Most bands, when they rehearse, even for a big show, will rehearse for a couple of days, run through the songs to make sure they’re “tight,” work out the musical parts, and then go out onstage and hope something good will happen. They have no idea what they’re trying to accomplish. Read more.
Updated January 2019. Solidarity with Colin Kaepernick, the fraught politics of professional football, and a missed opportunity to feature Atlanta hip hop have created controversy for the Super Bowl LIII halftime show. Read more.
Dreams are not goals. A goal must be written down and have a date by which you intend to complete it. For example, pitching your original songs to four music supervisors within the next 30 days is an attainable goal, since you have complete control over whether or not you can achieve this goal. Read more.
While there are countless others in every genre and from countries around the world, Echoes pays tribute to 12 legendary musicians who died in 2014, including Bobby Womack, Johnny Winter, Joe Cocker, Jack Bruce, Pete Seeger… Read more.
Even though CDs and vinyl records both make use of similarly-proportioned circles and rectangles in their design templates, each format presents unique opportunities to create graphics that your fans will love. Here are some tips from experienced designers and album manufacturing product managers to help you craft an album design worthy of the music enclosed therein. Read more.
Marketing your band and your music on the digital landscape, it’s easy to get lost focusing your time and efforts on the wrong sites and connecting with the wrong people. Ideally, you’d take the time and have an opportunity to think through the who, how, what, where, and why so that all of your efforts are connecting you to potential fans and influencers within your niche from the get go. Read more.
A good intro will set up what is going to happen next. With most artists and most songs, it’s one of the first parts of a song I need to rearrange. We want to capture and engage the audience, make sure people are with you. I use the analogy of a mother hen gathering her chicks, making sure they are with her and together before she crosses the street, rather than just taking off and hoping they follow. Read more.
If you’re preparing to set up a home recording studio, this article can help you better understand some of the basic elements regarding the audio interface with your computer or DAW. These concepts can get very complex, but this post will focus on some of the more basic points about the subject. Here are nine questions you should ask when comparing audio interface options. Read more.
The moments after the song is over present a crucial opportunity to build momentum for your show, and it’s one that many music performers tend to miss. You need to learn how to put pressure on the audience and accept applause. This means that the ending should intentionally ask the audience to applaud – you’ll use non-verbal cues. Read more.
If you are a creative artist, you’ll probably put an original and clever ending on some of your songs – fade outs, unresolved chord progressions, or bleed-ins to the next song, for example. In a recording studio, I say go for it! But live, more often than not, it’s a mistake. Putting a clever ending on a song can sometimes confuse your audience. They don’t know for sure if the song’s over, so you only get a small smattering of hesitant applause. Read more.
We all know practice makes perfect, but sometimes perfect isn’t enough to calm performance jitters, cool sweaty palms, and relax the nerves. So whether you’re heading out to perform for some big festival crowds, going solo for the first time, or just want to get a grip on your performance, here are a few tips to take on – before you step on stage. Read more.
Here at Disc Makers, we’re all excited to see vinyl records come back onto the scene. As we’ve said before, it’s one of the more improbable stories in the music industry from the last decade, and while we sure do love CDs, there’s something almost magical about the return of vinyl. Do you feel the same way? Share your stories with us. Read More.
While it’s good to know what you should be doing to advance your music career, it’s also important to be aware of the things you should avoid. With that in mind, I want to share with you nine mistakes I’ve seen musicians make during a music performance. I’ve tried to leave personal opinion out of it, instead focusing on what will make for a poor show for your audience. After all, it’s them you’re there to entertain, right? Read More.
Even though lots of indie artists are satisfied staying independent, many musicians I meet would like to get noticed by a label. Personally I don’t focus too much on “label obsessed” marketing, so you can use this same trick to reach journalists, radio stations, bloggers, and all manner of influential people who can help push your music forward. Read More.
Panning, in large part, determines how wide our mix ends up sounding to the listener. It can be used to create space in an audio mix, enhance existing space, and create a more immersive musical experience for the listener. Read more.