The LyPhyS Music Blog

I've been working with some musician friends looking for media presence / exposure advice.  Artists are looking for gigs, podcasts, interviews, reviews, and air play.  While I'm not a super popular musician, I have managed to get reviews, interviews, features, and online radio play both on my own and with the help of a campaign manager.  You can do a lot yourself, but there are times when it's best to find someone with a better network to help you.  The right marketing campaign manager can get more exposure for an artist than the artist could usually get on their own.  But the key to all of this, whether you are contacting bloggers yourself or handing it over to a pro, is to know how to describe your music in a concise, clear, and intriguing manner . What do I mean?  I'm talking about a short bio that you can copy and paste into any email, contact form, online profile blurb, etc.  This should also be part of something you can hand off to a campaign m...

Are you stagnating? Are you between projects?  Are you needing a creative pick-me-up?  It may be time for a collaboration.  Why?  If you've been fortunate enough to have a successful, fulfilling experience in working with others like this before, you don't need an explanation.  You already understand that it gets you into a new mindset, helps you learn some new tricks, jump-starts your creativity, helps you interact with new artists, and increases exposure to new fans.  If you haven't yet, or your recent collabs felt stale, you are missing out. In a recent post, I discussed valuing yourself.  You need to have this in mind for your collabs as well.  If this is a free project, determine what amount of your time and energy you are willing to put forth while weighing the benefits.  Personally, I find taking a few hours here and there to interact with fellow artists gives me some breathing room and a chance to explore new techniques and ideas wh...

No, this isn't about pipe organs or Hammonds, although in spirit, this posting could apply.  "Organ Harvesting" refers to stripping a perfectly good guitar for parts and selling pieces at a markup.  Not sure that this is an official term, but it sure fits.  It makes me sick to my stomach when I'm searching for NOS parts or legitimately removed parts and come across a beautiful guitar body, stripped of everything that the owner could manage to remove, and a description along the lines of "Played great before parts were removed."  Then why the H-E-double hockey stick did you remove those parts???  As a person who owns a few beat-up, vintage beauties and has acquired them in various states of disrepair, I have to look very carefully to not find a guitar that has been harvested.  I also have worked closely with a luthier that has shown me time and again the damage that has been done by people removing or replacing parts on vintage guitars. Why don't I like...

After a rousing discussion among some Twitter peers, I've decided to tackle an angle of the value of music.  Now, as I often do, I'm going to remind you that I do not believe in subsidizing everyone who believes they are an artist.  No one forces any one person to pay any one artist.  I'm not asking you to buy my CD just because I worked hard.  I'm not telling you to give me five or ten bucks because I think I'm talented.  You don't have to be a superstar to have your music valued and make a living from it, but you have to work for it and have something people want.  Does that mean every single artist out there deserves to make a living from art?  No.  Not in the least.  Not every start-up business has a right to succeed.  If your music isn't something that anyone wants, you're SOL.  That's the way it is with any product.  So how do you convince people that not only is your music something they want, but something of value? F...

For this post I communicated with Kim (Belly Full Of Stars), Kees (Roofhare), and Jeff (Isotherme) for input.  I've included links to their pages and Kees and Jeff's Eclectrocasts Podcast at the end of this post.  So I asked these musicians about what different and bizarre comments and questions they've gotten over their music careers.  Some are funny, some are bewildering, and some are downright rude.  I plan to write a few posts on this, so for the first one I'm focusing on the style questions and how to handle some of these situations. "What is your music for?"  What seemed to be a flowing theme through some of the comments we get is that our music doesn't fall into "popular genres," so some folks don't quite understand the purpose of creating something that feels more or less like a sound track, mood music, or a very thoughtful arrangement of sounds.  Kees, Kim, and I have all gotten the question, "What is your music for?" or ...

This posting is about a the new culture of music that is mostly supported by ourselves.  It has become like a shared hobby group when I'm pretty sure that is not what many of us are intending by publishing our music and marketing ourselves.  It is a culture of a lot of back-patting and encouraging words by the outside world with little follow-through, so we turn inward, or worse... we turn toward a fake fan base. Followers and rankings are ego boosters... At least at first, until you realize that they don't mean much.  We know if we can measure it we can improve it, but where does that lead with fake follows and fake promotions?  That floods our stats with fake support.  That's noise.  How do we adjust our expectations in a world of noise?  And maybe there are times that the appearance of success could lead to it, but not likely for most of us playing in niche genres.  I ranked number one for my genre for my city for the majority of my time on R...

Going to ask a very simple question:  What is music worth to you?  It's just music right?  It's not directly fighting for your country or feeding and clothing your family.  It's entertainment and it's abundant, right?  So let me ask it again... Do you sing along in the car?  Do you get misty-eyed when a patriotic song is played at a ball game?  Do you feel the need to raise your hands and close your eyes during worship?  Do you swear by your workout mix?  Does a great dance track get your blood pumping?  Have you ever wandered over to the bandstand because you liked what you heard?  Does the right song on the radio make your morning drive?  Does the Star Wars theme make you grin like the goofy nerd you are?  Do you recognize a movie in the other room by the sound track?  How about a show by the song in the opening credits?  Do you keep headphones at work just to listen to music while you crunch numbers?  D...