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Boston, MA – If you’re riding the wave of the indie music revolution you’re about to get a huge boost. Music career coach Peter Spellman has just released the second edition of Indie Marketing Power: THE Resource Guide for Maximizing Your Music Marketing - a 388-page resource-rich handbook designed to help all music entrepreneurs navigate through the hundreds of marketing and promotional opportunities available today.

“This is a guide you can refer to again and again because it is full of easy-to-apply best marketing practices any music company can benefit from,” says Spellman. “Just put this Indie Marketing Power on your desktop and you’ll have a reliable marketing tool kit to refer to for all your promo and marketing needs.”

Derek Sivers, founder of CD Baby has this to say about this new book: “INDIE MARKETING POWER is the most helpful book for musicians promoting their music that I have ever seen. I’m considering this not just essential reading, but REQUIRED reading for every musician I know!”

Indie Marketing Power delivers market intelligence, smart strategies and fresh perspectives on essential music marketing ideas and practices. It covers everything from discovering your unique market niche and assessing your current marketing practices, to tapping the power of your audience, securing profitable license deals and expanding your music overseas. In between you’ll discover the best promotional practices for live performance, selling merchandise, working the media, using ecommerce, building your mailing lists, securing radio airplay, finding the right distributors, attracting sponsors, and much, much more. The final chapter walks you through the process of writing a results-driven marketing plan, and three glossaries and a 38-page Further Resource Guide top it off.

Indie Marketing Power sells for $24.95 (eBook) and $34.95 (print) respectively and is available exclusively from Music Business Solutions (mbsolutions.com/books).

Additional MBS Guides include “Plan Your Band!,” “Your Successful CD Release” and “Indie Power: A Business-Building Guide for Record Labels, Music Production Houses, and Merchant Musicians.”

Author Peter Spellman is Director of Career Development at Berklee College of Music, Boston, and a recognized expert on music business development and grass roots music marketing. He is featured in the documentary film, “What is Indie?” and his Guides are used in universities across the country and in over twenty-five countries around the world.

Reprinted at CYBERMIDI.com by permission.

Did you know that it is possible to fool your brain into thinking its time to relax, sleep, be creative or even be happy? In fact through the use of binaural beats you can now easily create almost any mental or physical state known to Man on demand!


Binaural beats are special auditory tones that are used to create specific brainwaves in the brain of the listener. The reason why binaural beats can act on the brain in this fashion is due to the fact that the brain has a tendency to follow the frequencies of certain outside stimuli. When tones, or even flashing lights like those used in mind machines, are presented to the brain in a certain way the brain will create brainwaves that are the exact same frequency as the lights or tones. This is a process known as brain entrainment.

What do Marvin Gaye, Diana Ross, The Temptations and The Four Tops all have in common? Well they are all part of the music movement that is known to us as Motown! Some of the greatest songs of all times were recorded by some of Motown’s famous artists, starting back as early as 1959. That was the year that Berry Gordy, Jr. started his own record label called “Motown". Ever since, this label has carried the top R&B/Soul acts and has had hit after hit.

If you love music with some soul, Motown was made for you. The unlimited supply of classic sounding R&B songs has been carried on through the years by many artists but it all started about 50 years ago. When you think back to the late fifties and early sixties, there was a lot or rock and roll hitting the music scene with the “British Invasion", but there was also a new sound that has been slowly growing that was about to take the music industry by storm and that was Motown. Through the years, as early blues recordings started to evolve into more vocal works of art and less guitar picking, the actual “feel” of the music or what I like to call “soul” started to grow.

When Marvin Gaye released “Let’s Get It On” America heard his new sound and they loved it, the US music charts would soon be filled with Motown artists and the history of music has forever changed because of it. When Berry Gordy Jr. started his Motown record label, he did not know it but he would go down in history for being the first African American to own a record company. This opened the doors for many other African American in the music industry in the following years.

The Motown record label was so special because it was able to bring African American artists to the radio when other record labels were not interested. By making professional recording studios available to the black music community they were able to sign some of the most talented artists of the time and bring their music to the world.

For the 50th anniversary we love to take a little time to remember the hits that were brought to us all by Motown. From the Jackson 5 and there “ABC123″ to Marvin Gaye’s “I Heard It Through The Grape Vine” you can see that the musical talent that we all have grown to love. The Temptations brought many hits to Motown as well including, “My Girl", “The Way You Do The Things You Do", “I Can’t Get Next To You” and “Just My Imagination (Running Away With Me)". The Four Tops also could not stay off the top 10 charts or out of our hearts, when they released songs like, “I Can’t Help Myself (Sugar Pie, Honey Bunch)", “(Reach Out) I’ll Be There", “Bernadette” and “Standing In The Shadows Of Love".

Motown has brought us some of the most beloved songs ever and in calibration of its 50th anniversary we wanted to remember some of Motown’s all time greatest artists. So sit back, relax and put on your favorite Motown classic today in celebration, it is Motown’s 50th Anniversary!

About the Author

I am just your average guy working a number of yrs as a business analyst. A child that grew up in the 60’s and 70’s with an interest in Motown. I am trying to find the right affiliate site to work.

If you’re a digital music fan, you probably have problems organizing your music file collection. For me, I used to have hundreds of MP3 files lumped in one folder in my hard drive. Can you imagine the pain I had to go through to find one specific tune to listen to?

Organizing your music files is an important skill to learn. Once your collection is nicely sorted out, you’ll be able to find the songs you want quickly and easily. So set aside some time and read through the following tips I’ve come up with.

Sound cards creates a bridge from the live performance of an instrument to your digital recording system. As such it’s a very important component of your overall recording environment.

If you have a sound card included with your PC then you should seriously consider replacing that with one designed specifically for use in recording applications - since the bundled PC cards fail to come close to even CD standards of signal to noise ratio.

This article covers 7 key factors you must know about selecting an audio interface card if you want to avoid throwing your money down the drain!

Electric guitar strings that are wound are created by rolling a string made of white metal around a centrally located string. The different types of material used for wrapping around the central string depend on the durability and tone wanted by the musician. Typically you will find that an electric guitar uses a nickel or nickel alloy material.

Generally speaking there are two types of guitar strings that are made.

Steel – used on electric and acoustic guitars

Nylon – primarily used on classical and flamenco guitars

Guitar strings are normally wound with either type of nickel, brass, or copper alloy. On most standard set of strings for an electric guitar, the 1st - 3rd string is usually unwound, but the 4th - 6th string is wound. Each individual string is of a different thickness, and they each have a specific note to be tuned to. The 12 string guitar is the alternative to this, because they have 12 strings to tune instead of six.

Electric guitar strings that are wound are created by rolling a string made of white metal around a centrally located string. The different types of material used for wrapping around the central string depend on the durability and tone wanted by the musician. Typically you will find that an electric guitar uses a nickel or nickel alloy material.

The thickness of the string is referred to as the gauge of the string. The guitar string is measured by fractions of an inch.

Light Gauge String

(.008 - .038) (.009 - .042) (.009 - .046) (.010 - .046)

Easier to push down, and you will be able to bend them without any problem.

Allow you to be able to play much faster

Do not hold their tune very wellHave very little sustain

Produce very little volume

Not good for lower tunings

Heavy Gauge Strings

(.011 - .050) (.010 - .052) (.012 - .052) (.013 - .056)

Heavier gauged strings are preferred by many of todays guitarists because of the tone and the feel of them.Good for guitar players that prefer to have their guitars tuned down lower than standard (drop D, drop C, drop B etc.).Will hold their sustain much longer in the drop tuningsWhy Your Strings Break

As annoying as it is, you will have guitar strings break on you, and there are many reasons for this to happen. Here are the four main reasons that you may experience this problem:

Aggressive Playing

- This happens to be the most common reason for breaking strings

- No doubt, you will get so deep into your jam session, that you will tend to strum a little to hard with your pick and snap a string. Unfortunately there is no way to fix this problem other than change your playing style, but I don’t recommend that at all.

Old Strings

- Over time your guitar strings will loose their elasticity simply from the constant stress that is put on your strings.

- If you have not played or changed your strings in a long time, they will rust over, and become very susceptible to breaking.

Over tuning

- This simply means that when you are tuning your guitar, you may wind the tuning pegs to high, resulting in a broken string.

- Because this could very easily happen, it is wise to tune your guitar with the strings facing away from you.

Sharp Objects

- You may find sharp areas on the guitar that are capable of breaking a guitar string. These areas include but are not limited to: The bridge, the nut, tuning peg.

Guitar strings are the heart and soul of any guitar. Without them, there would be no possible way to create sound. To get the best sound out of your guitar, you should change your strings on a regular basis. This is an easy way to experiment and try out different gauges to see what tone fits your style.

Josh Scalf is an experienced guitarist that offers information and resources for aspiring musicians. Check out more quality articles and resources for awesome gear at Guitar Strings

Article Source: http://www.article99.com. Reprinted at CYBERMIDI.com by permission.