If anything, the Internet provides the ability to locate many things you may not have been expecting to find. This means that in order to reach your market (in this case, your music) you may need to find creative ways to get yourself noticed by those potential fans that may actually be searching for something else.

The previous V11 post quoted “The Fall of Communization and the Rise of the Music Fan.” Once again a quote from that post is relevant here, as it pertains to the perspective of the music listener/music purchaser:

As music fans we are now walking in a crowded room where everyone wants our attention and what happens naturally is that we’ve tuned out the frequency of noise in our lives. The permeability of the walls we put up around ourselves now only lets certain messages through. You now have to be smarter about what you do, because it’s no longer as easy to buy your way into our headphones.

Because of this, we need to find different, more organic ways to get over those walls so that people hear can your message.

Creative Marketing is required. Think of it as a combination of web surfing mixed with the long tail business approach.

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Every once in a while you come across an older post that starts sparking new thoughts. Kyle Bylin’s September 2008 post for Hypebot recently came across my screen.

He states: We now form communities around our favorite bands, we want to establish a connection or relationship, and we have a strong desire for music that is real, authentic, and meaningful.

This is consistent with Seth Godin’s now well known Tribes approach: what people really want is the ability to connect to each other, not to companies [or musicians, as the case may be].

Bylin continues: The permeability of the walls we put up around ourselves now only lets certain messages through. You now have to be smarter about what you do, because it’s no longer as easy to buy your way into our headphones.

So he asks musicians: What relationships are you building, where is your community, what connections are being made, how authentic is your message?

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I was reading Spin Magazine’s April article on U2 (What Makes U2 Run?) and came across this quote from U2′S bassist Adam Clayton:

“Think about the big bands, the big orchestras that used to tour,” he says. “Then the stock market crash came and they slimmed down to quartets, because that was cheaper.”

His comment was in response to a discussion about music’s relationship to outside economic forces as a constantly mutating cycle.

So if at some point big bands had to reduce their numbers from 20+ to 4 to become financially sustainable, then are we now seeing a time when 4-6 member bands will need to be reduced to solo musicians to make touring financially viable?

After all, pay split between one is certainly much better than when split between five. So, is one > five?

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A recent report issued by the Jewish Moms For Independent Musicians (JMIM) stated that 9 out of 10 Jewish moms support the “pay what you want” model for selling music online.

“We think it is a good application of the morals we like to teach our children,” says Stacy Schwartz, President of JMIM and mother two young musicians with myspace pages. “My kids put a lot of time into their music. Right now they are giving it away on myspace. But they should be compensated for their time and effort like anyone else. The newspaper delivery boy gets paid for delivering the paper every morning. My kids should get paid too.”

Added Lauren Gold, Vice President of JMIM: “If you can’t get someone to do the right thing, guilt is always a great last resort.”

Okay…. enough of my attempt at an Onion style article. The truth is this model seems to be working.

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The update of V11’s website has inspired us to review some articles written over the past year and evaluate their relevance today. This post was originally published in March 2008, just after SXSW’s music conference.

Recording costs have never been lower for musicians. Still, a few thousand dollars will be difficult to handle for just about anyone, especially in these times. Some musicians have tried Fundable.com, where they ask fans to make donations for recording and touring efforts in exchange for free merchandise and perhaps a guaranteed local show or private show.

Just a thought, but has the potential to make money from recorded music diminished so much so that nothing like what was presented in this article could even be considered at this point?

Original Post:

There was a lot of talk at 2008’s South by Southwest Music Conference in Austin about how music label agreements were now being called “Branding Agreements” – the basic idea being that the physical distribution aspect of what a music label did in the past is no longer as necessary because of digital distribution, so their role is now being repackaged as a branding and marketing machine.

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Guitar Tree

The organic lifestyle movement has highlighted both an inconsistency and and opportunity for independent musicians.

If we can figure out a way to make music in a more sustainable way by staying local and relying on internet marketing and webcasting we can accomplish three main goals: (1) We can make our lives more balanced and sustainable in the long term; (2) By living more balanced lives, we can better grow and develop as people, which will make our music better because our songs will emanate from a more varied perspective; and (3) We can reduce our carbon footprint and be more engaged with our local community in our music-making.

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I was fortunate to recently speak with Adam Navone, drummer of Blue Turtle Seduction about their biofuel bus and how they cut down their emissions and how bands can make a difference with the environment.

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I recently read two quotes from guitarist Rich Robinson of the Black Crowes about record labels and why the Black Crowes chose to use their own label, Siver Arrow Records, for distribution of their upcoming new album Warpaint:

From the March 2008 Paste Magazine: “… these assholes who are sitting on this sinking ship – and have caused the ship to sink – still don’t even understand why it’s sinking.

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We all knew this question would need to be answered eventually – is the album going the way of the dodo? Is there even a need for it anymore?

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Perhaps the next step will be groups formed for the sole purpose of providing investment in musicians as if they were entrepreneurs, with the money used by the artist to hire others to help with production, branding and marketing.

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