The Music Man Podcast

ADAPT OR DIE - The Changing Music Industry with Streaming and AI

- The pros and cons of AI

- The pros and cons of Spotify/streaming/youtube for smaller artists

#music #distribution #indieartist #indiemusic #tips #tipsandtricks #musicdistribution

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to (the NEWER) "The Music Man Podcast," the podcast that strikes a chord with your creative soul. I'm your co-host with my new co host Ken, and I'm thrilled to be your guide on this melodic journey through the vast and enchanting world of music.

In this episode we talk about music distribution as a small indie artist. We try to keep it simple and to the point. Whether a beginner or experienced, sometimes the process can get confusing or complicated. We talk about the different distribution platforms and a little about our approach to doing it.

#music #distribution #indieartist #indiemusic #tips #tipsandtricks #musicdistribution

We are just at the beginning of a new decade. 2020 is here and WOW has it come in with a huge bang. The future of music is always changing and staying up with the trends can be extremely difficult. We’ve seen in the past decade the evolution and emergence of online streaming, digital distribution, YouTube superstars, social media influencers, Kick Starter campaigning, and concerts via live streams just to name a few. Also do you think listeners' attention spans have hit a peak? Will the attention economy create even more fierce competition with how we consume music and entertainment? We’ve seen more artists releasing singles and individual tracks versus releasing EP’s and LP’s. We’ve seen YouTube go from individuals uploading home videos to having its own music, movie, and TV streaming platform. What’s the next possibility of the ever changing music industry? Well let’s take a dive in.

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Rejection - ouch it burns. And it’s a natural part of our everyday lives. Whether it’s dating, a job prospect, or a “no thanks” response from a music industry professional, rejections can sting and paralyze us to the core. You can get mad, punch a hole through a wall, or turn your back to the world and quit making music. Okay all jokes aside I would rather focus on some productive ways on how to deal with rejection as a musician. I think it’s very important we first address that you need to get comfortable and be prepared for rejection. It’s a good idea to see rejection as a challenge that brings you new knowledge and opportunities to change and develop your skills. Rejection in music is basically someone in a high up industry position telling you that your music isn’t good enough. Getting a response of “no” is better than not hearing anything at all. They could’ve just simply ignored you with silence, and that silence is still rejection. Don’t take rejection personally. The music industry as a whole is just a giant competition, and you have to be prepared for the ups and downs that come with having some sort of career in music. If you don’t get a reason why you were rejected, you should never be afraid to ask why. Any feedback is extremely useful from an industry professional. It’s valuable information that can be used for similar prospects and opportunities in the future. Tony Robbins famously said “If you do what you’ve always done, you’ll get what you’ve always gotten”. This could be used in a good or a bad way depending on the outcome. Do the right things over and over again, but stop repeating the bad ones. Otherwise you’ll just keep having the same outcome. Use rejection as a tool and listen to why it happened. Always look for lessons in your failure. There is no human in the world that doesn’t make mistakes. But you are given an opportunity to correct yours. Learn to adapt and work on the suggested fixes they recommended. If it’s a criticism then take that as fuel and build yourself up with it. We often attach to an outcome that we created in our own mind and when someone else doesn’t see it like the way we created it causes a deep feeling of disappointment and rejection. So detach from the outcome, allow the creative process and end point to be what it is. And the last point I want to drive home is don’t burn bridges because of rejection. Always maintain being professional. No matter how harsh a rejection, never act with your emotions. There’s always a chance you run into this person in the future. Being successful in the music industry has a lot to do with connections and networking with the right people, so don’t create a bad relationship because you never know who that person knows. How about instead you take that feeling from rejection and channel it into writing your next greatest song. To sum up, use rejection as a tool, ask why you were rejected and work on your mistakes. Face the rejection, handle it with dignity and channel it the correct way. I hope you took something useful out of this. Please follow, like, subscribe and share if you did. Always remember don’t do music just for money do it because you love it. Stay safe The Music Man out.

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Modern music recording technology has given musicians the capability of recording their music more easily. Whether it’s with a simple cell phone, a laptop and a usb microphone, or a professional DAW (digital audio workstation) setup in your home; musicians, bands and artists have so many ways of capturing their music with less effort, less expense, and more efficiently. This isn’t to say you won’t be spending some money. The better you want your recordings then more money you will spend on gear, but that doesn’t mean you have to break the bank. Also I will be doing another video that talks about what gear you could use for doing your own music recording. But for this video I just want to tell you why you should record your own music. I really want to clarify that pro recording studios, pro engineers, pro producers and the endless amount of gear you are able to try and use in the studio to dial in the perfect sound are of tremendous value and still needed in the music industry. But I also believe you can still get great recordings and production while doing it on your own. There’s 2 roles you really need to understand when recording your own music. There’s the music producer and the recording engineer. Music production is a very valuable skill. It’s the process of creating a music project with a producer overseeing a structure, composition, and overall character of a track, single, or album. Music production can encompass recording demos for your band, composing the instruments or music bed for songs, writing melodies and harmonies over a music bed, and possibly mixing and mastering your own music. A recording engineer is the person who operates the gear, knows how the equipment works and how to generate the sounds you want for the specific style. Both these positions can be filled by 1 individual. Especially when dealing with a much smaller scale with recording your own music. I didn’t say it was easy but it is doable for you. An understanding in both music production and recording engineering are needed in the foundation of learning how to record your own music.

For many of us we look for a shortcut clever path to excellence. Being a beginner in any skill is hard. We can be overwhelmed with what we have to learn. Most main skills can be broken down into sub skills. And if we want to learn a new set of skills it’s usually because we’ve seen someone else do some cool stuff that we want to learn how to do. And taking on that new skill can be a bit overwhelming when we try to break it down. It sometimes can feel like taking on climbing a mountain without the proper gear. Well I am here to help with clearing that up. So you really want to know the secret to the quickest way of getting better at music? I won’t leave you waiting for too long then. But before I do I think most of you already know this secret. Whether you took lessons or not you probably already heard what I am about to tell you. All you really have to do is practice and work on the fundamentals. I told you you probably already knew this. This key mastery alone can make you grow exponentially. 2 very famous people even have said how important fundamentals are. Vince Lombardi - “excellence is achieved by the mastery of the fundamentals.” And Gandhi “All compromise is based on give and take, but there can be no give and take on fundamentals. Any compromise on mere fundamentals is a surrender. For it is all give and no take.” In sports most athletes train the fundamentals over and over and over again. They work on the basics and build up their speed, accuracy, and confidence. When a basic tackle is missed on the field, when a basketball player misses a simple layup or when a ball player misses a grounded ball we go back to saying they need to work on the fundamentals. Coaches preach the fundamentals especially in practice. There’s a universal understanding in sports, if your fundamentals aren’t built in instinctually, then you’ll have a lot of difficulty performing on game day. This can be interchanged with performing music and your musical instrument of choice. Pay attention to the details. That’s the key to fundamentals. The tiniest details to every movement, where you put your fingers for learning scales or chords, how your wrist moves with every stroke of a drum rudiment, or proper hand position for playing piano. These details are critical when starting out because instead of progressing forward you could be doing 1 step forward 3 steps back and having to retrain your brain and muscle memory with learning the proper way of performing fundamentals. And the small details can sometimes seem like “common sense” but for most of us as beginners, seasoned musicians, or professionals these details aren’t. We usually need someone to tell us to slow down and focus on them. Well I am telling you, slow down and focus on the fundamentals. Many of you will say “But practicing the fundamentals is extremely boring.” Well break up the boring. You don’t have to do all fundamentals in 1 sitting session. In between practicing fundamental exercises practice along to some of your favorite songs. Or find ways to make fundamentals more fun. For example almost all songs on the radio are recorded with a metronome or click track. And if you are a drummer practicing your rudiments can get pretty boring. Put one of your favorite songs, find the beat and practice your rudiments to it. Do it with different tempoed songs, fast, medium and slow. And stay within the tempo. There’s a future video I will be doing about the fundamentals every musician should know. But for now you understand my point on making it more fun for you to practice. We have some of the best technology now for learning. When I was growing up and practicing fundamentals we didn’t have a way to watch videos instantly on our phones, computers or tablets. The internet was still relatively new. Now you can slow the speed down on a youtube clip and see exactly what is happening all in HD quality. It’s such a great tool to have especially when seeing complex techniques brokedown. No

On today’s topic I want to discuss how we as musicians and artists need to work with other people within the music and entertainment industry. This topic is for both new musicians and long time working musicians alike. There’s a great quote from Raylan Givens Justified “If you run into a jerk in the morning, you ran into a jerk. If you run into jerks all day, you're the jerk”. We will come back to this quote in a minute but I want it to sit with you for just a moment. There are so many times within our music communities we have difficulty communicating, just like in regular life. You should always make it your goal in life to be kind to people whether you have something to gain from them or not. I can tell you from personal experience not only will you feel good from being kind but it comes back 10 fold. But you have to be genuine with it. So let’s get started with the 3 tips on how to work with others in the music and entertainment industry. The first tip is to respect other people’s time. Are you working with a producer or recording engineer? Do you have an appointment with a manager, graphic designer, or some other person who is trying to assist you with your music or music career? Do you have a gig that night and need to make it for a sound check? Are you getting my point. Nothing is more frustrating than having your time wasted waiting for someone. Always RESPECT OTHERS TIME! Be a few minutes early, allow yourself some time for traffic. Be ready to answer a planned meeting phone call. If something does come up for you and you need to reschedule, be respectful and contact them as quickly as possible. But also be prepared that they may not want to work with you after that. I have and hear countless stories of people being “flakey” or “ghosting”. If someone doesn’t respect your time, you have every right to walk away. You don’t have to be rude to them or even call them out on it. You totally can but that also could lead to problems further down the line if they know others in the industry. Take the high road. Moral of this first tip is be kind and respect others with their time.  The 2nd tip is when working with anyone pertaining to your music, project or career get them everything they would need to complete the work, the task or the job for you. Imagine if you were writing a song with others and they didn’t get you the necessary parts for you to complete your parts of the song. Instead you had to keep going back and asking for things to make the song complete. For example if working with a graphic designer to design an album cover or flyer go above and beyond getting them all the information they would need or all your ideas nice and clean exactly as they need. Another example if working with a producer, make sure you get them all the details (how many instruments, how many tracks you want them to work with you on, samples of how you would like the music to sound, etc). they will need this information to get started producing and recording your songs or music and it makes it much faster, saves you money and they will love to have you as a client which possibly could lead to other connections.  The 3rd and last tip is to lose your ego but still be confident and believe in your artistic vision. There’s a difference between ego and confidence. Confidence is to have faith in your own abilities and believe in yourself, and the ego operates out of self-interest. Your ego is the conscience side of you. The part of you that tries to be something bigger than you are or you try to identify yourself as something you are not. The ego seeks approval, accolades and validation at all costs in order to be seen as “right”. It is resistant to feedback and assigns motive where there isn’t any. Confidence is being humble, listening to good advice, knowing your flaws, not being afraid of them and working on them, it’s working with the right people that really support you and are honest with you. We all want to have the cool guy rockstar att