HEAR IT RIGHT
A COMPLETE CHECKLIST TO MARKETING YOUR MUSIC.
This is Bill. Bill is a musician. No one but his friends has heard Bill’ s music. Don’ t be like Bill.
Every six year old strumming his first chords on the six string gives birth to hopes and dreams. The Jimi Hendrix or Joe Satriani staring back from his poster filled wall means a lot to him. They promise him his own shot at fame. And it is this extremely dear and tempting vision that drives him to slog through all those boring finger exercises and arpeggios and borderline psychotic scales. At the end of it all, it is simply not fair to be let down.
Today’ s music industry is filled with a clutter of pirated music, YouTube videos and commercially oriented labels. To differentiate one’ s sound from the cacophony and make a place in the listeners’ hearts requires much more than simply great music. An artist today also requires great presentation, great reach and great flexibility. In short, marketing your music is the need of the hour.
How you go about it depends on a lot of factors: the music, the market, the resources, etc. But here is a little bit of what you could do as a musician, picked and sorted from how the best musicians of today have done it.
Planning it out.
The first and foremost thing one needs is a well thought out plan. A good few weeks or months could provide a decent build up to an album or EP release. Every artist tours, but one has to slog through the planning process. Contact cafes and venues at various places. Prepare a short itinerary( even if it is in the same city) and put out the posters. The more you play, the more you are heard. Sometimes, doing it for free attracts more people. Adele clocked in a record selling album after throwing in a free concert in New York two days before the release of‘ 25’.
A few teasers of the upcoming songs thrown in at regular gigs can do wonders to grab attention. You can also look at performing informal street shows within a few days’ notice as a promotional for the release. Prateek Kuhad, for his release of‘ In Tokens and Charms’ went around various colleges, setting up dates and performing solo at their popular hangouts to promote his album.
Getting On Line.
In a world already flooded with some amazing, some mediocre( yet popular) YouTube artists, simply putting your song up does not do the trick. Even the best musicians have to sometimes force feed their music to be first heard. Creating a Facebook and Twitter presence is necessary, but making sure it engages users is as important. Your online presence builds your brand. Supplement your music with
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