Comments on: What Lies Are You Telling Yourself? http://www.innerrhythm.org/blog/what-lies-are-you-telling-yourself/ for independent musicians worldwide Tue, 06 Jan 2009 09:47:00 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.3.2 By: Clare Burrows http://www.innerrhythm.org/blog/what-lies-are-you-telling-yourself/#comment-275 Clare Burrows Mon, 28 Jul 2008 22:48:19 +0000 http://www.innerrhythm.org/blog/what-lies-are-you-telling-yourself/#comment-275 Having been Indie in the 1980's, I find no difference in how much you have to do to promote your music. In the 80's, we licensed John's music and got the albums into record stores that favored the classical pop genre and got some radio play. Then we focused on our children and their activities and aspirations and eased out of the playing field. Now we are back -- the work is hard. The boutique record store are mostly gone, replaced by the internet sites that sell CD's and downloads. Classical pop has pretty much disappeared -- both on the radio and the internet. But this music is beautiful and deserves a spot on the listening dial and the internet. So we march on... Having been Indie in the 1980’s, I find no difference in how much you have to do to promote your music. In the 80’s, we licensed John’s music and got the albums into record stores that favored the classical pop genre and got some radio play. Then we focused on our children and their activities and aspirations and eased out of the playing field. Now we are back — the work is hard. The boutique record store are mostly gone, replaced by the internet sites that sell CD’s and downloads. Classical pop has pretty much disappeared — both on the radio and the internet. But this music is beautiful and deserves a spot on the listening dial and the internet. So we march on…

]]> By: Alexa Weber Morales http://www.innerrhythm.org/blog/what-lies-are-you-telling-yourself/#comment-251 Alexa Weber Morales Mon, 21 Jul 2008 19:39:50 +0000 http://www.innerrhythm.org/blog/what-lies-are-you-telling-yourself/#comment-251 WRT to point one, I absolutely agree. There are only so many hours in the day to optimize MySpace, answer messages, make and post videos to YouTube, blog, etc. Meanwhile, musicians just aren't musicians if they're not shedding, gigging, composing and recording (or at least doing two out of four of those activities on a regular basis). We can't do it all ourselves. And there are sharks out there eager to take our money if we let them. We must be strategic. WRT to point two, yes, you must have sales, and you must have some bar against which to compare your sales to others similar to you. You may sell 400 copies of your CD, but if there's someone in your genre who has sold 10,000, you must figure out what they did. I've found the usual answer is that they toured relentlessly. Thanks as always for the thought-provoking read. --Alexa WRT to point one, I absolutely agree. There are only so many hours in the day to optimize MySpace, answer messages, make and post videos to YouTube, blog, etc. Meanwhile, musicians just aren’t musicians if they’re not shedding, gigging, composing and recording (or at least doing two out of four of those activities on a regular basis). We can’t do it all ourselves. And there are sharks out there eager to take our money if we let them. We must be strategic.

WRT to point two, yes, you must have sales, and you must have some bar against which to compare your sales to others similar to you. You may sell 400 copies of your CD, but if there’s someone in your genre who has sold 10,000, you must figure out what they did. I’ve found the usual answer is that they toured relentlessly.

Thanks as always for the thought-provoking read.

–Alexa

]]>