NashvilleEar 3 Must-Read Articles on Writing a Band Bio or Press Release April 6, 2012 Critics, bookers, and bloggers don’t have the time to listen to every CD or MP3 they receive. Sometimes your music only gets to speak for itself AFTER you’ve spoken on its behalf. How do you do that effectively? Well, over the past few months our pals at the Echoes Blog have posted some informative articles on the art of crafting your artist bio, press kit materials, and press releases. Press Kit Fundamentals- How to Write a Compelling Artist Bio Press Kit Fundamentals- More Band Bio Writing Tips Press Kit Fundamentals- Press Release Writing Tips Chris Robley's Author Bio
My Album is Finished– Now What? Ten cardboard boxes arrive in the mail containing a thousand shrink-wrapped CDs. You’re feeling pretty proud. All those precious hours writing, practicing, scrimping & saving, recording… All for NOTHING!!! … unless, of course, you can get other folks to take an interest in your music and actually LISTEN. The DIY Musician’s Post-Recording Checklist When your album is finished, your work is only half done; and oftentimes, that first half is the easy part. Radio promotion, PR, booking, web maintenance, and all the other “business” elements of a music career generally don’t come naturally to artists. So, here goes: 1) Make sure you have 3 or 4 great band/artist photos- Promotion goes in waves, and it’ll help “keeps things fresh” to have a few options in the band photo department. Then 3-6 months later when the initial buzz from your release wears off, you can update your site with the next batch of photos (perhaps from a different location, with different outfits, different vibe, etc.).
ioda: independent online distribution alliance Moontoast 7 Alternatives to Pandora and Last.FM | Mystery Tricycle Whether you are annoyed by the ads on Pandora, the limited number of skips, or the abyss of cruel 30-second song teasers from Last.FM, many online listeners are growing weary of mainstream methods of hearing new music. While the Pandora algorithm is strong, and the Last.FM related artists tool is pretty useful, don’t fool yourself in to thinking that there aren’t other great ways to expose yourself to new music in the depths of cyberspace. Here are 7 alternatives to Pandora and Last.FM that will infuse your day with an uninterrupted stream of music that large record companies haven’t managed to squash under their thumbs yet. StumbleAudio StumbleAudio has a killer recommendation engine that works better for me than Pandora’s. Songza Songza uses a recommendation engine that runs for each ‘channel’, but unlike Pandora, channels are not tied to specific listeners and rather are community property. Musicovery Stereomood Ah, the power of the ‘tag cloud’. 8tracks Grooveshark The Hype Machine
Learn something new – your brain will thank you Editor's note: Gary Marcus is a cognitive psychologist and author of the book "Guitar Zero." He is the director of the New York University Center for Language And Music. The idea that learning a new skill - say juggling, cooking, or playing guitar - can be like an addiction is no joke. I should know. Even listening to music can be a little like a drug. Shortcuts like drugs, however are fleeting. Learning new things is a lot safer, and ultimately a lot more satisfying. There is a myth that children (and for that matter adults) don’t really enjoy learning new things, but as every video game maker has realized, the truth is just the opposite. As video game designers realized long ago, if you can keep a player poised on the knife’s edge of conquering new challenges, neither too easy and too hard but square in what the cognitive psychologist Vygotsky called the Zone of Proximal Development, you can keep gamers engaged for hours.
How Gotye 'Somebody That I Used To Know' Became an Unlikely No. 1 Dance Hit Nothing says "dance music" more than a xylophone. As previously reported, Gotye's "Somebody That I Used to Know," featuring Kimbra, ascended to No. 1 on the Billboard's Dance Club Songs and Dance/Mix Show Airplay charts dated May 19. The track also led the Billboard Hot 100 the past four weeks and Alternative for 10 and is the first to top all four tallies. Gotye's 'Somebody' Makes History -- First Song to Top Hot 100, Alternative and Dance Club Songs In the 23 years that the Hot 100, Dance Club Songs and Alternative have co-existed (the lattermost list is the youngest of the three, having premiered the week of Sept. 10, 1988), "Somebody" is the first song to score a No. 1 hat trick, while only two titles had reached the top of even Dance Play and Alternative: U2's "Discotheque" (1997) and New Order's "Regret" (1993). How did a song known for its sparse, rock-based production become a No. 1 dance hit? "That's perhaps the best evidence of the song's appeal," he says. "The takeaway?