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  • john

    Songstuff Writer and Artist Development Challenges

    By john

    Independent writers and artists face several large disadvantages when they are compared to signed, mainstream writers and artists.  Disadvantages that add up to making it a competition that indies can’t win. Hell they can’t even compete.   Lack of budget and poor contacts are fairly obvious disadvantages. Lack of experience and a lack of knowledge restricts songwriters and artists alike. Lack of an overall strategy, and a limited set of incomplete tactics, makes for a critical problem
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Blog Writing

What is life?  What matters?  What is its meaning?   These are questions which mankind has pondered for thousands of years.  I am fortunate in that I follow a once well known philosophy called Stoicism which answers these questions. Life is temporal and fleeting.  It is a moment in time and space to be savored as much as possible as it will never reoccur. It is what you leave behind which matters not what you acquire.  What is your legacy? The meaning of Life is Dea

Storytelling

How did songwriting begin?   Most likely, although no one knows for sure, it was a form of storytelling.  People remembering and recounting events to the beat of a drum.  The drum was the first instrument.  It is still most often MY first instrument when I write because I generally, not always, write based around a Beat.   I posted the beginning of Fever Tree, which was only bass and drums, on a New Music Friday.  I knew what it was going to sound like when finished although

Commercial Music

What makes commercial music successful?   There are four components to having successful commercial music and an act.  These are Melody, Beat, Lyrics, and Performance.   Any of them can be the driving force behind a song.  You have to have a combination of at least two for success.  No matter how good the first three are, a bad Performance will sink the ship unless your goal is to sell the song to someone else.   The Performance is major.  The song will be played f

"Fake artists" on streaming platforms?

"MBW reported on news that has re-sparked the debate around “fake artists” on Spotify   Subsequent to publishing that story, an anonymous (and clearly well-informed) MBW reader sent an email that detailed every angle of what’s going on."   Today (March 30) MBW published that email in full. As they say "Strap in."     https://www.musicbusinessworldwide.com/an-mbw-reader-just-blew-open-the-spotify-fake-artists-story-heres-what-they-have-to-say/

Peggy

Peggy in News

Chasing The Dream: Coda

Just what you want to be, you will be in the end   This is a line from The Moody Blues song Nights In White Satin.  The song has charted time and time again for the last 50 years by different artists.   This is not about the band or the song.  This is about the inherent truth contained in this line.   You are what you believe yourself to be.  If you believe yourself to be someone you will become that person.  You cannot create talent but you can create opportunity. 

Clay Anderson Johnson

Clay Anderson Johnson in Career

Chasing The Dream: Part Three

THE MUSIC BUSINESS   Professional Music Is A Business.  If you do not wish your Music to involve dealing with money then why would you ever choose this as a career move?   Pablo Picasso was a great artist.  He was also a great businessman.  So was Salvador Dali.  Business and art have lain side by side since the beginning of civilization.   Michelangelo didn't paint the Sistine Chapel because of a burning desire to be creative.  This was a job.   Ludwig vo

Clay Anderson Johnson

Clay Anderson Johnson in Career

Chasing The Dream: Part Two

Goals and Systems   We will assume you have read Part One.  If not, it would probably be a good idea to click on that link and do so.   Now you have completed the first three steps. You have confirmed by other people’s reactions you really do have talent. You realize what you are going to give up in time, money, and aggravation. You know how you can possibly fit in.   Now we are going to move along to Goals and Systems.  Goals are important but i

Clay Anderson Johnson

Clay Anderson Johnson in Career

Leadership and Unity

I want to make one thing very clear at the beginning of this post.  I have never been THE leader of a band.  NEVER!  I have owned three businesses, I have never owned a band.   The biggest disappointment of my career was because the leader of the band went to rehab not once, but twice, because of being a drug addict.  This resulted in the band, The Wolves, NOT being signed to Geffen Records and becoming a national tour act with major label backing.   He was the leader because

How many artists are earning enough to live from Spotify and other streaming services?

Now my Statistics professors always said you can prove anything with stats .... but If you like statistics this is a good layout with a string of fresh data concerning what Spotify artists earned from its service in 2021.     The streaming platform has updated its Loud & Clear website.  Below is one of many breakdowns  on what these stats represent.     https://www.musicbusinessworldwide.com/52600-artists-generated-over-10k-on-spotify-last-year-and-15140-of-them-uploaded-

Peggy

Peggy in News

Chasing The Dream: Part One

What do you want from life?  I knew what I wanted from an early age.  I wanted an adventure!   The first time I ever ran away from home I was six years old.  It wasn’t the last either but I finally made it through high school and left for college.   I grew up in a cow patty of an oil field town in west Texas by the name of Sweetwater.  It was a place where people got drunk on the weekend and got into fistfights for fun.  It did not take me long to realize this was no way to l

Clay Anderson Johnson

Clay Anderson Johnson in Career

Learning = Earning

Anyone who has followed any of my activities should know if nothing else I am eager to learn.  Whatever success I have had, which may not be Earthshaking but has kept me from otherwise working, is due to something I have learned from other people.  Those who have mentored me, those I have taken classes from, and those whom I have never met but read their book or taken their online course.   There is a world of relevant information available to help you boost your career(s), much of whi

Dynamics In A Band

Dynamics In A Band   There are three primary traits in choosing musicians Skill, Talent, and Imagination.  It is rare to find all three in one person and it not necessary to have all three in one person for success although it certainly can’t hurt.   I only score Medium in Skill, but High in Talent and Imagination.  I am technically not stellar but I can hit the target on emotion.  This means I can sometimes make a piece sound better than a more skilled musician who has less

Spotify Canvas: Increase Your Track Shares by 145%

You know when you play a song on Spotify and you see a short looping video? Yeah, that’s a Spotify Canvas.   Have you tried adding a Spotify Canvas to you songs on Spotify?  If so, have you tracked your results and do you see a difference in your shares?  If you haven't, try it out on your new releases and your old ones, too.        For the full article, with great information https://www.digitalmusicnews.com/2022/03/07/spotify-canvas/        

Peggy

Peggy in Tips of the Trade

I need to slow down..

With the new release activities in full motion, I realized how much I've worn myself out right at the beginning of the year. With classes through the day taking a significant amount of physical and mental energy, my OCD mind has been overwhelmed lately with so much to do - website, social media, recording, demos, mailing list, Songstuff, music production.    I'm not exactly complaining since I do this full time and pretty much signed up for all that being a musician entails. But I need

Mahesh

Mahesh in art & music

Our Songstuff Community on YouTube

Playlists are a great way to enjoy and promote our member's music.  We have added more of your songs to the Songstuff Community YouTube playlist.   Have a listen and help support the member artists and our community.  Subscribe  to  their channels and to Songstuff channel.  Like, comment and share!                                                   Songstuff  Community Song list: Mahesh - Realize Live at Her Village @Mahesh Bill Kamen - My Isolation @Bill Kamen Mora Amaro

Bandcamp Acquired By Epic Games

Epic Games, the creator of Fortnite and Unreal Engine, has acquired Bandcamp. Bandcamp will remain a standalone platform, under the leadership of Epic Games co-founder and CEO Ethan Diamond.   In a statement today (2nd March, 2022), by Ethan Diamond on the Bandcamp website, the news was announced by the digital music retail and media platform.   “Bandcamp will keep operating as a standalone marketplace and music community, and I will continue to lead our team”   “The p

john

john in Online Music Platfoms

"Realize - Live at Her Village" - my new release has been in planning for a while.. So glad it's out!

The new journey and EP cycle has finally begun with this new release.   Change EP has been in plans for a while now. The pandemic had its ways of slowing things down but there's also been a lot of developments over that period such as getting an artist grant by a few music foundations, some potentially consequential production crew/cast coming in to work on the record along with all the plans we've been looking at from our record label RC7 Records' point of view with @john & @Peggy

Mahesh

Mahesh in art & music

System Updates

Windows 11 Upgrading   I lose a lot of time updating my recording system. Good that it is up to date, but updates take a while to do.   The most annoying bit is that every time I go through the update cycle, I restart my system. It’s a Windows 10 system. That means, every restart brings the “Upgrade to Windows 11!” Messages and software download… even when you don’t want to update! Arrggghh!   I would upgrade to Windows 11 if it wasn’t for concerns about compatibili

john

john in Studio

Pitch Your New Music to Amazon Music’s Playlists

On your New Release plan, step out and include pitching your music directly to Amazon’s playlist curators for their consideration. These DIY instructions walk you through the easy process from getting  verified on Amazon Music for Artists and using the New Release Tool.   https://diymusician.cdbaby.com/news/pitch-your-new-music-to-amazon-musics-playlists/

Peggy

Peggy in Tips of the Trade

What Year is It? Nearly a Third of the iTunes Top 100 Taken By Oldies, New Releases Not Catching On

This is so interesting. So what’s going on here? Do you have any ideas or reasons that you think might be causing this??     Is it an iTunes promotion clogging the chart? Or a lack of interest in current music? Or both? Nature, you know, abhors a vacuum.   https://www.showbiz411.com/2022/01/16/what-year-is-it-nearly-a-third-of-the-itunes-top-100-taken-by-oldies-new-releases-not-catching-on

Peggy

Peggy in News

Another Side to My Experience

The following entry was prompted due to a conversation I had yesterday, with readers and friends of mine who are not members of Songstuff. Some of these people are not musicians, so keep that in mind.   As many of you already know, I consider myself as being a loyal member of this place. And while Songstuff DOES have its ups and downs, there is no other place id rather be. But there are also downsides to this choice. I am known for being relatively candid, so I thought it could be inte

VoiceEx

VoiceEx in Rant

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