MUSIC PACKAGING COMPARED TO MUSIC MARKETING
Esteemed Youtube guitar instructor Canadian BobbyCrispy (and he really does have the best how to play clips) has just put up a clip on how he views the "Justin Bieber phenomenon". Bieber is a 15 year old singer who has recently been sold to millions of 12 year olds with, probably, relatively low IQs. At 12, I was lucky enough to be listening to Duke Ellington, so I was OK!
This is a question of packaging, and commerce. It has nothing to do with music. BobbyCrispy is saying that it is not good that Bieber, and his business associates, can make so much money for nothing when other musicians slog for years and years. Well, he misses the point that Bieber is not about music. It is simply a way to sell something, just like selling a new kind of sweet or fragrance. That's all it is--it is not music.
On the other hand, the band he mentions as a contrast to the Bieber situation, Canadian band Anvil, is a different topic. Here we are concerned with actual music, of some level of quality, that already exists per se. The band is not a business plan or scam.
Anvil are fine but their early song titles do look a little silly ("Metal On Metal" and "Woo Baby", to name two: "Woo Baby"? Even "Blue Baby" might have worked). It may just be that they didn't "make it" because their music was not quite hitting the spot. Also, they smile a lot in their early clips which seems at odds with metal posturing (!). If their music is not the greatest, then that ends the discussion really.
However, if the music is OK to an extent, then we (somewhat reluctantly) get into the area of the marketing of a musical unit for sale. This can be important. Even the Beatles were very carefully marketed: their manager had them in planned suits, even cut away collars! He didn't want to miss the chance of a big penetration for their very special quality. They had enormous quality, literally comparable to most of the best classical music, but there was still, implied by these plans, the hint that they nevertheless needed to be marketed properly... or the world might miss it.
Los Angeles-based music publicist Bob Merlis says you have to "have a touchstone", a handle, that people can identify with you. Or perhaps, as another Merlis quote puts it, "It's hard to sign an artist based (just) on a riff". This may sound wrong, but in the world of modern media and communications, you have to do more than send a manuscript to a publisher, like a young Beethoven would have done--though even he probably had a brand, "that young genius from Bonn who insults everyone". It is no doubt something about peoples' way of thinking: they may need an association for the new entity that they like, no matter how good it is. A new band may be good, but as it is new, the person still needs to file it somewhere in their mind, or their world. They do this by way of a handle.
So the marketing of a musical unit of quality is not the same as some businessmen thinking of something to package and sell, such as a simple product like Bieber. Bieber is like a new kind of baseball card, or a toy game. There is a known market in the 8 to 14 year age group for any small product that will appeal to them. The product could be a game (appealing to the human's need to practice or develop skill), a sweet (appealing to taste), a musical item (appealing to the human's musical needs), a cartoon book, anything. This year it is this Justin Bieber, but it has nothing to do with music.
Memo to Anvil? Consistent metal posturing: Satyricon "sidemen"
Photo: Simon J Harper Copyright 2009
HAVING YOUR SONGS PLACED IN
MOVIES AND ON TV
This is a Discmakersmusic clip.
It is presented by Taxi, a Los Angeles publisher. Advice highlights are as follows ....
TV producers use just a few seconds of your song on a TV show. Broadcast TV is different to cable. (How the latter differ is not explained in the clip, however).
Production music libraries are "little publishers".
You can do a two track record on a four track.
Rights: Big film-makers may want to own your publishing, but usually in TV and with indie films you keep your publishing.
He says a useful feature of Taxi membership is "Taxi Dispatch": it is the quick turnaround they have. It works like this: film music supervisors call Taxi wanting a "type and feel" of song. Taxi email their"Dispatch members" (it is an add- on membership), who then send in songs online. Taxi listen and choose say four for the film people to hear.
TV and film people will take reasonably well done eight track recordings.
DO YOU KNOW HOW TO MARKET YOURSELF?
Do you know how to market yourself? When representing yourself to a business person (eg: a publisher like Taxi) say only positive things about yourself.
To a business person, it is all about how you act in approaching them. Behave professionally. Send succinct emails. Never be desperate. Be very narrow in your focus. They want to know what you do specifically. (This advice was presented by Nancy Moran of NancyMoran.com and azaleamusic.com).
This is the business side: seeing it from their point of view. They just want to know what you can do for them. That is business.
HOW DO YOU "GET AIRPLAY"?
To "get airplay", the advice is to have a website. Then the world will see and buy you.
To increase your site's traffic: put your url on every item you have (eg: cards, T-shirts and so on), link to other artists or sites (eg: a group or type of group/genre), and put you url on search engines: you use keywords, eg: genre, get more links to other sites, and mot inportantly look at Google: most web searchers go to Google so read Google's "about Google" page: see the section "for site owners", which will show you how.
On your site you should put your bio, photos, streamed tracks, and gig or touring schedule.
I like to ask: What would the Beatles have done?!! Do that. And link to other things eg: social causes.
WHAT IS MASTERING?
Mastering (if necessary) is carried out before replication, so that the level and balance of the CDs is good. It can give a boost. It is NOT mixing: a masterer works with the WHOLE track, that is by for example altering EQ, to turn down the bass or brighten the sound, etc. They also listen to each song on a CD relative to the others, to give a whole CD a smooth flow!! That is, the masterer makes the EQs on each song smooth, relative to eachother.
Masterers can also reduce noise: that is, distortion, etc. They will fine comb it. They may take out hiss from an amp or a processor. Masterers will hear it.
They also check the CD codes, and prep the CD so the pressing plant doesn't find errors on the disc.