet someone finds some in this post!)

Honesty

Under no circumstances make up things to enhance your bio. It will be found out, and when it is the consequences are simply that professionals will not work with you and your reputation can quickly be ruined.

I'll say that again, don't make stuff up!

Create More Than One Version of Your Band Bio

You should make several versions of your bio so that it suits the purpose and needs of the moment. You should create the following versions:

• Elevator Pitch - Be able to describe your music in 30 seconds, i.e. only a couple of sentences.
• Short Bio - 1 paragraph
• Medium Bio- 3 paragraphs
• Long Bio - 1 full page

The various media outlets, festivals and conferences all have different requirements. Being prepared with different versions to hand means that you can react quickly to opportunities with a minimum of stress. Writing on spec when you are presented with an opportunity will lead to sub-standard pitches, which will do you absolutely no favors.

Images

If you include any images alongside your band bio, make sure they fit well with your band image and they are of a good quality. Images help to break up the text a bit. You do not need lots. One, possibly two, will do as you will have some form of folio in your press kit or website (I hope). Images can also bring a distinctive quality to a bio, so make sure it stands out for all the right reasons!

Keep Your Band Bio Up-to-date!

When you achieve something more, get featured, play a huge gig etc make sure that you add it to your band bio


Useful Related Links

Electronic Press Kits

Songstuff Music Industry Articles

Songstuff Music Business Brief


Conclusion

It really doesn't take much effort to put together a good Band Bio and it is well worth the time to make it as good a quality as you can.

The Internet - The Great Leveler For Musicians

How many times have you heard this in recent years? Is it true?

First off, I will apologize for the rambling nature of this post...

Well like many changes in the way things work, the internet has brought both advantages for bands and writers and disadvantages. A level playing field? I fear that is just an illusion, in fact I know it is.

For example, it is very true that bands have the ability to reach out to fans around the world, but as I am sure many bands are realizing, the same is true for every other band, bedroom band and playstation guitar player. This is one of the main double edged swords. The world is being overwhelmed with bands and songwriters all clamoring for their attention. Add to that bands very rarely take advantage of all the benefits they could, and many that do don't take advantage of them to their maximum or any where near it.

It isn't enough to upload your music and invite your friends. The not so breaking news is - the fact that your music is on the internet does not mean success will find you. Far from it. The challenge now is in standing out from the crowd.

The notion that it is a level playing field is just that. The record labels have access to just the same tools every band does... plus a whole lot more. They have large budgets to spend too, although those are much reduced from what they once were. The large labels also have far more access to other media than they ever did before. TV talent shows are the tip of the iceberg.

So, where can independent artists learn from what the labels do?

Mailing lists. It pays to keep in contact with fans, who are after all customers. Many bands don't even have one! Apart from that what labels have mastered (at least the good ones) is how to mobilize their fans to help promote their products to their friends.

Networking. There are several areas where artists can benefit from networking. For example building industry contacts, building press contacts etc. The most accessible is to network with other bands.

Social Media. You may be detecting a theme, and that is making connections with others and making the most of them. Create pages for your band on Facebook, Twitter, and although much less important than it once was, Myspace.

The fact is that just about every way that you can connect with your fans is important. Each of the topics above is worth a large article in itself, but just being aware of their importance is a start.

Where labels really gain advantage (well one way) is the number of people they can bring to the party when it comes to exploiting and growing the benefit of these tools. I say tools, because that is exactly how labels and promotion companies view them. Nothing more.

A couple more things to mention before I finish this post... labels and promotion companies promote music as part of a coordinated campaign. They don't drip feed songs onto the internet, unless it is part of a coordinated plan. They time releases. They promote according to a formula that works. Everything has it's purpose, and each drives people in the end towards becoming a fan, towards becoming a customer.

For bands, fans are their means of making a living. They also give the ability to launch the next product more easily. Why? Once they are on a mailing list or other contact list they help launch the product. As I mentioned before, labels and promotion companies are masters at harnessing the power of their fans to get the word out there, to persuade others to become fans.

Viral Marketing, the appearance of competition with other bands, the clever use of merchandising, working with the media, these are all techniques and tools used by promo companies, but sadly neglected by independent bands.

There is so much on each of these topics.... but alas this is but a blog post to raise awareness. Who knows, maybe I should write a book?

Nah...