Musician's Wisdom

Guess What? Free Music!

ethan.waldman@gmail.com — 2009-09-30T06:14:00-04:00

I am re-releasing my RPM 2009 album under the Creative Commons license.

That means that you can:

download my music for free
legally share my music
remix my music
use my music as part of your creative project

Why:
I'm a huge fan of This American Life, but I noticed that they use the same interlude music a lot. This got me thinking about how I could probably create some good interlude music for them, which led me to a general search of how to get your music included in podcasts. The reality is that there are a lot of small-time podcasters out there who need music for their shows.

The articles Get Your Music Heard on Podcasts at KnowTheMusicBiz.com and A Creative Commons License Is The Ultimate Music Promotion Tool at TheFutureBuzz provided the final inspiration and instructions.

The details:

All music here is licensed under an attribution-noncommercial-share alike license. That means you can also use it in your YouTube videos, in independent films, or in any creative projects, as long as you adhere to the following guidelines:

You can attribute simply by adding a link somewhere on your work when you publish it digitally to http://ethanwaldman.com

Permission to use any music here beyond the scope of this license must be attained through contacting me personally.

Enough already, where do I get the free tunes?!?
I'm glad you asked! Surf over to http://ethanwaldman.bandcamp.com for all your music downloading needs

Setting and Managing Goals

ethan.waldman@gmail.com — 2009-09-22T19:10:24-04:00

Setting and Managing Goals
I've been really interested in setting and managing goals- its what I've been doing most of my reading about.

I stumbled upon Derek Siver's reading list, and since our interests are similar, I've been enjoying some of his suggestions. For each review, Derek posts the date, and looking at the dates, I realized that this guy reads a lot! So I emailed to ask how he balances his time between reading and acting on what he reads. I got a nice response in return, and Derek posted a great followup on his blog last week.

Goals Lack Behind the Day-to-Day
Scanning through the comments, I noticed one from Frank Colon. He finds that writing music tends to lag behind in priority on the rest of his schedule. He writes:

As a self-employed musician, I'm always slicing my time into portions - time to practice, time to do the gig or recording, time to write, time for my wife & family, time for my hobbies, time to walk my dog.... but, I find that writing tends to lag behind "schedule".

What Works for Me?
I recently read a post on Zen Habits blog about creativity. Point 8 really caught my attention, because I realized I've been pushing myself and feeling disappointed when I don't spend a lot of time on my goals:.

8. Do just a little each day. If you can write for 20-30 minutes a day, or take a few photos a day, it won’t be long before you’ve created something great. This tip is for those who think they don’t have time to create. It doesn’t have to take all day, and it doesn’t have to be complicated. Just clear 20 minutes and create — do nothing else during that time.

I've extended that 20-minutes-per-day concept to four main “buckets”. Each “bucket” is a general category, in which I'll have a number of goals. For example, my "Music Career" category has things like, learning Logic Pro, writing songs, or promoting online. Now I try to spend at least 20 minutes on something from each bucket, each day. Sometimes the 20 minutes will lead into 2 hours, sometimes not. I follow my gut.

Printer Candy For you Visual People
I was going to devise some form to keep track of all this activity, but a coworker pointed me to the Black Hat Wite Box Re-Focus Form. Its perfect. I use it as a visual reminder and tracking sheet remind myself to spend at least 20 minutes every day towards my goals.

Confessions of a Learning Professional

ethan.waldman@gmail.com — 2009-09-20T15:41:03-04:00

I've got a confession to make, and I'm going to come right out and say it.

To the Musicians- I have a day job. Not only do I have a day job, its a full time job. For a large corporation. I'm an online learning professional, and I enjoy it. I'm a little bit nerdy. I love technology.

To My Day Job- I am a musician. I write songs and record them in my livingroom. I perform in dive bars and cafes and usually get paid in food, beer, and tips. But I aspire for a bigger audiences, better recordings, and new songs.

Why am I doing this?
I was inspired by a conversation with Josie Frasier to combine my musical/creative and learningtech/professional lives online. There's no reason to have two separate online identities. This is my first blog post in that vain.

What are my goals?
To the Learning Professional- I hope that through this blog I can connect with learning professionals from all over the world. I'd like to share ideas with you, get your feedback, and discuss all the latest

To the Musicians- I hope to be able to bring a fresh perspective to the already noisy dialogue about writing, promoting and performing music. I've already been surprised by how useful some things I've learned about in the tech. world have been to me as a musician. I look forward to sharing them with you.

No more multiple identities.
And finally, this blog is still a place where those who are interested in me as a {musician, learning professional, person} can come to read what I'm thinking about.

New Cure for Writer's Block

ethan.waldman@gmail.com — 2009-07-30T19:28:46-04:00

If you're like me when you're writing, you hear words in your head that sound right. something about their texture, syllables and pronunciation fits with the music you're writing. The only problem is they aren't real. For me, sometimes i can't think of the word I'm hearing. It sounds crazy but I'm going somewhere with this.

While its not my top choice, I've resulted to rhyming dictionaries like RhymeZone in the past to help fill in the blanks. However, a post on Lifehacker today brought a smile to my face because it solved a familiar problem- You know what the ending of the word should be, but don't know the word.

For example, the ending- ation. Rhyme zone is no help. Well, now there's another use for the new and trendy search engine Wolfram Alpha. Simply search for "words ending in ation" and find a list of (over 1000) possibilities. This is definitely going into my songwriting bookmarks folder.

Songwriting Contests: Worth the Money?

ethan.waldman@gmail.com — 2009-05-29T07:40:16-04:00

I finally broke down and entered a song into the John Lenon Songwriting Contest. My feelings about contests like these is mixed- though my viewpoint has been softening. At first, I thought that they must be a total scam- luring already financially insecure muscians into spending money that they will most likely never see a return for. My sentiments are best represented in this article by Derek Sivers.

However, my feelings changed when an acuaintence from back in college won a $10,00 prize in the contest. I started listening to winners' songs and thinking to myself "my stuff is this good". So I took the plunge and spent the $30 to enter myself. Even if nothing comes of it the potential to win is exciting. It's an ego boost knowing that you've entered a songwriting contest and that you may win.

Things That Should Be On Your To-Do List

ethan.waldman@gmail.com — 2009-05-05T21:48:11-04:00

1. Write a good bio

2. Get my music blogged about

3. Get my music on independent radio:

What’s on your to-do list?

Article of the Week: 10 Online Music Marketing Priorities

ethan.waldman@gmail.com — 2009-04-26T14:48:53-04:00

I am an avid reader of many, many blogs on writing, performing, and marketing music. Sometimes I find myself reading an article nodding my head and smiling because it is so right, or has so much great advice. It is my intent to pass along these nuggets of wisdom to my (small but growing) legion of dedicated readers.

SO.. This week I bring you “10 Online Music Marketing Priorities” by David Rose over at knowthemusicbiz.com

It’s important to have a presence in the primary places where music fans discover new music. The big social networks, Facebook, MySpace and Twitter, are good places to start. It can seem like there are endless options available to artists for promoting music online. What’s the best way to prioritize them?

I am particularly impressed with the listing of resources in this article- from registering Metadata for your music (who knew, right?) to internet radio. Check it out and add your suggestions!

Make your own EPK

ethan.waldman@gmail.com — 2009-04-20T16:35:30-04:00

Following an impassioned interaction I had with @matthewebel about SonicBids, I am still without an EPK. I know one thing’s for sure- I’m making it myself. Here’s a rough list of what I’m going to include. Then I’ll zip it up and put it up on my website.

Artist Biography
Audio Samples (1-3 of my best recorded tunes)
Video clip from a live show
A couple of high quality photos
A few choice quotes from newspaper articles, plus links and pdfs to existing articles, if available
Set lists- potentially list the covers we can do (is this really necessary?)
Schematic of required equipment for a show
Contact information

I found one basic article on creating EPKs, but nothing comprensive. Honestly, I’m surprised there isn’t more info about this out there. Does SonicBids really have the lion’s share of the EPK market? I could see this being a service to provide to bands- build slick EPK’s for a one time fee and let the bands host and distribute themselves.

Does anybody have any experience doing this themselves? Share your tips/links in the comments below!

Getting Your Music Blogged About

ethan.waldman@gmail.com — 2009-04-13T08:18:11-04:00

Having recently started to blog, I don't have musicians knocking down my door to have me write about them. However, online marketing blog "The Big Push", recently put out a fantastic article with best practices on how to contact music bloggers to get your music covered. On top of the great suggestions, they have listed a number of music blogs that I hadn't heard of.

Do you have any tips or tricks for getting your music covered in the blogs? Leave it below!

Read more of The Golden Rules of Blog PR: 12 Music Bloggers Set It Straight

On Inspriation: The Importance of Quotes

ethan.waldman@gmail.com — 2009-03-01T18:04:46-05:00

If you’re like me, writing lyrics is hard. Sure, some people can just sit down and write and write. For me, each word, line, and verse is hard work and involves a lot of crossing out and reordering of words.

In addition to finding quotes extremly useful and inspiring to collect, I usually feel inspired when I see/hear/read about other musicians. One great source for this (and one that I will probably devote entire posts to in the future) is Sound Opinions. Sound Opinions, out of WBEZ public radio in Chicago boasts being the only Rock and Roll talk show and has an impressive roster of guests.

Additionally, I really love Derek Siver’s Music Thoughts website. The interface elegantly delivers inspiring quotes for musicians.

This News Story Could Effect the Future of Your Musical Career

ethan.waldman@gmail.com — 2009-02-22T09:59:50-05:00

I am a huge fan of the Sound Opinions podcast. They cover music and the business of music with grace and clarity. Its always an interesting ride with Jim and Greg. Last week, they reported on some extremely important news that every musician should know about.

From Sound Opinions:

Live Nation and Ticketmaster, the two most powerful entities in the concert business, have announced a merger. Now one company will control most of the concert venues, ticket sales, and even the artists appearing at those shows. Jim and Greg explain how this will affect the consumer. On the upside, the new company, Live Nation Entertainment, will do away with irritating service fees and inconvenient internet cluster sales. But, for the most part, this won’t be a positive merger for music fans. The new “dynamic pricing” model will leave many ticket buyers victim to auction mark-ups. In addition, independent promoters will have even less luck launching shows.

Download the full .mp3 of the episode here, or listen to the stream of this show.

Building the Perfect Pitch

ethan.waldman@gmail.com — 2009-02-20T07:29:33-05:00

The wonderful folks over at arielpublicity.com have announced the CyberPR Perfect Pitch contest. Essentially, you create a pitch for your music/band and direct message it to them on Twitter. The winner will get lots of goodies from CyberPR, including three months of consulting! Full contest rules are here.

For help, visit Ariel’s great article on creating pitches, or watch her YouTube video where she discusses pitches with Derek Sivers.

If you’re on Twitter (and you should already be), you can monitor the discussion around the contest by searching for the #CyberPRPitch hashtag. If you are saying, “what the f&%$ are hashtags”, this article should help.

Looking Good on Twitter: Building your Twitter Background

ethan.waldman@gmail.com — 2009-02-18T14:27:00-05:00

This may seem slightly off-topic, but Twitter has been getting a lot of buzz- particularly for musicians. For proof, see:

10 Reasons Why Every Musician Should Join Twitter NOW
or
Why Musicians Should Jump on the Twitter Bandwagon
or
How to Use Twitter for Music Promotion

Now that I’ve got your attention:

If you are serious about having a presence on twitter, you need a custom twitter page. Here are some resources I’ve found to make one that looks great:

Free image editing online. Who needs photoshop these days?
Twitter Background Specs (includes size and guides for creating a template)
Free Background Textures for your Twitter background via Brusheezy
Beautiful, free icon sets to jazz up your Twitter background

or

If you don’t feel like making one yourself, just head head over to twitterbacks and get a professional-looking background for free.

As always, I look forward to connecting with YOU on twitter. Make sure you follow me (@icedub) and send me a message!

-Ethan

Crucial Music Promotion Advice from Expert Internet Marketers

ethan.waldman@gmail.com — 2009-02-17T17:55:37-05:00

Via the Music Think Tank:

Our focus has been diluted with a new online service that seem to crop up everyday to help musicians with everything from cross-posting show dates, to tuning your guitar with your cell phone. Many of these developments, are wonderful, but all of them take time and energy to learn and implement, and they take us away from focusing on traditional Internet marketing.

Read the full article. Really brilliant stuff here.

Embed your MySpace Player

ethan.waldman@gmail.com — 2009-02-16T11:53:45-05:00

Though it’s officially against their terms of service, you can embed your myspace player outside of your myspace page with a little sneakyness. This used to involve viewing the page source and sifting through it for the embed codes, but I just stumbled upon a site that generates the code for you based on your myspace url.

Why might you want to do this? My main reason would be to capture play counts but not have to direct your fans to an ugly myspace page.

I gave it a test and it seemed to work- The only reason I didn’t embed in this post is because it plays automatically, and I think music that starts without asking is obnoxious.

Jeremy Short Sound - MySpace Player Embed

10 Mistakes Bands & Musicians Make

ethan.waldman@gmail.com — 2009-02-16T09:37:27-05:00

I just read a fantastic article over about the top ten mistakes that bands and musicians make. It is insightful and motivating, but isn't just "you can do it" fluff. This piece packs a punch with some solid advice. Highly recommended.

From knowthemusicbiz.com:

Your music is worth something. You are worth something. Think of your career as being "virtual real estate" which, if marketed correctly, will pay dividends for years to come. So, treat it like that.

Click over to knowthemusicbiz.com and read 10 Mistakes Bands and Musicians Make

On Inspiration: How to Get Motivated

ethan.waldman@gmail.com — 2009-02-15T14:21:48-05:00

Its easy to get tired of the music you're making. With a limited knowledge, ability, and aresenal of instruments, it can get frustrating. Sometimes I feel like everything I write sounds the same. When you're feeling this way, here are some great ways to get out of your funk:

Watch Musicians You Admire
I find watching the artists that inspire me perform really puts me in the mood to write/play/perform. You watch them and say "Hey! I can do that". Or maybe you get a great idea for a new song. Simply search for the name of an artist you admire on Youtube, and you are instantly rewarded with hours and hours of motivation. Since I've been really into Jenny Lewis lately, and am already a big Elvis Costello fan, here's a live performance from the Late Show that I really love:

Learn Music By Artists You Admire

Again, this may seem obvious, but just sitting down and figuring out a song that you really like is hugely motivating. Seriously, give it a try and I bet you'll get the idea for a new original song. Why does it work? When you learn to PLAY songs you admire, you get those "chops" under your fingers. The chord changes and melodies become a part of your song-writing arsenal. The more you learn, the better your songs become. I'm serious about this. Try it.

Garageband Recording: Lesson 1: Setting Levels

ethan.waldman@gmail.com — 2009-02-14T13:57:22-05:00

If you want to do home recording, GarageBand is an easy and inexpensive solution. Make your recordings sound their best by following my screencasts. Lesson one goes over how to set levels for your microphones and inputs so that you don't get any distorted sounds. I am hoping to continue this series and share my knowledge about using GarageBand to enable amateur musicians to make quality recordings. You can also download the original full-quality video file here.

Garageband Recording: Lesson 1: Setting Levels from Ethan Waldman on Vimeo.

Gear: My New (old) Bass

ethan.waldman@gmail.com — 2009-02-14T12:39:41-05:00

I was in one of my favorite guitar stores last night, Mohawk Valley Guitars on Jay Street in Schenectady, NY. They had a sweet Aria Pro II bass that someone had converted in to a fretless. It sounded great, and for just $150 it was a total deal! The owner, Frank, noticed that I was interested and told me more about it. I'll spare you the details, but its a well regarded brand and I couldn't pass up the vintage looks. I said, "I'd buy it right now if it had frets". Frank replied, "I'll throw some frets in it for an extra $100". 10 minutes and one swipe of the credit card later, my Aria Pro II is back in the shop getting a fret job. Check her out!

Post Comments

ethan.waldman@gmail.com — 2009-02-14T11:48:40-05:00

I am aware that there is no comments option for my blog posts. The software I use, Rapidweaver, is working with a third party to implement these features. In the meantime, feel free to send me email feedback. Should be ready soon!

Professional Image: Promotional Video

ethan.waldman@gmail.com — 2009-02-14T09:29:00-05:00

I’d like to take this opportunity to introduce the idea of a Professional Image. Even if you are not a professional musician, if you need to have a professional image. When people stumble upon your website, they need to think that you are good before even hearing you. So, find a friend with a decent video camera and some editing skills, and take a day or two to put together a nice video demo. It’s a great way to promote yourself and get gigs. Check out this video by Boat Safety Films. Looks nice, right?

That’s a great example of a solid promotional video. Here are some of my tips and suggestions for making your own:

Use a real video camera

- no camera-phones or digital cameras shooting video
- HD looks the best if you can afford it

Use an external microphone if possible.

- If your video sounds bad, the video is bad.
- The built-in microphone on a camcorder usually picks up a lot of noise from the camera itself

Be creative

- Film in a unique setting
- If you have any video editing skills, put them to use!
- Try out iMovie for the Mac
- Share links to your promotional videos in the comments section. Lets see them!

Gigging

ethan.waldman@gmail.com — 2009-02-12T07:35:29-05:00

I had a great time playing at Caffe Lena last night with the lovely Hannah Imbesi. It was my first public distribution of my new Moo Cards, which are really eye catching and cool to give out. For those of you who came to see me, thanks! I don't have the links section set up yet, so you can find my in-progress RPM Challenge stuff here. Thanks for checking me out!

RPM Daily Advice

ethan.waldman@gmail.com — 2009-02-07T10:43:17-05:00

I have been participating in the RPM Challenge (www.rpmchallenge.com). The basic idea is to write and record an entire album in the month of February. So naturally, I've been coming home from work each day, slipping into my pajamas and working on songs each and every day. I've learned something strange that might be of interest to fellow songwriters out there-

You have to trust yourself. Whenever I've been working on something for a few hours straight, I can't figure out what's good or bad, and usually have decided that I don't like the song any more at all. Then something funny happens- I go to bed and listen to it with fresh ears the next day and realize that it is pretty good. So when you're getting tired of writing because you don't like your stuff, do yourself a favor and trust that you're doing something good. Then put it down and come back to it another time. You'll be happy that you did.

Be sure to leave comments and let me know what you think!

Introduction

ethan.waldman@gmail.com — 2009-02-03T07:46:27-05:00

Welcome to my new blog. I don't know how to properly kick this off. I'd like to think of this blog as my musical journal, but I've never written journal entries that begin with "Dear Diary" and delve into a blow-by-blow breakdown of the days events. My name is Ethan Waldman. I'm 23 years old, and have been playing music for most of those 23 years. As a toddler, I would mercilessly beat on my parents old upright piano in our living room. I started private violin lessons at the age of six, and continued them once per week until I was a senior in highschool. I played in the New Jersey Youth Orchestra, and then the Youth Symphony while I was in high school. Somewhere along the way, I started messing around on my father's drum-set and picked up some chops. I played drums in the ska band, Ballroom Astronaut. I started learning guitar in high school. While I had picked up an electric violin and enjoyed playing with lots of distortion through a small amp, guitar was much more exciting for me. I taught myself how to play while I was in high school and haven't stopped since. I don't feel like continuing this musical time-line of my life, so for the sake of time, I'll skip ahead.

About two years ago, I became intrigued by songwriting. I had never written a song before and had no idea how. While I am in no way an accomplished songwriter, I've learned as much as I can in the two years that I've been pursuing the craft. There is one thing that is absolutely critical to the songwriter. It is something that is difficult to find, and ironically, even harder to accept when you find it. That is, honest feedback. I hope to use this blog as a sounding-board for songwriting and other music-related topics. I want to share my music with you, and hope that you share yours with me. I promise to be honest if you are. Additionally, I will post reviews of gear that I own, music (new and old), and share tips about recording at home. The list could go on and on.

With that, I will now try to figure out how to get some readers.