Digital Media Social Networking

Miss Butterfly Image – CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 – This morning I was reminiscing of the time I filmed quite a few well known Australia blues bands. I produced a community television program called ‘Fandangle’ which was aired on Saturday nights on the Sydney community television Channel  31. The program promoted the music scene in Sydney. The content of the program included not only the bands and musicians but also the clubs and hotels who facilitated music entertainment for their patrons.

As a result of the television program, I developed a close relationship with some of those musicians. In our conversations they would lament a resounding song of sadness. They would always speak about their struggle to be recognized, the dream of making it to the top like the old bands, to get a contract with a distinguished record company.  I understand their concerns and that is why I have written this blog. 
I woke up at 6.00am this morning and my mind was sifting through things that concerned me, as we do on a Sunday morning, reflecting on the week that has passed. All of a sudden my mind was filled with images. It was as if I was standing on a street pavement, looking across a road to see what was happening on the other side.  Random colors flashed in my mind’s eye as cars, trucks and buses travelled at high speed in front of me. Some were travelling in one direction while others travelled on the other side of the road in the opposite direction. The question that was haunting my mind most of all was, How can I get across this road? It reminds me of the old joke we have all heard since our childhood, Why did the chicken cross the road?

This analogy of these images is related to the question that consumed my mind concerning musicians. There are a lot of talented musicians around the world, who are not getting recognition for their artistic abilities. Artists are no longer bestowed with the pride, privilege and distinction that artists of the past  enjoyed.  Musicians are privileged with the gift of creativity as are all artists. They express themselves through sound, musical instruments, the beating of drums and the song of their voice.  Though their music is inspiring, they struggle to convey their message to the world and receive the accolades of honor.

The images that I saw relate to the dreams of an artist. Standing on the pavement looking across the street refers to the dreams an artist feels a need to fulfill. The speeding cars are the restrictions that our fast paced life and responsibilities puts upon us all.  The passion and the need to fulfill ones destiny can lead to an artist feeling it would be better to die than not to fulfill ones dreams. The question that I have been thinking about is, How can musicians spread the song of their voice to the world and attract followers or fans to their tune.

Back in time, during the twentieth century, spanning the postmodernist period, most importantly the years of  the 1950’s to 1980’s a cultural and intellectual phenomenon was filling the hearts of teenagers to the tune of a magical Pied Piper. The Pied Piper I am referring to are the musicians and bands who spread their message in the tune of love, peace, the right to express oneself and the urge for change in the world.

The generation of that time, known as the baby boomers stood up for their rights and fought against what they passionately felt were the injustices of the world.

Postmodernism Creates Economic Growth
With the explosion of band popularity such as the Beatles, Rolling Stones, The Who and many more, innovative record companies saw the financial potential that could be gained from these musicians. Musicians were chased by record companies encouraging them to sign music record contracts, which proved to be profitable for the musicians as well as the record companies. During this period the influence of music reverberated through the fashion, art, literary, photographic and film industries. A lot of people made a lot of money during this time and in turn created economic growth.

Today the balloon of band popularity has burst. It seems that the chance for a band to hit the big time isn’t as easy as it was in the 1950’s to 1980’s. The music companies have now become corporations. As a result of their great wealth, they are no longer eager as they used to be in signing up new talent. Sadly, there are a lot of musicians in the world today and possibly in the future who will never have the opportunity to enjoy the fame and fortune enjoyed by their predecessors.

The Internet Can Change The Music Scene
The internet has only been available to the public since the early 1990’s and the technology to build the world wide web is continually  evolving.  Website developers no longer need to create static web pages, which is time consuming. They can now generate a massive amount of dynamic web pages using database driven websites.

Now with the arrival of Web 2.0 which is user interactivity. Social networking websites such as Myspace, Facebook etc are becoming more and more popular. We are now finding that the internet isn’t just an information highway or a virtual location for ecommerce.  It is also an international communication platform for all the citizens of the world to share their life’s experiences, information and content. For the musician that content is music.

The internet, through the use of social networking has now opened the door of opportunity for musicians to build the popularity of their music to the four corners of the earth. To be recognized as a popular musician or band and get a record deal, you need to have a large fan base. If you have a large fan base, you then become a viable commodity in the eyes of record companies. As a result of your large fan base, you won’t have to go to a record company pleading for a contract, they will come to you.

How Musicians Can Build Their Fan Base
There is a copyright license that is gathering momentum throughout the internet called Creative Commons.  It is a some rights reserved copyright license as opposed to the all rights reserved copyright license. By using the Creative Commons copyright license you can allow visitors to your website to download some of your music and share your music with their friends. By doing this you will be creating a viral promotion of your music. When I say viral I mean a massive amount of publicity. You will in turn build a fan base.

Some musicians may say “I have worked b*&%# hard creating this music. And you are saying give it away! You must be joking!”
No I am not saying give it away, because you can restrict the usage of your copyright material. The Creative Commons license I am talking about is:

Attribution Non-Commercial No Derivatives
cc by-nc-nd

As the Creative Commons website states in regards to this license:
This license is the most restrictive of our six main licenses, allowing redistribution. This license is often called the “free advertising” license because it allows others to download your works and share them with others as long as they mention you and link back to you, but they can’t change them in any way or use them commercially.
Legal Code
Legal Deed

You notice in the license description it speaks of ‘free advertising’.

Some of you may be selling your CD’s on the www.Amazon.com website.

How are you going to build your fan base, promote your music and increase sales?
Take advantage of social networking websites and blog sites discussing music

1. Leave comments. Most comments facilities  provide links to your website.  This will also build your Google search engine ranking (popularity)
2. Offer some of your music for free to be downloaded under the cc by-nc-nd license
3. Provide a link to the CC license and encourage visitors to share your music with their friends.
4. Provide a link to where you are selling your CD’s (e.g. Amazon) to promote sales

Viral Promotion
We have heard examples of videos on Youtube that get large amount of  hits in a matter of hours as a result of viral promotion. This is achieved by word of mouth on the internet:

1. Someone sees a video on Youtube and they like it
2. They send an email to their friends telling them about it
3. Their friends resend the email to their friends
4. Their friends, friends resend the email

As an experiment, if you liked this article follow these steps below:

1. send an email to a friend, a musician or fellow musician.
2. Tell them about his article and how you felt about it.
3. Copy the URL link of this blog located in your  web browsers address bar and paste it in your email so your friends can read it.
4. Leave a comment on this blog so I know someone cares.

We all have dreams and our dreams can only come true if we do something about it. I hope that this blog and many others I write will provide guidance to complete your artistic passion and eventually give you a satisfying feeling that you have fulfilled your dreams.

I hope you enjoyed this blog as much as I did in writing it.

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Tags: musician fans, musicians, promote your art

This entry was posted on Sunday, February 14th, 2010 at 5:42 am and is filed under social networking. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.