Whose Music Career Do You Want To Have? – @TerraNaomi

Artists Sharing Their Own Journey

In my quest to learn about music marketing I’ve encountered many smart people, some of them music industry professionals, some social media and marketing professionals, and several who are, like me, musicians actively practicing their craft and trying to make it (whatever that means… but I’ll get to that in a minute).

There is something particularly genuine and relevant about advice that comes from another musician. The advice and perspective that comes from industry professionals is valuable too, it’s just coming from a different place. Non-musician professionals have an overall vision of the industry that is uncolored by their own ego and participation as an artist.

But musicians being vulnerable about their own journey – now that’s something immediately relatable to me some of them may have started with some beginners drum lessons and become later talented musicians.

[Tweet “I find the musician as marketer perspective particularly relatable.”]

There are a lot of smart musicians who are actively sharing – mostly for free – what they’ve learned through their own experience, and, through interviews, the experience of other musicians. Basically, what I do.

Here are a few practicing musicians whose blogs, books and podcasts I follow:

  1. Ari Herstand
  2. Dave Ruch
  3. Marcio Novelli and Ross Barber’s Bridge The Atlantic
  4. Brent Baxter’s Songwriting Pro (AKA Man vs. Row)
  5. Sean Harley Tucker‘s The Spark and the Art
  6. Bob Baker’s The Buzz Factor
  7. Bree Noble’s Female Musician Academy
  8. Shannon Curtis’ book on House Concerts

If you know more artists who are offering great music career and marketing advice based on their own experience and that of other real, DIY musicians, please feel free to add links to their websites or podcasts to this post in the comments section.

Terra Naomi

I recently had a very productive conversation with a musician of that ilk named Terra Naomi. She gained fame doing covers and originals on YouTube in the mid-2000s, winning the first YouTube Award for Best Music Video in 2006. Her original music video, Say It’s Possible, has over 4.8M views as of this writing, and she has many (hundreds?) other videos of both cover songs up and originals on her YouTube channel.

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The Best Expenditure Of Your Money, Musicians

How Important Is Your Live Show To Your Career?

Tom Jackson believes that the most successful artists are those who are amazing live performers. A few weeks ago, Stevie and I attended a two day bootcamp with live music producer Jackson and his team to see how we could improve our own performance. I was not disappointed.

photo (41)In his many years of experience working with everyone from big name artists like Taylor Swift, The Band Perry, or Jars of Clay to up-and-coming indie artists like the Canadian country duo The Reklaws, Jackson has learned that fans don’t just come to a live show to listen to music. They come to feel emotion. What they crave is to connect with an artist, and to have their lives changed.

As for merchandise, most fans don’t buy a CD because they want to listen to the studio version of the song they heard live. Merchandise, Jackson says, is a prop that help fans relive the emotional moments of a live performance. The merchandise is a memento, and the emotional moments in a show are what it’s all about.

The Steven Spielberg of Live Music Performance

Tom Jackson teaches musicians how to make their live stage show remarkable. He helps artists deliberately create emotional “moments”. Jackson is the Steven Spielberg of live music production. This is the science of stagecraft and performance art. He teaches musicians how to use moments to create true fans, because it’s those moments that bring people back again and again to see your live show. It’s those moments that create the word-of-mouth buzz that propels an artist forward.

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