General Music Chat

I'm new to BandMix. Looks like a great place to share information, and good chat.
I invite everyone to visit my website,
www.matthew24.net
It's my personal website, but I am also selling CD's of my original music to the public.
I hope you can take a couple minutes to check it out.

Good quality recording. Nice to hear people recording clear sounding music...

The Forum is, but the actual "seeking musicians" site sucks. I've explained this many times, but 1. No one can contact you or visa versa unless they upgrade to premium, and 2. every single "new musician in my area" does not see I left songs to hear and my email. Did they? NO. Its like hello, pleased to meet you, I'm the perfect fit, you'll never hear from me again. I will check out your site another time, ritght now I'm tired of Login In instead of being able to hear someone's songs by simply clicking on their URL like mine, which I hope you do. I think its great what you are doing. My take on it may not be the same however; I'm into selling CDs and skipping the club scene. My 100th band just went down the toilet and I've had enough. I can go it alone in my studio. The songs on my URL site are ALL ME. I hate playing clubs, and musicians should not have to deal with the business of music, especially club managers who are all a bunch of morons. I live in Phoenix, Arizona and we have lots of morons who run nightclubs. If they come to this forum, I'm here and BTW, Anytime, Anyplace!!

I'm new to BandMix. Looks like a great place to share information, and good chat.
I invite everyone to visit my website,
www.matthew24.net
It's my personal website, but I am also selling CD's of my original music to the public.
I hope you can take a couple minutes to check it out.

The problem with just selling CDs, of course, is that no one buys CDs anymore. As a band you still have to make them, but in reality people are more inclined to buy your t-shirt before your CD. I think licensing your music to movies, TV shows and commercials is where the money is these days.

The problem with just selling CDs, of course, is that no one buys CDs anymore. As a band you still have to make them, but in reality people are more inclined to buy your t-shirt before your CD. I think licensing your music to movies, TV shows and commercials is where the money is these days.

JD, how does one go about getting their music to these outlets (movies, TV, commercials)? Anytime I looked into this market it always seems closed to a select few or it requires a considerable investment to get your foot just in the backporch door!

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated (I should start a thread!)

The problem with just selling CDs, of course, is that no one buys CDs anymore. As a band you still have to make them, but in reality people are more inclined to buy your t-shirt before your CD. I think licensing your music to movies, TV shows and commercials is where the money is these days.

JD, how does one go about getting their music to these outlets (movies, TV, commercials)? Anytime I looked into this market it always seems closed to a select few or it requires a considerable investment to get your foot just in the backporch door!

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated (I should start a thread!)

It's all about relationships. Who do you know that is writing, directing a film, TV show, in house promotional video etc. I did a little of this work back in the 80s with Home Savings and Corporate Design. Several of my friends still do and are pretty successful (Shrek, Shrek II, Comedy Central to name a few). It is good work that pays well but it is also very competitive.

Jimmy is right. Selling independent CDs is essentially over.

My god, this is getting downright Gloom & Doom No Chance In Hell Forget It Give It Up and blame Fisherman Bob for starting this LOL LOL NOW, unless you have undisputible proof, have been in the business, no the insiders and everything else that puts a stamp of validity on your statements, NO ONE REALLY KNOWS what is going on in the music industry. Its easy to get the 'ol "did you know that....." and "I read in this magazine" and take it as gospel. Americans do it ALL THE TIME with non-musical related stuff as well. Tell 'em all the sky is falling enough and they will believe it. Tell 'em Fisherman Bob was found in an LA hotel room hanging from a cieling fan surrounded by empty bottles of narcotics, Jack Daniels and Six Maids A Milking and you can bet Paris Hilton's a metal shredder behind closed doors that ITS TRUE. No, no I think CDs still sell. What needs to be made illegal is all this downloading of one song shyt, making "playlists" from 15 different CDs. That's gonna effectively kill the industry, and I hope it does, for just long enough so change will take place. In the meantime I'm the meantime, if you were a pill I'd take a handful at my will / and I'd knock you back with something sweet as wine.

The problem with just selling CDs, of course, is that no one buys CDs anymore. As a band you still have to make them, but in reality people are more inclined to buy your t-shirt before your CD. I think licensing your music to movies, TV shows and commercials is where the money is these days.

JD, how does one go about getting their music to these outlets (movies, TV, commercials)? Anytime I looked into this market it always seems closed to a select few or it requires a considerable investment to get your foot just in the backporch door!

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated (I should start a thread!)

Never had much interest in pursuing that direction but I believe your publishing company would have a division for TV/Movies/Soundtrack kinda stuff...
I saw on the ASCAP website they have a seminar coming up
ASCAP TV/Film Scoring Workshop with Richard Bellis -
So... my .02.
http://www.ascap.com/filmtv/

Thanks Elmo. A good example was recently I was watching an X-sports, surfing 50 foot waves at Mavericks just south of SF, and they had this STUPID music, some girl chanting indian high pitched............I thought, these guys are surfing waves that register on SF's earthquake warning system the concussion is that intense when the waves break and I heard HEAVY GUITAR AND POUNDING SURF RHYTHM SECTION. That's what I would love to get in on.

The problem with just selling CDs, of course, is that no one buys CDs anymore. As a band you still have to make them, but in reality people are more inclined to buy your t-shirt before your CD. I think licensing your music to movies, TV shows and commercials is where the money is these days.

JD, how does one go about getting their music to these outlets (movies, TV, commercials)? Anytime I looked into this market it always seems closed to a select few or it requires a considerable investment to get your foot just in the backporch door!

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated (I should start a thread!)

Never had much interest in pursuing that direction but I believe your publishing company would have a division for TV/Movies/Soundtrack kinda stuff...
I saw on the ASCAP website they have a seminar coming up
ASCAP TV/Film Scoring Workshop with Richard Bellis -
So... my .02.
http://www.ascap.com/filmtv/

People still buy CD's, Vinyl, even cassettes, but the industry speaks in terms of digital sales. Call it the other white meat...
Just an article from Billboard… not gospel. But digital sales rule.

U.S. Music Sales Continue Upward Swing -- Up 1.6% Year to Date
May 12, 2011

By Glenn Peoples (@billboardglenn), Nashville
Bucking a years-long trend of decline, U.S. music sales continued this year's upward swing, rising 1.6% through May 8, according to Billboard analysis of Nielsen SoundScan data. The gain is measured in track-equivalent albums (TEA), which combines the unit sales of albums and digital tracks into a single, comparable number.

The small gain occurred after gains in digital sales more than offset the decline in physical sales. Album sales dropped 1.5% and track sales increased 9.6%. The TEA metric converts track sales into albums (at the rate of 10 tracks per album), thus a 1.7 million-unit decline in album sales was more than outweighed by a 40.4 million-unit increase in track sales.

Physical sales have fared comparatively well this year: CD sales dropped 8.8% to 72.3 million units through May 8, a relatively small decline for a format that has routinely dropped 20% in recent years. Combined with a 37% increase in vinyl LP sales and negligible gains in cassettes and DVDs, total physical sales were down 6.6 million units.

Album sales were down 1.5%, as the increase in digital album sales nearly offset the drop in physical sales. Digital albums rose 16.7%, or 4.9 million units, though May 8, a better improvement than digital albums posted in 2010 (13%) and at this same point last year (15.2%).

However, catalog titles, not current releases, are driving the strength in album sales. Current albums are down 7% while catalog (titles more than 18 months old) is up 5.4% and deep catalog (titles more than 36 months old) is up 8.3%. To emphasize the fact that this year's revival is not hit-driven: In spite of the breakout performance of Adele's "21," this year's 10 top sellers have sold 26.9% fewer units than the top 10 titles of the same period in 2010. "21" has sold 1.55 million units, #2 "Sigh No More" by Mumford and Sons has sold 783,000 units, and #3 "Now That's What I Call Music 37" has sold 565,000. At this time last year, Lady Antebellum's "Need You Now" had sold 2.03 million units, Sade's "Soldier of Love" had sold 1.15 million units and Justin Bieber's "My World" was at 983,000 units.

Digital tracks have also gained momentum lately. Through May 8, track sales were up 9.6% to 462.4 million units. The year-to-date gain is better than tracks' improvement in 2010 (1.1%) and at this point in May 2010 (-0.6%). The year's top-selling tracks are led by Lady Gaga's "Born This Way" (2.48 million), Katy Perry's "E.T." (2.29 million) and Adele's "Rolling in the Deep" (2.19 million).

Sony gained the top TEA market share through May 8 with 29.4%, up from 28.1% last year. Universal Music Group dropped to #2 with 29.1%, down from 30%. Warner Music Group remained at #3 with 19.2%, down slightly from 19.4% last year. EMI remained at #4 with 9%, down from 10.4%. And the independents increased their share to 12.8% from 12%.

The problem with just selling CDs, of course, is that no one buys CDs anymore. As a band you still have to make them, but in reality people are more inclined to buy your t-shirt before your CD. I think licensing your music to movies, TV shows and commercials is where the money is these days.

JD, how does one go about getting their music to these outlets (movies, TV, commercials)? Anytime I looked into this market it always seems closed to a select few or it requires a considerable investment to get your foot just in the backporch door!

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated (I should start a thread!)

Networking. If it's a cover song or title theme, like submitting for a TV show theme songs, look up the original rights owner through services like ASCAP, get permission from them to record and solicit a demo recording, then submit that recording to whoever is the music or soundtrack director of the TV show or movie. Many do not pay attention to unsolicited submissions, so send them an introductory letter first, explaining your intentions and why you feel it would benefit the show or movie. It's not always easy, but it opens doors and knowing people who know people always comes in handy. For that reason alone, it's not a bad idea to investigate shows and people in the movie, television and music businesses, offer contact/friendship through any social networks they participate in, occassionally namedrop any shared contacts, interests or influences and in time it all adds up.

These practices have been working for decades and have gotten me a fairly nice network of contacts since I started in the mid 80's. I've owned my own recording label for a stretch of a year, studying luthiery remotely under advice of luthier legend Ed Roman, using books, tools and correspondance with Stewart-MacDonald, apprenticed at WLRS-102 in my late teen years, where I got to meet several mainstream musicians of the 80's, worked to help local bands in a very prolific music scene (Louisville, Ky Punk and Indy scene, 80's and 90's). I have made hundreds of phone calls to record distributors like Redeye and others, other show and band promoters, other labels as a subcontractor such as Plan-9 and Geffen. I worked out consignment CD sales with music stores in four different states, including Tower, Victory and Ear-X-Tacy. Convinced reps from BC Rich to meet with two of the artists now on their list of endorsed musicians pages and all because as a teen, I decided to dive right in, talk to anybody I could, help whoever I could... and this paragraph itself, an example of working name-drops and the benefits of building a decent network.

The Forum is, but the actual "seeking musicians" site sucks. I've explained this many times, but 1. No one can contact you or visa versa unless they upgrade to premium, and 2. every single "new musician in my area" does not see I left songs to hear and my email. Did they? NO. Its like hello, pleased to meet you, I'm the perfect fit, you'll never hear from me again. I will check out your site another time, ritght now I'm tired of Login In instead of being able to hear someone's songs by simply clicking on their URL like mine, which I hope you do. I think its great what you are doing. My take on it may not be the same however; I'm into selling CDs and skipping the club scene. My 100th band just went down the toilet and I've had enough. I can go it alone in my studio. The songs on my URL site are ALL ME. I hate playing clubs, and musicians should not have to deal with the business of music, especially club managers who are all a bunch of morons. I live in Phoenix, Arizona and we have lots of morons who run nightclubs. If they come to this forum, I'm here and BTW, Anytime, Anyplace!!

I'm new to BandMix. Looks like a great place to share information, and good chat.
I invite everyone to visit my website,
www.matthew24.net
It's my personal website, but I am also selling CD's of my original music to the public.
I hope you can take a couple minutes to check it out.

AT the risk of sounding banal, Another way to view this ....is to consider whether a 25 dollar subscription is worth the increased chance of connecting with that million dollar partner... Its a gamble, but I figure that if a person is serious about advancing themselves in the biz, it seems that its a minor investment to make in the grand scheme. I'm just sayin...

I do understand though that if money is extremely tight, we try to cut the corners... In my experience, even then, some corners aren't worth losing a better chance...Again..just sayin.

Networking. If it's a cover song or title theme, like submitting for a TV show theme songs, look up the original rights owner through services like ASCAP, get permission from them to record and solicit a demo recording, then submit that recording to whoever is the music or soundtrack director of the TV show or movie. Many do not pay attention to unsolicited submissions, so send them an introductory letter first, explaining your intentions and why you feel it would benefit the show or movie. It's not always easy, but it opens doors and knowing people who know people always comes in handy. For that reason alone, it's not a bad idea to investigate shows and people in the movie, television and music businesses, offer contact/friendship through any social networks they participate in, occassionally namedrop any shared contacts, interests or influences and in time it all adds up.

These practices have been working for decades and have gotten me a fairly nice network of contacts since I started in the mid 80's. I've owned my own recording label for a stretch of a year, studying luthiery remotely under advice of luthier legend Ed Roman, using books, tools and correspondance with Stewart-MacDonald, apprenticed at WLRS-102 in my late teen years, where I got to meet several mainstream musicians of the 80's, worked to help local bands in a very prolific music scene (Louisville, Ky Punk and Indy scene, 80's and 90's). I have made hundreds of phone calls to record distributors like Redeye and others, other show and band promoters, other labels as a subcontractor such as Plan-9 and Geffen. I worked out consignment CD sales with music stores in four different states, including Tower, Victory and Ear-X-Tacy. Convinced reps from BC Rich to meet with two of the artists now on their list of endorsed musicians pages and all because as a teen, I decided to dive right in, talk to anybody I could, help whoever I could... and this paragraph itself, an example of working name-drops and the benefits of building a decent network.

It sounds right... Now, there is an alternate path. Within that network, if you are a bonafide working musician...that is...you do gigs @7/7 with some time under the belt, you would probably have an agent to do all those things for you. (Especially if he stands to get a percent)

Admittedly; I'm what you would call a real 'lazy ass'... I discovered and subsequently decided that I could not do Engineering, Managing AND creating music at the same time. So I decided that for me, it would be better to let somebody else do the engineering , somebody else do the managing, so that I could focus on my music creation. Now, here's an interesting result of that thinking:

1) Its Economically friendly approach, because my laziness ensures at least two job openings ha ha!
2) To obtain and sustain that kind of support... really requires that the music you create is worth pushing. (Since' it is construed as a risk based investment by the A & R guys, producers, etc
3) Until I get "that" good...the world is spared the agony of having to wade through my crap.

So to sell ones music, the artist needs to have an astounding portfolio, with material that could sell on the face of it... but that would accelerate with proper packaging, and commercial support.

AT least that's my take

Well Jahva and Paperdog reported something worth digesting despite the numbers and percentages being a bit head spinning and the fact that every decade has had its own version of "Lady Gaga". The closest I have come to digital buying was a $25.00 Itunes gift certificate and boy did I download the most eclectic and esoteric "playlist" - one that reflects just how complicated I am as a person: Two songs of each band (and a few surplus of same group when I get burned out) by Missing Persons, Saga, Journey, Ultravox, Camel, Judas Priest (unleashed in the east) for starters. I tend to not listen to the music I PLAY and RECORD; that's nothing new. I recall once in an interview with AC/DC one of their fans asked Angus Young what he was listening to he replied "well I did buy a Muddy Waters CD recently.....I don't have but a few CDs to my name". I thought that was cool and expressed the real deal about the downward spiral of the music industry. Rock n' Roll doesn't seem to matter the way it used to, there are too many other "DIGITAL DISTRATIONS" these days for young people to care about a new full length release on vinyl like the good 'ol days when a new Led Zeppelin record was grounds for a party, and I mean a PARTY. Now everyone is checking their frickin' email, text messaging, spending half their time online (I'm beginning to wonder about myself lately). Music is just another choice of entertainment, not a cultural investment that at its best, could change the hearts and minds of thousands with one great song. But the very medium that started it all back in the "analog days" is to blame. DJ's on radio stations no longer have ANY say over what they play. When I first moved to Phoenix I heard unbelievable diversity on the radio like Yes's "Sound Chaser" off their underated album Relayer, followed by Bob Seger, Frank Zappa, Camel, Boston, early Journey into King Krimson. Those days are gone forever. I don't know, maybe its just me and my health conditions physically and mentally and the meds LOL......but I've become kind of Armeggedon about everything. Like the Budgies awful but true "video killed the radio star". I say we blow the whole damn - whatever- to bits and start over with vinyl. I wanna hear stuff like the Allman Brothers and ZZ Top (Rio Grande Mud, Tres Hombres, NOT THEIR 80s CRAP). Guess I'm dreaming. But I figure 15 years from now something has to go major retro or we are doomed for sure.

Toxic, I agree and just as well dissagree to some extent. It's not so much dying, as it is changing. It's the end of the world as we know it, but only "as we know it". The big exposure and success lately has been video game soundtracks, just look at how artists have be catapulted by landing a title track on mega-selling big console games like the songs in the Zombie segments of the Call of Duty series. People are buying their music (MP3, anyway) because they hear the tracks and want to hear more.

Another major catapult has been TV comercials (eg: Ingrid Michaelson gaining notice via Old Navy comercials, even before people noticed her songs being used in Gray's Anatomy). Just the same, another big virtual venue is to land some play time as niche network TV series soundtrack artists, like those who've had submissions played in shows like "Weeds", "Six Feet Under" and the like.