Rap Beats – Get Your Music Heard! – Music Marketing 101

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Rapping Beats

Marketing of your music product (mixed and mastered vocals on Rapping Beats or R&B Instrumentals) is probably the most important part of the music BUSINESS. In this Rap Beats and Instrumentals support article Ill give you an intro in the MASSIVE world of Music Marketing. This article is part of a series on how to become a successful Rapper or Singer. You can view all the articles in this series on the authors page.

You can have the craziest lyrics and the hottest rapping beats and R&B instrumentals in the world, but if no one knows about you and your music, it makes NO difference. You can even have distribution with the biggest distributors in the world. But without proper marketing it wont mean anything. If you dont promote your music heavily, youll get lost in the ocean of rappers and singers that are online and in stores. Ill give you an intro here, but the topic is way to huge to discuss in one article.

Q: Once my song is ready, where and how can I promote it and get it heard?

A: Like I said earlier this is a big subject which cant be explained in a couple of paragraphs. But once you have a fully mixed and mastered song with solid lyrics on a really HOT rapping beat or R&B instrumental, youre ready to get it out there into the world. (Remember, as important as marketing is, music quality still matters). One thing you definitely want to keep doing is constantly learn all you can about Music Marketing. The key is to get AS MANY PEOPLE AS POSSIBLE to hear (to actually listen to) your song. Post your music up everywhere online. Give it to all your friends and tell them to make copies and share it with their own friends. Hand CDs out at clubs and concerts where they play music similar to yours. When youre first starting out dont be afraid to give your music away for free. Yes I said FREE. (well Almost free, the only thing you should ask for in return is the persons Email Address more on this later.) People wont pay to listen to a song from an unknown artist they might not like. They have to trust and like you before they buy from you. Trust me, giving away your music to gain a true fan will PAY OFF in the end.

The next thing to do is get your music on the internet and let the world hear. Upload your music to any music related website you know of. POST IT EVERYWHERE YOU CAN! Some good ones to focus on are iLike, ReverbNation, MySpace (yes MySpace still matters), Last.fm, Jango and BandCamp but the list goes on and on. After that get on social media sites like Facebook and Twitter and socialize with different people tell them about your music! Its important NOT to be annoying and spam people with ads of your music. That is one SURE way to get potential fans to HATE you. (Do you ever click on those kinds of posts? Didnt think so) You have to start or join in conversations and build personal relationships with people. Thats the key to social networking Its hard work, but it WILL pay off.

Another thing you dont want to forget about is having your OWN website it looks professional and will give you credibility as an independent artist. Having a MySpace of Facebook Page is great but you need a HOME your personal website will be your own store-front where you can gather fans. A good solution for this is BandZoogle. You can easily design a professional looking website with them and get your own domain (something like www.YourArtistOrBandName.com). BandZoogle also has a great Mailing List application that will let you collect all your fans email addresses so you can keep in touch with them. This is VERY important. When you give your music away to fans, make sure to get an email address in return and keep them updated on all your new releases. Its much easier to keep old fans (customers) than it is to get new ones! Well this is the longest article in the series so Ill leave it at that for now! Keep learning about Music Marketing Its Important! Hope this helped.

Holla @ ur boy!

DatPaki
Producer/Songwriter
PBE Music

Musical Instruments Of Colombia

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Everybody deeply appreciate the great treasure that is Colombian musical instruments, such as Colombian tiple, made in coral wood, with clear lines and awesome authentic color, with twelve metal strings arranged in four courses. Any professional or student guitarist will find it easy to use in Colombian folk music, and in many Latin American songs. Musicians can use it in Latin American folk jazz music, but also in original songs as well. Tiple’s ethereal and clear sound is also used in classic guitar music creations.

Colombian Cuatro is concert grade guitar; it is made of slices and blocks from curly maple. It has a violin shape and has a great pitch accuracy and finish. The ‘seis’ is a hybrid of the cuatro and a supplementary sixth course tunes a fourth below the usual fifth bottom course. It is also a very popular Colombian musical instrument. This feature allows an expanded bass range. It can be used also for guitar intervals as well, and it makes a awesome music, It sounds as a guitar, but sweeter, faster and louder.

Original Colombian music instruments
Spanish and African traditions are strongly represented in Colombian music. Traditional quena, a king of flute, and Spanish guitar are very popular. Colombian bandolina has fifteen strings and its sound is beautiful, sweet and clear. It is usually made by hand, of unexcelled quality. The marimba is another Colombian musical instrument; it looks like a xylophone and its keys are made in wood. The arpa is a local version of the harp, the guassa is a rattle. The songs from the Pacific coast are using drums and are tinged with Spanish influence. Due to the Spanish influence, piano music is also very popular in Colombia. The newest music style in Colombia is “valenato”, based on the European accordion.

Many Colombian musical instruments are beautifully crafted, from the ancient times until our century. The charango, a kind of guitar made in wood, the vessel whistle, the erkencho, a kind of clarinet, the chirimia, an oboe, are carefully made and original Colombian folk music sounds great with them. There are six ethnic zones in Colombia; the music is a hybrid between Indian roots and Spanish traditions. In some regions, there is also a strong Negro influence. Guitars, flutes and drums are always necessary; in the Caribbean zone the most important Colombian musical instrument is gaita, a kind of oboe. In Colombia, music is a tradition. There is a habit to pass folk songs from one generation to the other.

Effective Music Branding Strategies And Tips

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Branding is instrumental in defining and determining the success of any business. This goes without saying in the music industry. People connect emotionally and mentally with music. Finding a way to promote branded music services and to develop music-based marketing strategies for a wide range of clients is the clear goal of all music branding agencies. However, it is the creativity and emotionality that will produce the most optimal results in regard to music branding.

Music boasts tremendous power over human beings. We turn to music when we need motivation, when we want to be happy, and when we are going through rough times, in addition to a plethora of other reasons. Because of the strong emotional connection that music harnesses, many reputable companies and organizations contact music branding agencies in order to identify a way to leverage the power of music when targeting consumers. In order to ensure that your musical selection will empower potential and present consumers, it is imperative that you know your audience in depth. If you release an irrelevant sound, then it can cause you to lose customers and cause detriment to your success.

When used in commercials, endorsements, and sponsorships, music can easily attract attention and interest; but you will want to ensure that you are garnering the respect of your target audience and not merely random consumers. Deploying surveys, entertaining suggestions, and encouraging customer feedback are all avenues to explore when you are trying to deduce how to most effectively connect with your audience. These factors combined with the expertise of a music branding agency should enable you to develop a sound that will resonate with your employees and your customers. It is important to note that there can be high costs associated with your vision depending upon the artist, song, and the popularity of both when you are deciding upon a relevant sound.

Your music selection should convey a message that accurately represents your brand. It should define your values, your goals, and how you choose to communicate. Yet, it should also reveal emotional points that evoke a deeper understanding and connection between your brand and your customers. Music branding can work quite effectively so long as it harmonizes with your other initiatives and seamlessly flows with your overall marketing strategies while simultaneously connecting with your audience on an internal level. If you can successfully accomplish these three elements, then not only will you spark a sense of pride and unity among your employees, but you will also establish your integrity to your consumers.

Is ‘Classical Music’ Dead in the Water

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On various blogs and message boards I’ve read lately I’ve encountered a lively argument on top of could you repeat that? We ought to call Classical Music. You know the kind of composition I mean: A conductor by the front, a cluster of musicians scraping, blowing, plucking and striking a variety of instruments ranging from the ‘fit your pocket’ small, to the ‘I need a dump truck to move this mother’ behemoth; all appraisal from printed scores, the largest part likely formally dressed, seldom smiling, earnest in their endeavours.

Polite applause ripples around the audience, generally initiated either by the ‘I know my stuff, so have under surveillance my go in front and praise as I do’ cognoscenti, or, more unsuccessfully, though admittedly more hilariously, by the enthusiastic ingenue who inadvertently claps linking schedule of a line quartet — “tut, tut!” Stifled guffaws and a kind of ‘there but pro the leniency of God perform I’ embarrassment wafts around the concert entry pro a instant. The cognoscenti get pleasure from their instant of schadenfreude, the Minuet begins.

This kind of composition bears the generic label ‘Classical’, but this is inaccurate, both in the significance of Classical Literature, which refers to Ancient Greece and Rome, and in the significance of Classical Music as a episode of musical history (see below).

Here are the minority quick view: ‘Classical Music’, in musicological provisions refers specifically to composition on paper roughly linking 1750 – 1820. It’s dominated by Sonata- and Ternary-form structures and adheres to a hierarchical vocal order proven as functional tonality. So, I say, don’t untidiness with it – it’s a sound, commonly expected label of reference. We know someplace we are with it; like comfy old slippers we give birth to grown-up accustomed to its feel — it fits. It ain’t broke, so don’t arrange it.

But, ‘Houston, we give birth to a problem’ – the label ‘Classical Music’ has been hijacked by indolent thinkers and good-for-nothing generalists to mean in the least form of composition someplace you might give birth to lone or more of the following:

A) a conductor

B) musicians appraisal from notated scores

C) musicians dressed as penguins

D) an absence of bare midriffs, thongs and lycra (and that’s only this minute the men!)e) singers singing lacking amplification, but mangling syllables and consonants into a ‘projected sound’, the volume of which would deposit in the least self-respecting Town Crier to disgrace. Come to think of it, they would produce a Jumbo jet a run pro its money in the decibel stakes.

So, composition on paper since 1820, even composition on paper remaining month, gets labelled ‘Classical’ if it meets the criteria traditional banned higher than.

Recently I’ve approach across various blogs and online articles discussing this publication, with more or less attention-grabbing suggestions pro alternatives. Let’s take a look by more or less of them:

Knack Music – Pleeeeease!!! Are you fatally suggesting with the aim of the Miles Davis / Gil Evans collaborations, or Charlie Parker’s pioneering attitude to harmony doesn’t amount to art? You can’t smash-and-grab a monopoly on the disguised worth associated with such a label lacking making by hand severely unpopular with musicians of other genres.

Serious Music – are you serious? Again, I know many Jazz musicians who are each crumb as serious with reference to their composition as in the least ‘Classical’ musician.

Notated Music – this is a no-go as well, for the reason that so many other forms of composition are notated, from Pop through to Jazz & Blues. You besides leave by hand inmate to the question ‘what is notation?’. Those who declare with the aim of notation doesn’t exist in Pop or stun composition are chatting rot – it’s alive and well and, with the advent of central processing unit notating software, more than continually obtainable to Popsters pro their horn and line arrangements.

From Musicians To Music Festival Organizers

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In todays musical economy, youre lucky to be a band thats invited to join a music festival lineup. Festivals are blowing up in terms of popularity, so much so that nearly every major music festival in 2011 saw record attendance. To be on one of those bills could do a lot for your career, but to create an entire festival? Thats just crazy talk. Or is it? One band has been doing just that for 12 years.

Horror Rap duo Insane Clown Posse has unarguably the largest cult following of any similar sounding act in the entire country. The reasons for that are many, but its safe to say the fact that they have their own annual festival where fans (Juggalos) can meet up every year goes a long way in solidifying those fans loyalty. Of course, Im talking about the Gathering of the Juggalos!

Producing a Music Festival

Theres nothing easy about producing a music festival, especially one as involved as Gathering of the Juggalos. Location, artists, security, vendors, permits, scheduling, promotion, insurance, and stage setup are just some things that have to be taken into consideration by curators like Insane Clown Posse in planning. And if you dont sell as many tickets as you need to in order to make a profit, it can be a very expensive loss.

Insane Clown Posse hosted their first Gathering of the Juggalos music festival in 2000 after several years of talk and planning surrounding the event. Its hugely successful today, but even a band as large as Insane Clown Posse had to fight and endure trial and error over the years to bring Gathering of the Juggalos to its current level of success.

Music vs. Events

Of course, the artists playing the festival will be the most important selling point to potential festival-goers. This years Gathering of the Juggalos festival was loaded with talented horror rap acts, and enough Juggalos to satisfy your social desires until Insane Clown Posses next Gathering of the Juggalos festival rolls around. But what makes the Gathering more original than any other music festival around the country isnt the music; its the on-site activities.

Its essential that there are more activities on hand than those related to music. Insane Clown Posse knows their fans might get tired of non-stop music for four straight days, so they came up with the idea to provide them with fresh activities seen at no other music festival. While these events may only be attractive to the Insane Clown Posse fan demographic, they provide some great insight on the ingenuity needed to make fans happy at music festivals.

Helicopter Rides at Gathering of the Juggalos

To start, there are helicopter rides at the Gathering of the Juggalos. Why? Why not is a better question. For a little bit of money, customers already at Insane Clown Posses festival can take a ride in the helicopter and tour the festival grounds from birds eye view.

Artist Seminars

There are meet and greets or autograph signings at a lot of major music festivals, but very few offer attendees the opportunity to sit in on a seminar conducted by your favorite artists. The guys in Insane Clown Posse always make sure they release as much news about their careers as possible at their artist seminars.

Juggalo Championship Wrestling

Insane Clown Posse, their Juggalo followers, and everyone else somehow connected to the Psychopathic Records family have been immersed in the wrestling scene since it all began. Gathering of the Juggalos just wouldnt be Gathering of the Juggalos without Juggalo Championship Wrestling on hand!

Those events are all given, but some others that take place at the yearly festival are mud / oil wrestling and the Ms. Juggalette contest! It might not be your typical beauty pageant, but some lucky lady will still be headed home with the title of Ms. Juggalette at the end of the weekend!

Over the years, Insane Clown Posse has mastered the art of creating a festival thats pleasing to die hard music fans and the more casual customers who also enjoy alternate activities not related to music at all. This balance must be achieved if you ever wish to host your own music festival some day!