john

Hey Miraj, Welcome to the Songstuff Family! There are some additional requirements for lyrics, because the lyrics have to work with music, and music generally has some restrictions. Once you get over that it should be pretty straight forward. Many lyricists started out as poets.

Welcome to the Songstuff family Timothy

Welcome to the Songstuff family Tony!

Hey Dave, welcome to the Songstuff family! Have you done much recording?

Hi gang just to wish everyone a merry Christmas / Yule. I hope you have an awesome time. Cheers John

Hey Rockin’ Roy, welcome to Songstuff! I see you are having problems navigating. How are you accessing the site (computer, tablet, phone)? I don’t know why you would having a problem tbh, I don’t encounter any issues... but that could be down to the difference between computer, tablet, phone etc... I’d need to look at a specific error so I can recreate it and work out the problem you are seeing. If you try to access something and it doesn’t work, if you can report it to a member of staff we can look at it right away.

Oh I am not decrying making musical or other contacts, or their value... more it’s being aware of how they fit into the overall picture. As an artist you need to build music contacts, artists, videographers, photographers, musicians, promoters, recording engineers, producers etc.... but we very much need to reach out to potential fans out-with music creation communities, to give them the chance to hear our music, and to be fair to ourselves by letting the potential of real fans a chance to happen. If we don’t take our music to the places listeners are, we just blow smoke up our own ass, creating an artificial world of pseudo fans. So absolutely invest time in making music connections, but also invest time in finding actual fans. Of course, give yourself as good an opportunity as possible... don’t look for folk music fans at hip hop hang outs. Put your music in front of as many people who are likely to like it as possible. Talk the language they talk, look visually appealing to that kind of listener etc.... but give them a real chance of liking your music, by giving them a real chance to hear your music... and don’t push your music on people who are not interested or highly unlikely to like it. I hope that all makes better sense

One more thing, the sooner you learn how to talk in ways that listeners and fans who are not musicians will relate to, the better. By saying something interesting to them, you might just learn what listeners like about what you do, and how you can talk about it in a way that is genuine and appealing.

hey just wanted to let you know I had watched your vid Silverwolf. Thanks for mentioning Songstuff. Quite a few good points for interacting with other musicians for building connections... but I disagree about who it is you are reaching. Musicians may be collaborators but most will not be fans. If you spend too much effort reaching musicians it gives you a false view of your reach and appeal, because many musicians have reasons other than liking your music for clicking like. You need only do a little promo on platforms like Twitter to see how poorly engaged other artists really are unless there is a reciporical element involved. There are always exceptions of course. True fans are genuinely interested in your music and there is no issue with being engaged because they are genuinely excited by your music. look at direct sales as your main income stream... not just the music itself but a load of related stuff. Incidentally, genuine fans want to hear your music and want to share it... but there is no harm in promoting to them as long as it is genuine, not spammy... but ideally you want the content you create make them want to share it simply because it is shareable... ie it ticks boxes as the kind of stuff people naturally want to share. Good you are using mailchimp... but you need to look at writing autoresponder sequences to guide people towards a closer relationship. Treat listeners and fans with respect, be friendly, give them awesome value. Really there is a lot more... but key thing is, fish where the fans swim. Music forums are very useful, great for finding collaborators, getting useful critique, giving useful critique and building relationships with people who get you, and of course getting awesome advice like you get here (cough cough) etc... but they are not good for building a genuine fanbase. Some (Songstuff cough cough) are great for getting tips, advice, tools, intelligence, etc for marketing music, for writing and recording etc. Music creation forums/communities are not great for finding REAL fans (though you are bound to find some). Many musicians also rely too heavily on family and friends... downloading, playing, coming to gigs. Fact is though, most friends and almost all family are not fans of your music, they are fans of YOU. Your gran is not likely to be a natural death metal fan. At some point you need to reach beyond friends, family and other musicians, into the world of listeners, to find genuine fans of the music you make. That means going where fans are likely to be, getting their attention, keeping their attention and providing genuine appeal. Fan relationships are like friendships, in fact in many ways they become friendships, but fans have different wants and needs. You need to learn how and where to talk to them, simple as that. There a load more to it, but it is good you want to know and want to help others. Being genuine goes a long way. I hope this helps.

Interesting. I wish you all the very best with that. A lot of what we are bringing online for Songstuff would seem very much in line with your plans. Plus, Songstuff staff have been putting together a media company, Red Circle 7, covering label activities as Red Circle 7 Records, publishing activities as Red Circle 7 Publishing and Public Relations as Red Circle 7 PR. There’s a lot involved but it is a great step forward. Challenging, fun and interesting. The knowledge gained can be passed on to Songstuff members. A couple of alternative arrangements are worth considering. For example, setting up as a co-op label, where individuals work together as part of a label, or they can each be labels working together in a strategic alliance. In practical terms they are very similar.... people pooling resources and working together for the common good. Do you have a timescale in mind for setting up your label?.

Why do you limit yourself to just these activities? Lack of knowledge? Complacency? Fear? Laziness? Lack of ambition? Contentment? If what you are doing isn’t achieving your desired goals, then something needs to change. Key questions would be “what needs to change?” and “How should it change?” The other common questions all apply to writing, designing, decision making etc... Who What Why When Where How Exploring all that is interesting from an awareness perspective, but also as a purposeful exercise where you get to use your creativity to find a way forward to achieve your goals. Normally our motivation or lack of it is due to a mix of reasons that we may or may not be currently equipped to deal with. This is stuff we can identify and sort out so that you can promote your music as effectively as possible by working smarter. That way you manage your effort and resources (time, money, people) and build in learning as you go. It is better to make decisions form an informed position, than it is to have decisions made for you because of lack of knowledge and understanding.

Anyone?

Hey add pattern. I moved your topic to the musicians lounge because it wasn’t an intro, just a plug. Happy for you to tell members about your music, but there are better more appropriate boards to do that.

Quite the intro Erik! International man of mystery? Welcome to Songstuff

Hi Gang What do you do to grab people’s attention? That could be at gigs, in the local press, in social media, in videos, in your blog... what do you do? Do you think you do it effectively? Do you think you could do more? Cheers John

Lol well, hopefully you might be active in between?

Useful to know about that use of Melodyne. I will need to see if the version I have supports it. Back when I used to develop music hardware and software there were a number of challenges for midi guitar, especially within a live audio context. Chords were one issue, string bends another, and of course tuning issues! Then there was the fact that string instruments vary the pitch when played. Over time after being struck or picked a string produces a note that can initially be a little sharp, but will settle to a lower pitch a second after the strike / pick. The DSP to identify notes in a chord is now pretty straight forward, and I imagine using pitch thresholds and behaviour would clean up audio and enable pitch bends to be assigned as controller messages with the pitch bend wheel easy enough. Good stuff. I sort of miss designing audio gear. Maybe something to do in an alternate life!

Hey Bryan, welcome to the Songstuff family! It’s a big topic. Certainly asking questions is a good start but the answers to each of these can be quite involved. It’s a good place to be asking. For example, you raise the possibility of your own site. I for one advocate that artists get their own site, their own web domain. There are many reasons for this It protects you from the needs and issues of 3rd party sites, such as: Site closes Site policy changes that removes independent music is no longer their focus The site implements any policy that is against your needs If you spend hundreds of hours building and promoting links to that site, only to have it become unusable overnight, it’s very upsetting. This happened with MP3.com, a once Independent Music site that went indie. Almost happened with Soundcloud too. Over the years many online music distributor sites have folded. You can still use such sites but don’t make them core to your activities. Use them to establish links to your site, as a means to help your music become discovered and reach fans etc, but the focus should be on driving potential fans to your site. On your own site you have much more flexibility on what you define as a product and how you sell it. You have much more flexibility in the tools you use. At the same time, more work is involved doing it on your own site. You would need to learn some basics about running a website. The above only scratches the surface on that one topic. It doesn’t go into options for building and hosting a website, the tools to use, the methods to use etc. My point is, this is a good place to get answers, but it will take a series of posts, questions answers and discussion to get to what is a good fit for you and realistic. Cheers John

Interesting looking back at that snapshot of who you were?

Hey The BBC has released 16,000 sound effects for free download. BBC Sound Effect Archive The collection includes effects from the 1920s onwards. Loads of obscure stuff and very handy for anyone into sound design, movie sound or simply the producer who likes to work with some ambient elements. The BBC makes these 16,000 BBC Sound Effects available in WAV format. You can use them under the terms of the RemArc Licence. All of these sound effects are under BBC copyright. They can be used for personal, educational or research purposes. The terms are described in the license itself.. For commercial use, you can license sound effects. Have fun! Cheers John

Hopefully the hit song challenge can aid as some sort of catalyst.

Hi Antithetic, welcome to the Songstuff family! You sound like you are talking about a collaboration as a writing team, even if just for one song. It’s no different to being a music writer that doesn’t write lyrics looking for a lyricist. It’s very different to taking someone else’s work and passing it off as your own... that would be ripping it off. Some writers do buy beats, but honestly, just find a music writer / producer you can work with. I don’t know if you are interested in the same genre, but I know member @Richard Watashi is a producer looking for a vocalist. I don’t know if that includes a lyricist. Are you a performer too? Rap? Singing? Both?

DADGAD guitar tuning: https://youtu.be/yl9q6dFOpA4

working for me now Peggy

Hey ED5: welcome to the Songstuff family!