Music is major part of our everyday life. Music also has a long, complex and captivating history. It can predate language, and most certainly predates the written word. It’s found in every known human culture, both past and present, varying wildly between certain periods and locations on the globe. The music of every culture is influenced by all other aspect of that culture, such as social and economic organization, climate, and access to technology.

The development of human music occurred against the backdrop of natural sounds prefer the lapping of ocean waves, the rippling of river water, the singing of birds and sounds created by other animals. Prehistoric music, more commonly referred to as primitive music, is the name given to all music produced by preliterate cultures, beginning somewhere in  profoundly late geological history.

The prehistoric period is considered to have ended with the creation of writing, and with it, by definition, prehistoric music. “Ancient music” is the term given to the music that followed. This music has been produced by numerous early cultures, particularly Greeks, Romans, Egyptians, Mesopotamians and citizens of the Muslim world, as well as Asiatic cultures.

Following ancient music, came “early” music which is a exceedingly general term referring to music in the European classical tradition from the fall of the Roman Empire in 476, until the end of the Baroque period in the 18th Century. Music within this enormous time span has been extremely diverse, encompassing multiple cultural traditions throughout a expansive  geographic region. What unified these many cultures in the Middle Ages has been the Roman Catholic Church, and its music served as a focal point for music development for the 1st centuries of this period.

The Medieval period (from the 9th to the 14th Centuries) was rich in musical history as attested by the artistic renditions of instruments, writings about music, and other historical references. The only collection of music which has survived from pre-900 AD to the present is the liturgical music of the Catholic Church, the largest part of which is called the Gregorian chants.

Renaissance music followed the medieval era, but the beginning of Renaissance music is not as obvious ly marked as the start of the Renaissance in the other arts, and began, not in Italy, but in northern Europe specifically central France, the Netherlands, and Belgium. The invention of the printing press had an immense influence on the dissemination of musical styles and by the 15th century, composers and singers from these Low Countries begin to spread over all of Europe.

Baroque music became quite popular following 1600, and instrumental music became dominant. Although strong religious musical traditions continued, secular music came to the forefront with the development of the sonata, the concert o and concert o grosso. In Baroque music the keyboard, particularly the harpsichord, is the dominant instrument. The three most outstanding composers of this period are J.S. Bach, G. F. Handel and A. Vivaldi.

The early Classical period has been ushered in by the Mannheim School which exerted a profound influence on Joseph Haydn, and through him, on nearly all subsequent European music. Wolfgang Mozart has been the central figure of this period and his phenomenal and varied output defines our perception of the Classical era.

Ludwig van Beethoven and Franz Schubert were transitional composers who led Europe into the Romantic period with their expansion of the current type of s, forms and even uses of music. During this Romantic period, music became more expressive and emotional. By the late 19th century, there was a dramatic expansion in the size of the orchestras, and in the role of concert as part of a rapidly increasing urban society. Strauss, Brahms, Tchaikovsky, Verdi and Wagner comprised a compelling group of Romantic composers. A prominent feature of late 19th century music is its nationalistic fervor, as exemplified by figures prefer Dvorak, and Sibelius.

The 20th Century saw a music revolution as radio gained popularity world wide and new media and technologies were created to record, capture, reproduce and hand out music. Because music has been no longer limited to performance clubs and club s, it became possible for music performers to gain fame and fortune quite promptly.

And music became more mobile with the use of headsets, CD  players, and iPods. Music of the 20th Century brought a new freedom and wide  experimentation with styles and forms that challenged the accepted rules of earlier musical periods. Heavy metal music and rap entered the picture and joined hip-hop, jazz, country/western, ballads, folk, acid rock, Christian rock and a variety of other genres to create now’s fascinating world of music.

Ideally each page of your web site ought to serve a specific purpose. The central purpose of the sales page for your cd is to sell the cd.

If have a page with Google Adsense, the main purpose is to generate money by to get individuals to click on the advertisement. If its not an vital part of the process, do not load up the page with unnecessary things prefer animations or sounds. This will only distract visitors from achieving the task laid out for them, ie. buying your product.

Following are some pointers to include in your web site and the main purpose of each.

1) Main Page – The central pages is a general landing page to funnel visitors to varying areas of your website. Start a clear and easy navigation process linked to the other pages of your website. *If you use Javascript for navigation, place text link at the bottom. This ensures that search engines will be able to spider your website properly. You could furthermore use this page to feature your cd, music samples and other offer s.

2) Order Page(s) – Create a sales letter for each item that your are selling. Tomorrow we’ll go over some copywriting ideas to build a successful order page.

3) Press Releases - This section is where visitors might read 3rd gathering articles published about you, rising your credibility and exposure.

4) Contact Information – This is so people could get a hold of you to book shows, ask questions about products, collaborations, interviews or other opportunities (you never know). Include as much contact information as possible, prefer your phone, cell, mailing address, email etc.

5) Privacy Policy – Complies with privacy laws if your are collecting any of information about your customers/visitors. This additionally advocates to build trust and individuals will give their information more freely. Here’s a link to a privacy policy generator. http://www.the-dma.org/privacy/creating.shtml

6) Electronic Press Kit – This is where you refer the media to easily download an information package about you. Here is some pointers on what you can include:

*Biography

*Demo songs

*Pictures

*Reviews/Testimonials

*Sideshow Of Photos

*Video or Film Footage (Windows Media or Quicktime format)

Establish a biography with pictures in .pdf format and make it available for download. You may use the Writer program contained in the free Open Office Suite http://www.openoffice.org to do this. Open then program type (or paste) in your biography and insert pictures. When your done go to File > Export As PDF.

7) Lyrics - Allows audiences to get more familiar with your music. furthermore adds content to your web site which will get pick ed up by the search engines if it has an incoming link form your main page or somewhere else.

Biography – On your bio page sections listeners read about you and see your pictures. A sideshow of your photos at times adds a wonderful touch.

9) Concert Listings/News – Keep your fans and website visitors updated with the latest news about your concert s/shows, interviews, appearances ond other topics of interest.

With the major labels focusing on quick returns rather than musician development and the appearance of downloading music Web, the traditional record company/artist relationship has become blurred to the point of being obsolete.

Nowadays, being independent has real perks.

How many times have you heard or read somewhere that the Internet has change d the face of the music industry forever? I would love a dollar for everytime I heard it.

Nonetheless, it’s true and there are a number of reasons for this. Two that spring into mind are that:

1. A traditional record company/artist relationship is optional and not a necessity. You can do your all music sales and performer promotion On-line cutting out all of the ‘middle individuals ‘.

2. websites may turn an artist with a Local/Regional fans into an artist with an international fans. As the Web is not ‘owned’ by any one entity the playing field is a lot more even.

To me, being an independent artist means that you are the one driving the bus and being in control over your own affairs.

A lot of talent ed artists and performing songwriters around the world are at this  surprisingly moment waiting for that knock at the door, the opening  to ‘get located ‘. What is prefer ly to happen is that they’ll spend their creative lives being  surprisingly disappointed.

If you are reading this and feel that this is you, consider this…

Where do you think you would be if you managed your career yourself rather than wait for someone (or some company) to do it for you?

There are a lot of web sites out in cyberspace that are there to help you take control over your career by spreading practical information about band promotion and the independent music industry as a whole, take advantage of these web sites and go to as a lot of as you can

Embrace independence today and secure control over your own musical affairs.

(For the purpose of this article I am going to make a couple of assumptions before I go any further. They are that you’ve a little bit of vocal or musical instrument knowledge and that you likewise have a fledgling network of friends and contacts)

Starting up a band is a unusually exciting time in a performers life. There’s a fine balance of nervous anticipation and the fear of the unknown that follows the whole process.

A performer has a diverse dynamic than working as a solo artist. There are other individuals involved, other individual ities, other strengths and weaknesses in character and abilities and because of this it is really necessary that you’ve a few things worked out before you start looking for performer members.

1. Have a good idea of your own strengths and weaknesses

The performer members that you want to get will need to be around the same level of competence as you are. The main reason for this is that you can all grow together rather than have one or two musicians carrying any person else. This type of player imbalance causes doubt in the group and doubt is one of the major killers of bands.

2. Know beforehand how the performer is going to be run

Is the band going to be run by you or the whole group? The individual ity types of the performers that you select will need to be agreeable to the way the band is going to be run.

3. What instrumentation is the performer having in its lineup?

This is mainly determined by the type(s) of music that you want to play but having an idea of what musicians you are looking for will be of exceptional endorse.

It is now time to hunt down some band members

4. Ask your network of companions and/or contacts

This is always a good place to start. Ask anybody that you know or come into contact with. If you don’t have much of a circle of friends and/or contacts this will be a exceptional opening  to expansive n it. This is one of the reasons why networking in the industry is so important, for opening s such as this.

Having a artist referred to you has a much better opportunity of working than one that comes from an advertisement. This leads me onto my next point.

5. Post an advertisement

Having said that I’ve had made some excellent contacts from artists enquiring from a ‘muso wanted’ ad. The key to effective ads is that they need to be concise, to the point, not too lengthy and put in places where artists are exceedingly like ly to see it and read it like in a music shop, a Local music magazine or a music classifieds website.

A sample ‘ performer wanted’ advertisement may read something like this:

BASS PLAYER WANTED

To join folk/rock band

Influences include

Ben Harper, Jack Johnson, Counting Crows

Some experience prefer red

Own gear and transport essential

Interested?? Give me a call

Corey – (put home and/or mobile telephone  number here)

As you may see, the ad is obvious in its intention.

It apparent ly states the artist wanted, the kind of music the band is playing, what the music might sound like and that the band has some experience behind it. Make sure you have a apparent contact name and phone numbers (if you want to include an email address as well that’s cool).

Do not put in stuff like ‘work waiting’ or ‘no time was ters please’. You might judge those sort of things yourself when an interested artist contacts you.

Once you’ve done that the waiting game begins.

Many people would say the first thing to do is to find a name for the band. Lets start from there s hall we??

The auditions are over, you have found your bass player and you all seem to get along really well. The excitement is in the air and you have had your first performer bonding celebration.

Now its time to start your musical journey together.

Personally, I think that locating a performer name is THE hardest decision that the performer will ever have to make and consequently one of the most important decisions as well.

A band name is a unusually vital part of the bands identity. It is the first point of contact a punter has with the band.

I cannot recall how many times individuals have raved about a band to me but cannot tell me the name when I ask them. Right there is the has been ted opening  for a band. It frustrates me no end.

This is a optimum example of how extremely necessary a performer name is.

The performer name is the first thing that a punter will remember. They will not address the performer by the names of the individuals in it when they talk to their friends (unless they are personal friends of yours) they will address the performer by its name.

The perfect way to find a performer name is through sheer persistance. Locating a performer name that is agreeable by any person is not an simple task.

Here are some performer name party suggestions:

1. Get every member to write down their own list of potential band names

This can be the 1st task that the performer might do collectively. session a date for the 1st performer meeting and among now and then do that task.

2. Make brainstorming band names the topic of your 1st ever band meeting

When anybody gets together put all of the lists out on the table and go through each one keeping to one side the names that’strike a chord’ (sorry about the pun) with all of you and getting rid of the rest.

As a group try brainstorming some ideas. This is a great way to start formulating what the performer is all about, what its image is etc, etc.

3. Create a competition among all your companions /family/anyone else via email

This is a great way to start compiling the beginnings of your bands email list. List all of your friends /family/anyone else that you want to include and their email addresses and compile them all into one mailing group. Send out an email outlining the competition and be ready for the tips to come flooding in.

It’s necessary to have a cut off date for the competition (perhaps by your first band meeting) and to have a prize on offer. Of course the prize is totally up to you.

Make sure that when you do find a performer name that you announce it through your email group. You have just started email promotion of your band.

Whatever you do have fun with the process and don’t let the quest to find a performer name override the other things that you have to do such as writing songs and locating rehearsal space.

I guarantee that once you have agreed on a band name you’ll all collectively breathe a immense sigh of relief. The hardest part of the journey has been achieved.

Here is could the most important music business tip you’ll ever receive:

Join up and subscribe to every indie music business and DIY band promotion email list, newsletter and source that you might get your hands on and read everything that you receive.

I mean it when I say that too much information is much better than not enough, if what you’ve joined up or subscribed to is not giving you the information that you need then you may just opt out and un-subscribe.

Most websites that offer these things have the integrity to do as you ask.

Read what you receive, make notes, ask yourself if it’s relavent for you and the place you’re living in, integrate the information into your knowledge base.

The only way to obtain this knowledge is by research, and the Internet is the best place to research anything.

Researching on the Web though will only give you general (but  still  wonderfully necessary ) independent music industry knowledge. The real power comes from knowing your Regional scene and developing into active in it.

Here are some ways that you could do this:

1. Establish reading the music magazines in your area. Regional street press is an invaluable tool in letting you know what is going on in the Regional industry. Generally these magazines have features/interviews with Regional bands, a concert  guide ( great for targeting where to play), industry news and so on.

2. Go and see some Local bands. Check out your competition (I mean that as a figure of speech the the majority vital thing about a Healthy indie music business is the community that builds from the music and the individuals who performance it), introduce yourself, get out there amongst it all and immerse yourself in the vibe. Get familiar with the places these artists performance at and know who to talk to when it’s your turn to performance there.

3. If the re are music associations where you live, join them. Anything that aids independent music on an association level seek it out and join up. If it costs resources to do that then do it (generally its not an expensive exercise). Joining these categories of associations instantly gives you a sense of community and solidarity. likewise the amount of information you’ll obtain about your Regional area will be huge.

4. If the se Local/Regional companies have web sites then bookmark them.

Need I say more on this topic. Most websites for offline companies provide more to Online users of their services. It pays to be an active Online user. One advantage that comes to mind is the fact that you’re able to participate in forums and messageboards which, in time will become authoritative DIY marketing tools for you.

You got to start somewhere and the best place to start is with your own Regional area. As you expand your knowledge base you’ll work out ways to further your career and hopefully a snowball effect will start.

Once it stars, HANG ON!