If you are a professional in the arts, you will be invariably get asked to work for exposure. By that, I mean people will come to you with a “great” idea and they will say something like this: This project is going to be huge and seen by thousands (or millions) of people. I can’t […]
Tag Archives: music business
Before I talk about concerts, let me mention that Marla and I are going to be gone most of the rest of the month. We are going to Europe (a few days in Barcelona and then a cruise on the Mediterranean). This is not a music trip or a business trip (though it is a […]
This is not necessarily going to be the most pleasant post I have ever written. Sometimes, what I think I need to say is not very pleasant. My goal is to tell the truth and also be helpful. This piece of writing is mostly geared at other professional musicians. Before I start, I want to […]
I was talking to a well-published arranger maybe a decade ago and she told me she could write an arrangement book in a week. She was still writing out arrangements by hand (rather than software) which made her claim even harder to swallow. Today, I know more and do not doubt that she was telling me […]
When I look back over the time I have been a piano player, I can easily see how my thinking has changed over time. I started playing when I was eight and within a few years, was playing in church. Somewhere along the way, I started playing offertory arrangements. Back in those days, options were […]
Read Part 1 here I have been advertising on the internet as long as there has been advertising on the internet. It has been fascinating to watch the changes. Online advertising has moved from very rudimentary models to extremely sophisticated and slick systems that are frankly just amazing. Facebook is right up there at the top […]
I have a love/hate relationship with Facebook. Very frankly, I hate the social side of it for the most part. I see things (such as political nonsense) that gives me angst and makes me want to respond. Sometimes I do respond and that usually does not turn out to be a good thing. My current […]
I have been hands-on in the basement-turned-warehouse for a few days and I stumbled across boxes of books that um, we overbought. The title is Professional Music Strategies – Surviving and Flourishing as an Independent Artist and I wrote it back in 2014. It is actually labelled the 2014 edition when I optimistically thought I might update and […]
Last week, I talked about the technical setup you need to record and I promised a followup talking about the process. The first professional recording I ever did was in 2000. I want to tell you the quick story. I was the pianist in the church we attended and the pastor decided that the church should […]
I often get requests from musicians that want to know how to record on a professional level so today, I am going to give you a primer and equipment list geared especially at piano. This will get your foot in the door though obviously results will vary based on all kinds of factors. The question that […]
I just listened to a seminar on how to earn six figures in the music industry. I am not going to name the guru but it was the typical strategy of getting people onto a free webinar and then trying to sell an expensive system to them. I like to listen to those things because […]