Archive for August, 2009
Are You Leaving Money on the Table by Not Having a Table?
by claybutlermusic on Aug.19, 2009, under Band Management, Career Building, Marketing & Promotion, Uncategorized
An odd question, right? But as a band, you may be missing out on money-making opportunities from your live show by not having a table–a merchandise table.
There’s more to the music industry than just music. Much of the music industry is also in your image as a band, and, perhaps more importantly, how marketable that image is. Extending beyond CD sales, a band has other lucrative avenues to explore. Here are a few examples:
- CD’s
- Glossy photos for autographs
- Posters
- Stickers and decals
- Buttons and pins
- T-Shirts
- Hats
Taking the merch booth one step further, it’s also a hub of post-show activity. It’s a place to meet and greet your adoring fans, sign autographs, take pictures, etc. It can also act as in information kiosk, where you include a sign-up sheet for your mailing list, order forms for other merch, registrations for contests and drawings, flyers, bios, and so on. The ideas and opportunities to solidify fans and make more money with a merch booth are virtually limitless.
As a general rule of thumb, always negotiate with a venue to have a merchandise table or booth on-site when you play. This rule is particularly significant if you are playing for free. Most venues, clubs, or events won’t mind if you have a table, but beware of the ones that won’t allow you to have one. They’re making money off of you for virtually nothing in return, and that’s always a shady deal.
So, in closing, don’t forget to set up your merchandise booth at your gigs. They can be a real income booster for your gigs. In fact, there were times when my old band would make as much (or more) from merchandise than our performance fee. Double your money is always a great deal!
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Life’s Rules of Assumptions Still Apply in Songwriting
by claybutlermusic on Aug.11, 2009, under Career Building, Uncategorized
We’ve all heard what assumptions do to you and me, but as songwriters, we sometimes seem to forget that old, familiar adage. In this post, we’re going to discuss how assumptions find their way into our songs and how to get rid of them.
Many beginning songwriters write solely based on emotion. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing entirely, but it does pose a few hurdles that must be overcome before a song will see any kind of broader success beyond friends and family.
Emotion is a great tool. It allows us to connect with the lyrics we write in an intimate way. However, as we’re writing, we’re privy to inside knowledge that the general listener is not. We have feelings about situations, people, and circumstances that influence our emotions as we write, but chances are that your audience will not. We are able to fill in gaps in our song’s story, whereas a stranger cannot. The key, then, is to break the assumptions in our lyrics to be able to connect with our general audience. Don’t assume that your audience knows the details and back story. This information needs to be provided to them in a creative way in order for the song to make sense. Then it has a chance to connect with the audience on a deeper level.
Writing based on emotion, then, without providing back story, has a way of sounding ambiguous or vague. While those lyrics can sound poetic, don’t fall into the trap of saying, “the listener can draw their own conclusions as to the song’s meaning.” This assumption is unfair to the listener, who inherently wants to understand what you meant to say in your song. If a listener walks away scratching his head, searching for meaning after hearing your song, you just wasted 3.5 minutes of his or her life. And that’s not very nice. So, how then do we start to break the assumption making habit?
The Self Test
As you write, put yourself in the position of a general listener. As you review your lyrics, ask yourself if a total stranger, one that didn’t know the details of the events behind the song, could connect with the song. Would they “get it”? If you can answer yes to this question, then you have more of a chance of the song gaining broader appeal.
The Public Test
When you get feedback on your song, it’s always a good idea to look outside your close circle of friends and family. I know that is difficult to do and that we want to share our creations with those who will love what we do unconditionally, but therein lies the problem. Even if our song is less than good our family and friends will still like it. They will like what you do because they like you. They may even know the circumstances behind the song, so they can fill in the gaps that your lyrics may leave. A total stranger, however, won’t know those intimate details. The true test is making those listeners, the ones who aren’t privy to the back story, connect with your lyrics.
Songwriting takes a lot of practice. Writers go through countless songs before they may get an artist to cut just one. Breaking assumptions is one step toward finding success or recognition as a songwriter. Here are a couple of great books on songwriting that I’ve found invaluable to developing my songwriting craft:
Making the Home Studio More Productive
by claybutlermusic on Aug.08, 2009, under For Businesses, Recording, Uncategorized
I’m writing this after taking a break from re-organizing my studio. It’s been driving me nuts for months, and the cleaning/re-organizing part has been driving me nuts for weeks. Yeah, it was that bad.
Prior to about a month or so ago, the most strenuous work I’d been doing in the studio was doing voicovers, jingle sings, and midi-based music cues. Those jobs consisted of not much more than one channel at a time that I could leave in a ready-to-record state. Here lately, though, I’d been noticing myself not being as productive as I wanted to be. I had the desire to work, but every time I started a project, I’d get discouraged and frustrated. It then became clear to me that it was my lack of organization and poor ergonomics that killed my productivity.
My family always jokes with me, saying, “Your studio is never the way you want it,” or, “You’re never happy with it.” This is true not just because I’m a perfectionist, but there’s also another underlying cause. When I began building my home studio in 2006 (three years ago at the time of this writing), in my eagerness to get to work recording, I began to set myself up for my future frustration early on. As soon as the studio would get functional enough to do a little work, I would get focused on projects and put studio organization and ergonomics by the wayside. I was so fired up about being able to work in the studio that I became shortsighted and forgot about being ready for when bigger projects came along. Inevitably, when those bigger projects did come along, I would spend so much time and energy prepping the studio that I would lose my creative drive. I would then either not do as well on the project, or I would end up passing on the opportunity entirely–not what you want to happen when you record music for a living!
That brings me to my current juncture. The frustration has gotten too much to bear, so I’m overhauling it all. Here are some of the things that I’m doing to help improve my home studio:
- Purging junk and organizing storage space
- Re-wiring equipment and patch bays to make more logical sense
- Labeling all cables and snakes
- Making a notebook containing wiring diagrams, patch bay input/output lists, and midi routing
- Pre-mic’ing guitar amps in the isolation booth to have instant access
- Putting the most frequently used items, cables, modules, and processors at arm’s length
- Networking computers for easier file transfer and printing
- Creating a “workshop” area for guitar repairs and cable soldering
- Improving the “office” area to more comfortably do the “business stuff”
- Organize client information and contracts
All of these tasks help me to not only be more productive with recording and composing, but it also helps me to be able to readily accept more work without the preparation headaches. Hopefully, it will help me to gain more work, produce more output, and produce a higher quality product. All of these factors will help me “feel better” about working in the space, which, I’ve learned, tremendously impacts success with any business.
If you’re finding yourself frustrated and unproductive, try these little tweaks for yourself and see if they help. Comment with your ideas!
Clay’s New Spray Paint Art Videos
by claybutlermusic on Aug.04, 2009, under Uncategorized
I’ve just produced a few spray paint art videos in promotion of my new DVD, “Spray Paint Art for Beginners”. I’d like to share these videos with all of you. I hope you enjoy!
The DVD is available from www.butlerproductionsstore.com.
For more information on my spray paint art, visit www.butlerproductionsmultimedia.com/artwork.html. You can watch videos and see photos from live demonstrations and exhibitions. For you budding (or experienced) spray paint artists, you can order essential supplies right from our site!
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