How Musicians Get An Edge In The Music Business

How Musicians Get an Edge in the Music Business!

By Dennis Lively and Gene Barry

How Musicians Get an Edge in the Music Business! By Dennis Lively and Gene Barry Copyright © 2005

Acknowledgements We would like to acknowledge the many great musicians we have worked with over the years in our careers. Even though they are very busy with their own businesses, they have always been helpful, personable and just great people to talk to and learn from! Of course, we always have to thank our wives, Cheryl and Peggy, for everything. They are the ones that make this all possible.

Dennis Lively and Gene Barry January 2005

How Musicians Get an Edge in the Music Business! Do you ever wonder why some musicians make it in the music industry and others don't? We've all heard great bands that never even made it off the ground! Where did they go wrong? The truth is they didn't cover all their bases. You can be the greatest musician in the world, and it won't get you anywhere if you don't understand the business! That’s why I created a website to teach the 4 P’s of the music industry. Whether you are a amateur or professional musician, you must master these four areas, or you’re wasting your time. The 4 P's of the music business are the 4 areas you must master, in order to be successful as a music artist. They are: -Playing -Performance -Promotion -Production Nail down all four of these and you'll be successful. Why? ...because there really are no other variables. Of course, that doesn't mean you'll be an international star, but if you want to work hard to create music that inspires and excites people for a living, the four P's are all you have to worry about.

Let's examine these 4 requirements right now... #1...Playing is a given. There are a thousand sites on the internet that deal with playing techniques. This book is totally different. It teaches you the other 3 P's... the three other books don't mention. This is the information that will give you an edge in the music business. Why? Have you ever seen a really GREAT band and wondered why they weren't "making it"? I've seen tons of them... bands that are way better than the stuff you listen to every day on the radio. So what gives? What are they doing wrong? ...they're only concentrating on one or two of the 4 P's. They'll never make it anywhere if they don't learn to balance the other two or three. Just because you're playing does not mean you're performing. Any jazz artist can tell you that. They have watched their crowds thin slowly year after year... and it has nothing to do with the music (in my humble opinion). Face it... we live in a visual society. If you want to be successful (in a large market) you have to learn to accept this fact. It is on your shoulders to make your music visually entertaining for your audience. Don't get me wrong, I'm not suggesting you do cartwheels on stage. Depending on your style of music, this may be as simple as adding some stage lighting, or videotaping a performance to pay attention to your facial expressions. Believe me, you'll be surprised at all the little things you start to notice. Like it or not... these are all a part of your performance. That's the bad news. Here's the good news: Most musicians will NEVER take the time to consider this stuff. They don't want to be bothered with it. That's good news for you, because it means you've got an edge on your competition. Stop right now, and think of something you could do to add more visual excitement to your stage show. It doesn't have to be elaborate or expensive, but if you can improve one visual aspect every week, you'll be on the right track in no time. Whatever you do, make sure that it adds to the music. When people talk about your performance, you want them to comment on how good the music was... not your bass player's face paint.

Alright, now you know that you have to be entertaining to be successful. Seems obvious right?! ...then why do so few people do it really well? Maybe for the same reason they don't do the third "P" of the music business. "What was that third P again," you ask... Man... start paying better attention, didn't I tell you this stuff is important ;-)

Promotion So now you're playing great music and entertaining the crowd visually. The problem is you need to put more people in the crowd to see that you're doing all this stuff... right? You've been there before, haven't you? Your band is doing really great, and you're in the middle of a show, thinking... "Man, what's the deal... there should be more people than this! What the hell is wrong with this town?!" You know the problem can't be the club, because the TAS band (Totally Awful Sh*t band) played the night before and drew over a thousand people. You were there, so you know that the TAS band... well lets be honest... they sucked! ...so how come your band's rippin' it up tonight and there's only a hundred people there to watch? Kevin Costner has some great kung-fu-zen-buddhist advice here... Did you ever see "Field of Dreams"? No, not the one with all the wolves, the other Kevin Costner movie! He builds a baseball stadium in his backyard and all these famous baseball players come back from the dead to play there. He knew it would work because this eerie voice kept telling him, "If you build it, they will come"

Everyone who watches the movie can tell you it's hokey. They might like the movie, but they still know it's just cheesy fiction. So why do musicians still believe "If you book it, they will come"? It just doesn't make sense... then again, not much in life ever does. Anyway, If you haven't figured it out yet, the hidden message here is: PROMOTE YOUR BAND!!! ... sorry, didn't mean to yell, but it's that important! What's that you were saying... "I know I need to promote my band... but how do I do that?!" Good question! Glad to see you're finally paying attention ;-) ...Alright! We're getting somewhere now-only one more P to cover. This one may actually be the most important in terms of the effort you'll have to put in, compared to the benefits you'll see.

Production A band is only as strong as its weakest link. Ninety percent of the time, that link is production (sound and lighting). Why does it always happen that way? Well... because it's expensive-and... ... Oh yeah, it's complicated too! Alright, I know this stuff seems like rocket science sometimes, but the basics are really easy to grasp... ... as long as you don't make one of these two mistakes: 1. Thinking it's impossible 2. Thinking it's too easy Everyone seems to run into one of these two problems. Lets examine each one individually: Thinking it's impossible The basics of sound and lighting are fairly simple. You don't have to be Brainy Smurf to make your band sound and look good. You just have to pick up a few new ideas.

Music Production Why It's the Weakest Link for Most Bands, and What You Can Do to Fix It Far too often I see people making music production more complicated than it actually is. Why do they do this? Well, they're trying to give rules that apply to sound production for huge venues and concerts, as well as small shows. No wonder it gets complicated! As a result, most bands decide that it is just out of their reach to mess with professional sound and lighting. Of course, they might get a set of speakers and a PA head, some mics and a few par cans… They may even get a mixing console and some other pretty expensive equipment. But they never really bother learning much about the stuff.

That's too bad :-( For most bands that I've seen, music production is their weakest link. If they would just take a little time to learn about these things, the difference would be like night and day! So why don't they do something about it? Well lots of them try reading to learn more, but the books are written in gibberish. Perhaps you have read books like this before. More likely, you have started books like this and put them down, because you felt your time was being wasted. You were right to do that. You have more important things to do with your time! Spend that time practicing your instrument, writing, or working on your band's website (you don't have one YET? Wake up and get with the program, it's 2001!!!). Unless you plan on doing a lot of consulting and installation work, or running sound in an arena, the bulk of the music production information in most books is useless. This section of the site is devoted to giving musicians practical information about live music production and recording techniques. Instead of a class on physics, I am going to give you all the tips, tricks, secrets, and shortcuts that professional companies use every day to make bands just like yours sound their best. My reasoning behind this strategy is simple. Why give you thirty pages of information on reading microphone specs, when I could just tell you which ones to buy and how to use them. I know what you really want. You want it spelled out in black and white, without all the technical mumbo jumbo. Many books will tell you that mic selection is based on personal taste. This is a load of CRAP! There are certain mics that simply sound better than others. These tend to be a LOT better than their equally priced competition (by the way, they're probably not the same ones you think I'm going to recommend). Due to advancing computer technology, music production has improved by leaps and bounds in recent years. You don't have to pay a million bucks to take advantage of this emerging technology, either. Many of the sound manuals on the market have been around for years and are put out with very little revision to keep them up to date. Because of the vast improvements made to affordable stage microphones, any sound book more than a few years old cannot give you any good advice on selecting components because the technology changes so rapidly. This statement is also true of all the other gear that I am going to recommend (especially electronic gear!). One of the main problems with the other books written about music production is that they cover too much ground. The author will explain the theory behind speaker construction, so that no matter how big or small the system, the book will apply. By trying to reach so many different people, they become less useful. You are paying for information that you don't want or need. As a result, you have to read through all this technical stuff that you don't care about and are never going to use (that is if you don't get frustrated and tear the book up first).

One of the most important things I ever learned in life was that if you try to satisfy everyone, you end up satisfying nobody. If you are interested in the physics of how sound works, or the parts of a speaker, you can go to Barnes & Nobles and read those books for free, while you drink a cup of mocha strawberry coffee. I'm not going to make you waste time on something you can read for free. By the way, if you are interested in any of these books, I will be listing them, with links to Amazon.com, when I have a little more time. Instead, I will give you all the information that you need to put together and run a sound system that will adequately cover a crowd up to about 500 people. If your needs become larger down the road, you can easily add more amplifiers and speakers later. I have found that this will suit the needs of most bands or clubs, and these are the people that need professional quality music production, but are unable to pay a contractor hundreds or thousands of dollars to design that system for them. If you think that means you, then let's get started.

Stage Microphones A Crash Course in Stage Mic Techniques for the Live Band Now that we understand the basics of a mixing board, we need a way to get signals into it… enter the wonderful world of wired and wireless stage microphones. Think of a microphone as an ear. If you are standing right in front of a guitar player on a small stage, the guitar is going to be louder than the other instruments. That's why all the sounds are directed into a mixer… to blend them together. You can't just put a mic anywhere on stage because it will pick up all of the sounds around it equally. If you mic a kick drum a foot in front of the drum, the mic will probably pick up the guitar also. When you try to put more low frequencies in the kick, you will also be adding them to the guitar. This may seem obvious, but it shows us that microphone placement is VERY important when trying to get the right sort of sound. When a mic on one instrument picks up the sounds of other instruments, we call it bleeding. There are two basic ways that we keep sounds from bleeding on stage. The first way is to use directional microphones. Directional microphones pick up sound in only one direction (imagine that). Other types of microphones are called omnidirectional (pick up sound equally from all sides) and figure 8 (don't worry about it). There are three types of directional microphones. They are 1) cardioid, 2) hypercardioid, and 3) supercardioid. These are referred to as polar patterns. They determine where the mic picks up most of the sound. For example, a cardioid mic picks up most of its sound from the front of the mic, a little from the sides, and hardly anything from the back. A supercardioid picks up mostly from the front also, but it picks up less from the sides and a more from a narrow area in the back. This will be important when we get to the subject of monitors and feedback. Besides the polar pattern, there are two basic types of microphones--- Dynamic and condenser. Because of the way they pick up sound, condensers tend to sound a little better, especially in the higher frequencies, however on stage, you will want to use almost all dynamic mics, because: 1) They can handle more abuse 2) They can handle higher sound pressure levels (volumes) such as drums and loud instrument amplifiers 3) They are generally a lot cheaper