The image of a 37 year old man waking up on his parent’s couch in the basement and shuffling to the kitchen at 2pm to have a bowl of cereal before he “starts” his day is a stereotypical view many have of musicians and other creative types…are they justified in thinking so?

There are always exceptions to every rule, however, I would argue that even the most hard-working creative type can err towards the ease of saying, “I’ll just finish that project later” - the statement that usually leaves painters with canvas upon canvas of unfinished paintings, authors with novels and short stories that trail off before resolve is found for their characters, and songwriters with dozens of songs that have a first verse and a chorus, but the elusive second verse is lost in a sea of Word documents and eraser shreds.

Is that to say that all artists are lazy? No. Is that to say that we all can’t benefit from some discipline in our craft and the practice of our art form? Almost certainly, we can.

Inspiration is very difficult to generate – some might even say impossible. However, we can train our brains to be more prepared to expedite the creative process when inspiration rears its mysterious face.  This can involve anything from training your mechanical skills (practicing your scales with your instrument, bettering your brushstrokes, etc.) to developing the process by which you get into your creative mode.

I’ve begun (at the advice of a book entitled Writing Better Lyrics) writing for a designated period of time each day – that’s something that I haven’t done for years. The purpose of doing that is to train the creative side of my mind to more easily get into the “creative zone” and for the flow of the writing process to go more smoothly and more expeditiously. I love exercises like this. No matter how far along we are in whatever we do, there is always room for growth. The illustration of athletes in training is perfect to draw an analogy to this – the creative “muscles” can certainly go into a state of metaphoric atrophy if they lie dormant for too long. Keeping them in training and practice makes them much sharper and able to be called upon much more quickly when inspiration strikes.

So, as any personal trainer, tutor, music teacher, creative writing professor, or brew master would tell you – just keep doing it, it’ll get better.

Stay creative my friends,

-TRMJ

Thank you to Mr. Ben Gibbard for capturing in nuance how so many feel when a new year unfolds. 2012 is here, and unless you’ve already moved your stockpile of canned goods and CB radios into your basement to prepare for Dec. 21^st, you’re probably excited/uncertain/curious about what this year will bring.

Musically speaking, it feels like a time of transition for the channels we all use to discover and listen to music. Itunes posted record revenues in 2011, but the app store accounted for a greater share than music sales did, and predictions show that music sale growth will be flat for 2012 onto 2013. Services like Spotify are definitely increasing in membership, but with a user base of about 1.6 million people, it currently is reaching a fraction of what Pandora’s listener base is on a monthly basis, and conventional radio is continuing to see a steady decline in listenership...that’s the business/delivery side.

The creative side is seeing more people having the capability to create some fantastic music, both in artistic integrity and sonic superiority. This era has never seen its equal as far as ease, affordability, and access to almost any tool or instrument imaginable in order to make music. Truly, it’s an exciting time.

What does that mean?

Both of these elements support my theory that, unless 2012 brings a format or channel that completely redefines the way we hear music, I believe the era of seeing “Megabands” surface is over. That’s a double-edged sword – on one hand, it’s great because we will start to see (and are already seeing) bands who continue to write and perform music with less of an emphasis on getting paid, and more for the sheer enjoyment and art of it. On the other hand, bands in which labels have invested time, money, development and all sorts of resources are becoming a thing of the past, so we aren’t seeing the same kind of talent development take place on the label level, or for that matter, at any level.

Where do we go from here?

I think we are going to see a further increase in artists and musicians that are creating for the sheer sake of creating – not that anyone will turn down money given the opportunity to make it necessarily, but the dollar factor will continue to decline as a motivator because it might have to. I’m looking forward to 2012 as a year where I will release my record, History, (which, I will provide more information on in the coming weeks), and I am focusing on writing and co-writing more this year than I ever have before.  I’m also working on new ways to make concerts better for everyone going, and I’ll roll out those ideas as the year progresses.

Thank you incredibly to everyone who supports music, who is a fan, and who continues to listen – we’re here, making music, and will continue to no matter what the economy or the industry looks like.  Here’s to a great year in front of us.

-TRMJ

Tennis. Scoops of ice cream. Espresso. Whiskey. Whatever you're thinking singles and doubles might refer to, we all have our preferences and ability to process the amount of each item. Some people need a double (or a triple, or a quad) shot of espresso just to get the morning going, while others can scarcely bare one shot of whiskey to sip on during an entire evening of poker.  I would propose the same is very true when it comes to our minds and our ears processing music.

You're Talking About Music?

I'm talking about the difference between releasing an entire album at a time vs. releasing single songs one at a time. There can certainly be advantages to both; I'll give you my current thinking on where I think music is heading, but feel free to disagree in the comments section.

Doubles/Albums

For the most avid music fans - it may not be a chore to check out a new band/artist and go through and listen to 30-second samples of all 12 songs on an album. In fact, some music fans prefer this, because they like to get an idea of the entirety of an album's statement by the artist (I fall into this category). They can, and like to, take in a large amount of music at a time, and are willing to invest time and energy in a new band or artist. While I love this category of fan, I think we are in the minority. 

For the most part (this will be a big generalization here), in the digital music medium, albums are directed towards people who are already fans of a particular band or artist.  Hardly anyone will randomnly search for an artist on itunes, listen to their entire record, and then make a decision to purchase it. Most people don't have the time or the patience to do that. 

What will prompt people to buy an entire album is if:

1) They already know who the band or artist is, and they are anticipating a new release

2) The album has been referred to them either by a trusted media source (e.g. Pitch Fork, A/V Club, etc.) or by a friend who swears by the album.

3) There is a major discount on the record if it's purchased as a whole (I recently made a decision to buy Lady Gaga's new record because it was available on Amazon.com for $.99)

While I think there is still tons of opportunity for artists and bands to sell CD's at their shows, in a digital medium, albums are primarily meant for people who are already fans - or those who are the special breed of people who have the patience to go through each song and make an album purchase. 

Singles

Here lies the majority of the population. These people like music, but feel bombarded and somewhat paralyzed by the amount of choices in the current music climate.  They can't go through the top 20 list of artists on Itunes and listen to samples of each artist's entire record - that would take 2 hours to do, if each artists has an average of 12 songs on their records.

So what do they do? They make their decision based on one song. Most of the time, people will look for the highest rated song by an artist and listen to that to see if they like it. If they do, they might buy it, or simply decide to check out a few other tunes based on listening to the first one. 

This is the integral point of where a person decides if they want one song, or if they're going to take a chance and buy multiple songs, or maybe even an entire record. Regardless of the decision that they make, the way they were introduced to the new artist or band was through listening through one song at a time.

Get to the Point, Matt

Here's what I'm saying - I think it is incredibly important for artists and bands to release their best songs one at a time. It's very easy to direct new listeners to one song at a time, and almost everyone can spare 30 seconds in the day to go listen and determine if they like it or not. If they do, they will take their own initiative to buy it, and/or go listen to other music by that artist and determine whether or not they want to buy more music or become more invested in that artist.

I plan on doing this with my new song, "Empty House" - it will eventually be one of the tracks on my album History, but I am going to release a number of singles from the record first so I can direct people towards bite-sized moments from the record so that they're easily digestable. Look for "Empty House" to be out within the next couple of weeks, I will keep you guys posted for sure!

Feel free to post all kinds of arguements here if you'd like (in the comments section), but at least for now, this is the direction I'm heading...

-TRMJ 

Publishing

I'm not talking about a book deal I recently got - publishing can be a revenue stream, post-music creation, that many musicians/songwriters do not take advantage of...let alone, know what it is. I'm going to try to describe some things you can do at whatever level you're at to get you familiarized with it.  I'll start with how a song is separated, and move onto a list of terms that you hear, but some of you may not know.

How a Song is Separated:

1. Sound Recording - this is the actual recording of a song. Whether it exists in mp3 format, CD, vinyl, etc., this is what someone might refer to as a "master." You sell CD's, vinyl, and mp3's for money. Here's where it gets a little tricky - I can own the "master" of a song, and I don't have to be the writer. For example, I recorded a version of a tune called "Give Me Just a Little More Time" (you can listen to it on my music page), but I had nothing to do with the writing of the song. My recording of the song is my master of the song. I had to get permission from the writers (and pay them mechanical royalties) to do this, but I currently own 100% of that master recording. 

You can have a thousand different recordings of the same song, and they will all be classified as different sound recordings and can have different owners. If you record your record in your own home, at your studio, and no one else has anything to do with the recording, you own your own master/sound recording. 

If all of that made sense, nod your head, "Yes..."

2. Writing/Publishing (Intellectual Property) - this is the aspect of a song that exists as an intellectual property. Before a song is ever recorded, you wrote it, the lyrics and music, and you now have it as intellectual property. Cool, huh?

The intellectual property aspect of a song is comprised of 2 parts when it pertains to collecting income on it - the (1)writing, and the (2)publishing of the song. Think of them as cash and checks that you take to the bank - they are both forms of money, they're just called different things. 50% of the song exists as writing, and 50% of the song exists as publishing.

If you have written a song, and you are the sole writer of it, you own the writing and the publishing associated with that song. 

Why is this important?

Now that you know how a song is separated, you can better categorize how you will make money from it. The "master" side of a song, the actual recording, is what most independent musicians will use to make money because they sell copies of the sound recording to their fans. That's great! Keep doing that, and the more, the merrier. 

Writing/Publishing gets a little more intricate as far as how income gets into your hands. You will want to join a PRO (Performing Rights Organization). I mentioned these in my previous post, 3 of the big ones are ASCAP, BMI, and SESAC.

Do some research on each PRO before you make your decision of which one to apply for (I am a member of SESAC for those who are curious). Once you decide, make sure that you sign up as both a writer AND a publisher, because you own both of those aspects of the song.

For example, let's say John Smith wrote the song called "I Love You." If John Smith is the only writer, he would register the writing side under "John Smith" (he might have to provide another form of ID like a middle name or something, because there are a lot of John Smith's, but anyway...)  The publishing side of the song can be registered under whatever John Smith decides his publishing should be called. Let's say he calls it "John Smith Publishing" If no one else has that name for their publishing, he can use that to register the publishing of his song.

My publishing for my music is called "Bring the News In Publishing" - you can be creative with the name of your publishing, and probably should be so that people can tell you apart from everyone else!

Licensing

Here's the last section for this post - licensing. This is a huge element of how a writer can generate income from songs that already exist. When you "license"  a song to someone for use, they basically pay you for the right to use it in some way. It can be used in the soundtrack of a movie, TV show, in a TV commercial, as music in the background on a website (ESPN.com does a lot of this with hard rock music), and can even be licensed to other artists to perform versions of the song you wrote (many country acts do this - songwriters will license their music to bigger name artists to record and then sell their music, but the writer gets royalties!)

To go over every opportunity you have to make money would take quite some time, but here are some of the things I've done through licensing:

- Songs in a motion picture. You get money up front, and if the movie airs on TV, you collect royalties on the back end
- Songs in a retail store playlist. My songs have been featured in a few store chains, and in a few casino chains around the country, and some internationally. Different countries have different reporting/pay laws, but all of these count as licensing to the companies to use my music, so I get money for it.
- Songs on an actual movie soundtrack that is released as a CD/Mp3 album. I am compensated, through licensing, for both the sound recording that I own, plus the writer/publishing side of this because I am giving the film company permission to use them both on the soundtrack to sell for a profit. We all get a piece of the pie that way.

I hope this made sense, and has encouraged you to look at how your music is categorized for the sake of revenue generation. I know, this is the ultra boring side to being a musician, but it won't be boring when deposits are being made into your bank account. :-)

Thanks for reading, this will conclude this short series helping musicians figure some of this stuff out, but I'll definitely continue to post more info as I get questions from people.

Happy writing, creating, performing - and hopefully this helps you make that what you REALLY do...

-TRMJ 

It's been an awesomely busy September. That in itself is a great thing to realize when you're working in an artistic/creative field - some months will be feast, and some will be famine. Once again, if you're trying to make your art a full-time occupation, you're going to need to plan out which months are normally more busy/more revenue is being generated, and which ones are less busy/less revenue is generated and how to plan accordingly what to do in both those types of situations.

Revenue Streams

Chances are, if you're working from your home (or, from a Starbucks if you don't have internet currently), you are not receiving every dollar paid to you by doing just one task. Diversity in your revenue streams will quickly become your very good friend.  Here's a little breakdown of the various sources that I currently receive revenue a regular (or, at least PSEUDO-regular) basis:

Playing shows: Whether you're playing at your uncle's coffee shop, or selling out the biggest venue in your city, you need to get the word out about your music. This one is so obvious, I hate to say that some artists don't recognize that you need to do this to make money (unless you're purely a producer/songwriter). There are going to be some where fans will pay a cover at the door to come hear you play your original music, and there are going to be some where you might have to fill a 3 hour time frame with music for people who are already in a coffee shop/restaurant/bar, but the venue will give you a flat rate to play.  

Look for opportunities to play all kinds of shows in your city (those are obviously the ones that will require less travel, and less money to get there) and for opportunities in the closest bigger cities surrounding yours at first.  A great way to do that is to go on Myspace (remember that?) and to click on the "shows" tab and enter your zip code.  You will be able to find tons of places to play that ACTUALLY BOOK PEOPLE, because you'll see artists that are currently booked there. Neat, huh?

Tips/ CD Sales: If you're playing a show that's entertainment for people who are already at an establishment, you need to put out a tip jar.  The worst thing that will happen is you will get nothing, the best thing that could happen is that you will get something. Don't put out a tip jar at a concert where people have already paid money at the door - they've put in their fee to see you already. Reserve the tip jar for the 2 to 3 hour gigs where you're providing an entertaining atmosphere for everyone there. Have your CD's right next to the tip jar too so someone can grab one while you're playing and just drop the money in the jar. You might even double the amount of money you'll make in a night.

Quick Tip: Make your tip jar look cool - it will draw more attention to it :-)

Itunes/Digital Downloads: Get your music on Itunes. It's not difficult - you can go through CDBaby, or you can go through tunecore.com (or a number of other services) and upload your tracks so that people can download them (and then pay you money for the downloads!)

You have an infinite supply of your music to be downloaded, so that's a plus, and Itunes pays you $0.70 for each dollar spent on the site. That's a huge percentage - you're almost looking at a better profit margin than if you had CD's manufactured, and shipped them from your website. So, take advantage of the world's largest distributor of music. Note: Itunes will get you your money 45 days after the month is over, so you'll get January's money on March 15th, if you sold downloads in January. It's all part of the planning.

Publishing/Writing: This revenue stream will probably be the next installment of the series, but for now, we'll just say that you need to take advantage of what you're working on. Join a PRO (Performing Rights Organization), the big ones you've probably heard of are ASCAP, BMI, and SESAC.

There are so many aspects to how you can make money with the publishing and writing side of your original music that it's mind boggling - a few examples from my personal vault:

1. SESAC, my PRO, pays money to me for each time I submit my setlist from a venue that's registered with them and I play the venue. Extra money for playing shows? Yes please.

2. I've licensed numerous songs to different films to use in the soundtrack of the movie, and there are payments that come up front for that, and if they air on TV, you will get royalties on the back end. 

3. I have received royalty checks for my music being placed on playlists that play in retail stores throughout the country.

4.  I receive a mechanical royalty for my songs that are going to be released on an official CD soundtrack of a movie.

I'm sure many (if not all of those) might sound foreign to you, but I'll touch on that in my next posting.

Those are 4 revenue streams that I personally receive every month, and there are other ones out there for certain. If you're not taking advantage of at least those 4 - get on it. I'll fill you guys in on Publishing in my next post; thanks for reading in the meantime, and hope this continues to help.

-TRMJ