No, I’m not going to try to convince you to replace your bass player with a robot (though in some cases it might be worth considering…), but I am going to suggest that machines might be better suited for some of the things that you’re burning yourself out by doing.

For example, how many times have you or someone you know said something like ‘crap! I’ve been slacking, I haven’t sent out a newsletter in weeks I need to remember to send one out tomorrow… but I have to work until 6 and then I have rehearsal and… [blah blah blah]‘.  Well, did you know that there are services out there that allow you to send emails automatically at whatever intervals you decide?

They start sending in a timed sequence that starts on the day someone signs up for your mailing list.  You don’t have to remember a damn thing or take any more time out of your busy schedule once you have it set up!  You can create a sequence of emails that tell your story as an artist, unite people behind causes you believe in, tell amazing stories about your last tour, communicate the amazing things that came together to make your last CD something special and send them to offers to purchase your music and merch.  Maybe you’re aware that this technology exists but you haven’t implemented it yet.  Well it’s only the single most effective way to sell your music online (if it’s done right) so maybe you should think about it..hmm?

Another key element of being successful as an indie artist today is getting traffic to your website and online profiles. If your music is good then technology can help you do that too. More on that later…

What it boils down to is that technology gives us the power to leverage the value and beauty of our art to reach more people, more efficiently.  Just think about what it must’ve been like when they invented the printing press.  Can you imagine trying to be a successful author without it – trying to produce each book one at a time?? 

Machines can’t create art.  Nor can artists compete with machines when it comes to leveraging the power of what they produce.  Here’s a video of Steve Jobs in the 80′s that illustrates this point:

So how else can we use technology to bring in more fans without burning ourselves out?  Well, if you can create a spark of intrigue, desire and/or demand then I’ve created a new tool with my friend John that can turn that into some real social media action. Your job is to make good music and start the demand. If you can do that then you can think of this little tool as a ‘bicycle’ for your social media buzz:

http://www.musicmarketingmanifesto.com/viral-music-player/

“But I’m an ARTIST! Focusing on the ‘business’ will make me less of one.”

I have met far more than one person in this industry that holds this belief. While I understand that everyone has their own way of working, knowing the ins and outs of doing business proves to be extremely helpful in the long run. How many musicians do you know that have entered into a bad contract? Are stuck with a manager from hell that gets paid for doing nothing? That signed the first crappy record deal they were offered and can’t get out of it? Had those people taken the time to do just a little research, they might have been able to make better and more informed decisions. This industry can be a really rough place if you aren’t surrounded by people that know what they’re doing and it’s often hard for some to know who they can really trust. While there are some (hard) lessons you will learn only from experience, I’d like to give you some advice I think might help.

Find a good lawyer/attorney and don’t sign anything until they review it.

Make sure they specialize in entertainment. This is particularly important because a truly good lawyer will prevent you from ever signing into something that will hurt you. Every entertainment lawyer is different and none of them come cheap, but I can guarantee you the right one is worth every penny. Plus, they allow you to remain “the artist” and keep your professional relationships pleasant by handling things like negotiations.

SERIOUSLY, DON’T SIGN ANYTHING YOUR LAWYER HASN’T APPROVED

You may think you’ve read enough contracts to understand the gist of the legal jargon within said contracts by now, but you should still never sign into anything without the approval of a lawyer. Ignoring this advice is how bands end up with terrible deals that lock them in for too long and don’t do anything for them. It’s how managers can still take your money even after you part ways and how companies will try to cheat you out of time, money and your rights. Five years from now when you’re still tied to a label that hasn’t even released your music, you’ll wish you would’ve hired that lawyer.

ABC: Always Be cautious 

This piece of advice may sound like common sense, but you’d be surprised how hard a concept it is for some people to grasp. There are so many scammers in this industry just ready to pounce on anyone naive enough to fall victim to their schemes. If something seems too good to be true, proceed with caution or not at all. Let me tell you a story.

I recently received an email from what I can only assume is a “management” company (they don’t even specifically list their job title on their website) stating that one of their “scouts” had expressed interest in me and asking if I would be available to for a call. I responded with the times I would be available for a call, and they decided to reply with an email telling me what they do. The email was obviously copy/pasted after my name and rattled off details that signaled big red flags to me. They claimed they wanted me to work with their production team and cut a single, that they would pay a percentage and I would “only have to pay blahblah”. At this point, it was entirely obvious to me that the person emailing me had clearly NEVER EVEN LISTENED TO MY MUSIC, let alone taken the time to do any research. Had they done so, the email wouldn’t have been completely impersonal. I replied asking them a couple of questions and politely explained that I’m very cautious about who I work with and what deals I enter into. The biggest red flag that they were just trying to get traffic to a studio? I never received the phone call or a reply via email. It became very clear to me that they were merely trying to get people in to record at the studio they work with.

Stuff like this happens more often than it should. Keep caution in mind when it comes to working with new people. Do you research and do your best to work with people that someone else you know can vouch for.

Know A Little Bit About Everything You Do

It’s impossible to know everything, sure, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try to learn a little bit about everything you do. Know who presses your merch, know how much it costs, know who the promoter for every show is, know where the spare van keys are, know how much our producer is charging you, know how much you’re spending and how much you’re making. I’m not saying you have to take on every task yourself, but you should know how to just in case you have to someday. This is especially important for solo artists. Being self reliant is a beautiful thing when you’re an independent artist. Knowing what you’re doing can also save you from making uninformed decisions that end up being disastrous. And for everything you really can’t do for yourself….

Hire A Professional

Sure, it’s nice to save money on photo shoots by setting up a tripod with your point and shoot camera and snapping some pics of you or your band but….really? You know that saying “It takes money to make money”? Well, it’s kind of true. Let me put it to you this way: imagine that you work for a record label, management company or PR firm. Now, imagine that you’re looking over two press kits. One has professional pictures and professionally produced/mixed/mastered and pressed CDs. The other has low quality, self shot images and a burned disc of some demos that were recorded at home. You really want to like the second one, but the poor quality of the recording makes it hard to tell whether the song is actually good or not. You choose the first press kit, because it’s clear to you that the band takes what they do seriously enough to invest in their career. If you’re not willing to invest in your career, why should anyone else be willing to? Sure there are still people out there listening to demos that sound awful and finding the potential in them, or relying on how a band or artist performs live, but it’s a bit more courteous to present your music as best you can so as not to waste your time or anyone else’s. Give your good product some good packaging!

Knowing the business aspects of music can really help you with your career. There are quite a few independent artists out there that make it without the help of a label because they learned how to take things on and do things for themselves. Being independently successful is a beautiful thing. Don’t be afraid to take on the “business” in “music business”!

If someone tells you “knowledge is power” they’ve told you a half truth. Knowledge is potential power. You have to take action to reap the benefit of the knowledge. Anytime you learn something new, you should apply it as quickly as possible.

I’ve made strides as a musician by making immediate application of new skills, techniques, and knowledge. For example, while reading about growing your fan base online, one of the things suggested was to enter a contest. As a result, I entered the song Gravity into the Coast2Coast Mixtape Feature contest. In order to win the contest, my song had to be one of the top five vote getters. I was forced to talk to people about my music in order to convince them to vote for me. You’d be surprised by how many of my friends and associates didn’t know I did music until that contest. In the end, I earned a spot on a mixtape hosted by Wyclef Jean and nearly doubled the size of my mailing list.

I benefited from making immediate application of a new technique when I setup the free downloads on my Bandcamp page as “pay what you want” downloads beginning at $0. Those who wanted the music for free were able to get it. Others made donations that would not have been captured if I hadn’t changed to the pay what you want model.

Come to think of it, everytime I’ve applied a new music technique, be it songwriting, marketing, or otherwise, it’s paid off.

Listen to ‘Gravity’ by Entelleckt:

I’m going to share a technique that I’ve used over the past year for a New Years resolution that actually worked. I think this can be massively powerful for you in 2012 in your career as an artist or anything else in your life…

For years I’d gone back and forth about going to the gym and eating healthy. Eventually I got sick of this so two years ago I made a commitment for the new year (2010). I was going to go to the gym 5 days a week for the entire year and to make sure I did I enlisted the help of an accountability partner.

I knew that on a given day once I had my gym gear on I would follow through and actually go to the gym, so I decided that I would take a photo of myself in my gym gear and send it to my friend every day. Any day he didn’t get a photo from me I owed him $20.

Ya know what – it worked! Well sort of… with few exceptions I went to the gym 5 days a week for an entire year. The problem? At the end of the year I weighed more than I ever had before in my entire life!

After the first few months I was just going through the motions. I was going out of obligation instead of inspiration. My diet was way out of whack and I was half-assing my workouts.

So fast-forward to New Years 2011. I was finally free of my obligation to go to the gym. At that point a funny thing happened. I actually wanted to go to the gym again! My first workouts of the new year were great. They had an energy that I hadn’t felt in a long time. I was ready to kick ass. I set off to lose 20lbs and I felt like I finally had the energy to do it.

Fast forward to today, one year later. I now weight 27lbs less than I did this time last year. (click Here for the Before/After photo)

So what was it about the past year that gave me completely different results from the year before?

Emotions.

Emotions will either pull you towards your goals or send you in the other direction. The year before my body was going in one direction but my emotions where going in the other.  The results were counterproductive.

Your emotional connection to your goals will determine the decisions you make when the going gets tough. Will you still be emotionally connected to your goals when you’re tempted by something that will take you further away from them?  When you’re tired and don’t want to continue, will your emotions give you the extra juice to keep going or will they just tell you to do what’s easiest?

There’s a specific way that I like to establish that emotional connection with my goals. I call it my Power Ritual.

Here’s how I break it down:

1. The first thing you need to do is to have a compelling vision of where you want to be. What do you want to be doing? What do you want to look like? Who do you want to be with? How do you want to feel? Ask yourself these questions and refine your vision of your future over and over until you can really feel it and see the details. That’s a great exercise in and of itself, but we can do much better…
2. Adding a physiological element to your vision will take it to the next level. So ask yourself, what physical state will make you feel truly connected to your vision? What kind of movement or activity is going to put a new level of energy behind your imagination of the future? What is going to make you really feel connected to it? Once you have an answer to that it’s time to take it much further…
3. What music would multiply the emotion for you? What can you listen to while you imagine your future that will make you feel so much more powerful than anything that could stop you from making it happen? What is going to make you REALLY FEEL IT?
4. The next part of the equation is to make it a regular ritual. I recommend 4 week cycles with 5 days on (20-30 minutes per day), one day completely off and one day to take inventory and prepare for the week ahead. If you have a regular work schedule you might want to do Monday through Friday, rest on Saturday and use Sunday to revise your playlist, think about what you want to visualize and how you can improve your ritual.  After the 4 week cycle you can let it sink in and take a week off.  Then re-asses and start a new one if you feel ready.

The right music + The right physiology + Your vision = Massive power.

This is what I did to tip the scales in my favor so that I had the mental energy to overcome any obstacles to my goal and attract the kinds of things into my life that I wanted.

When you get this right you’ll know it. You should feel UNSTOPPABLE at whatever it is that you’re determined to do.

This isn’t ‘The Secret’ and I’m not telling you that it will magically make things happen for you. You still need to do the rest of the work to make your goal a reality. I am telling you though that this is the most powerful exercise I’ve ever come across to build up mental and emotional momentum and motivation to make that work much easier to follow through with.

There’s an infinite number of ways you could incorporate this. For me, I like to do my Power Ritual on the elliptical machine in the gym. I start out at level 5 and throw on some up-tempo music to get revved up like maybe some Muse or Ozzy. I start imagining the life I want to create. After 4 minutes I kick it up to level 9 and throw on something intense like some Metallica or Motley Crue and start really getting into my vision. Then I go back down to 5 for 4 minutes and drop the music accordingly. I go back and forth until I get to level 13 where I’m cranking Slipknot or Hatebreed with sweat dripping down my face, looking like a rabid animal and feeling like I could move mountains. In that moment I feel like nothing could stop me. It’s very powerful and it’s a very powerful message to the subconscious.

Again, there are many ways to do this. You might listen to Enya while rocking in your favorite rocking chair on your porch imagining what your life will be like after you get up the courage to quit your job. You may want to use your own music while imagining playing a sold out show to a frenzied crowd while you play air guitar and jump around your bedroom. You may want to listen to KRS One while jogging in through the hills in your neighborhood imagining how you’re going to look and feel as you become a successful entrepreneur.  Whatever lights your fire.

Again, the formula is:

The right music + The right physiology + Your vision = Massive power.

I would love to hear your ideas. Do you currently do something like this? Do you have any ideas that would make it better? What has worked for you and what hasn’t? What’s in your playlist? etc. etc. I’d love to know!

Make a video, even if it’s just you performing the song start to finish. People are really hooked on visual content and videos make songs sound more stimulating.

Use the best camera you can. One solution would be to rent a Canon EOS Rebel t_ _ (the one they did that commercial with) for a day. Should run you about $250.

A particulary good software to use (but not free) is Cyberlink PowerDirector. Tons of effects, no freezing.

Put the video on Youtube, but also visit this site: http://www.ovguide.com/browse_sites?c=music&ci=407

They’re not all suitable, but many are great and some might be tailored to your genre.

Once you’re there, subscribe to other people whose followers would like you. Always meta-tag all your movies identically so that they all come up if one does.

Max Jam 4 Song Demo:

Today I stopped by Amoeba Music in Hollywood. As usual there were dozens and dozens of flyers competing for attention. Some were bright, some were loud, some were beautifully designed and professional, but only one stood out to me – The one that was hand-written by a young lady from Australia on a very interesting piece of paper.

Check her out. Here’s a song that I like: http://www.myspace.com/roxangella/music/songs/impatient-man-4034008

Creativity.  It can be both a tremendous blessing and an oppressive curse for musicians and artists of all kinds.  They say that creatives have a higher rate of depression and suicide than average because we have the capacity to constantly imagine a better reality and we tend to compare our current circumstances with our imagined ideal – which is a great recipe for pain.

On the flip side, we can derive a tremendous amount of satisfaction from our imagination.  Maybe too much some times.  The imagination can be a comfortable place to live.  In it you can be anyone you want to be.  The better your imagination, the more real it feels when you see yourself rocking out to a sold out stadium.  The more real it feels, the more certain you’ll probably feel that you’ll get there – no matter what.

The problem is that reality is full of bumps and bruises and things that don’t go as planned.  In the dream it’s so smooth.  Everything is exactly how you want it to be.  It can be a painful, frustrating and discouraging slap in the face when you’re confronted with all the challenges that pop up when you actually try to bring a dream into reality.  For that reason it can be very seductive to go back into the dream and lean into the feeling that you get when you imagine the greatest possible version of yourself.

One of the more insidious challenges of having a creative brain is that it can be tough to look at reality objectively.  I find it very easy to assess my ‘reality’ based on all the things that I have in the works in my imagination.  I often find it much more difficult to remove my imagination from the equation and look at the cold hard facts.  It’s tough to know what the next step forward should be when you don’t have an accurate picture of where you’re standing to begin with.  Sometimes the necessary step isn’t that glamorous.  Sometimes it’s downright scary.  A talented imagination can be very good at obscuring reality when it wants to avoid pain, boredom and/or fear.

What complicates things further is that us humans tend to project the way that we think and operate on the rest of the world.  We imagine other people to be more like us than they really are.  For artists, we sometimes expect others to be able to fill in the blanks and use their imagination to see the things that we have in our head.  This can be incredibly frustrating.

I remember playing a song that I had recorded with just an acoustic guitar for my band.  I was excited about the song and I expected my bandmates to share the enthusiasm.  Instead I got blank stares and they started talking about something else while the song was playing.  I couldn’t believe it!  It really didn’t sit well with me.  So much so that I resolved that night to get some equipment and learn how to record complete demos on my computer.  Months later I played a new demo of the same song for the singer in the band and, guess what – they loved it!  Of course I wanted to rub it in their face that this proved they had no imagination and that they couldn’t hear a good song if it bit them in the face, but that’s really missing the point.  The truth is that the world won’t judge you on what’s in your head.  Not now, not ever.

Other people shouldn’t be expected to hear or see what you’re imagining.  This may seem obvious to some, but I can tell you that I’ve spent an inordinate amount of time living my life in my imagination and at times expecting the rest of the world to see things that I hadn’t yet brought into reality.  And though it may be contrary to what your emotions are telling you, frustration doesn’t mean that you should push harder against the people around you.  It means that YOU need to change something.  That’s not what we usually want to hear when we’re frustrated.  It’s much easier to get hung up on how other people just don’t get it or to feel sorry for ourselves.

One step in the real world is worth infinite steps in your imagination.  - But when you compare the first step, as scary or difficult or confusing as it may be, with your perfect ultimate glorious outcome, it can be difficult to even get started – and many of us never do.  It’s only when you can set aside your ideal and take the next step that’s RIGHT IN FRONT OF YOU that you actually make progress (the only thing that really matters).

So to anyone out there who’s bashing their head against the wall trying to figure this one out in their own lives, my message is this:

You can get out of the cycle of depression and frustration if you can learn to see things a little differently.

Firstly, the wold is exactly as it’s supposed to be.  Things are not supposed to be better.  We made that one up.  It can be very freeing to let go of the constant friction of imagination vs. reality.  The two forces should compliment each-other, not pull and grind and burn us out.  Reality is NOT the enemy.

The good news is that things CAN be better – and much of that is up to us restless creatives who are capable of imagining a better reality.  But that can only happen when we realize that the only thing that will ever matter to the world is what we actually DO, not what we just dream about – when we use or dreams to guide our ACTIONS, not to just provide substitute gratification.

Imagination and reality work much better together when we accept things as they are, imagine how they could be better and then take action to make them better.  It won’t always be smooth, but if you repeat that process enough times you’ll get better at it and some day I think you’ll wake up to realize that you’ve made the world a little bit better.  You’ve done some things that were pretty cool.  You’ve lived a life worth living.

It’s a nice thought, huh?  Now all we need to do is stop imagining it, figure out where we really are, and take the next step forward.

Be bold and don’t worry about what people think. They don’t do it that often anyway – Tim Ferriss

Here’s how to quit with style, courtesy of the What Cheer? Brigade from Providence, Rhode Island: