MMC15 - Part 3

I'm finally making it back to the MMC blogs. Again, this is a series on my experiences at the Millennium Music Conference in Harrisburg, PA a couple weeks ago. If you missed the first two, here are the links:
MMC15 - Part 1
MMC15 - Part 2

This post will cover the second session that I attended:

Music Industry Entrepreneurship - Dr. E. Michael Harrington, Lawrence Gelburd, Jason Spiewak, Jeff Snyder

This was a panel on how to approach music from an entrepreneurial standpoint. Since there were 4 minds contributing to this, I'll just use initials to denote who made which point (since there are 2 JS's, Jeff Snyder will just be Jeff). Also, as was the case with the previous posts, my commentary will be after their bullets, un-initialed.

• Balance analysis w/action - L.G.
• Looking at your record sales, number of facebook friends, and email stats is only half of the battle. The point of analyzing is to figure out what actions benefit you the most. Act accordingly. I've found that posting to this blog every few days helps build traffic on here, my website, and my reverbnation page. However, using the rest of the data, I can see at what times of day that works best and then act accordingly.
• Blogging
• Has to be relevant (no credit)
• When I'm reading anything, if it's not relevant to anything I do, then I have very little interest in it. Many people reading this or who may be reading this either have an interest in my music personally or are musicians themselves, so things like this I feel are relevant to the reader. Unfortunately, unless you're getting tons of traffic on one type of post and none on another, you've gotta have your readers help to tell you what's relevant to them. That being said, if you've made it this far, does anyone have any request for things they'd like me to write about?
• Crowd sourcing (no credit)
• Crowd sourcing is basically getting reader involvement. I feel like you first need to have a relevant blog before you can have people who care enough to ask you to write on something specific, but after that it would make sense that things would perpetuate themselves.
• Troll youtube for live performances of yourself - J.S.
• 46% of all youtube videos have > 500 views - Jeff
• I've trolled and trolled and trolled, but there's next to nothing. C'mon guys, take some videos of me playing! Doing little videos at home is one thing that's up there on the list of things to do, but I haven't quite gotten around to it yet. It does seem like youtube is the place to be these days, however. Andy Mckee's success is largely thanks to youtube. Unfortunately, so is Justin Bieber's, but that's a whole different set of blogs.
• Volunteer - get yourself in the door (no credit)
• This is largely what I've been doing. Paid gigs are often times gigs you get from people seeing free shows. One of the speakers was saying that he got his university job by volunteering a few hours a week. When everything is so reliant upon who you know, what better way to meet someone than by something that benefits them and costs them nothing. Sure, it may seem like shortchanging yourself, but occasionally you get some sort of break from those actions.
• Don't make excuses for your music - J.S.
• Play it w/conviction - L.G.
• If you don't believe in your music, who will? I'm definitely better about this now, but at first I would just rip myself apart for every mistake that I would make. When you show discouragement on stage or after a set, you and your music lose credibility. No one notices your mistakes 99% of the time, so just play them off, with confidence.
• Portray confidence in your website - M.H.
• Draw people in by making yourself sound good on your website. Saying that you sound like someone, but aren't as good isn't going to make me want to see you. You've got to set yourself apart by saying that you sound like this person, but also do x, y, and z. Essentially it's about having that 30 second elevator pitch to sell yourself.
• Make 3 goals for the next 2 years - L.G.
• Have 3 strategies for each goal - L.G.
• Have 3 things that you can have other people do for you for each strategy - L.G.
• This is like engineering "milestones" and how we like to do project planning. I'll have a later post (after the last MMC post), and actually try to come up with these for myself.
• Treat everyone as a potential friend - M.H.
• For me, someone who really has no faith in humanity, this is tough. Any type of entertainment requires a bit of handshaking and baby kissing in order to have good public appeal. Eminem would be a good figure to contrast this point, but I highly doubt that I'll be rubbing shoulders with the same crowd that he appeals to. I think for the most part I do a decent job at talking to people, but I can always do things better.

So this was sort of a long one. There is a ton covered in this, so if you've made it this far, I'd love to hear any thoughts on what was said. The next MMC blog is like 3 pages of notes, so it'll probably be a few pages. Maybe by the end of the week, I'll be done?

-Alex

Customer Service

Earlier this week I had a few posts about the Millennium Music Conference (the rest of the posts are on their way). On the second one (MMC15 Part 2), I had a point that David Sherbow made: customer service is your job.

Just 10 minutes ago I was reminded of how good customer service can affect your relationships.

Far too often do we see companies with "restocking fees" and crap like that. Basically they're saying that if something is wrong with your product or if you need to take the product back for any reason, that that is an additional service that you must purchase from them.

I've heard many complaints about how someone has mail ordered a guitar to find that it was defective. When they had to ship it back in order to get the quality that they paid for, they had to pay the shipping both ways. This is essentially a fee for the warehouse's negligence.

It's becoming harder and harder to find good customer service. That's why when you find it, it's like the best thing ever.

American Musical Supply just blew my mind with their service. About 3 weeks ago, I ordered a guitar case. Well then a few days ago I got an email from AMS, asking me to write a review for my purchase. This reminded me that Oh, right, I don't have my case yet. I went down to the school post office, talked to them, and, unfortunately, they didn't have anything or have record of anything coming through. Then this morning, right before class, I emailed AMS, asking them what was up - the order said it was delivered, but I didn't have the product. It took a simple explanation of my situation and, by the end of class, I had a reply saying that they would just send me another case, asking where would be the best place to send it.

Customer service is about going out of your way for the customer, for your fans.

I recently purchased This Time It's War's debut album online. A few days after receiving it, I got an email from them, asking if I had received the album, what I thought of it, and just thanking me for my purchase. I replied - they replied - etc.

That is what customer service is. It's a means to building relationships by showing your customers/fans that you care about them.

The Things You Stumble Upon

Every once in a while, while scouring the web for interesting things to read, I come across something that is awesome. Tonight, as I often do, I've been in search of the illusive press that I really don't have any of.

Everyone always asks about what press you've gotten and I'm always in that awkward situation where I have absolutely nothing. My album has been reviewed once by a friend whose arm I twisted to write the review, but aside from that, I've got nothing. With actually doing something with my music, you'd think I would've at least gotten a review from someone at school in the school paper or something, but no.

I know I've gone about the whole press thing wrong, but I've really had no help whatsoever on the matter. This is all beside the point, however.

So what did I find tonight?

Some hidden gem of press-like interest? Some new tunes that I can add to the 12-cd-high tower of cds that I've acquired in the last week and have yet to listen to? The answer to how to get the press I've blindly sought after for years?

No. No. And ...no.

However, I did find a blog post by Caleb Hawley about the gig we played a little over a year ago. Read it HERE.

For those who don't know both myself and Caleb - we're essentially the same person, give or take a few things. His blog post is about just that. This whole encounter was the inspiration for my song, Doppelganger. I think this gig was the first time I had played the song live, but at that point it didn't have a name...

A few posts ago I posted a picture from that gig. I'm new to blogging, so I have no clue if it's bad etiquette to post a picture twice, so I'll assume it is and tell you to just read the rest of my blog entries.

Seriously, though, this made my night. I didn't find that hidden piece of press that seems to be evading me, but I feel as though I can sleep soundly tonight.

And at 3am, I will do just that.

-Alex


ps - I'll try to get the rest of the MMC series up soon

MMC15 - Part 2

MMC had 2 days of music business sessions - Friday and Saturday. With having class on Friday, I unfortunately wasn't able to make anything on Friday. Basically, I got to conference to register and missed the last session of the day by 5 minutes. It was a bit disappointing, but not nearly as disappointing as the backlog of traffic that turned a 15 minute drive into an hour... Then, of course, I got to play Friday night at Pint's and Saturday at the open mic. After that, I was finally able to attend some sessions.

Being the good engineering student that I am, I took some notes. Right now I'll just cover the first session with some thoughts I have on the notes I've taken. The first bullet will be his point and the second will be my response.

Grabbing Your Music By the Balls - David Sherbow

• "There is no culture anymore. It's all been sold and shipped off."
• In today's society this is very much the case. Though we've had a huge increase in album releases in the past 10 years, there's been a steady decline in the musical quality. A "culture" that has come to revolve around auto-tune and American Idol is seeing music as a get-rich-quick scheme, rather than an art form. This is leading to more and more mindless garbage being produced. Of course there are the gem-in-the-rough kind of acts that embody culture and art, but with more and more music and media being pushed down our throats, they're easy to miss.
• Customer service is your job
• I don't view playing guitar as a job. It's a "job" but as long as I'm playing at said jobs, it will be for fun. When it starts to become a job, then I won't play out - simple as that. I've worn myself too thin before and have had to cut back on playing so that it would be fun again; it worked. So if I'm just going to play for fun, then that will leave the "job" portion for customer service. I've definitely been trying and I feel this blog is one of those steps. Obviously there is more that I could do, but it's all a process that will be happen over time
• Playing for free is better than giving away free music
• The main point Sherbow made on this was that everyone gives out free music. With everyone doing that, it devalues music handouts and you won't make fans. Fans are made by relationships and relationships are made during and after performances. Ultimately the goal is to make fans who are fans for life and the bottom line is that they aren't made by free music.
• Be deliberate about e-mail lists
• This means not only connecting with fans through email, but being intentional about getting names on that list. Honestly, I get maybe one or two email's per gig. Clearly, I could be doing this better. Over the next few gigs, I'll work on implementing a more deliberate plan for my email list. I always feel pushy in asking people to sign up with the list in hand, but I guess it's a good way to see whether people are in it or not. If someone doesn't like that I ask them for their email address, then I guess they're not who I want as a fan ...right?
• Attrition, Collaboration, Unification, and then Engagement
• The key steps in music business success.

More tomorrow. In other news, last week I saw 7 or 8 bands/artists, outside of the open mic. Not bad for a week...

MMC15 - Part 1

This weekend, I've had the pleasure of attending the Millennium Music Conference (MMC). It's the first music conference that I've been able to attend. Over the next few days, I'll be writing on my experiences - some of what I've learned, contacts I've made, etc.

Today's post is on my showcase spot in the festival and an open mic I played.

Pint's

So I played this small venue in downtown Harrisburg, Pint's bar and grill. Now this is the first bar that I've played. Those that know me know that I don't frequent bars. Really, the only time I've been in bars has been to play pool. Being to all of maybe 4 or 5 bars ever, I had no clue what to expect...

I'll paint a picture for you to give an idea of what my first impression was: small, dimly lit, smoky, questionable side of town, etc. When I walked in, semi-clean cut appearance, I stood out. Since it was smoky, I tried to keep my gear out of it as much as possible, so for a while I just listened to some of the other acts. However, when I did bring in all of my gear, again, I was the anomaly of the group. Obviously, once I started playing that was enforced again.

So, far this seems super awkward and weird for me. However, I did have a few friends drop by. I can't name them on here, but it was great getting to experience such a different culture with some familiar faces. We likened it to being abroad immersed in a foreign culture. It was a good look into a different part of our community and really interesting to do some people watching and whatnot.

As is with a music conference, the main point of this all was to network. I met some great artists and had some good discussions. My music went over well with most of the people in the bar as well as the musicians. Never having played in a bar, this was a major concern. However, with a completely new style being shown to them, the bar goers were actually intrigued to the point of standing up to watch. This is always a great thing to have happen.

Ultimately, the only part that I really didn't like was the smoke. So, if I can find some non-smoking bars, I'd love to play some more.

PA Musicians Magazine Open Mic


Today, I went over to the Radisson, where the main MMC events were held. Throughout the day, in addition to the speakers, there was an open mic. Since I was there closer to when everything started, I was asked to start off the open mic set. Strangely enough, this was the first open mic that I've ever played. Since I was the first one up for the day and was breaking the ice for things, I got about 5 songs in before someone else went up. From that brief exposure, I was able to meet some more people and to hear some more good music. I'll definitely be looking to play some more open mic's when I am able. There is also supposed to be a short write-up on each performer in the open mic in their March issue. It'll be nice to finally get some press and I'll definitely get a link up when that happens.


The performing side of things is just one facade of a music conference. Tomorrow I'll hopefully have some time to start exploring some of the speakers and what I've learned from them. First, I'll start with just the notes that I took, and then, perhaps at a later date, I'll start to talk about how I want to implement new things that I have learned.

Show Review: Jason Vo

Sunday was quite an excellent day for me with regard to music. Hopefully by the title of this post, you realize that this is not about the Grammys. I didn't watch them, nor do I really care. Aside from not watching the Grammys, yesterday was great in music for 3 reasons:

1. Matt Stevens' cafe noodle free streaming concert
2. James Corachea's Second Life free streaming concert
3. Jason Vo @ Prince St. Cafe

Unfortunately, I only caught the tail end of the first two streaming events. However, I caught all of Jason Vo at Prince St, which is what the focus of this review will be.

Jason Vo is a guitarist out of Scranton, PA, who I met through reverbnation, talking music and such. He's a percussive fingerstyle guitarist, and a rather exceptional one at that. Apart from myself, some other, more prominent percussive fingerstyle names include: Andy McKee, Antoine DuFour, and Guitar Republic. However, Vo doesn't care for these comparisons, and would describe his music to be much different from their works. The main difference that Vo cites, which is rather apparent, is the focal point of his music. While Andy McKee and the candyrat gang (everyone else I mentioned are signed under Candyrat Records) compose around melodies, Vo chooses to center his compositions mainly around rhythm and the percussive nature of "percussive fingerstyle." To beef up the percussion, he often times plays gigs with a percussionist, whose name is, conveniently, Jason (Yablonsky - sorry, I'm not looking that up again to spell later in this).

"The Jasons," or "Jason and Jason," or whatever else you want to call them, reminded me a lot of The Andreas Kapsalis Trio as far as the shear amount of percussion involved. The duo used thick chord progressions and really had good taste for using a variety of time signatures in them. In talking to them afterwards, it made sense that percussionist Jason has been playing progressive styles for years. This influence was seen by a more cautious approach to the use of otherwise obscure timings that made transitions fluid and unforced. He even provided a percussion solo during a short set break.

Despite the connotations behind, "thick" chord progressions, there was a great amount of variety throughout the night. There were some more "mainstream" (to percussive fingerstyle) melodic motifs explored, but there were also some very prominent Celtic themes in the melodies as well. Apparently it's all the rage in Scranton? That basically means that I'd be sick of Celtic music if I were from there, but I'm not, so it was awesome and refreshing. Any type of "traditional" folk music I usually find rather intriguing and inspiring. Again, there were some Kapsalis-like qualities exhibited with this.

These guys really reinforced what I've been seeing more and more often lately: that the percussive fingerstyle genre is simply a framework for experimentation and innovation.



So I leave you with a video of Jason's work. I'm currently writing this while watching The Colour Revolt play at B-Sides, so I haven't gotten to preview the video (though I'm sure it's great).



-Alex

Website Error in Your Favor: Collect Free Music

 So I may have screwed some stuff up on the website... Nothing big, it's just that until I fix it, everyone can download my album for free. Have at it.