Posted: Aug 2, 2021
Category: The Musician Business
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**Guest post written by Nick Voorhees, founder of Melody Nest.
"It’s absurd to think that the “starving musician” stereotype proves to be true more often than not. Producing, composing, and engineering songs to a professional standard is inherently valuable because thought-provoking sound is necessary to the human experience, but many musicians find themselves broke regardless. It’s usually not due to a lack of talent or drive, but because musicians tend to be un-blissfully ignorant of the abundance of digital opportunities available within their electronic reaches. It doesn’t have to be this way." View Full Article
Posted: Apr 6, 2021
Category: Royalties
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**Guest post by Randy Chertkow and Jason Feehan of MakingMoneyWithMusic.com. Originally featured in the Disc Makers Blog. Reprinted with permission.
"The new Mechanical Licensing Collective collects digital audio mechanical royalties from download and streaming services. Learn about the collective and see if you qualify to sign up so you can receive these new music royalties."
View Full ArticlePosted: Feb 22, 2021
Category: Licensing
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**Guest post by Keller Medlin, a music producer based in Nashville, TN. He is also the founder of Sounds Sphere - a marketplace platform helping artists and songwriters create great songs faster and with less cost.
"There’s a subtle lesser known aspect of music production that has slowly become more popular over the course of the last decade. Probably the culmination of this model’s success was demonstrated with “Old Town Road” which is now the longest running No. 1 song in history...Non-exclusive licensing - and I don’t mean for sync."
View Full ArticlePosted: Sep 28, 2020
Category: Licensing
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**Guest post written by Marty Dodson, a multi-hit songwriter, co-founder of SongTown, and co-author of The Songwriter’s Guide To Mastering Cowriting and Song Building: Mastering Lyric Writing.
"One of the most popular questions we get at SongTown is “how many songs should I send to a producer or publisher?” The prevailing myth for aspiring songwriters is that “more shots equals a better chance of something great happening”. I want to dispel that myth and to explain why pitching your songs with a shotgun is NOT the best way to hit your mark." View Full Article
Posted: Jan 27, 2020
Category: The Musician Business
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**Guest post by Jeff Lysyczyn, music industry veteran, educator, and creator of Music Business After Dark.
"The fifth episode of Music Business After Dark, a series of informative vlogs by music industry veteran and educator Jeff Lysyczyn."
View Full ArticlePosted: Dec 23, 2019
Category: The Musician Business
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**Guest post written by Scott Ronald, musician, songwriter, and creator of GuitarGearHeadz.com.
"Before signing a deal, artists need to be able to weigh up what the label can do for their career versus the rights, control and income they are signing away. These are four important questions you need to ask yourself when evaluating a label offer, in order to ensure that you make the best decision for your career..."
View Full ArticlePosted: Oct 28, 2019
Category: The Musician Business
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**Guest post written by Ari Herstand. This is an excerpt from his book How to Make It in the New Music Business (second edition). This post was originally published on Music Connection.
"Before you release your next single or album, make sure you set it up for the best chance of success. Don’t forget to do these 26 things before the release..."
View Full ArticlePosted: Feb 19, 2019
Category: The Musician Business
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**Guest post written by Donna Maurer, a contributor on multiple music blogs and lover of creating helpful articles for her fellow musicians and music lovers.
"If you want to be successful as a musician today, you must learn to diversify your income streams. That way, when the live gigs and album sales slow down, you’ll still have money coming in from other areas to keep you going until things pick up...Here are some unique and creative ways to make money when your career hits a lull."
Posted: Sep 24, 2018
Category: Licensing
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**Guest post originally featured on Ditto.com.
"Getting your music featured in a TV show, movie or even a video game can not only help your music reach the ears of new fans, but also generate a substantial amount of cash, so it's well worth looking into sync licensing. Before we get into the HOW, let me very quickly explain WHAT music sync licensing is and WHY you need to strongly consider licensing your music for synchronization." View Full Article
Posted: May 21, 2018
Category: Licensing
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**Guest post written by Scott Aumann, originally featured on The Legit Musician blog.
"If you are trying to license your music then you really need to think about alternative versions. Especially, instrumental versions of your songs."
Posted: May 22, 2017
Category: Licensing
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**Guest post written by Donna Kay of Donna Kay & The Carousers.
"After the time and expense of recording, mixing, designing the cover artwork, and launching the CD, I had two tasks: Copyright the CD, and obtain the licenses to release (for sale) and perform our version of “Minor Swing”...I had to obtain two permissions to use the song: One from the owner of the publishing rights, and after submitting their permission in writing, the Easy Song standard licensing fee to record and perform our version of the song. This took a full month of digging, e-mailing, getting responses and finally finding two brothers in NYC who run a publishing company and own the rights the song."
View Full ArticlePosted: Feb 27, 2017
Category: The Musician Business
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**Guest post written by Nicholas Rubright of Dozmia.
"Releasing music requires a huge amount of work, which makes it easy to miss something important. In addition to promoting your new release – sending it to radio stations, getting bloggers to write about it – there are some important things to take care of on the administrative side. Here’s a checklist of all the boring things you should take care of when releasing new music..."
View Full ArticlePosted: Oct 31, 2016
Category: Licensing
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**Guest post by Brian Penick as featured on the SOUNDSTR Blog.
"Editor’s Note: This infographic is intended to visualize the world of General Licensing and how proposed changes could affect songwriters and music licensees."
View Full ArticlePosted: Oct 24, 2016
Category: Licensing
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**Guest post written by Ari Herstand, the author of How To Make It in the New Music Business. It originally appeared on Digital Music News.
"I’ve been lucky enough to have my songs placed about 30 times over the past 6 years in TV shows, films and commercials. Well, luck really had little to do with it. There’s very little luck involved in the music industry. Lazy people like to say that it’s all luck. That’s just plain ignorant. There’s no such thing as a “lucky break.” There are little victories. There are opportunities. There are people working their asses off behind the scenes..." View Full Article
Posted: Aug 8, 2016
Category: The Musician Business
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**Music Director and guitarist for Kenny Babyface Edmonds, composer, artist and author of: The Career Guitarist.
"1) What does the term "Career Guitarist" mean? Typically when speaking of a musician who solely earns their money from music, we refer to them as a professional musician. I just simplified it and coined the phrase Career Musician, then narrowed that down to Career Guitarist which is the embodiment of what I’ve done throughout my career in the music industry, which includes..."
View Full ArticlePosted: Jul 26, 2016
Category: Performance Rights Organizations
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**Guest post written by Brian Penick as featured on the SOUNDSTR Blog.
"What is the Consent Decree, and why are people talking (and so upset!) about it?...For songwriters, one of the least discussed (yet most important topics) is music licensing. But major changes to the consent decree – the federal agreement that governs how ASCAP and BMI operate – is bringing this topic to the surface. The truth is, these changes could be the biggest in the music industry in 75 years and greatly impact your career."
View Full ArticlePosted: Mar 28, 2016
Category: The Musician Business
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**Guest post written by Carlos A. Machado of Mystery Loves Company.
"With almost 200 shows and multiple music conferences in the past two years, Maddy and I have learned a ton about the current music industry. For those wanting a career as singer-songwriters, here are a two things we think are worth keeping in mind..."
View Full ArticlePosted: Mar 21, 2016
Category: Licensing
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**Guest post written by Matt Bacon, originally featured on IndependentMusicPromotions.com.
"I’ve spent a lot of time in the last couple of weeks learning about music licensing for a friend I’m helping on a project...It’s been a pretty interesting experience for a variety of reasons – but mostly because before the beginning of the month I didn’t really know what music licensing was. Since then I have learned quite a bit, spent countless hours pouring over articles and have gotten to explore what it means to engage in this potentially highly lucrative segment of the music industry." View Full Article
Posted: Jan 25, 2016
Category: The Musician Business
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**Guest Post written by Jay Rutherford of Los Colognes.
"Like millions of other morons out there, I'm attempting to make music both the primary joy and primary financial security in my life. My band Los Colognes has achieved marginal success, just enough to get mom and dad off our backs, so to speak. Without further adieu, here’s me convincing myself I have achieved some wisdom, when in reality I have no psychological control over any of it yet. Pretend this is the Old Ben Kenobi version of me, from somewhere in the future..."
View Full ArticlePosted: Dec 14, 2015
Category: Licensing
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**Guest post written by Michael Gallant as featured in the Disc Makers' Echoes Blog.
"Think your music is ready for games, TV, and film? Here’s advice on how to pitch your music for video games and how to optimize your chances of getting placed..." View Full Article
Posted: Nov 2, 2015
Category: Marketing
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**Guest post written by Matt Bacon, Senior Campaign Manager at Independent Music Promotions.
You look out on the crowd after a high powered set opening up for one of your favorite bands – and then instead of playing another song off your latest release you instead pull off a killer cover of Just Like Heaven...People love artists who pay tribute to their influences.
View Full ArticlePosted: Feb 23, 2015
Category: Sponsorship
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**Guest post written by Anelka Argiro, VP of Brand Partnerships for Wind Up Records.
A good song just isn't enough [to break through the clutter] these days...Enter your new best friend -- brand partnerships.
View Full ArticlePosted: Nov 17, 2014
Category: Licensing
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**Guest post written by Jennifer Kes Remington, composer and filmmaker, as featured on Pyragraph.
"So in my quest to throw multiple things against the wall and hope that money comes out of it, I’ve been licensing a lot of my music to library companies...I asked a few other composer friends if they knew of any library companies offhand. On their initial recommendations, I started entering my music into a couple music libraries, and waited and watched as the royalties came in..."
View Full ArticlePosted: Nov 4, 2014
Category: Marketing
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**Guest post written by Brandon Seymour, musician, SEO analyst, web designer, and social media marketer.
"I know - I'm not the first genius to point out that the music industry is dead. I'm also not the first person to point out that artists have been complaining about this for a very long time. I just can't help but wonder if maybe - just maybe - the music industry needed to die..."
View Full ArticlePosted: Aug 4, 2014
Category: Licensing
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**Guest post written by Ari Herstand. It originally appeared on Ari's Take.
"There is no one way to get music placed on TV (or in film). In addition to how I've gone about it, I've spoken with many of my musician friends who make livings on song placements about this." So what is their advice?... View Full Article