Gangleri

Thanks John and Pascal, great advice and input. I think I'll be using it both for promotion but also fun. I'm now troubling myself with the thoughts of whether I should actually do it or not, I'm worried that I won't end up being satisfied with the results. Then again, I won't know if I don't try so.. All in all, I suppose I should give it a go, work at it a bit and see where I am with it in a couple of weeks. A few questions though John, what are the satellite blogs you talk about? And what are some of your main tips for building readership? Thanks a lot for the responses!

I've been thinking about doing this for a few weeks to not only try and promote my music but to also gain more skills in writing and articulating myself. I realise that a blog should not be your only point of action when promoting your music online but I figured that if I stuck to it that it would be a good thing to have and to direct people to. My question to you guys is what kind of things should I consider when either writing my blog or trying to get it out there for people to see? I know that there are a lot of articles on the web on how to make your blog popular and get lots of views but I was wondering if anyone here had any experience with handling a blog that was specifically to do with their music. I want to write something of a journal for the musical part of my life, getting to grips with songwriting, gigging and recording, I'm not interested in being overly self-indulgent, it would just be a casual commentary on the happenings in my life with regards to music. If that makes sense. It was difficult to word that without sounding a bit pretentious, I tried to avoid using phrases like: "I want to document my musical journey!" or "I want everyone to read intently as I grow and flower as a superior musician!", that would've just made me sound like a burke. ANY tips are helpful.

This automatically reminded me of this, something I saw many years ago: Not listened to his original songs in a while, I remember that they were quite nice and relaxing.. But anyway, yeah, crazy stuff! Can it really be called a bass when it has the ability to play all those notes? Surely it fits a new category of instrument altogether?

It's certainly safer to have a sound. It depends where you are in your musical career I think. I think my answer to the question in your title though, which concerns when you're in a process of songwriting a set of songs, whether it's for an album or not, it really depends on how you see yourself as a band or how you want to see your set of songs. My guess is that if you're asking that question then that means you have the heart of experimentation in you and I believe you should be allowed to yield to it. However, as John says, there's a worry for people like producers or maybe promoters that your audience might see (or hear) you as being confused and this is certainly a danger in some cases. In other cases not having a sound that can be quite pinned down is good. A band that I was in for the last year and a bit had songs and sections in quite a lot of different styles and though on the one hand I think we sort of made it work, it was quite hard describing ourselves to other people and to promoters or potential hirers. One thing that I learned from being in that band is that people like to know what bands or styles you sound like, they need that frame of reference to "picture" your sound. In this sense, it's good to have a sound. BUT, I think it's possible to make your band work without having a sound, but it's a lot more effort I imagine. Then again I suppose the musics a bit more fun if you've got that variety going.

Love is Blind - Alicia Keys

The point about finding your niche audience is a good one. There's a lot to latch onto and lots of groups to try and speak to with your music. His song about the tech geek being posted on a tech site is also a very good promotional tactic that illustrates how this can be used to your advantage. Definitely got things to learn from this guy.

Fair! Understandably it's difficult to keep something like this going. Hopefully, it'll get its legs back some day, I'm sure there are people who'd want to do it but like you say John, it takes time to promote and keep the interest going.

I got an Irish bouzouki about 6 years ago when I was 15 as a present from my parents. My dad was working with someone who was instrumental in popularising it and I fell in love with it straight away, the sound is just gorgeous. I was wondering if anyone had any experiences with it. The one I got had very high action and that put me of playing it for a few years because I found it difficult, but my love for it was renewed last year. I now use it busking, in gigs, often picking it to play over my guitar, and I've even used it in soundtracks that I've done for plays. in one of them it was the only instrument other than bass that I used, and boy it is versatile. Here are two examples of how I used it: The Masters (and Mistresses) Cross-Dressing and Cross Sir Bounteous I'll be that there are plenty of videos on youtube showcasing the Irish bouzouki being used in its more natural habitat. I wish I could play more traditional things on it, I'm thinking of working on doing that soon. Anyway, I hope that someone else here has had the pleasure of coming across or playing the ol zouk at some point, it's truly a delight! I adore mine, even though I still find it quite hard to play and I really want to get a new pick-up system for it, mine's very basic. Picture of a Bouzouki

Definitely bring this back! This is a great idea, was there just not enough of interest first time around to get this off the ground or did it all happen on another thread that I'm missing?

A very thought provoking post! I especially like the idea of writing bios of different lengths and ahead of time, that's a good shout. I'll be trying that out and maybe posting them up here for some feedback in the next few days.