3 ways to make it in music

W

weatherbill007

New member
There are three main ways to make a living as a touring band or artist.
#1 - know or get someone in the industry to give you a launch (a good booking agent, manager or label and some lottery luck to get their attention)
#2 - Have a boat load of money to promote your band
#3 - It might take 5-7 years, but if you're really good, get a local following going, then regional ( close to impossible to do in L.A, NY and Nashville).

Bottom line, most of the bands that are making a living today have had a launching pad of connections or money and or both to get them going..... tour vehicle, flyers, cd, stickers, band bills, etc.........it all takes some money for bills and promotion. If not,the band will break up before making a sustainable living....happens all the time
 
determination is good, but can't get you .......

It can't get you the winning music industry lottery ticket.... you can play the game with alot of passion and determination, but it still really comes down to money for promotions, whether it's thru the industry or on an indy level.
There are a ton of great bands that have come and gone, not becasue they were not great, but becasue they didn't have the marketing dollars.
 
weatherbill007 said:
Bottom line, most of the bands that are making a living today have had a launching pad of connections or money and or both to get them going..... tour vehicle, flyers, cd, stickers, band bills, etc.........it all takes some money for bills and promotion. If not,the band will break up before making a sustainable living....happens all the time
Click to expand...

Not true.

Money and connections help, but you can't do a thing with them if you don't have your a foundation of music and business down.

Bill, come to 2NMC next week and I'll get you up to speed on how it can be done a lot quicker than 5-7 years.
 
You'd have to define what is meant by 'make it' first.

To some it would mean multimillion selling albums, sell out tours, TV appearances, radio play, fame, tabloid press cover, etc.

To some it might mean just earning a gentle living playing music.

For me, 'making it' will be to get my solo CD out professionaly reproduced and distributed to family, friends and reviewers, because selling lots of units and fame are not important to me, only producing a quality album is and knowing 'I did it'. I have a day job to pay the bills. I would not want to be in the position of doing what is required musicaly in order to make money, but many do of course.

To get the major fame and fortune one as decribed above, in addition to contacts you must be first young (cos it will take years) and preferably good looking in a conventional sense (do you turn on the opposite sex in a major way?), otherwise you've little chance of doing it (I'm assuming talent is there of course). Cynical, but that's the biz. One reason i ignore it!
 
Understand the paradigm that is currently taking place for music distribution. Then take advantage of it.
 
The future distributors will be Microsoft, Apple and independents that can survive with niche approaches to distribution. They will be the keepers of the massive databases that contain music and push it to the masses at 99 cents a copy. I would not recommend competing at this level. It requires too much money and infrastructure maintenance costs. But if distribution is your thing, good luck.

As an artist, you will need to align with the mechanisms that these distribution points use to obtain their new artists. These are the independent record companies, start your own because now is the time, and will be the "Artist Gardens" that these big distributors pick from. They no longer have to use the traditional funnels of the past because there is little financial risk for putting an unknown artist in the database. There is minimal stocking fee for bits on a hard drive vs. moving CDs from place to place and taking the risk they would not sell. The internet model eliminates production, distribution and stocking risk. So, Wal-Mart and Target will see declining sales of CDs but the public will have access to the music. I imagine the sale of raw CDs for burning will be going up in the future. CompUSA and Best Buy will need more stocking shelves for this, unless MP3 finally destroys CD players by improving quality and shrinking file size more. This is also a possibility.

The "Artist Gardens" will do the artwork and assembly of the album, or the artist can do it themselves at their cost and simply provide it to the independent companies. These gardens will then sell their wares to the distribution channel. No massive CD duplication is required however, limited production runs for certain marketing events or in store signings etc. will be required. This will come out of the artists pocket in the traditional sense.

The neat thing about this future model, which is unfolding now, is that it puts the little guy right up there with the big acts. The masses can browse the database, look for new artists and not have their choices limited by the few i.e. record companies of the past 30 years. If a new artist gets a lot of airplay then they will rise in the ranks towards the larger takings. However, the niche artist can still have a following for a smaller audience and not be run out of town for low album sales.

The big question is how generous Apple and Microsoft will be regarding carrying fees for new artists. This is where there may be some opportunities for independent distributors.

Tap, tap, tap, tap….is the class paying attention?
 
well stated, i must say. i feel as though . . .

i've just been . . .

enlightened

LoL (but dead serious!!!)
now . . where is that paperwork to file my company name on? hmmm
 
I was followijng the logic, and agreed with it, until i came to this part...

"The neat thing about this future model, which is unfolding now, is that it puts the little guy right up there with the big acts. The masses can browse the database, look for new artists and not have their choices limited by the few i.e. record companies of the past 30 years. If a new artist gets a lot of airplay then they will rise in the ranks towards the larger takings. However, the niche artist can still have a following for a smaller audience and not be run out of town for low album sales. "

I think this is naive personaly. People will go online to download that artists that they have heard on the radio, MTV, TV etc. They will not for the most part trawl through databases of unknown artists searching for good music. Of ocurse SOME will, just like some record buyers currently like to search through small record shops for obscure good music. But most sales will be to 'mainstream' artists that have the backing of a large lable with the financial muscle to push them, get them TV appearances, brirbe, er i mean hire record pluggers to get their artists on the prime time radio, get them on MTV, get them plugged in the music press and magazines,etc etc, none of that will be open to the little guy any more than it is now. Big music biz is not about to roll over and let the independents have a fair share of the action, never, they have too much money and influence.

So I think you'll see little difference between the type of stuff/artists in the download charts as you'll see currently in the purchased CD charts. The public buys what the public hears, controlling what they hear is not about to be bust open to every aspiring artist, won't happen.
 
The record industry is a dinosaur quickly coming into extinction. Personally, I can't wait. Artists can sell mp3s on their site for 99 cents a download...... the future. The strangle hold that the big corporations have over creativity and freedom will be erased from our society!
 
do you really think, though, that without some type of serious cash flow (marketing and promotions) to convince "listeners" to remember who you are, that they will succesfully find you on the internet when they start hitting the net to pay 99cents per download in massive droves?
 
there's always more ways to do accomplish anything

if you put your mind to it.
i've always disliked the term "making it". It's vague, outdated, and naive.
nothing is impossible. personally, i've always clashed with musicians, engineers, etc. who only wish to "make it". I make it every day that I eat and pay the bills and still am able to strum my guitar and write a little tune. I always want to learn and be able to put it into practice.

again

F*CK THE INDUSTRY
 
The marketing experts say the average indi artist sells 5 CDs a year off the net. I do much better than that but I don't see it paying the mortgage anytime soon, but it is gratifying to see visitors to my site from virtually every country in the world. I feel like a micro, mini, international artist The internet is great for international exposure, as I just don't see myself touring in the United Arab Emirates any time soon. Still with the proliferation of bands on the net, I think it would take some serious payola to cut through the noise on these sites.
 
gullyjewelz said:
do you really think, though, that without some type of serious cash flow (marketing and promotions) to convince "listeners" to remember who you are, that they will succesfully find you on the internet when they start hitting the net to pay 99cents per download in massive droves?
Click to expand...

It almost happened. Back in 1998-9, when mp3.com was really big, they had genre Top 40 charts, all with indie acts, all were good & some of the best made decent change off the site.

The problem, of course, was that mp3.com was losing money hand over fist, so when the IPO money was gone . . .

The next thing that happened was they tried letting everybody do the download thing, based on a bad legal theory. When they realized they would lose, they cozied up to the majors, filled their site with major-label dreck, and quietly died.

Then Napster and its followers rose, and the kids gave up on indie music for the majors, because they could steal it. Now that was funny; the kids needed the majors to spend money to tell them what music they should steal.

So where are we now? None of the sites that sprung up in mp3.com's wake have much traction. The major label stuff is much worse than it was in the '90s, but few want to seek out indie. Radio is overconsolidated and dreadful (it's also funny that modern DJs never announce songs, so the adults who don't steal music have no idea who they are listening to). It looks bleak.

Sorry, no solutions from me.
 
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