john

There’s always a comedian!

Hiya Monte, welcome to the Songstuff family Good to have you with us.

Hi gang Give your own description, no googling or pulling from another site or book, no plagiarising... Your description should include a definition of “refrain”, a description of “chorus”, and how they relate to each other. As an incentive, the best answer wins 10,000 displays of a banner ad for their music (finished songs, artist page, iTunes listing, or lyrics / music only page for lyricists or instrumentalists/composers) on the Songstuff community. The selected winner (as selected by me) can submit their banner should be supplied in two sizes... 720x90 and 468x60 This opportunity will close on Monday at 00:01am. Have fun Cheers John

Hi and welcome to the Songstuff family Zapperfire

Welcome to the Songstuff family Todd!

Hey Kristina! Welcome to the Songstuff family! Great to have you aboard. Nice intro Be sure to let us know if we can do anything to help you

Hey Joshua Welcome to our family!

Hi Haley, welcome to Songstuff

Hey Kevin Welcome to Songstuff! Good to have you with us Cheers John

Hi and welcome to Songstuff Katie!

There are issues to be solved, but certainly very possible

It isn't uncommon to feel discouraged. Hopefully we can provide you some ideas and encouragement. A key thing is to release into a warm or even hot market. Anything less and your album or EP will be destined for oblivion. It is up to you to create that warm market. You have to find the market in the first place and then heat it up. You will need: ideally your own website, like powder.com (you are about to invest a lot of time building your brand... it would be a pity if that was centred on another website) A mailing list (one that has an auto responder) a marketable image and packaging A good social media presence across a number of social media networks A blog or 4 (one main one, the others act as feeders.. one on wordpress, another on tumblr, another on blogspot, another here on Songstuff) A Vlog, and a Music Channel on YouTube An online street team Other like-minded artists to work with on marketing and promotion Other artists for musical collaboration to create cross promotion opportunities There are a whole bunch of techniques commonly used from a polarity strategy to cause based marketing, blog marketing You will need to get beyond friends and family. You may need to pick a couple of tracks that you can use to build your audience. Don't do anything yet... because the critical part... is planning. Planning allows you to coordinate your efforts and think how to best use what you have. Review your resources to see what you have in the bag. Weed old social media to remove anything "unprofessional" or anything that will damage your credibility. This includes old demo tracks that are below par. You need a "that was then, this is now" mentality. Expect that you will be desperate to release your music, but timing is everything. Get your ducks in a row before you pull the trigger. If you pick the wrong momment, pull the trigger before you have stuff set up, you can reduce the response by x10 or x100, or x 1000.... and it really, really sucks to put your all into your music, to feel you have created something to be proud of, something special, and the only listeners are your mum and best mates. All that time, money, emotion... wasted. So decide. There are no guarantees, but if you release without all that stuff in place, you are dead set for disappointment. If you do decide to put all that stuff in place, work hard to put it in place and commit to it. Don't let impatience make your decisions. In the background keep making better and better music. That way when you are ready to release a record (in marketing terms) you have a load of tracks to choose the absolute best from. That's a good position to always be in... have tracks a-plenty in the bag. I hope this helps.

Hi Gang What are the tracks that inspired you in electronic music? For example, Gary Numan:

I will contribute what I can too, musically or otherwise.

Very true. Then again, he was dressed as an unusual space alien / futuristic space man. Lol Unusual / unexpected hooks are often novelty... that’s what makes it novel. Think Kate Bush’s dancing. It was novel, was a visual hook, but credible to many people. Her general accrued credibility saw her using unusual hooks often and them not being in the novelty market... for most. However for people who didn’t get Kate Bush, they were novelty, attention grabbing gimmicks. Personally I think she is awesome, though I have cringed a little at times lol Well more shaken my head for a second and thought “That’s just Kate” and carried on, got passed whatever the thought was... yet, that WAS a large part of the hook. It was a reaction to the unusualness of the hook. For me, the guy’s spaceman hook started more novelty, but after multiple listening it became normalised. No doubt for his fans it becomes “That’s just him”. That is the nature and mechanism of such hooks. some get passed it and the hook works, they accept or embrace the novelty. For others it will forever be a laughable, attention grabbing, “look at me” gimmick.

@MonoStone Maybe, subjectively, though it provides an unusual, memorable hook for the song. Not what I would have done either, but I have no doubt it hooked people in as much as it drove others away.

Add: co-write featured artist (they join you for a song, or you join them. Great for cross promotion) Have a minimum posting schedule Use automation tools to help (autoresponder in email, post dripping using tools like Hootsuite or timed entries on your Songstuff blog) Where terms and conditions apply, have a couple of social media accounts. (Not Facebook. It is against their Terms. On Twitter have one in your artist name. But create a completely separate account as a fan of the genre of music you do, and another that is a general music fan. Have a 4th which is you in your own name for personal or political tweets... this account is for friends and family too) on Facebook, create a Facebook Page for your artist name (not a new account, a “page”.Google “how to create a Facebook Page”) I would keep typing, but I have to go. bbl

Same singer for you Dek

It would be nice to get a feel for what you guys currently do to market and promote your music, both online and offline, what platforms you are on, and what strategies you use. I currently help spread understanding, and encourage cooperation between musicians. I am a firm believer that our strength is in working together, and that is the great leveller. Past experience aside, I regularky help promote other artists online (very little, if any, offline these days) on a number of platforms. I have done very little to promote my own music for years, or indeed Songstuff, but have recently started to be a bit more active in my own projects. What experience and understanding I have I will happily pass on.

Hi Katie, welcome to Songstuff

The chat box? It should become available as your membership becomes “noob” which it now is... does it still show disabled?

Hey Vano, nice intro... welcome to the Songstuff family

Hey I thought this was an interesting breakdown of the writing and recording of “Shape Of You” by Ed Sheeran. It gives an interesting insight into the evolution of the song and Ed’s approach and process. Like his writing or not, I always find it interesting to get an insight into how others work. Cheers John

Hey Hannah, welcome to the Songstuff family. Glad to have you with us