Music business I don’t sing (much). I don’t play an instrument. But all my co-writers do. So I’m feeling their pain, to a degree. What happens when your livelihood is snapped away from you overnight? I can’t answer the bigger questions about that, as we don’t know how long the lockdown will last.
But I do have a few thoughts about social media for musicians at the present time.
Read more “Social media, music and the coronavirus lockdown”
Music business
If you’re like me, you’ve been hearing everything and the opposite about Spotify. In particular, the very low per-stream payments but also very bullish comments about how streaming is saving the industry. Confused much?
Always remember that the industry is not out to make you rich; Nothing beats a little self-help. So anything you can do create awareness and also generate some money from music is a good thing.
Enter “The Game Plan” from Spotify.
The streamer wants to encourage artists to get more active on its streaming service, notably by providing a series of how-to videos called The Game Plan. The idea is to show artists how to get started using “Spotify for Artists”.
The series addresses issues such as: Getting Your Music Up; What Is Spotify for Artists?; Releasing Music; Building Your Artist Profile; Understanding Your Audience; How to Read Your Data; Engaging Your Audience; The Follow Button, Promoting Your Work, and Building Your Team.
Rick Ross, Little Dragon, Mike Posner, and Vérité have been lined up to help in the series.
“From successful musicians, to employees who are industry experts, the Spotify community has a wealth of music industry knowledge,” according to Charlie Hellman, Head of Creator Marketplace, Spotify. “We want to equip artists at all stages of their career with that powerful knowledge, and make it as accessible as possible.”
The Game Plan is currently a 10-part video series, but Spotify promises more to come in the future. Check the series out and drop a message below. Impressed? Disappointed?
gadgets 
I often get questions about lyric-writing, but had not thought about this question. Where do songwriters write lyrics? I had to make a conscious effort to remember where I usually write (I almost said “work”!). It quickly opened up onto another question: how songwriters and lyricists actually write.
Let’s look at the first person singular: me. At all times, I carry small notebooks with me. I know it sounds old-fashioned, but I do actually use them to jot down thoughts or possible titles. In addition to writing lyrics, I also work on websites, write articles, do copywriting and have even been asked to find product names. There is always something I can work on in some way.
When you write with any regularity, there is a danger of falling into habits. If you consistently write in the same conditions, you can find yourself consistently writing the same things, or at least using the same point of view. To break that – and to also make the most of time away from my computer – I regularly write anywhere I happen to be: airports, laundrettes, at my desk, in the sofa, waiting for food in a restaurant, late-night beers on my own.
When I did more dance music, I used to even write standing up, as dance is a physical style. I put the notebook on the top of my fridge and wrote there, if not actually dancing at least swaying to the tune’s groove – try it, it really gives a different perspective.
Most of the writing – and certainly the final draft – happens at my desk, but these locations do inform the writing in some way. Maybe a tune you hear on the in-house music system sparks an idea. Maybe a headline in a newspaper can lead to a title. Maybe some people-watching will enable you to create a character you would not otherwise have considered – or enables you to get into their head more realistically.
The other great thing about writing outside your office or home is that it’s a very productive way to spend time. Think about the last time you had, say, ten minutes to wait for a bus, train or waiter. What do you do? Nine times out of ten, you probably flick on your phone and check Facebook, Whatsapp, Twitter or incoming e-mails. If you add up all the periods of ten minutes you spend doing this in a week, you’re well over an hour or two per week.
Put them together over a year and you could have written Tolstoy’s “War and Peace” in that time (or all the episodes of “Breaking Bad”, which is nearly the same thing).
So to all those people out there that think they don’t have the time to write, leave home without your mobile and take 10 minutes to jot down some thoughts every so often. 😉
tip 
A little note for the younger bands and singers out there. I went to see a promising singer last weekend (not the guy in the photo – that’s my pal Yves). He has a great voice and an even greater talent in using it in any way he wants. This was his night, in a small jazz club with a few guests to flesh out the bill.
As he does not yet have a commercial release, he made the wise decision of singing his own material interspersed with covers. First comment: make sure your cover is recognisable, but sufficiently different from the original that people don’t think it’s a karaoke night.
A musician or two dropped in occasionally, as well as a guest singer. Everything was going swimmingly, basically. The trouble is, it didn’t stop. He announced the last song but didn’t get off the stage after it. Mistake. Feeling that the audience was enjoying the show, he began to step outside his rehearsed repertoire. OK for one song. By the second, it was clear his piano chops weren’t quite there. So he went back and re-sang an earlier song. Mistake. Followed by another thing he was working on. Mistake.
By this time, the applause was thinning considerably. The friends and family were clapping, the others were fidgeting. I wanted to shout at him,”Get off the stage, they still like you.”
If an A&R man or a potential manager had been there, they would have left 20 minutes before that.
If I didn’t want to talk to him afterwards, I would have left 10 minutes earlier than I did. In other words, if an A&R man or a potential manager had been there, they would have left 20 minutes before.
Sometimes, too much really is too much. You are far better off leaving people wanting more than feeling they have heard the entirety of your repertoire. What you want to provoke is people running up and asking when you are playing next. Don’t wear your audience out, it might be the last time you see them.
Michael Leahy
Any horror stories about live performance you’d like to share? Drop it below
tip Legendary A&R man Don Grierson talks about the huge changes that have taken place in the music business. In particular, the tricky question of artist development. The great performers of previous decades didn’t pop out of a box perfectly formed; they were nurtured and developed. This is no longer happening at the label level, so guess who has to do it? Read more “Artist development: someone else has to do it”
news
Another one bites the dust. The connection between “Raindrops Keep Falling on my Head”, “Always Something There to Remind Me”, “Walk on By”, “I’ll Never Fall in Love Again” is Hal David. The lyricist, who died on September 1, 2012 at the age of 92, is far better known for his words than for his face or career. He was behind many of Burt Bacharach’s best-known songs, and also penned Dionne Warwick’s biggest hits. Read more “RIP: lyricist Hal David”