Learn exactly what Broadcast Quality Music is and what it sounds like. Hear examples and see TV commercials that have really simple one-instrument music beds that earned their creators thousands of dollars. Virtually anyone with a home studio can easily make Broadcast Quality Recordings.

Also answering these questions:

• Can I earn money with Instrumentals and Songs?

• How long should my tracks be?

• What are “Universal Lyrics?”

• Do my tracks need to be “Mastered” to be competitive?

• What is a “Buttoned Ending,” and do I need one?

• How much money can I make?

• What do I need to do to start earning money from Film and TV Placements?

Promoting Your Music Online

Michael Laskow’s Music Promotion Panel Notes from 1/16/10

I was asked to join Bob Baker, Ariel Hyatt, Brian Mazzaferi and Tony VanVeen, the CEO of Discmakers and CDBaby, for a panel at this year’s NAMM show. All but Brian are good friends of mine, so it was an honor and a pleasure to join them. Brian turned out to be a great guy, and I’m sure our paths will cross again soon.

As I began to clean up my computer’s desktop moments ago, I found the panel questions and my notes/answers and thought you might benefit from reading them.

Here you go:

Question: Top 3 ways to build your fan database with real fans / prospects?

1)   Write remarkable songs that people will remember, want to hear over and over again and tell their friends about. Too many people think it’s all about marketing. Don’t bother to spend your time marketing if you’re not making great music.

2)   Give group discounts so one excited and committed fan can bring her friends.

3) Create demo focus group of fans who are emailed acoustic demos of songs to rate. It creates a bond, makes them feel VERY involved and gives you great feedback as to which of your songs are worth fully producing.

Which are the essential music social media sites, where an artist needs to have a presence today, and why?

Facebook for connecting with fans, Twitter for keeping them in the loop while on the road and giving them a sense that they’re right there with you. And CDBaby for selling downloads.

What are the top 3 things a starting artist should do to establish him/herself online (when getting started)? Give us one or two examples/secrets to build a buzz online that you’ve seen artists use successfully. (creative tips/examples, please)

1) Write remarkable songs that people will remember, want to hear over and over again and tell their friends about.

2) Stick to recording your songs that are in ONE genre and know what that genre IS!

3) Gear all of your marketing efforts at being just one thing. Don’t try to be all things to all people because you end up being nothing at all.

What are the top 3 things an artist can do to sell triple the product……online and at gigs?

Online: see answer above

Gigs: Make sure you have somebody who is NOT in the band manning the merch table

Make sure you collect email addys, and giving away a free download or something else is a great incentive.

In his excellent book, “Influence,” Dr. Robert Cialdini proves that people are much more likely to buy from you if you give them something first. They feel obligated! So give them something they’ll perceive as being valuable, then ask for the sale.

People/customers are MUCH more likely to buy when you ASK for the sale.

Offer a deal if they buy two CDs - people usually come to clubs with another person, probably a like-minded person. If you give them a great price on buying two, then they’ll be less likely to buy one and copy it. Offer CD and t-shirt bundled prices.

What are the top 3 things artists do wrong on their own website?

Most artists try to make their website look creative and artistic, but forget basic marketing principals like focusing on one or two things on the homepage and making them very prevalent. It’s all about easy navigation and asking and directing your visitors to do what you want them to do.

Many people who build or own websites focus on what they think is important, not what the consumer might think is important - ie; tell me in a short phrase what I can expect this artist to sound like… what genre, reference. another artist to make it easy for them.

Show testimonials from happy fans and customers!!!!!!!!!!

What are the top 3 things artists do wrong when marketing themselves in general?

They don’t take the time to learn anything about marketing PERIOD - read a book or five.

They often think the Internet is the answer to everything, but if they applied good foundational marketing techniques TO the Internet, they’d get a much better result.

Learn how to communicate effectively by learning how to write great marketing copy, especially headlines!

How would you recommend that artists use video online?

Capture emotion whenever possible. Emotion sells music. Fill the frame as often as you can with close ups as most people will see the video on a small, youtube or mobile size screen.

Make sure to market your CD or downloads by ending the video with a nice big URL!

3 tips to create a decent quality video on the cheap for online usage?

Go to the nearest college with a film department. Give your best song to every student you can find and include a card with it that says; “Needed, one brilliant film student to direct and shoot my music video. Please send resume, credits and a short paragraph telling me why you would do a better job than everybody else.” Put THEIR egos to work for you.

Take advantage of the bad economy and use unemployed people as extras - they’ll be happy to get some work.

If all else fails, buy a Flip HD video camera for cheap at a pawnshop and get creative. Study up on what makes a great music video before you begin production. Don’t think that you’re such a genius that you shouldn’t take advice from seasoned pros and have a plan before you begin.

What are your top 3 tips on how to use Twitter - how often and what to tweet?

1) Know your audience and give them what they want, not what you think they want.

ie. Tell them how many takes you needed to nail the vocal on a song or other insider trivia, not where you ate lunch today.

2) 2 or 3 tweets a day, unless it’s a show day… then more frequently to build excitement.

3) Ariel did a great job at the TAXI Road Rally this year of tweeting when her panel was, with some more frequent reminders about its location as it got closer.

Give us 3 tips on how to get social media followers/friends to…

…give you their contact info. -

give them something they VALUE in return.

…buy your music online. -

Write great songs and deliver amazing performances so people will WANT to buy your music PERIOD!

Make sure your potential buyers know what other people think of you. Our purchasing decisions are heavily influenced by like-minded people whose taste we respect.

Find a way to deliver a unique selling proposition so buyers know what you’re offering. “Steely Dan does hip-hop”… you know what to expect and can decide if you’re interested.

…come to your gigs.

Do something at your gigs that nobody else does that will get people talking, eg. randomly invite audience members to join you on the road for a week. Invite them to the studio to mix a song. Let them sing backgrounds or do handclaps… get your audience involved… create a bond.

What are the top 3 things you should do in your email communications to fans?

Learn which fonts and font sizes work best because they are easiest to read, which colors work best, which layout works best, and create a user interface that delivers one central message and makes it easy for the reader to take the action you want them to.

What are the top 3 things you should NOT do in those email communications?

The opposite of what I just stated above.

What are the best/most effective ways to engage with/communicate with fans in 2010? (please list them in order)

Make memorable, easy to digest music that people actually want to hear.

Be in all the right places, maintain those locations daily, and do something remarkable that gets people talking about you. But if you don’t have remarkable music to begin with, they won’t talk about you for long, if at ALL.

Are there tricks to “getting discovered” online? If so, what are they?

I don’t think they are tricks so much as a well thought out plan. The problem is that most musicians don’t research plans that have worked for others, they don’t use a plan even if they find one, and they rarely follow through past the point of initial excitement.

The people who are successful DO research, DO make plans, and DO follow through on the execution. If you’ve ever wondered why some artists build a following and others don’t, there’s your answer.

PS…. I DO many musicians who do covers and post them on video sites like YouTube. When people search the real song by the REAL artists, they discover the cover artist as well. some people have built huge subscription bases by doing that. THAT one is a “trick,” not necessarily a treat

Michael

It’s a new year, but I’m going to revisit a topic from last year… any year for that matter.

Can you record Broadcast Quality Music if you have a limited home studio? Yes, but it depends what you’re recording. If you’re trying to do big, lush Orchestral tracks, you’re going to need outstanding virtual instruments or samples and lots of tracks.

If however, you want to start out with some simple ideas that can and very well should get some Film and TV placements, you’ll be surprised by how little recording gear and instrumentation you can get by with.

Imagine a chase scene in a Dukes of Hazard type show. Can’t you just hear a Jew’s harp melody and a washboard percussion track? How hard would that be to record? Just about any microphone would work fine, but I’d recommend a Shure 57. Everybody has one, they’re pretty cheap and they handle a lot of level, which I’m sure you’ll get from that washboard!

Bang out a simple “Hillbilly” melody and rhythm, lay down two minutes and give it a buttoned ending, and bammo, you’re good to go! Make sure you’ve got nice, healthy levels while recording and get a good blend while mixing and you may have just created a contender for a Production Music Library and eventual placement in a TV show or movie.

Want to try another? How about a scene in biker flick? Imagine a hot, dusty scene outside of a biker bar in Noweheresville, Nevada. The head of the biker gang just came out the front door, only to notice his 1964 Harley had been knocked over and is on its side, spilling gas.

I’d go for a haunting slide guitar part combined with a distorted harmonica to add some tension.

Want to hear a great example of exactly this type of track? Here’s one done by TAXI member Jeff Greenleaf. It recently got a TV placement in MTV’s Nitro Circus. Here’s his forum post about the placement and a link to the track.

Harmonica on Nitro Circus

I just heard 2 of my harmonica/slide guitar songs on MTV’s Nitro Circus episode 9 (season finale)!
They played both songs in entirety, which was very cool.

I’ll attach the songs and if you want to watch the episode it’s in beginning of part 2 (from 5:27-6:14 and then 6:40-7:10).

Songs: http://www.reverbnation.com/tunepak/2163400

Video: http://www.mtv.com/videos/nitro-circus- … list.jhtml

Happy Holidayz!

And then there is this little beauty! TAXI member Bob Mete had a solo piano track (that he wrote thirty-five years ago!) licensed by a major fragrance company for an entire year on a worldwide basis. The licensing fee alone on this was $15,000. Go Bob!

Yes, the licensing fee was $15,000 for a solo piano piece! Can you record a solo piano piece and make it sound good in your home studio? Read Bob’s story here.

I hope I’ve inspired you to get off your tush and start listening to more TV to see how many simple tracks are used every day. They’ve got to come from somebody, and that somebody might as well be you!

Record labels, music publishers, production music libraries and music supervisors haven’t traditionally accepted music submissions directly from songwriters, artists and composers. Unsolicited music was unfiltered, often a waste of their time, and rarely targeted to fit their needs.

TAXI changed all that starting in 1992. It was the first company of its kind - a true game-changer for independent musicians - TAXI has been the industry leader ever since.

I just got off the phone with a Film and TV composer from Dallas, Texas who inspired me to write this. He said, “I’ve been to your website and the websites of three other companies that look like they do the same thing and I don’t see any huge differences.” Maybe I’m not doing a great job of communicating exactly how TAXI is different and better than our competitors.

Immediately after finishing the phone call with the composer, I went to TAXI.com and confirmed that he was absolutely right! Our Website doesn’t do a great job of telling you why TAXI is better and different. Blogging about those differences seems like the quickest way to get the word out. Here goes!

• TAXI offers a Money-Back Guarantee.

None of the other companies have a guarantee at ALL!

• TAXI gives you TWO FREE tickets to a Best-In-Class convention for songwriters, artists and Film & TV composers.

None of the other companies do.

• TAXI guarantees that every song you submit will be heard by a TRUE industry professional specializing in the genre of music you submit.

None of the other companies do.

• TAXI gives you detailed feedback on your music from heavy-duty music industry professionals.

Other companies do not.

• TAXI only presents you with opportunities to submit your music to top shelf, pre-qualified companies.

Other companies do not. In fact, some of the other companies split your submission fees with the company or individual running the “listing.” That could encourage them to run a “listing” just to make money from their cut of the submission fees, whether or not they actually need the music.

• TAXI has multi-decade long relationships with executives from nearly every Major Record Label, Top Music Publishers, and hundreds of Film and TV Music Supervisors and publishers who specialize in Film and TV music.

None of the other companies can say that.

• TAXI has successfully helped thousands of songwriters, artists and composers get record deals, publishing deals and Film and TV music placements since 1992.

None of the other companies can say that.

• TAXI fosters transparency by providing its members and the general public with a public forum where they can post unedited comments. We’re not afraid of the truth!

None of our competitors have a public forum. Some had them, but took them down.

• TAXI is a member in good standing with the Better Business Bureau and we’ve enjoyed an Excellent rating during our entire tenure.

None of the other companies can say that.

But let’s talk about you and your situation. If you’ve got the time and the know-how, you can often submit music to the music industry yourself.

Ten Steps to Submit Your Music to Record Companies,

Publishers and Music Supervisors.

Step One:

• Identify the type of artist or songwriter you are; Rock, Pop, Country, Singer-Songwriter, Urban, etc.

Step Two:

• Research which companies typically sign artists or use songs in the genre you fall under.

Step Three:

• Identify the person (s) at the company who signs the type of artist you are or uses the genre of songs you write. Don’t waste your time pitching your material to people or companies who are not in your genre. They have no use for your music, and even if they love it, they’re not the right people for you if they don’t work with your genre.

Step Four:

• Find the phone number or email addresses for the people you’d like to pitch your music to. Organize a database or spreadsheet with all the contact info for the record labels, publishers and music supervisors by category. Systematically cold call or email them and request permission to submit music to them.

Step Five:

• When submitting your music to them, make sure to be brief and concise. They’ll be more likely to listen if you’re direct, to the point and give an accurate description of your style when you submit your music.

Step Six:

• Don’t just make one submission of your music and wait to hear back before you make more. Keep identifying new targets and systematically submit music every day of the week. The faster you submit your music, the more likely it is that you’ll make that one submission that gets somebody in the music industry excited.

Step Seven:

• If Country is your genre, don’t submit your music to New York or LA record labels or publishers. If you are a Film composer, chances are you’ll do best by submitting your tracks in LA and maybe New York. In other words, use common sense when making your music submissions. It will save you lots of money and get a better result.

Step Eight:

• Be very patient and accept reality! Most people will not give you permission to submit music to them. Most music industry executives are not sitting at their desk anxiously awaiting your submission. What is crucially important to you is just another person submitting music to them.

Step Nine:

• Don’t pester them once you’ve submitted your music. You’ll only make them hate you. If they love your music, they’ll contact you. If they don’t love the music you submitted, you will probably never hear from them. They’ve got better things to do than tell you why they didn’t love your music and what you can do to make it better. If you do get a chance to ask them why they didn’t like it and what you can do to improve, they’re likely to refer you to TAXI.

Step Ten:

• Write more songs and record more music. Getting a record, publishing or Film/TV placement isn’t typically a one shot effort. Most industry pros would tell you that it took them YEARS of doing exactly what I’ve spelled out in steps one through nine. Don’t give up to quickly. It’s almost always the person who hangs in the longest that gets the reward!

Real songwriters write songs. They write them as often as they can. They know that most will not make the grade, but they keep writing.

Why?

Because songwriting is a craft and like other crafts, it has to be practiced to be perfected. Could you expect to become a great golfer, painter, potter, novelist or pianist if you didn’t practice every day? You know the answer.

Some songwriters tend to wait for the muse. REAL songwriters write every day, knowing that the constant search for better, fresher, and more original ways to say, “I love you,” will only come to them if they throw away ninety-nine bad attempts and keep the best of the bunch.

This is all common sense stuff, but it needs to be repeated so it sticks. It’s easy to stray from your mission of becoming a great writer of songs. It’s hard to stick with something that doesn’t pay immediate dividends. But you’ll never see ANY dividends if you don’t stick with it!

So…. what can you do to stay motivated and on course?

1) Write at targets. Pick a current artist that you like and write a song for them. Nail their style and try to pick a subject you can imagine they’d sing about.

2) Write a hook a day. Pick a subject and just write the hook. Do it again tomorrow. Songwriters often get bogged down in the minutia of trying to finish a song. So DON’T try to finish every song! The hook is the most important part, so concentrate on writing a hook every day and nothing more. If you do it often enough, you’ll probably write a few hooks that will be great and THAT should motivate you plenty!

3) Keep a notebook of ideas. Concentrate on ideas that are universal — things that apply to most people. They don’t really care much about your life, but they care a LOT about theirs. Write about their lives. What’s going on in your friends’ lives? Write about it in the third person. Tell their story as simply but powerfully as you can. Listen to any of Don Henley’s lyrics to see how one of the true masters does it.

4) Use “Word Pictures.” Your song’s subject doesn’t just enter a house. She glides into a cold and empty house. He doesn’t just see a tractor. He sees a rusty red tractor in an overgrown field. Does it have a taste or smell? Use your senses and ask the listener to use theirs. The rusty red tractor smells like diesel fumes. The sun bleached wheat hisses as it sways.

5) At the end of each week of writing just hooks, go back and edit them to make them shorter and more concise. “I love the little town where I grew up,” becomes “This is my town.”

Don’t set goals that are so lofty that nobody could achieve them. Bite off a little bit at a time, and as you master each of them, move onto another. Once you’ve mastered a couple, tie them together and watch the smile grown on your face.

If you’re a true songwriter, then go write some songs. Just don’t repeat the same steps that have caused you to be stuck in neutral. Break from your bad habits!

Want to read a great songwriting book? Here you go: Read the reviews here.

Go write a song!

Whether you were there to learn more about getting a record deal, placing your music in films and TV shows, or composing for video games, it was all there for the taking at TAXI’s Road Rally last weekend. What did our members think of it?

From our forum:

There is no way I could possibly ever put into words just how much this Rally, my 2nd one, meant to me. Saying “Thank You” just doesn’t seem to be enough. I’m still humbled and honored to have been given the Inspiration Award. It’s going to get a prominent placement in my studio for sure! My wife was just as excited about it as I was.

For anyone who’s reading this and wasn’t able to make it to the Rally yet, let me encourage, if you’re serious about your musical career, whether it be an artist or film & tv composer, stop reading this right now and start putting a plan together as to how you can make it to next year’s Rally. You’ve got nearly a year left to save up the money for the airfare and hotel. Remember, the event itself is FREE. I PROMISE you, if you’re serious about your career and you’re willing to invest the time & money it takes to be successful, then there is no better investment you can make as far as I’m concerned than to attend the Road Rally.

I don’t get paid to say that, nor do I need to get paid to say it. TAXI works and the Road Rally is a HUGE part of the picture. I’ll say it again, if you’re serious about your career, and I mean TRULY serious, then do what you have to do to make it next year. The amount of information you can learn, the connections you can make, and the opportunities you will have to GIVE BACK are truly priceless.

- Big Blue

Two of the weekend’s highlights were Hit Songwriter/Producer/Artist Jeffrey Steele being honored with TAXI’s Lifetime Achievement Award and his performance that followed and Hit Songwriter/America Idol judge/Warner Bros. Records V.P.of A&R Kara DioGuardi doing live makeovers of TAXI members Robyn Newman, Chase Thompson and Anthony Snape. To see more photos and highlights click here!

Jeffrey Steele, TAXI's Lifetime Achievement Award honoree performs a medley of his hits after receiving his award.

American Idol judge and Hit Songwriter/Producer, Kara DioGuardi enjoys TAXI member Anthony Snape's inspired performance at TAXI's convention.

Major Labels, Indie Labels, Pop Labels, Rap Labels, Christian Labels, and Country Labels are actively looking for new artists every day.

It’s easy to think that songwriters and artists can make it on their own with all the great self-promotional tools and opportunities on the Internet. But looking at this week’s  Billboard Top 100 Chart, I can’t find a single band or artist that has become successful on their own using the Internet as their only form of promotion. Yes, the Internet is a large piece of the music promotion puzzle, but it’s a piece, not a panacea.

Companies that sell music promotion tools and advice are cropping up everywhere you look. Can they help? Certainly some of them can, but as part of an artist’s overall marketing strategy. I have yet to see any music-marketing tool or music promotion plan that’s a magic bullet that by itself will deliver stardom on a silver platter.

Taylor Swift, Lady Gaga, Beyonce, Breaking Benjamin, Black Eyed Peas, Foo Fighters, Weezer and virtually all of the other artists I just looked at on Billboard.com have found fame and built their careers in the music business doing it the old fashioned way - writing or finding hit songs and signing with record labels.

Sure, it’s possible to have a video that goes viral on YouTube and drives sales on iTunes and other music download sites. But those events are few and far between. If you thought the odds of getting signed by a record label were slim, try and name ten acts that have had Billboard, chart-topping success based on the Internet alone.

The Sick Puppies were exposed to millions of people worldwide when their song, All the Same, was used in the massively popular Free Hugs videos. But they didn’t hit the Billboard charts until they had a veteran artist manager and Virgin Records behind them as their record label. Maybe that’s the magic formula for music promotion and marketing - simply create a video that goes viral on YouTube. That’s easy, right?

But the Sick Puppies are certainly an exception, and far from the rule. Even with millions of people listening to their song every day, exposure on Oprah, and just about every other media outlet worldwide, they still recognized that they needed a record label to take them to the next level.

How long have you been on MySpace? How about iTunes? Twitter? Facebook? How many sites do you have your music or your musical “brand” on altogether? How long have you been working the Internet music promotion thing with no substantial results? Is there a lesson to be learned?

Look again at the artists on the Billboard charts, and I think you’ll agree that there is a huge lesson staring us all in the face. Those artists are all signed to record labels. Illegal downloading may be killing the labels, but it’s been a slow death. More than ten years after Napster sprang up and illegal downloading began, Major Record Labels and top Independent Record Labels still look like a pretty smart option until somebody comes up with that magical silver bullet for artist promotion that millions of bands, artists, and songwriters have been waiting for.

Michael Laskow is the founder and CEO of TAXI, the world’s leading independent A&R company. He is also a multi-platinum engineer, record producer, and lover of great songs and talented artists.

TV Music Licensing pays songwriters and composers differently than Film Music Licensing does. Most songwriters don’t know that, and they ask me the question pretty frequently! The short answer is “yes, it pays differently,” in the U.S.

In the United States, composers of scores, background music and featured songs do NOT get paid when the music is played in a movie theater. In other words, there’s no back end, no performance royalty for music played in theaters. But there IS a performance royalty for theater play in many, if not most other countries.

So, while you won’t get an ASCAP, BMI or SESAC check for U.S. screenings of a movie with your music in it, you WILL get a check from your Performance Rights Organization months down the road from screenings outside of the U.S. Those checks are often slow in coming, as they need to go through the accounting systems of the foreign PROs, then go through the accounting system of your U.S. PRO.

BUT, you WILL get paid for your music if it’s in a Film that airs on a TV network in the U.S., so all is not lost. If you have music that ends up in a film that’s a huge hit, and gets tons of play on major and cable networks, month after month, year after year, you will see some nice checks hit your mailbox from those.

I’ll get into the difference between pay scales for music in cable vs network shows in another blog post. That’s a complicated matter and will need more time than I’ve got at the moment.

Talk to you soon,

Michael

Learn how to make Broadcast Quality Recordings and Tracks at TAXI’s Road Rally, November 5th-8th..