IN THE GROOVE with Worldwide Groove Corporation

Come see us at our site.

noreply@blogger.com (wwgroovecorp) — Fri, 13 Feb 2015 22:19:00 +0000

Hello friends, Clearly this is not where we are posting current information. We have linked this page up as much as possible to places where we are more active, so the RSS feeds to the right will show current items from our main website. Please find us there. THANKS!http://www.worldwidegroovecorp.com

For Nashville: For Haiti

noreply@blogger.com (wwgroovecorp) — Mon, 21 Jun 2010 19:08:00 +0000

Hey everyone!
A very quick blog to let you all know that our new song is now available as part of the "For Nashville: For Haiti" benefit compilation with all profits going to disaster relief in Haiti and Nashville. [In case you couldn't deduce that from the title!] PLEASE go here and check it out, and buy yourself a digital copy. It's 30 songs for $10, so you get some great new music for a great price and the money goes to do great things. AND, PLEASE post this url http://www.fornashvilleforhaiti.com in your status so others can find out about it too!!!

Let's help people in need! [Yes, it's off our radar, but they are still trying to pick up the pieces.]

Thanks!

Love to you all!

Worldwide Groove Corporation

Love is the New Rich

noreply@blogger.com (wwgroovecorp) — Thu, 20 May 2010 01:30:00 +0000

Hey all-

We
just wanted to send out a quick message and let you know that we have a
new song coming out called "Love is the New Rich" that we wrote and recorded especially for the "For
Nashville: For Haiti" benefit CD which will be available in the next
week. We've posted it on our Reverb Nation player, and only members of
the fanclub can hear it until the CD release. If you'd like to hear it, join the mailing list [I promise we hardly ever write] and you can hear it!

We
are blessed to have come through the floods here unscathed. Thanks to
those of you who have been praying for the good people of Nashville who
lost everything. We are excited that this benefit CD will not only
help those people here in our city, but also the Haitians who do not
have Home Depot, grocery stores, and hotels to stay in. Right now
there are still thousands of Haitians living under plastic tarps,
surviving on so little. Even though they are off the radar of the
media, their struggle to recover is far from over. We are honored to
do what we can to help raise money for these two worthy causes. We will let you know when the project is available, and we hope you will purchase this 30 song project!

Thank you!

Worldwide Groove Corporation

A new song is in the works!!

noreply@blogger.com (wwgroovecorp) — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 00:41:00 +0000

Hey everyone!
I just wanted to post a quick update to say we have a new song in the works! I know, it's been a while. We've been working on other projects for so long. But this is for a worthy cause. It's going to be part of the Nashville for Haiti benefit CD with all proceeds going directly to disaster relief in Haiti.

Please stay tuned for more info!

Thanks!
Ellen & Kurt
Worldwide Groove Corporation

More details on preventing swine flu and other viruses beyond just washing hands.

noreply@blogger.com (wwgroovecorp) — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 21:38:00 +0000

Prevent Swine Flu - Good Advice-see complete article: http://www.livewellamerica.org/blog/?p=478

Dr. Vinay Goyal is an MBBS,DRM,DNB (Intensivist and Thyroid specialist)
having clinical experience of over 20 years. He has worked in institutions like Hinduja Hospital , Bombay Hospital , Saifee Hospital , Tata Memorial etc. Presently, he is heading our Nuclear Medicine Department and Thyroid clinic at Riddhi Vinayak Cardiac and Critical Centre, Malad (W).

The following message given by him, I feel makes a lot of sense and is important for all to know

The only portals of entry are the nostrils and mouth/throat. In a global epidemic of this nature, it's almost impossible to avoid coming into contact with H1N1 in spite of all precautions. Contact with H1N1 is not so much of a problem as proliferation is.

While you are still healthy and not showing any symptoms of H1N1 infection, in order to prevent proliferation, aggravation of symptoms and development of secondary infections, some very simple steps, not fully highlighted in most official communications, can be practiced (instead of focusing on how to stock N95 or Tamiflu):

1. Frequent hand-washing (well highlighted in all official communications).

2. "Hands-off-the-face" approach. Resist all temptations to touch any part of face (unless you want to eat, bathe, etc.).

3. *Gargle twice a day with warm salt water (use Listerine if you don't trust salt). *H1N1 takes 2-3 days after initial infection in the
throat/ nasal cavity to proliferate and show characteristic symptoms. Simple gargling prevents proliferation. In a way, gargling with salt water has the same effect on a healthy individual that Tamiflu has on an infected one. Don't underestimate this simple, inexpensive and powerful preventative method.

4. Similar to 3 above, *clean your nostrils at least once every day with warm salt water . *Not everybody may be good at Jala Neti or Sutra Neti (very good Yoga asanas to clean nasal cavities), but *blowing the nose hard once a day and swabbing both nostrils with cotton buds dipped in warm salt water is very effective in bringing down viral population.* Neti pots and sinus rinse kits are available at the drug store and are relatively inexpensive..under $15.

5. *Boost your natural immunity with foods that are rich in Vitamin C (Amla and other citrus fruits). *If you have to supplement with Vitamin C tablets, make sure that it also has Zinc to boost absorption.

6. *Drink as much of warm liquids (tea, coffee, etc) as you can. *Drinking warm liquids has the same effect as gargling, but in the reverse direction. They wash off proliferating viruses from the throat into the stomach where they cannot survive, proliferate or do any harm.

I suggest you pass this on to your entire e-list. You never know who might pay attention to it -- and STAY ALIVE because of it.

How to Promote Yourself Part 24: AllMusic.com

noreply@blogger.com (wwgroovecorp) — Sun, 13 Sep 2009 20:46:00 +0000

ALLMUSIC.COM

This site is, among other things, a huge database of who’s in the credits of all label released albums, as well as a number of indie projects. [Except they NEVER list the string arranger! :-( ] Anyway, you need to send them a physical CD, and then hopefully they will catalogue it and you’ll be a part of their database. The practical benefit of this is that Pandora only gets their summary info about artists from allmusic.com. So IF allmusic.com should decide to have a staff member write a review of your CD, and IF Pandora should add you to their playlist, then Pandora will actually have some info about your project for anyone who’s interested. Plus being on allmusic.com makes you seem more legit.

[Hi all, Ellen here. I've decided to take a very long handout that I created for my college students and break it down into a series of blogs. This is a summary of what I know about promoting yourself and your music online. If you or someone you know is a self released artist who doesn't necessarily have a plan of action after the CDs are manufactured, subscribe to this blog and read the series. I'm breaking it down into bite sized portions. ]

How to Promote Yourself Part 23: Last.fm & Pandora

noreply@blogger.com (wwgroovecorp) — Sun, 06 Sep 2009 23:23:00 +0000

LAST.FM

If anyone who is a Last.fm member has ever listened to one of your tracks on iTunes, or on their ipod, it has been scrobbled [which on their site means “counted” or “tracked”], and you already have a profile on Last.fm. It’s weird to go to this site and find a page about your music that you didn’t know existed, along with fans posting comments etc. And it’s on the wiki principle, so anyone can update the info on the page.

So here’s what you do, you create an account as a label on Last.fm, and claim yourself as an artist. Then you may upload your original tracks and cover tunes to their system for airplay in their radio stations. This site actually creates radio stations according to an artist reference you give them, and they derive who is similar to whom with some type of analysis I have not taken the time to figure out. But it’s cool because you download the Last.fm software which can function either as a stand alone player, for you to listen to music that they send to you based on your “seed” for the station. OR it can work in conjunction with iTunes and scrobble what you’re listening to. So if you have uploaded your music to their playlists, then hopefully when someone starts a radio station of a similar artist, your songs will be played on that custom radio station. You can also designate any or all of your tracks that are originals to be a free download for people. [ It might be a good idea to choose one of your best songs to offer as a free download on your various profiles like this one, reverbnation, and MySpace. ] So if you connect this to your iTunes, and then play your tracks a lot in your iTunes you'll get more scrobbled songs, and your count will go up. And you want your count to be up because everyone who goes to your last.fm page can see how many plays you’ve gotten, and how many listeners you have.

PANDORA.COM

This is another site sort of like Last.fm but even cooler!! Pandora.com has a system of analyzing songs based on hundreds of “genomes”, which an actual human being will attribute to your music. You must send them a physical CD, and if they like it, they will analyze it and add it to their playlist. I sent them a CD, and after about a month, when I would type in “Worldwide Groove Corporation” into their interface to start a radio station, they had analyzed our music and knew what style to play. [They gave it characteristics like “latin influences”, “electronica roots”, “slow moving bassline”, “downtempo influences”, and “laid back female vocal”.] Then after about another month, they would actually put our songs in the playlist with the other stuff similar to ours. There’s no guarantee you’ll get added, but if you do, then when other people listen for artists similar to you, they might hear YOUR music, and it’s always accompanied by links to iTunes and Amazon so people can BUY your music.

[Hi all, Ellen here. I've decided to take a very long handout that I created for my college students and break it down into a series of blogs. This is a summary of what I know about promoting yourself and your music online. If you or someone you know is a self released artist who doesn't necessarily have a plan of action after the CDs are manufactured, subscribe to this blog and read the series. I'm breaking it down into bite sized portions. ]

The Other Side of the Fence

noreply@blogger.com (wwgroovecorp) — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 03:44:00 +0000

Hello, everyone!

Ellen here. It's been a while since I just plain wrote a blog entry. Life has been full of large events here, one of which has been actually handing over the reigns on our music. We have signed a deal with a record label, and are now a part of "the machine" so to speak. Now, to be clear, this is for the most part a repackage and re-release of our Chillodesiac Lounge, vol 1: FEVER record, with one new cover tune added, and two remixes added. We did need to drop two tracks from the original project, one for contractual reasons, and one simply to make room for the other new additions. But we hope that we will be able to get some truly new music out relatively soon. [There are several tracks in the works. We just have to keep doing the other money work, so... such is life at Worldwide Groove Corporation.]

However, now that we have a record deal, it's a very strange feeling to have someone else at the helm, but nice to get word of new progress that has happened without my own toil behind it.

So today, we were very happy to get word that we got added to 38 radio stations last week!! Here is the text of the update:

"September 1, 2009

WORLDWIDE GROOVE CORPORTATION
THE MIDNIGHT SESSIONS
LIAISON MUSIC

WEEKS ON PROJECT: 1

CHART NUMBERS
CMJ RPM ADDS - #2 Most Added with 38 ADDS

KEY STATIONS ADDING THE RECORD THIS WEEK
Bangor, ME - WERU
Bozeman, MT - KGLT
Carbondale, CO - KDNK
Charlottesville, VA - WNRN
Detroit, MI - WNMC
Hammond, LA - KSLU
Honolulu, HI - KTUH
Irvine, CA - KUCI
Miami, FL - WRGP
Minneapolis, MN - KFAI
New Brunswick, NJ - WRSU
Philadelphia, PA - WKDU
Richmond, VA - WDCE
Rohnert Park/Bay Area, CA - KRCB
Sacramento, CA - KSSU
Salt Lake City, UT - KWCR
San Antonio, TX - KSYM
Santa Clara, CA - KSCU
Santa Cruz, CA - KZSC
Tampa, FL - WMNF
Tucson, AZ - KAMP"

So, there you have it! And so it begins...

How to Promote Yourself Part 22: CDBaby & TuneCore

noreply@blogger.com (wwgroovecorp) — Sun, 30 Aug 2009 19:08:00 +0000

CDBABY.COM - Physical and Digital Distribution

Many people know about CD Baby, and from what I’ve experienced, it’s a great and reliable company. You can sell physical CDs for a one time $35 registration fee. They fulfill the orders and ship worldwide, and will even provide you with a credit card swiper for free to sell CDs and merch at your gigs. They keep $4 of each CD sale which seems reasonable, all things considered. They will give you the contact info for the people who purchase your CD. ADD THESE PEOPLE TO YOUR DATABASE.

What’s even better than their physical distribution is their digital distribution. It’s a free opt-in service, and it puts you through so many digital websites [including iTunes and Amazon digital, the two most important ones for U.S. based artists], you haven’t even heard of them all. The down side is that you do not have any control over the speed at which your music is submitted to these digital outlets, nor of how long it takes for your music to actually show up. The up side is they only take 9% of your digital sales, and they pay every week. So you only pay out if you’re actually selling music, and you’re not paying ongoing fees if your music isn’t selling. I would highly encourage you to avoid anything that will charge you a monthly fee for selling your music, as you can lose money very easily that way.

TUNECORE.COM - Digital Distribution

Tunecore.com is another option for digital distribution, and it works a little differently than CD Baby in that they charge an annual fee [maybe $10?] and then give you 100% of your digital sales proceeds. The up side is, that you actually have a little more control over who your tracks are submitted to, and you only pay for those channels. [Like if you choose iTunes U.S. and Europe, but not iTunes Japan, you only pay accordingly.] Plus you get all of the money from your sales. The down side is you pay an annual fee whether you’re selling music downloads or not, and if you do the math, you might need to sell at least a couple hundred downloads before you’d break even with what CD Baby would take from your sales. So it’s just whatever you feel comfortable with. I’ve not personally used TuneCore.com because you can have ONLY ONE digital distributor, but I’ve never heard anything bad about them.

[Hi all, Ellen here. I've decided to take a very long handout that I created for my college students and break it down into a series of blogs. This is a summary of what I know about promoting yourself and your music online. If you or someone you know is a self released artist who doesn't necessarily have a plan of action after the CDs are manufactured, subscribe to this blog and read the series. I'm breaking it down into bite sized portions. ]

How to Promote Yourself Part 21: Mi2N.com

noreply@blogger.com (wwgroovecorp) — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 16:36:00 +0000

Mi2N.COM

This site has some newsletters, two of which are: i2N, INDIE NET NEWS - The Largest, FREE Source of Musician News and B2N, BUSINESS NET NEWS - The Largest Music Business & Technology News Resource. Now if reading that just made your brain shut down, wake back up. This is one great place that YOU can submit YOUR NEWS. You must have a well written press release, but if you submit it and it’s good, they will add it to the newsletter.

I actually got the headline of the newsletter once from a press release I wrote and submitted. There are some good books and articles about how to write an interesting press release. You must do more than say so and so recorded an album and you can buy it now. You can either tie in some random weird connection between one of your songs and something in the news, or have an event that benefits charity at which you will be performing, or something else that makes it interesting. You can CREATE a fund raiser if you want. Get the permission of a charity to use their name in promoting the event, get some of your other friends to perform at it too, and then write a press release about it and submit it to this and your local community calendars and newspapers. [Like if they bring a can of food for the local food bank, they get $5 off your CD purchase, etc.]

[Hi all, Ellen here. I've decided to take a very long handout that I created for my college students and break it down into a series of blogs. This is a summary of what I know about promoting yourself and your music online. If you or someone you know is a self released artist who doesn't necessarily have a plan of action after the CDs are manufactured, subscribe to this blog and read the series. I'm breaking it down into bite sized portions. ]

How to Promote Yourself Part 20: LinkedIn & Plaxo

noreply@blogger.com (wwgroovecorp) — Sun, 23 Aug 2009 16:33:00 +0000

LINKEDIN.COM & PLAXO.COM

These are other networking sites, which are more about professional relationships, unlike Facebook which is much more social. It’s good to get profiles on these because you just never know who is on what site, and the more connections you have, the better. This CAN help you connect to friends of your friends who might be of assistance in your career, but another benefit is to simply get your name into people’s heads over and over. So if you’re connecting with someone on Facebook, then on Linkedin, then on Plaxo, and then on MySpace... you’re be more present in their thoughts. And if it’s someone you don’t KNOW personally, but you’d like to know OF you, then this is a good way to get your name to be more familiar to them. And people like what’s familiar. Look me up on these too, Ellen Tift.

[Hi all, Ellen here. I've decided to take a very long handout that I created for my college students and break it down into a series of blogs. This is a summary of what I know about promoting yourself and your music online. If you or someone you know is a self released artist who doesn't necessarily have a plan of action after the CDs are manufactured, subscribe to this blog and read the series. I'm breaking it down into bite sized portions. ]

How to Promote Yourself Part 19: TheSixtyOne.com

noreply@blogger.com (wwgroovecorp) — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 21:50:00 +0000

THESIXTYONE.COM

This site describes itself as a “game” technically, but it’s a platform to get your music heard. Basically, you upload your songs, and the people who have listener accounts “heart” your songs if they like them. If your song gets enough hearts, then it gets posted on the home page. Listeners only get so many “hearts” per day, so they have to choose which songs to use them on, but they will later earn “reputation points” and level up as other people heart the songs they previously hearted. The earlier they are in hearting a song, the more points they might earn from it later. You can set whether or not your song can be downloadable, but if your song is available for digital sale on Amazon, the site automatically links to it so people can buy it. BEFORE YOU SET UP YOUR ARTIST ACCOUNT, I’d recommend setting up a listener account and accruing points for a few days until you get up to level 5 at least. [You do that by listening to songs on “the rack” and hearting lots of songs.] Then once you have some points as a listener, create another account [with a different email address] as an artist. The reason you want to do this is that artists cannot “heart” anything. Then once you upload a song in your artist account, IMMEDIATELY log out, and log back in under your listener account, and be the very first one to heart your song. That way you can earn the most points from it as it gets hearted. I created an account in July 2008, and uploaded our entire record plus some remixes we’ve done. By mid-September, we got an email from a record producer who wanted us to do a remix of a band he’s working with, paying work. Plus we’ve had many people contact us as listeners who said they would buy our record on iTunes from that exposure. So it’s a good site. I have not found anything else like it. [UPDATE: OK, so I totally got busted on this site and they deleted both my artist and listener accounts. Proceed at your own risk, if you want to play it safe, just be an artist and let the fates do what they will, don’t try to work the system.]

[Hi all, Ellen here. I've decided to take a very long handout that I created for my college students and break it down into a series of blogs. This is a summary of what I know about promoting yourself and your music online. If you or someone you know is a self released artist who doesn't necessarily have a plan of action after the CDs are manufactured, subscribe to this blog and read the series. I'm breaking it down into bite sized portions. ]

How to Promote Yourself Part 18: MOG and Discogs

noreply@blogger.com (wwgroovecorp) — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 03:30:00 +0000

MOG.COM

“Mog” is referring to a “music blog”. This site exists for people to blog about and share music they like. You can create an account on this site, and blog about your music and other music similar to yours. You can upload images and even songs. Other people can subscribe to your mog and you can subscribe to theirs. I have barely done anything on this site personally, but it’s on my list, and well worth getting into. Also, I have not yet figured out where they draw their music files from, because some songs come ready for listening, and others do not have any play function. I believe they link to some other source to determine which songs have the play function. If you figure it out, let me know.

DISCOGS.COM

Discogs is a community-built database of music information. A site with discographies of all labels, all artists, all cross-referenced. You can personally submit all of the credits for your CD and also, if you like, sell your CD through their site, though I’m not sure that gets much traffic. It’s just another place to have information about your music show up in search results. You do have to meet a certain level of “street cred” in order to have your info be accepted, like it must be nationally available for purchase or something of that nature. But check it out and add yourself to the system if you can.

[Hi all, Ellen here. I've decided to take a very long handout that I created for my college students and break it down into a series of blogs. This is a summary of what I know about promoting yourself and your music online. If you or someone you know is a self released artist who doesn't necessarily have a plan of action after the CDs are manufactured, subscribe to this blog and read the series. I'm breaking it down into bite sized portions. ]

How to Pormote Yourself Part 17: Facebook & NashvilleMusicPros.com

noreply@blogger.com (wwgroovecorp) — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 21:35:00 +0000

FACEBOOK.COM

I’m sure everyone knows about Facebook. It’s always good to just keep your name in people’s heads to stay on their radar, and it’s all about connections, which is what Facebook is for, right? You can add your Reverb Nation widget to your Facebook page, and also your iLike songs. But more importantly, you should most definitely create a music profile for yourself on Facebook where people can sign up as fans. If you do that, you should broadcast it to your MySpace friends. In some ways this can be risky because if you have only 3 fans, and they all have the same last name as you do, you seem kind of pitiful. But on the other hand, it’s cool when people sign on as fans and you have no idea who they are or how they found you. And even cooler when they post comments to you! Plus you can import your blog via rss from Blogger or whatever site you use. Here is where I've learned the using the MySpace blog as my rss source is NOT good, as it doesn't let outsiders click through to read the whole post. So I transfered our main blog to blogger for the better rss feed.

NASHVILLEMUSICPROS.COM - FREE

This is a relatively new site, of the same concept as MySpace, but strictly for Nashville musicians. In fact, you must first get your profile approved by the site administrator to make sure there are only professional musicians on there. So it’s a smaller web of people, and more manageable than MySpace, and so far is spam free. Look me up on here too and be my friend, Ellen Tift.

[Hi all, Ellen here. I've decided to take a very long handout that I created for my college students and break it down into a series of blogs. This is a summary of what I know about promoting yourself and your music online. If you or someone you know is a self released artist who doesn't necessarily have a plan of action after the CDs are manufactured, subscribe to this blog and read the series. I'm breaking it down into bite sized portions. ]

How to Promote Yourself Part 16: GarageBand.com and iLike.com

noreply@blogger.com (wwgroovecorp) — Sat, 08 Aug 2009 22:00:00 +0000

GARAGEBAND.COM - Not affiliated with the Garage Band software.

One appeal of GarageBand.com is that you can create your profile and then enter your songs in their “song contests” to be reviewed and ranked by other members and hopefully climb their charts. [You either need to pay for the song entry or review about 40 songs to earn an entry.] I have found this process to be painfully slow and unrewarding to be totally honest. If you do decide to create a profile on this site, your songs will automatically be added to iLike, which is good because then people on facebook can add them to their profiles. However, the down side is, if you are on garageband.com then you are not able to do any direct interaction with your music on iLike.com, like uploading songs. That is lame. I am about to delete my garageband account because it hasn't really benefited me, and that will free me up to work directly with iLike.

iLIKE.COM

As a music listener, you can create your profile on iLike.com, and add the iLike sidebar to your iTunes program. Like Last.fm, it will give you the opportunity to be “friends” with people who have similar musical taste as you. But more importantly, it’s a good idea to create your own artist page on iLike.com. This will allow you to have people add themselves as your fans, and for you to send out notes to everyone etc. Your iLike page will also link to your main website, your facebook music profile, your garage band page, and your CD Baby page. And it will allow you to post to your MySpace blog from your iLike page. Nice! Plus you can manage your songs that are available for people to add to their Facebook page, and you can get updates on how many profile adds and dedications have been made on each of your songs. I confess that I personally have barely made use of the Worldwide Groove Corporation profile on iLike, but it’s there for me when I’ve got the time to work it.

[Hi all, Ellen here. I've decided to take a very long handout that I created for my college students and break it down into a series of blogs. This is a summary of what I know about promoting yourself and your music online. If you or someone you know is a self released artist who doesn't necessarily have a plan of action after the CDs are manufactured, subscribe to this blog and read the series. I'm breaking it down into bite sized portions. ]

How to Promote Yourself Part 15: Indie Music Reviews

noreply@blogger.com (wwgroovecorp) — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 03:00:00 +0000

INDIE MUSIC REVIEWS

Do a google search for websites and magazines that are willing to review music by indie artists, and see what their protocol is for sending in your music. For the ones that accept submissions, make sure your music is the right genre for them, and then put together a nice cover letter which gives them a brief description of your project, and TELL THEM WHY YOUR MUSIC IS RIGHT FOR THEIR SITE OR MAGAZINE. ADD THESE PEOPLE TO YOUR DATABASE. This is how we got a review in Electronic Musician Magazine. If you can get some legit reviews either of a live show or a recorded project, that’s material for your press kit, and worthy of a blog post and bulletin. Any good review should be broadcast to your contact list, because it’s all about perception. If your contacts perceive that you’ve got stuff going on, that’ll give you more credibility. But if they never hear from you or about you, they won’t think of you at all. You want people to think about you positively.

[Hi all, Ellen here. I've decided to take a very long handout that I created for my college students and break it down into a series of blogs. This is a summary of what I know about promoting yourself and your music online. If you or someone you know is a self released artist who doesn't necessarily have a plan of action after the CDs are manufactured, subscribe to this blog and read the series. I'm breaking it down into bite sized portions. ]

How to Promote Yourself Part 14: Google Alerts

noreply@blogger.com (wwgroovecorp) — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 02:48:00 +0000

GOOGLE.COM/ALERTS

Google lets you set up a google alert for any word or phrase you want. You can set one up for your name and another for the name of your record, and you will be notified when the google robot indexes any new sites with your name. It helps if you’ve got a word you’ve invented as part of your CD name, because then you know it’s definitely about you if it shows up. [I invented the word “chillodesiac” as part of our record name.] THIS IS HOW I FIND PEOPLE WHO’VE UPLOADED MY MUSIC FOR FREE ILLEGAL DOWNLOADS. You will want to be able to stop pirating of your music in its tracks, so be sure to set a google alert up, and it will come right to your email box. But also, it’s really nice when you get a google alert and find out that someone out there has blogged about your music. Then you can send them a nice note of appreciation.

[Hi all, Ellen here. I've decided to take a very long handout that I created for my college students and break it down into a series of blogs. This is a summary of what I know about promoting yourself and your music online. If you or someone you know is a self released artist who doesn't necessarily have a plan of action after the CDs are manufactured, subscribe to this blog and read the series. I'm breaking it down into bite sized portions. ]

How to Promote Yourself Part 13: ReverbNation.com = WIDGETS!

noreply@blogger.com (wwgroovecorp) — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 21:43:00 +0000

REVERBNATION.COM - Widgets!! Widgets!! Widgets!! and MORE!

This site is great because you upload your tracks and they generate lovely little music playing widgets which can be placed on any website that takes html. These widgets not only play music, but they can also show your performance schedule, and allow people to sign up for your mailing list, link to your youtube videos and offer free song downloads. And anyone who likes your music can place the widget on their site if they want, thus giving you more exposure, while allowing you the power to change the widget if you want. Since my record [Chillodesiac Lounge, vol. 1: FEVER] has cover tunes which are against the MySpace policy, I can’t put them on my MySpace player. To get around this, I have a Reverb Nation widget on my MySpace page so people can listen to my whole record. I also went a long time with a widget on my main website, since it was so much easier than creating a player myself for my site. I also sometimes paste in a widget when I post a bulletin on MySpace, so people can hear the music, or on a blog post. This is a truly great resource, and it’s totally FREE. As this site is developing, they are partnering more with MySpace, and now you can rss your MySpace blog onto your reverbnation profile, as well as import your friend count to show as “fans” on your reverbnation widgets. You can also import your twitter status onto your reverbnation page. You can also make this you hub of your mailing list and even choose to do digital distribution through them. I still choose CD Baby because there is no annual fee.

Unfortunately BLOGGER doesn't allow you to embed these widgets in their blogs, but MySpace does. You can see ours on our myspace page: http://www.myspace.com/wwgroovecorp

[Hi all, Ellen here. I've decided to take a very long handout that I created for my college students and break it down into a series of blogs. This is a summary of what I know about promoting yourself and your music online. If you or someone you know is a self released artist who doesn't necessarily have a plan of action after the CDs are manufactured, subscribe to this blog and read the series. I'm breaking it down into bite sized portions. ]

Listen to the newest "When I Fall in Love" Sneak Peak.

noreply@blogger.com (wwgroovecorp) — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 21:41:00 +0000

Hey everyone,
We're printing a final mix of "When I Fall in Love" [ft. Ingrid DuMosch]. This is the UNMASTERED VERSION. Just a sneak peak of something on our next release.

http://www.reverbnation.com/tunepak/1641271

Thanks for caring.

WGC

How to Promote Yourself Part 12: Ping & Tiny URLs

noreply@blogger.com (wwgroovecorp) — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 21:40:00 +0000

PING.FM

I love ping! Why? Because it provides me with the opportunity to update my status on several websites all at once. I can either send an email or text message, or log onto their site and post a status update or mini-blog and they do the rest of the work. It shows up on Twitter, Linked In, Plaxo, MySpace, Reverb Nation etc. If I wanted to, I could also have it show up on my Facebook account, but I’ve chosen not to do that for the following reason. All of those except facebook are my “artist” profiles, and therefore, I keep my status updates on topics that I feel comfortable sharing with people I don’t know. I actually don’t even know who most of the people are who follow me on Twitter, though I suspect most of them want to sell me either porn or pharmaceuticals. Facebook on the other hand is much more personal, and my status updates are often more personal than I feel comfortable just putting “out there”. I still haven't figured out how to connect ping to update the status on our artist page at Facebook, but that's on my list.

Tiny URL dot COM [AND BIT.LY AND OW.LY] I have to put "dotCOM" or else it gets edited when I post this. And apparently you cannot type tiny and url without a space either. boo.

So now you’re on Amazon and iTunes, and you want to link to your pages from your YouTube pages, but they don’t allow html. Yet if you just put a url [http://www.whatever.com] in your text, that becomes its own link. Too bad your Amazon and iTunes urls are 4,563 characters each. That’s where ..-dot-com [or bit.ly, or ow.ly] can be of assistance. You can generate a much shorter alias url to use, and it even allows you the option of creating a custom alias url which is much shorter and easier on the eyes. So you paste in: http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_gw_0_17?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-music&field-keywords=worldwide+groove+corporation&x=0&y=0&s prefix=worldwide+groove+corporation And they allow you to generate http://www.tiny url DOTcom/YOU-Amazon or whatever you type in for the text after the slash. Lovely. This is also helpful in putting a url in your status updates, though some services, like Twitter, automatically generate a shorter url on your behalf.

[Hi all, Ellen here. I've decided to take a very long handout that I created for my college students and break it down into a series of blogs. This is a summary of what I know about promoting yourself and your music online. If you or someone you know is a self released artist who doesn't necessarily have a plan of action after the CDs are manufactured, subscribe to this blog and read the series. I'm breaking it down into bite sized portions. ]

testing the new blog

noreply@blogger.com (wwgroovecorp) — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 21:40:00 +0000

Hi! I'm testing this blogging site to see if it's indeed better for importing via rss to other sites like Facebook and iLike etc.

The Pressure is on... 3AM blog by Ellen.

noreply@blogger.com (wwgroovecorp) — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 21:38:00 +0000

The pressure is on... 3AM blog by Ellen.
Category: Music

Hi everyone!
Man alive have we been busy. Not only are we in the process of trying to find some space to relocate [and fixing up the current space to sell], but also we are under a sudden and fast deadline to finish up some new downtempo tracks for the next release. I can't divulge certain details yet until things are finalized, but let's just say that our team is expanding and that's a great thing for getting the name Worldwide Groove Corporation out there.

It's funny, tonight we opened up all of the song files we have started, all at various stages of development. Some are practically finished, others are a 30 second snippet of an idea, and one so far exists only inside of my brain, but is fully complete nonetheless. So we are assessing which tracks we can possibly have finished within the next 2 weeks, and having to make some decisions accordingly.

Some of these decisions have to do with track names. We have a few instrumentals which, when Kurt opened the file and started programming them, quickly chose random names like "2AM", "Nectar", and "Daydream". But we need to think big picture and about the flavor of our project. So far we have "branded" our artist releases under the downtempo lounge category, reconstructing famous jazz standards into chillout tracks. So the cover titles are My Funny Valentine and Fever etc. We named our originals things like "Mimosa" and "Midnight in Venice". So if we want to thing of appropriate song titles, they need to seem to fit with that general mood, and also fit the song.

Another interesting thing is that on the first record, I personally had primarily begun the programming and production on the first 4 tracks, workshopping my ideas and giving Kurt a good sense of my vision until he was fully on board with the concept and interested in working more on it. But this time around, life is quite different. Not only do I have a preschooler to entertain all day long, but the gear has changed, and I'm not as equipped, nor do I have long stretches of time, to sit and noodle around with ideas. But this time, Kurt is the one beginning ideas on tracks, and I feel a bit awkward and out of control on things.

It's also been an interesting show to see the flavor of the tracks we have started. Kurt's tendency on these has been to go for the slow to mid tempo, plateau feeling, espionage sounding tracks. Which can be very cool on a project, however, we don't have a very strong representation of the more fun and quirky side of things, like we had with Tangerine and Fever [More Cowbell Remix] on the first project. Both of which were very much my influence. So, I'm lobbying for a greater swing over to the fun factor, and hoping to get some electro-kitsch elements happening.

The bottom line is, when we are working on a track, I ask myself "does this music make this room seem like a cooler place to be?" Or "would I enjoy having this as the back drop to a small social gathering?" If it doesn't lend itself to that emotionally, then we tweak it until it does. There's one track in particular that has some string parts on it, which are cool, but they are too tense and not emotionally consistent with our other tracks. It's those big picture perspectives that make a huge difference in a project.

OK, I need to try to get back to sleep. I just thought I'd take advantage of my insomnia tonight and blog a bit.

Ellen

How to Promote Yourself Part 11: Twitter & TWT.fm

noreply@blogger.com (wwgroovecorp) — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 21:37:00 +0000

TWITTER.COM

Twitter is a site that simply focuses on status updates, and has recently been getting quite a bit of buzz. Other people can subscribe to your status updates, and you can subscribe to theirs, and this is what some call “micro-blogging” which is a fast easy way to share your thoughts. Some people hate it, others love it. I find it extremely useful, and have now put my twitter url as part of my email signature. You can rss feed your twitter updates to different profiles like Reverb Nation etc., so it’s less work, and it’s simply a way to keep your name fresh in people’s minds. Just be aware of who can see your tweets, and keep the content within the range of what is appropriate. I would also recommend keeping things positive and upbeat. You don’t want to establish your identity as a bitter and angry person. Also, think about how personal you want to make it. Hilarious as it is, [Fake] Tina Fey’s tweet which said “I don’t know why I even bother chewing corn anymore” may be a little bit more graphic and intimate than a musician should go. I’ll write more on that in another section. Look me up http://twitter.com/wwgroovecorp Another benefit of this is that you can follow key industry people on Twitter and get some very helpful information, like Derek Sivers, founder of CD Baby etc.

THERE IS A PRINCIPLE IN MARKETING CALLED THE RULE OF SEVEN. IT BASICALLY STATES THAT IT TAKES A PERSON SEVEN REPETITIONS OF HEARING YOUR NAME TO REMEMBER IT, OR TO FIND IT FAMILIAR UPON RECALL. Actually, I think it may take even more than that in these days of people being barraged with information and advertisements at every turn. My reason for bringing this up is, if there is some way people can hear from you more often [but not so often that you become spammy and get rejected], then the more familiar your name will be, and people gravitate toward what is familiar. That’s why it’s good to get yourself into as many places as frequently as you can, in a positive way. Trying to blog regularly can become cumbersome, so just sending out occasional interesting status updates is a fast and easy way to put yourself into people’s brains, even if for just a few moments.

TWT.FM

This site is affiliated with Twitter and it exists solely for the purpose of allowing people to tweet a quick url of a song they want to share with other people, and then they can click on it and listen to it. I’m not sure at this time where TWT.FM gets their catalogue of music, though I do know that YouTube videos are on the list. So at the very least if you create a YouTube video of your song, that is one way to show up on TWT.FM.

[Hi all, Ellen here. I've decided to take a very long handout that I created for my college students and break it down into a series of blogs. This is a summary of what I know about promoting yourself and your music online. If you or someone you know is a self released artist who doesn't necessarily have a plan of action after the CDs are manufactured, subscribe to this blog and read the series. I'm breaking it down into bite sized portions. ]

How to Promote Yourself Part 10: YouTube.com

noreply@blogger.com (wwgroovecorp) — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 21:35:00 +0000

YOUTUBE.COM

YouTube and iMovie can be your new best friends if you use them to your advantage. Any time you’re in the studio working on your music, take video of interesting moments. Don’t feel the need to have the camera rolling all day long, just stage footage if you need to, that’s how they do it on TV. [I’ve had experience with 2 reality TV shows, and they were both totally NOT real! Everything was strictly for the camera and scenes that were supposedly impromptu were shot 4 and 5 times over.] Then you can edit a 3 to 7 minute “behind the scenes” or “making of” video and post it on YouTube. Be smart about choosing your title, description, and tags, so that it’s optimized for search results. Also, once you get your songs mixed and mastered, go ahead and edit a video to your finished songs. Even something as simple as the CD cover graphic in a static shot with the music playing is done quite frequently, and it’s just one more opportunity for free exposure. A video like this is also advantageous because it may be the only way you show up on some other sites that draw their content from YouTube, like TWT.FM [see following].

When Melinda Doolittle was at the peak of her American Idol fame, we put out a video podcast of us talking about what it was like to work with Melinda on our record. Totally true and directly tied to our music, and the last time I checked it had over 17,000 views. That’s 17,000 times someone has heard about Worldwide Groove Corporation and our record. We edited other videos of us talking, us in the studio, and just our CD graphic with the finished music. They’ve gotten up to 5,000 views each. This is all FREE exposure for our music.

When you’re editing the video just ask yourself what content would be interesting to a complete stranger who doesn’t know anything about you. Shave off every fraction of a second that you don’t need. Tell your story. Try to make it interesting. Surely you’ve watched enough TV to have an idea of how to pace the editing and make it keep moving. Take the time to do this because once you finish and it’s online, it will keep working for you even while you sleep. Then you can post these same videos to your various profiles like MySpace, iLike, Virb etc. And you can link to specific song videos from your ReverbNation songlist.

ANOTHER APPROACH: Everyone has heard stories of artists who become YouTube sensations by posting videos of themselves singing cover tunes either acapella or with a guitar, and suddenly they have a half million views. Some of these people are eventually found out to have already had a record deal and it turns out the whole thing was contrived. In these cases, much of that person’s appeal is gone since people like to think they’ve discovered something on their own. However, there are some other people like Julia Nunes [look her up and watch how she does “Accidentally in Love” and her “Answers to questions Part 4” videos to see a low frills, yet creative and entertaining approach] who have truly organically created a massive following simply by being consistent, entertaining, talented, and interesting. Not everyone has the personality to achieve this, but YouTube can be invaluable if you choose to utilize it and put in the time and effort. Stay true to YOUR personality and use your strengths.

[Hi all, Ellen here. I've decided to take a very long handout that I created for my college students and break it down into a series of blogs. This is a summary of what I know about promoting yourself and your music online. If you or someone you know is a self released artist who doesn't necessarily have a plan of action after the CDs are manufactured, subscribe to this blog and read the series. I'm breaking it down into bite sized portions. ]

How to Promote Yourself Part 9: iTunes & Links

noreply@blogger.com (wwgroovecorp) — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 21:34:00 +0000

iTUNES

You can read about how to get your music on iTunes in the sections about CDBaby and Tunecore. The reason I’m writing about it in the context of promoting yourself is to bring up the issue of actively promoting yourself on iTunes. One of the best ways to introduce your music to new listeners is to create iMixes on iTunes of playlists. A well constructed playlist of music that is similar to yours, and which includes one or two of your tracks can be a valuable tool. The trick is, you need to get your iMix voted on, so that it will show up on the pages of the other artists on that iMix. We are similar to artists like Goldfraap, Thievery Corporation, Zero 7, and Frou Frou. So if we were on an iMix with those artists, and it just so happened to be one of the “top rated” iMixes that they were on, then it would show up on their main iTunes page, or the page of the specific project the songs are from.

ITMS LINK MAKER

The url for this site is long and ugly, so just google the name and you’ll find it. This is the site that will generate the direct link to your music in iTunes, so that you can link directly to it from your various profiles for people to buy your music. Once you generate this url, you can convert it to something short and lovely at ...com or some other site like that which is great for texts and tweets.

[Hi all, Ellen here. I've decided to take a very long handout that I created for my college students and break it down into a series of blogs. This is a summary of what I know about promoting yourself and your music online. If you or someone you know is a self released artist who doesn't necessarily have a plan of action after the CDs are manufactured, subscribe to this blog and read the series. I'm breaking it down into bite sized portions. ]