john

Hi The title pretty well says it all. Charles Berthoud:

Hey CCB! Welcome to our community!

Do you have a marketing campaign planned? Will you be doing a video for any of the songs? TBD?

Hey This is an interesting topic, potentially revolutionary for the standard indie artist. Managing your image need not be a deep dark art. After all, it is primarily about taking control over how you are perceived, moving as much perception of you to be based on what information you want someone to know about you versus what information about you is available to others accidentally. Sure there is more to it than that, but fundamentally that is the core of image management. The first thing I would highlight is that you become aware of the impression you give intentionally and unintentionally. Secondly, you need to understand that you have different audiences, and not all information is for all audiences. Thirdly, you largely control the majority of information they will encounter until YOU accidentally tell them something. Friends, family and colleagues leak info, but they mostly get that info from us. So, manage your own info. Work out what audiences are where. Make it easy on yourself. Talk to specific audiences in specific locations. Stay aware of who you are talking to, and who is in your audience. Be aware: Different information is for different audiences. Before you open your mouth, before you attend events, before you go on any stage (including internet platforms), make sure you are audience aware, then edit your message and how you plan to deliver it, accordingly. You can still be very open. Being open does not mean sharing everything. Be smart. Otherwise please post your bank details, debit and credit card numbers along with your PIN numbers. No? Good. You already accept the principle! Even when you let someone see “behind the scenes” that does not mean “warts and all”. Everything we let people see is stage managed to some extent. With video, that is one of the main uses for your edit button. There’s a reason for writing scripts, for multiple cameras, for rehearsal of absolutely anything! The biggest distinction in audiences are making sure to distinguish between front of house and backstage. Do not mix the two especially backstage, unless it is exceptional, highly managed circumstances. Indie Artists mix these audiences online, all the time! Especially on social media. Especially on Twitter. I am not saying these are bad platforms. However, we use them very poorly. What do you do (if anything) to manage your image? Indies are responsible for all aspects of being an artist. Unfortunately this is often by neglect as indies almost always focus on the immediate fun bit and are unaware of the importance of different aspects of their career (amateur or professional) and that the buck stops with them. If they can’t be bothered, then massively important aspects of being an artist are being left to chance and luck. I haven’t even touched on branding. Next time maybe. I hope this helps someone. I’d love to talk it over with you. I created this club to help indies with growing their fan base and the quality of the relationship they have with their fans. It’s a place for engaged artists to help each other. A group of like minded people willing to work together… onwards and upwards!

There’s a thread somewhere about art, plus you can create a gallery for your artwork. I’ve posted some of my pictures there.

There is a point where seemingly nonsensical lyrics work very well. In pop, alt pop, pop rock etc they work well where the words support the emotion in meaning, and work brilliantly in a rhythmic sense, like the voice has become part of the rhythm section… additionally it can contribute to mood support/emphasis using tone and phonetics alone. I mention pop genres because this application of vocals seems most commonly used in pop related uses. My favourite for this is David Bowie, who tends to use words, where he wrote the lyrics using the cut up technique. His choices edge towards more surreal results. For example this extract from life on mars: “It's on America's tortured brow That Mickey Mouse has grown up a cow Now the workers have struck for fame 'Cause Lennon's on sale again See the mice in their million hordes From Ibiza to the Norfolk Broads Rule Britannia is out of bounds To my mother, my dog, and clowns But the film is a saddening bore 'Cause I wrote it ten times or more It's about to be writ again As I ask you to focus on“ Sone lines do make sense, within the local song section context or within the global song context… or a sort of sense. I always loved the line “That Mickey Mouse has grown up a cow”. That the line has a meaning is questionable and his lyrics often have that quality. I love it. It adds ambiguity, which often adds to the ability of a lyric to imprint on the listener, which means the final writing process happens between the ears of the listener ( as opposed to during performance by the artist, or by the writer).

Hey Jac It depends on genre. The same goes for people having the argument “which is more important, melody or lyrics?” There is no fixed correct answer. The truth is, it depends. There’s a whole lot of rock n roll hits with complete nonsense, made up word-noises: Well be-bop-a-Lula she's my baby Be-bop-a-Lula I don't mean maybe Be-bop-a-Lula she's my baby Be-bop-a-Lula I don't mean maybe Be-bop-a-Lula she's my baby doll My baby doll, my baby doll Tutti frutti, oh rootie Tutti frutti, oh rootie Tutti frutti, oh rootie Tutti frutti, oh rootie Tutti frutti, oh rootie A wop bop a loo bop a lop ba ba Ooby-dooby, ooby-dooby, ooby-dooby, ooby-dooby Ooby-dooby, ooby-dooby, ooby-dooby Dooby-do-wah-do-wah-do-waaah Well, I've been working hard all week long It's Saturday night and I'm goin' home To get ready to go out tonight Well, I'm gonna tell my baby to be ready at eight Tell her to hurry, 'cause I don't like to wait 'Cause I'm a hep cat and I'm steppin' out tonight Hep cat, hep-hep-hep-cat, hep cat, hep-hep-hep-cat Hep cat, hep-hep-hep-cat, hep cat, hep-hep-hep-cat Well, I'm a hep cat and I'm steppin' out tonight And… Well the news of the saucer been a-flyin' around ...seen it on the ground First thing I seen when I saw it land Cats jumped out and they started the band. Flyin' saucer rock 'n' roll Flyin' saucer rock 'n' roll I couldn't understand a thing they said But that crazy beat it just knocked me dead, rock. to quote a few.

Hi and welcome to Songstuff Wolfellu. Good to have you with us! Do you have any music goals? Anything from “learn more than 3 chords on guitar” through “play a gig to more than 500 people” or “release my first EP” to “become a massive international star” counts.

Hey Jasmine, Welcome to Songstuff! Nice to meet you. Out of interest, do you record demos of your songs?

Birmingham has been a hub for so many rock bands. Black Sabbath, Slade, even Robert Plant and I think John Bonham came from around there. Was there not quite a few of the folk rock scene from around Birmingham? Today I am having a Foo Fighters day.

No worries CX. I don’t think it’s arrogant to dream big, though my only concern with big dreams would be that you have a realistic idea of costs (time, money, effort, emotion) and chances of success in reaching the big dream. I know our community can help whatever your plans. It’s just easier to help if we know what your goals are. Having realistic goals, becoming a full-time professional is very achievable as an artist, but considerably harder if you write but don’t perform. Either way there are strategies and tactics that are more likely to work and strategies and tactics that doom you to failure from the outset. Importantly there are strategies that clash, and more than a few that require serious financial investment. In reality, sometimes we need to adjust our goals or how we plan to get there, to select strategies and tactics that suit our budget (time, money, effort, emotion). That aside, development as a writer and as an artist is important. Even if you have no intention of making money from your music (which is most writers and artists) we still tend to want some kind of listener base. People who actually enjoy the music we produce. Interestingly, the strategies and tactics for growing your listener base is 90% the same whether you make money or give everything away for free. I’m rambling. Again. Point is… we can help. However communities expect you to take part, participate. People notice who makes an effort and who doesn’t. This is true for social media, for forums, and in real life. So please, dive in, don’t be shy. We were all beginners once and we are all, always learning.

Hey CX1, a big welcome to Songstuff! Do you have any aspirations for your lyrics? I don’t mean world fame as such. Most people’s goals are a bit more modest!

I’m a big Zep head. You and I seem to share some similar taste! Zep were a powerhouse of heavy rock, folk-rock, prog rock and more. The influence of jazz on John Bonham produced such a rhythmic blend, making him one of the most influential drummers of all time. The level of musicianship was amazing. Funny to think Robert Plant was just 19 at Zep 1. I think Bonham was a similar age. I still regularly have Zep days!

Hi Gang We want to grow our user base. Please fill in the poll and discuss below… I have some basic questions: 1. Would you be willing to recommend Songstuff to your fellow songwriters and musicians? What is the reason behind your answer? 2. What would you like to see more of on the Songstuff Community? 3. What would you like to see less of on the Songstuff Community? 4. Would you be interested in starting or growing the fan base for your music? 5. Would you be interested in starting/growing the number of artists recording your songs? I have more questions on specific subjects for later dates. Meanwhile I would be very interested on your opinions. Please answer all. If you are not interested in something, please say why (if it isn’t too personal and you are happy for others to know). The more we as a site know about what you want from Songstuff, about what you want beyond Songstuff, the better the decisions staff make. The more likely future developments will aid you on your journey. Thanks for your help! Cheers John

Hi LittleSongFirst A good question. This page should help answer your question: https://www.bmi.com/creators/agreement It isn’t easy for me to answer because it depends on what you have registered with them. If you have songs registered with them I think it might me between 3 months and 6 months… ie they need 3 months minimum, but you should not cancel if your termination date is more than 6 months away. It is also affected by your current contract length. If you have no songs currently registered I think you can immediately leave. My PRO is PRS but I know 2 members of staff are @Peggy and @Mahesh are BMI registered. Hopefully they can confirm this. I hope this helps. Cheers John

Hi Sophie Can you post up the lyrics? It makes critique a bit easier if they are there for immediate reference Cheers John

Anything that is more immediately linked to the Artist, is hard to replicate or turn into a commodity, gives a way ahead. It make the “whole” more substantial. The artist is turning into the product.

Hi Jac I was thinking more of music creator’s perspective and the feasibility of music as a profession, rather than a marketing perspective. This speaks more to the survival of music as an industry, rather than as a hobby. That in itself has a huge bearing on the quality of music created and the amount. A lot of the pop industry invests far more in new versions of old songs, songs they know can sell. Taken all together that has a big effect on new music and the number of professional songwriters. My point about money and history was intended to be more about how we value music and musicians. It has massively changed. Moving from a massive music industry of professionals to more amateur made music is a massive change. Imagine 99% of woodwork went from the current situation to the disappearance of most companies and woodwork was mainly provided by hobbyists. That is a huge shift in society and in the perception of carpenters and joiners. As a consumer and creator we have a huge choice available, as long as we keep paying. The fact that so much music is available for such a small ongoing amount means less money going into the music industry. Especially as the retailers get most of the income the music generates. It takes concerted effort to support the musicians we love. The entire music landscape economically is driving new music towards more homogenous formulaic music. By making music more accessible at much reduced cost, we are discouraging the creation of new music, of what there is created we are encouraging the creation of safe music, and driving down the quality of music made and reducing the level of musicianship needed. All that before we factor in tools to make music based on loops and AI created music. Ethically we are in a dilemma. So far consumers seem pretty happy with music becoming “less”. Less well regarded. Less respected. Less special. Worryingly, because the information they are given is highly focused and filtered, people are barely aware of the consequences of their choices and the scale of the impact, and more worryingly, when they are made aware, they don’t seem to really care. Also hugely concerning, musicians feel powerless to change this. In fact, they have also bought into that same narrative. We (society) have turned the way we perceive music, its value, its creators into a commodity. That goes way beyond marketing. It’s implications dominate every aspect of music creation, music sharing, and the relationship between listeners, artists and songwriters. Like it or not, money, how we spend it and where, has a direct baring on what we hear and when we hear it. It has an impact on how we receive music, our state of mind, our emotional relationship with music. The way music is packaged, our relationship with the people who make music has all changed. Even the general perception of “stars” has changed. They are less special. Cheapened. The rise of celebrities with no particular skills changes how we perceive and value talent. Reality stars make celebrities based on how willing they are to debase themselves, rather than having any skills or talent. In music, the rise in hip hop and derived genres sees music largely based on new combinations of pre-made loops has made music creation more accessible. You don’t need high levels of skill, even any level of skill to produce “beats”. All of music creation reduced to being the backing track. It all goes towards a vastly different relationship between today’s listeners and the people who make music. Indie music is expanding. In some ways this encourages experimentation, unfortunately the reduced level of skills by a big percentage of the people making music makes it harder for different music to break through. There is a lot more noise out there making it harder to be seen, to be heard. We are always at crossroads. We just move the crossroad further down one road or another. The trouble is, the genie is well and truly out the bottle. As listeners, and as music creators, we need to be more aware that the choices we make today, tomorrow, every day massively impacts what music becomes, what it means to us. Unwittingly we do wield power. As creators we can no longer dumbly stand by, complacent, passive to our own demise. Just my opinion. We are in a poor place (not just money) but we are also in a place of huge opportunity. We need to have open minds, but also be willing to support what we truly love. I think people hugely underestimate the importance of music in our lives. Without it, our world would be much diminished. Yet, for years now, we treat music with little regard or respect, and it has already taken its toll. The amount of money in the industry is much less. The number of musicians and songwriters in the industry (professionally) is much less. People have become so used to being spoon fed, to taking what we are given and to wanting everything for free, but they do not realise the power they have, and when they do they use it towards such short term goals. Maybe that is the sad truth. Music, like everything else, suffers from the preoccupation with short term aspirations, and is a casualty, a victim of the 22nd Century Wars of Entitlement. That said, there is a growing undercurrent. A hunger for substance. A search for the more meaningful. It has yet to have any real representation on main stream media, but I believe there is hope.

Hey Rob! Welcome to Songstuff. It’s good to meet you I’m a fellow artist. Mainly drawing in recent years, though I also paint, use pastels and pen and ink. I’d love to see any of your work. Hopefully we can help you to progress your song, and who knows, encourage you to create some more. Is any of your daughter’s music available online?

One quick question lol Books have been written on less! Lmao A bit of back story. There has been a general erosion of perception of value. There has been a number of reasons, and a whole bunch of misinformation deliberately put out in order to undermine the music industry in order to favour the internet industries. Historical the root was at the time of Napster the pirate, and YouTube using music without permission. Both should have owed masses of money. They got away with nearly trivial payments, and public opinion was manipulated with misinformation about the exploitation of fans and artists by record labels. The owners of YouTube (Google) would have been hit with massive bills, and Google ran the search engine that for some reason placed articles supporting misinformation of CD pricing and costs at the top of search results and arguments supporting the RIAA based facts were about 10 pages down. The basis of the misinformation was that it cost about 50 cents to per CD to make, and they were being sold for $15 and artists saw like 20 cents per CD. There was an element of truth in costs in that buying in bulk, a raw, unpressed, non printed, blank CD was about 50-65 cents. That also did not include the cost of a bar code, booklet, shrink wrap, distribution, storage, or profit share with retailers, never mind recording costs, practice costs, gear etc. at the same time Google helped distribute the opinion that music should be made and shared for free. Weirdly out of all trades and professions, making music doesn’t deserve recompense. A sizeable group of musicians believe this. Can you imagine ANY other trade being expected to work for nothing? Of course, they are all amateurs who have the privilege of earning their wages from paid jobs. In truth, for many, they hope to advance by doing for free, what others charge for. The same happened with the lower end of the gig market, with bands playing for free (or in some cases paying to play!). It ended up killing the small venue gigs and tours as a viable income stream for smaller professional and semi professional market. Sadly musician’s unions have been ineffective at combating this. As have collection societies like ASCAP, BMI, PRS etc. My point is amateur musicians have been complicit in undermining the music industry and killing off the lower end of the professional industry and many niches. So many music professionals left the industry. So much experience, gone. Income stream after income stream has been stripped away. Currently it is income from film and TV. Sync rights being lost with some production companies removing bespoke music from existing titles, to be replaced with subscription based library music. Desperate pros, semi pros and wannabe amateurs have created vast library collections that are now being provided to film and TV makers for ridiculous subscriptions. Like streaming, music is provided such that music makers get a pitiful reward while the platforms make huge profits and the advertisers on those platforms make huge money off the back of the music. This is where the doom and gloom of reductionist viewpoints dwells. Loss of recording income. Loss of low end gig income. Loss of sync rights. Loss or merch income. Loss of session work. Loss of society value of music and musicians. Even loss of self-value. So where is there hope? New innovation around value, kept closer to the creators. Value around what only they can give and keep control of. Music, in some cases has gone from being the source of income to being a loss leader. Income can be derived from selling “an experience”, with artists being more accessible and there being a closer relationship between listeners, fans, artists and writers. Such relationships require more initial investment but ululated back in spade. Fortunately, such “experiences” can be kept closer to artists. The truth is, we need to be less complacent. We need to innovate. We need to have a different relationship with listeners. We need to take more care of those relationships. We need to be more active in our own music business, instead of relying so heavily on someone else to deal with all the unpleasant business stuff. We need to learn. We need to empower ourselves. Before other people can value what we do, we need to firsts value ourselves. Artists and writers can have a good living from 10k fans… but they need to adapt. They need to understand positioning. They position themselves to have specific relationships to earn from specific income streams…. And that they are unlikely to earn from all possible income streams because they are sometimes a case of either/or. Modern artists must educate themselves. I would write more… but I have to eat lol be back later if I have time. I hope the above is at least food for thought or a prompt for your own chain of thought.

Looking forward to hearing your songs! Thanks. Yeah the virus sucks. Keeps making you pay in unexpected ways. You just have to get on with living as best you can. Waiting for the clock to turn back isn’t a good bet!

It’s like synth presets. For some performers they have to create something new, unique. For many, largely less skilled, that is too slow, too fussy. They want easy, instant pay offs. Preset use here we go. Older musicians, older people, are far more familiar with investing effort for richer rewards. Younger are far more oriented around instant gratification, cover a lot of ground quickly, originality is perceived as too time consuming, too costly. It’s a world that went passed “that’s close enough” when looking for something specific, straight to “oh wow” and embracing flaws largely based on ignorance because they had stopped even looking for something specific, instead choosing “next” and stopping on something that sounded interesting. They don’t even spot flaws because many are untrained and have no idea about possibilities. For them, new ideas come in the form of buying a new sound or loop library. My point, is that the masses don’t look at the detail. If a blind man flying by on a bike wouldn’t notice, that is good enough for them…. however, the artists leading the pack, they are largely still obsessing over detail, are keen to learn, want visuals that at least connect with the story, if not match up.

That’s the thing… it isn’t one industry. You are talking about the sometimes competing needs of different industries. For a number of years the music industry has been sidelined. It less often dictates how features should be used. More often it plays catch up, trying to find ways it can exploit trends in largely teen use of tech… that’s why it is chasing lowest common denominator engagement desperate to be on-trend. I can’t remember the last real engagement trend set by the music industry. This goes along with music industry approach to tech for decades. It’s weird. Musically, artists and producers regularly adopted new tech, broke new ground in tech use. When it came to marketing labels stuck to “how it used to be”, forever trying to constrain methodologies into the nice lucrative boxes they were familiar with… to the extent they almost killed music as an industry. In the end, virtually everything they have now has been inherited from other industries (internet marketing, social media etc). The closest were evolvements of music piracy based industries, digital downloads and streaming. In both cases the music industry followed a familiar approach of jumping on to bandwagons, for fear of being left behind. In both cases it struck deals when it absolutely had to and not before and as a result struck really crap deals. When the music industry has pushed forward on a broader, home grown basis, it has always been slowly, with the emphasis on retaining 100% control. Keeping everything in nice comfortable, familiar boxes is more important. Ie their use of those boxes trumps any other party. Where innovation still comes from is grass roots use. For a long time the industry seemed to focus on trying to put genies back in the bottle instead of asking how it could use something productively and constructively. I still think that is much of the knee jerk reaction to “new”. Young indies, on the other hand, are much more prepared to experiment and try new approaches. Older generations tend to do the mainstream industry approach of “why learn new stuff, it’s complicated and I liked it simple, how it was”. Of course it wasn’t always simple, was rarely fair, it was just easy to go along with, minimum fuss. As time has passed I think indies of all ages are beginning to look at new tech and how they could use it. If you wonder where you are, email autoresponder have been a core part of internet marketing for nearly 3 decades. If you are just hearing this term you are waaaay behind. If you know what they are but don’t have one, you are way behind what you could be doing. If you have a mailing list that you don’t use, likewise. It’s a bit like having a 6 string guitar and choosing to only ever play 5! Out of interest… I am not aware of one single artist platform that offers autoresponder as part of their mailing list features. None. If you want to use one you need your own site and the 3rd party services of an autoresponder and mailing list provider. Still, the largely inactive, complacent, spoon fed industry (mainstream and indie) uses what it is given. Meanwhile it is the innovators that are largely rewarded. Note, autoresponders are just one feature. Chat bots fulfil a similar role in the world of messenger apps. Integrated all-in-one systems exist too.