john

Fair enough. It just isn’t a political topic here. I don’t really get why it would be.As it is I will remove it.

Hi guys Do we need a member only discussion board? If so, why? What would be discussed there? I don't want to create a defacto mosh pit. Cheers John

Respectfully, you don’t have to pick up the pieces when it goes wrong. It can make moderating more complicated. For example: There was recently a massive argument in one of your critique topics. I spent significant time reading the whole topic, several times. That topic spiralled out of control. Critique topics are about discussing the song. Sometimes songwriting philosophy or attitudes may be touched on, but generally critique topics are not a good place to discuss such things. Why? Because in discussing such things when attached to a song critique they can feel like personal criticism. Writers react defensively, and the topic can descend into an argument. It is far far better that general song writing discussion is kept to the song writing discussion board. Looking back at your topic that is exactly what happened. Discussion stopped being about your song and it spun out into you all talking about songwriting philosophy and attitudes, values and more. You reacted a little defensively. Other members felt they had invested a lot in discussing your song, when they had largely been discussing general songwriting concepts. They started discussing you and your song, you blew up, they blew up. It was far from pretty. That all started with a topic that wandered from its purpose of critique. Critique is something that really requires focus, because people are attached to their songs and often take comments about songs as being comments about themselves as writers. Anything that encourage discussion of the writer, or the wholesale dismissal of opini8ns by those offering critique is likely to cause offence. Other areas are less prone to that sensitivity, and yet original posters can get quite irrate when someone hijacks their topic. Not just on Songstuff, on any forums. It is considered poor netiquette to hijack a topic, precisely because it pisses people off... after all, if you want to discuss a topic, there is nothing stopping you from starting your own topic. It is not us that consider it rude to hijack a topic, it is internet users... and especially the original poster! Where did I say you cannot voice your opinion? Where does it say you are censored? (Other than our rules about discussing politics, religion etc). Members are being asked to keep to topic, and if they find they are wandering too far, to please start a new topic. By all means link to the topic. That is a long way from censorship. Threads help people find things. Mix it all up and the boards become much less useable. Forums are about threaded discussion. It’s a simple concept that allows new topics to spawn, it allows the original poster to have their topic discussed, and it stops people from getting pissed off, and at the same time it doesn’t absolutely stop you discussing a topic. Above I say some drift is to be expected, but I ask members to try to stay to topic. I also said if you wander too much you will be give a friendly warning. Other posters often do this with BTT or . If you want to talk on that other topic, by all means do so, but please start a new topic. Only if you absolutely insist on hijacking/derailing a topic might you possibly earn a warning point. We have rules for reasons Joel. They were not invented just to give mods something to do or because we are petty power mongers Sometimes there are good reasons for things and that you are simply unaware of those reasons

We do have a way to appeal. In most cases members will have an opportunity to explain their actions and any events from their perspective before any moderation decision is made. In arriving at a decision we consider the rules and guidelines, previous warnings, previous behaviour. Normally members will be given a non points warning or will have had a discussion with a moderator first, before they are given warning points. More serious penalties require two mods or more to review the evidence and be in agreement. Should new evidence become available members can always present it and staff will always try to consider it fairly. The appeal process is: if you are unhappy with a decision, you can ask for a more senior / experienced moderator to take a look at the evidence. For certain rules, breaking them will result in an immediate suspension or ban. A website is not a democracy. However: We consulted the membership when drafting our rules Our staff are themselves members We try to consider member viewpoints on general issues We do discuss issues with members We sometimes conduct polls. We do try to be fair The few communities that could be described as democratic, the membership are involved in all aspects of running the site, including the site finance with all members being levied a membership fee. Even then, most sites that do charge a universal fee are not democratic either. Some do have tiered membership systems where paying members have a vote while free members do not. Songstuff does have a steering group of long term members that is meant to help act as a sounding board and discussion group for ideas about site direction. So we do definitely have community involvement, and some democratic aspects to the community, but it is not a democracy

I love Aqualung. I used to play wondering aloud and locomotive breath at parties on a regular basis. I’ve seen Tull a few times. Loads of fun. The more modern acoustic interpretations are a lot more flat, but mr Anderson in particular is a talented man. His management contact: Calliandra Productions Ltd. tullmanagement@aol.com He lives in Minety in Wiltshire

Hey Nate, welcome to the Songstuff family. Good to have you aboard

Well I have followed everyone who has posted their handle and those others I knew, from my own account, my own music accounts and Songstuff. Have you guys done the same?

My invoice is en route

Musicians need help. That was a sizeable component of my last blog entry. But how do they get that help? Where do they get that help? Friends and Family Friends and family are not reliable advocates. Their motivation is generally built on friendship and family ties, not on belief in your music. I can understand bands starting to build help based on friends and family, but at some point artists need to move beyond that completely. The sooner the better. This coun this counts for both finding fans and for finding help. For example: Your brother may be passionate about tractors. He looks at you and thinks "Joel needs help. He walways needs help with his music. I wish him well, but I don't have time to help him. I want to look at tracctors. Hell, when was the last time Joel helped me with my tractor obsession?" Friends and family may not feel empowered to help either. They will happily stand on the sidelines until you ask them to do something specific. Even then, they will do it governed largely by the factor of convenience. For example: You ask Jimmy to come tp your local gig and bring some friends. There are so many factors that might make that not happen. How often do you ask? The last time you asked did you spend any time with jimmy? Did you show appreciation to Jimmy for doing you a favour? When was the last time you helped Jimmy to do anything he needed done? Has Jimmy ever asked you to do anything? Did you do it? Was he happy? Family and friendship relationships can be messy. Then of course is the fact that virtually none of your family and friends will actually be fans of your music. If anything, they are fans of you. More likely they are used to you, wish you well, have some flexible back and forth obligation with you, have history with you, would like to see you do well, are happy you are good at music, but your gran is not a natural hip hop fan. She would far rather listen to Elvis, or Frank Sinatra. For example: You play your song to your gran. You don't expect her to get down with the beat and sing along. You expect her to nod along, keep knitting and tell you she's proud of you. She will tell her friends she is proud of you. When she shares it with er friends, funnily enough they are not Hip hop fans either. They too may have known you for years. they wish you well. They don't get the music, but they are proud of you none the less. Recruiting people to help you is largely the same as finding fans. there is an overlap in the people and the approach to them. You need to find people who like your music because they like your music. People want to help becaus ethey are passionate about your music and feel empowered through their own connection to your music... in the case of helpers they are also hopefully motivated and powered by their own interest in the area you want them to help with. It doesn't mean friends and family they can't be helpers, just that from experience they are generally not the best helpers... unless they have a strong, ongoing reason to, usually a personal interest in the subject or that age old motivator, money. Paying anyone does help with motivation, but it changes your relationship with them. When they are family or friends, but also employees and that can get very complicated. Even if it is a once off help, as a favour, there can be an implied debt of grattiude, or even a favour owed. Family and friend relationships can also get soured through entanglement. Relationship politics and history can play a large part in the possibility of help actually happening. Unrealistic expectations on both parts can cause issues with such relationships. For so many reasons, friends and family are NOT the ideal platform to build your music career on. The Insurance Salesman Problem We've probably all known one. That friend or family member who gets a job with an insurance company. their first job is to sell to friends and family. they do the rounds and get together a reasonable commission. The next time around they have to go to further afield friends and family. Their success is a bit more limited. To make a living they develop a harder exterior and a sharper edge. The connection to those they approach becomes more tenuous. They are less inckined to just sign up because you are you. It is often pretty one way. The insurance salesman is so busy chasing making a living they have little time for other things. Commission checks and bonuses invite them onwards. While family and friends might need insurance, they don't want it pushed on them. WHile they might like the protection it gives them, they may be happy with less coverage, with the insurance company they know. As a favour, they may go with you. they open the door based on you, not the product. Eventually people stop answering your calls. They hide when you come round. They peek around curtains and say "Oh here he come. What does he want to sell us now?". Their motivation to help has evaporated. You have been spamming them, using you relationship with them to open doors... and their induldgence and tolerance has disappeared. At some point, that insurance salesman has to sell to strangers, and only to strangers... otherwise family relationships will sour and his income will evaporate Musicians can be very like insurance salesman.At least, they can be perceived that way. Eventually people feel the relationship generally goes one way. They may feel used. They often feel spammed. The wise musician relaises that the more they rely upon friends and family, the more they will be perceived as an insurance salesman. Freedom comes from engaging fans and helpers who are not friends or family... plus it leaves those valuable friend and family relationships intact. The one possible exception is the very rare occurance that someone in your friends and family circle is a genuine fan of your music. Then you may find their pastimes and interests align more with yours and they may be more willing to help on a deeper, more extended basis. I can't emphasise how rare that actually is. In general I would say, move away from friends and favours. Start loooking for fans in new places. Make sure you have a means to retain fans and keep them engaged (your own site, music profiles, newsletter, a blog... all of those.). Approaching People It should come as no surprise that it is important to approach and deal with people in the correct way. It should come as no surprise that you may not be looking for the right people in the right places. You look for different kinds of people in different places. Although some like minded artists might well become street team members for you, generally street team members come from somewhere other than immediate friends and family. You need to have a method of recruiting them, including places to recruit them from. Often they: grow from a cultivated and nurtured relationship. come from fans, especially fans who want to learn a bit about the biz (for example marketing students, music students etc.) I will dive into those subjects in another post. Artists are better as collaborators. Find other artists interested in cooperatingto grow together. It's a good idea to find ones whose music is not the same, but perhaps in a related genre, or they write crossover music. Consider artists whose music reminds you of artists you are influenced by. Sales don't come from "Here's my music, please buy it". They come from a whole bunch of reasons that help cultivate sales. They find and cultivate fans. Building a team is no different. You look in the appropriate place, you recruit and cultivate people. With your team that can come from incentivising them. For example Setting a sales target and giving them a percentage... hell even giving them a prize can be enough if you encourage a friendly feeling of competition. Motivate and Inspire A huge topic and one that is so vital. Yet again success in this will impact how you recruit and retain fans, and how you recruit and retain helpers, collaborators, employees.... If what you currently do is not working, don't blame others. Learn it as a lesson, and change what you do! Anger and negativity is rarely inspiring. Rarely attractive. Money is a big motivator for many. Others need money just as you do, and musicians are not the only ones to consider their time precious. They are not the only ones who feel a need to be appreciated. If you don't have any? Well that is what percentages are made for. Concerned about sharing out a shrinking pot? Set targets. Make it conditional... ie 20% of the work they bring in. Be positive. Have a vision and lay it out. Let people know they are an important part of the team. Show them appreciation. Give them gifts for achieving things. I plan a blog post all about this, about recruiting and managing a street team, about incentivising and rewarding them while keeping the cost low. Ideally they will have a positive impact on your sales, attendance, downloads. It is hard to factor exact impact, but it the impact of the team overall should be noticeable. Team members like managers, booking agents etc require not only people who believe in you, believe in the sales potential and the percentage they get... but also they have a burning interest in the topic. They can be a little harder to find, but still very possible. For an indie, it is often someone with at least some interest but don't compromise on them being driven. They need to have an awesome drive! Preparation So much is preparation. Put things in place in such a way that once done they are still working. For example... if you have your own site you can have different member areas. An area for fans. An area for street team members. Post a recruitment form for your street team. When you encounter the right people you can set the ground by pointing them to the info and recruitment form. When they get on the other side there are resources, others to work with, incentives blah blah. Hell, you can even contruct something around Google Drive and YouTube to get started for free. There are ways to get free web sites. If you are at all technical you can use the free tier with Amazon AWS to host your site. If you are not technical, look to wordpress or bandcamp. Quick Notes Going beyond your friends and family is essential. The sooner the better. "Help me because I want help" rarely touches anyone outside the music world past those early gigs. For almost anyone the "what's in it for me" is a principle of appreciation, respect, and a key motivator. Understanding different ways to motivate and inspire is key to success. Find people with good drive and enthusiasm. It makes a huge difference. Building a team around you, getting help can be done. Artists do it all the time. Suggested by people other than me! You may have tried to build a team, and failed, but your lack of success may be more to do with the "how", "where" and"when", rather than a flaw in the concept. There are no instant solutions. Even if you pay people, it takes time and effort to make an appreciable difference. Some patience is needed for the changes to work. I get the problem, and I will try to fill some of the solutions out in subsequent posts.

Thanks Joel. It isn't an uncommon issue. I get the problem(s). I will try and address some of it in future blog posts.

What I write here is mainly for artists, but much of it can be applied to songwriters.... although generally scaled down a little. As an indie, this is perhaps one of the most fundamental questions. Realistically there are some major constraints in place: Lack of budget Poor contacts Poor tools, or awareness of their need Poor knowledge Poor use of actual assets (sometimes even knowing what is an asset and what is not) No team The sad truth is, that the lower your budget, the more you rely upon contacts, tools, knowledge, good use of assets and a good team. The fact that many don't have good contacts, tools, knowledge etc. is not a reason to continue to do nothing. It should be the alarm call that slaps you about the face and pushes you work hard and work smart, every single day. There are other ingredients such as creativity. Weirdly, for what is a creative industry, many indies fail to unleash their creativity to overcome the obstacles in front of them. In Indie-land, there is no magical success fairy. No one will swoop in, wave a wand and solve all your problems. Frustratingly, it appears that many artists are happy to wait for such a fairy. They only realise the fairy isn’t going to arrive when years have passed, they are playing similar gigs to years before and still few people know they exist. As a side point, perhaps modern artists are content putting in minimal or convenient effort to ultimately achieve poor results? Perhaps they like to have excuses to hide behind because when it comes down to it, they think that if they don’t really take part, they can’t really fail? If they do go all in, and still fail, that must surely be the fault of the music? Wrong! It could be... but there are a multitude of great bands that never got the recognition that they deserve. As an indie, The buck stops with you. There is no hiding behind “we have no money” or “we didn’t get the opportunities”. Moving Forwards Resolve to learn what you need to. Stop waiting for something that isn’t going to happen. If anything is going to happen, it is going to be because: YOU MADE IT HAPPEN. It isn’t enough to have one bit of a general music biz artist plan in place. You need to cover all bases. You need skills you currently don’t have. They will cover areas that you have no experience of. You will be faced with the dilemma of doing it yourself, or farming it out to others. If you do farm it out to others, you will then face the dilemma of finding money to pay people, or finding a creative way to get people to help you for free (or near free). If there is one thing you take away from this blog post it is this: if if you want success, you will not get it working alone. You will need to build a team You will need to collaborate with other artists on promotion activities Most artists don’t have number 1 and often struggle to see a need for it. Yet, it is absolutely essential. As for number 2:, most don’t connect that reaching fans is all about harnessing the power of other people... and collaborating with other artists is a fantastic way to expand your reach, and to help your band stand head and shoulders above the throng. If you build a core team to handle the business of music, you can effectively multiply your reach by 5 times. If you add a street team to help spread your promotion activity you can multiply it by a further 15 - 20 times. If you train your team in social media, each member of your team can be getting your message in front of 1000 people, very easily. There is nothing stopping them reaching far higher numbers. On Twitter alone it is not unheard of for individuals to be followed by 20k, 50k, 100k people.True, most are below 500.... but that is why you train your team. This is just your team. If you collaborate with other like-minded artists you can be adding several other similar teams. Yes there will be some overlap, but that is expected. If you are prepared, and coordinated, working to a plan, even what you do as an individual can become much, much, much more effective than the general ad hock methods most indies use. If you spread this wo your immediate team, and to the artists you collaborate with, collectively you will all be more effective. By building your team, and helping others build their’s you increase your overall reach, the number of people you can put your music in front of. By growing your team effectively, you can go from an immediate reach of 100 - 500, to having an effective reach of 250,000. By growing teams in the right way, the people you can reach are also reasonably matched to your type of music. i.e. They are not just the general public. They are the right audience. Importantly, they are not immediate family and friends! Making An Impact To truly have an impact, you need more than talking to a lot of people. More than talking to a lot of the right people.. You need to get the right message in front of the right people at the right time. You need to say the right things. It sounds so simple, because largely, it is. You need to know your resources, know how to grow them, and know how to make the most of them. It is no secret. Artists are being drowned by a throng of wannabes. You know the ones. The ones who haven’t worked a day to learn how to sing or dance, but feel entitled to being discovered as the next big thing. Talent show fodder. Some are no doubt talented. Most are not. The trouble is, they are drowning out the artists who are working for it. The sucker punch is that the throng of wannabes are just as good if not better than most artists when it comes to self promotion. You need to stand out, above the throng. Many more artists are learning to work better than they were. They are leaving the artists who don’t learn behind them. Dots in a rear view mirror. You need stand out, above other artists. To do that takes hard work, yes, but you need to work smarter, and harder. Luckily you come to Songstuff for your information and support. More to come...

I've heard of Nantes (Western France?) but I've never been in that region of France. I have heard it is nice though. I've been to France a few times: Paris, Aix-en-Provence and Marseille.

It’s been a wee while, but if I recall it’s not natively supported, more of a fudge to add it?

Hi Gang What do you think of our new front page and registration page? http://www.songstuff.com/ http://www.songstuff.com/join/ Cheers John

Loads of questions there. I would bring in @Steve Mueske I would always mix to as high a resolution as my system can handle. That means there is no fixed answer. High resolutions and frequencies will give you low latency, which is good. It is important to keep quality and clarity.as high as possible. Using high quality helps kee your options open. CD audio is 44.1kHz, 16 bit... which is the absolute minimum... however if you work to that standard, Blu-ray and high definition video audio will be severely compromised. It is easy to remove detail by format conversion, moving from high resolution to low resolution... ie if your master is high quality, changing to CD format is easy. However, going in the opposite direction is problematic... you cannot add missing detail. As to file format: MP3 is lossy and compressed. It doesn’t support high def.... so forget it for mastering. AAC, very similar to MP3. WAV is the bare minimum high def. It is uncompressed so you will have big file sizes. One big issue is not the audio, but the poor meta data support... it’s terrible. You can’t effectively embed your ISRC code. AIFF Apple’s WAV file alernative. Lossless and uncompressed with much better metadata support, but not well supported. FLAC... lossless compressed hi -resolution. commonly used for high res album storage. ALAC as FLAC, but Apple’s version. Not as widely supported. DSD, less common, less supported hi res format for super audio CDs MQA Hi res lossless compression used for hi res streaming but not well supported BluRay uses 24 bit/96 kHz or 24 bit 192 kHz... so if your master is a WAV, you are in trouble. Modern standard video will use 48kHz audio, but that is a distribution format. Ultimately your master needs to be as high a resolution as possible to be a silly portable to the variety of distribution formats as possible I hope this helps.

Hi Josiah, welcome to Songstuff. How are you trying to get the word out about your music?

Text is well known for failing to convey nuance, so sarcasm often fails, as do other forms of humour. That is why emoticons were invented. Quick emotional dynamics added to text

Of course you can wink... using emoticons. see?

. I was making fun of your making fun of your attitude. Joining you in having a sense of humour. Or so I thought. Who accused you of being smug? I made a light hearted response to your light hearted expression of frustration. The end. I made a serious response to your points, precisely because I get that you want to succeed. That was also why I made a specific offer of help. Should I now join you in ignoring that offer of help? It seems to be on-trend.

Much of getting it out there is the same, no matter whether it is free or paid for. The first step is getting heard. It then takes awareness, engagement, tools and processes... and a degree of goodwill. On many occasions you will perhaps be exchanging favours with other, like-minded artists. I am not talking a woolly, amateur endeavour. I mean contacting and working with other artists, and building a trusting relationship for mutual benefit. In fact that is one of the purposes of the club feature on Songstuff. The Red Circle 7 club is set up for that purpose but it’s already at a comfortable capacity just now and membership is private (ie the club doesn’t show, only the street team shows). However, I will happily help you by providing knowledge and practical help, as well as doing what I can to help you find suitable collaborators. Such collaborations are the MOST effective thing you can do as an indie. 1. These damn kids giving away the store for nada on youtube----ruining it for pros like me. GRRRR Well, different markets. You can either spend your time and energy getting angry at what is no more, or what has changed, or you can embrace it and make the most of opportunities you know about, and find out about methods of leveraging income that didn’t used to exist, but do now. It comes down to reality, or fantasy. Yes, it is that harsh. 2. Who's gonna notice MY music on itunes? Everybody and his brother's on itunes. GRRR No one, is the answer you already suspect. That doesn’t mean that iTunes is a waste of time. It means you need to approach as a sales platform, NOT a discovery platform. 3. F^^k Spotify. They don't pay s%%t. Double GGGRRRR Again, some platforms are nt the true means of income. They are more about discovery for indies. You control your catalog as an indie, and you choose what goes on the platform and what does not. 4. Why have a website? Who's gonna notice MINE out of the gazillions? (the ggrr joke is played out already) A website is something that can be a permanent presence. They are not expensive. At least unless you happen to run Songstuff It is important to have a hub you completely control, that WILL NOT GO AWAY. Years ago I remember MP3. Com was THE indie hub. Tens of thousands of artists put thousands of hours into promoting their page as the hub of their indie universe. The site got into financial trouble and was bought over. The new owner envisioned mp3.com as a mainstream music hub. Overnight he closed the entire indie presence. Just now Soundcloud could be in danger of exactly the same a decade later. The way your site gets noticed is about solid promo strategy, and finding effective ways to compete for zero or low-cost. Having your own site can be as cheap as a cup of coffee each month. One of the keys advantages remains having a mailing list you control. There are a whole lot more. 5. Oh, screw it! Lemme just forget it altogether, and just watch my 6-DVD NYPD Blue 1st season set and have an orange soda. Life sucks and then you die. Good to see you are keeping positive!

Hi Manu, welcome to Songstuff! Where are you in France?

You’d be wrong. Friends and family are NOT natural fans of your music. If anything they support your music because they love you. Your grandmother is not a regular fan of hip hop. Neither are her friends. I would type more to explain but I suspect you are just here to plug your MTV links on Viacom.

Hey Brian, welcome to the Songstuff family! Good to have you with us.

Larritza! Welcome to Songstuff!