The Good Musician

Photography by larskflem.
Gigs are crucial events – they’re make or break for many bands, however small or unimportant the venue. If you have a group or band, chances are you’ll want to play in front of people sooner or later.
There are several ways to actually get gigs, and I’m going to focus on the cheap and free ones here.

Call local clubs: Most local bars will pick up on local musicians if you manage to make a proper presentation. Tell them you would like to send them your profile (make a band profile first, obviously free of charge. Ideally go there …read more

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It’s one of the things I like about Apple. Yes, I am a fanboy, and many musicians are, because of the simple reason that Apple frequently decides to include new and upcoming artists in their ads, on iTunes, or in product demonstrations.
I myself thank them for showing me Imogen Heap back in the day, and this time, with the introduction of the Macbook Air, (at which Randy Newman played as we discussed), Apple demoed an advert featuring Yael Naim, an Israelite-French artist who has an amazing debut album which includes a mix of hebrew (or yiddish, I’m not sure) and …read more

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Photography bydexter_mixwith
Kate Nash is one of those shooting stars who “made it”. One hell of a musician, and I’d like to share some quick thoughts on why I think she is not just a successful musician, but a good one at that.

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Unless your a Mac-Nutcase like I am, you might have missed watching Steve Jobs’ latest keynote at Macworld 2008. He presented us with the delight of one very distinguished musician who performed at the end: Randy Newman.
As Gruber points out, the first song he sings is “chock full of ‘I can’t believe he just said that’-lines”. The Good Musician won’t keep this from you, so watch and learn:

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Marketwatch posted a report stating the immense growth of digital music sales this past year.
Initially digital music was faced with harsh criticism, especially when seeing the amount of music downloaded illegally over the internet these days. The industry sees these downloads as lost sales.
That isn’t true. At least not directly: With the advent of digital music, music consumption itself has gone much higher. People who didn’t even have walkmans now have iPods filled with thousands of songs. Thousands. What the digital revolution has shown is that people like music – a lot, but CD prices as we had seen …read more

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Ethan Bortnick is probably the most prominent example around, and we’ve written about him before. Just today, my roommate and I were surfing YouTube in search of some good performances, where we kept on stumbling upon child prodigies.
They scare me, and here’s why.
They Know What Their Doing
Prodigies of Ethan’s caliber are usually brought in at an age where a proper perception of how the world works gets disturbed. Ethan is a cute little kid, but following this DVD Trailer, I feel he’s gotten polished into one little, mean, marketing machine.

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Photography by Tim O’Brien.
You have a band, or are a solo artist, but getting gigs is often really hard.
It’s a hard-knock life for us music-lovers.
I used to have band. In our local town, there were a few clubs, and getting a gig there was tough, but not impossible. I learned a few tricks from teachers and professionals, which got me the edge over the competition.
The key, is to do business. Market yourself.
We achieved this by creating a band profile, a thin file with information and media about our band. Here’s how to do it:

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Bruce Houghton from Hypebot helped me out once more with some ideas for social music marketing. Here are 100 ways to promote your music in simple yet effective ways.

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After the numerous comments on the wildly successful post about John Williams, I thought I’d share my ideas with you all the same, concerning his performance we so heartily discussed in that very post.
(Side note: I know, I’m a great sarcast, but understand the humiliation of begging for comments and getting none ).
Here are some things he did that really struck me.

He smiles. I think this is an important aspect: If you can convey a feeling of happiness over a piece or performance, your audience will feel the same.

He is humble. Of course this is subjective, but to …read more

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You are truly great.
We all are, but you’re special. You’ve got talent. You’ve got passion. You even have the necessary business-savvy to impress the manager of your local club. Getting a small gig is no big deal.
Ah, us musicians. We love to make music, and yet we want to be noticed and appreciated in every way possible.
Do you know what you’re missing that would actually make you a star?
Let me tell you something: You can’t practice for it, you can’t buy it, and it’s not some “power-word mantra” like “passion”, “enthusiasm” or “show business marketing skills”.
It’s luck. Luck. Chance. Glück.
And …read more

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