Tag Archives | How to

23 May 2013

Is DIY the only way for your band?

You often hear experts online saying how great things are now for musicians, how there are so many tools online to build your fanbase and get your music out there. However, not all artists are good at social networking. Some people don’t have the people skills or the time to do all the thousands of [...]

18 April 2013

What is your band’s Elevator Pitch?

What happens when someone asks: “What does you band sound like?” This is never an easy question to answer, it’s the question most musicians dread. Everyone likes to think their band is unique and special but often people need to get a rough idea of what sort of music you perform. Sometimes you only get seconds [...]

12 June 2012

How do you plan the perfect CD release gig?

If you’ve spent months writing and recording your new CD (let alone doing all the artwork and other stuff) you’ll want the CD release gig to be perfect. It needs to be an event that people will get excited about, something special and remarkable. How do you do that? Here are some ideas: List it [...]

09 April 2012

How do you get influential people interested in your music?

When you see bands with thousands of Facebook likes or Twitter followers it can seem really intimidating and it is easy to feel that as a new artist you will never be able to build that kind of audience. Building a fan base takes time and most people with lots of fans and followers don’t [...]

10 March 2012

How do musicians really earn a living?

It used to be relatively simple to work out how successful musicians got paid, you signed to a record label, put out an album and toured in support of it. If you made a profit after paying back your advance and all associated costs you got paid. This is called recouping (most bands failed to [...]

02 March 2012

How can your band benefit from piracy?

Many musicians are looking to stop piracy but some bands are finding ways to use free music, illegal downloading and so called “piracy” to grow their audience. In a recent interview on Forbes.com Joy Williams from successful indie band The Civil Wars said: “Sure, piracy has its drawbacks, but it also has positives, we’ve had [...]

04 February 2012

How much does it cost to “make it” in music?

On the Time magazine website there is an article by an obscure indie rock band called Two Lights talking about how expensive it is to become a rock star. It is always a bad idea to complain in public. GQ called them “Hapless poster-bros for self-importance…full of whiny self-entitlement” and across the web people are ridiculing [...]

09 December 2011

Over 25? Are you too old to become a full time musician?

At a recent music industry event a well known music industry manager said that he wouldn’t even consider working with an act unless they were “under 25, good looking and ready to sign to a major label in 6 months”. Many people within the music industry are the same. But when you look at how [...]

02 December 2011

How do you get support slots with touring bands?

One of the things unsigned bands often want to do is do support slots with well known acts. Support slots allow you the opportunity to connect to both a new audience and people within the industry. Bands have supports for a few reasons but mostly to get a few extra people through the door. Sometimes [...]

15 November 2011

How do you connect to an audience of 10000 fans?

Most bands dream of walking out onstage to a packed audience, full of excited fans, screaming and clapping. That is the dream. But what is the path to get to that point? How do you go from playing in a pub to gaining the attention of the fans and the music industry? It happens all [...]