Simmessa blog

Are you a self produced musician or band? Then you could find the following post interesting…

I recently began doing my own music and putting it for free on the internet, which is something I really wanted to do for a long time. I’ve undertaken this project, my solo record, and I put so much time and effort in it ’cause I wanted it t be a work of labor and love.

By the way there are many things I got wrong, my personal philosophy was 100% DIY, and I’ve had to learn quite a lot of things to make my music sound the way I wanted to…

Quite a painful experience if you ask me, but also a good opportunity to learn many good things about music production.

So you now have your brave mp3s on a pc, you burn CDs for your friends, and maybe in you even prepared a page, or a website dedicated to your project.

But when does everybody notice you? in other words: How do you get seen? On the internet there’s virtual space for everybody, but that doesn’t mean quality space. What if you get stuck inside a narrow, lone alley all by yourself? that won’t make you know any new people right?

Being there is actually quite different from getting new people to listen to your music!!

That’s why we need to introduce the next step: getting social!

There are many social music networks out there, some are good, some are bad, what’s to choose? I say, you’ve gotta catch’em all (no Pokemon pun intended).

At least that’s what I did, here’s a list of music social networks where I made my music available:

1- Myspace
2- Last.fm
3- Imeem
4- Soundclick
5- Sonichall
6- Mp3.com
7- Jamendo
8- iJigg

So let’s go through each one to find out what’s good and what’s bad for you.

Myspace:

Myspace is a place for friends…that’s what they all say, but I consider it more of a place for musicians (or musicians wannabe / posers, sometimes). One of the first and most extensive networks out there, I’ve seen friends receiving concert booking from people never seen before on myspace…but that usually doesn’t happen so often… On the other hand I know of a few pros doing PR work in myspace but that doesn’t seem to produce much in terms of “monetary gain”.

I guess you could consider it a good place to connect to fellow bands or players or even fans, but I found it totally lacking in certain aspects. Who’s been listening to your music? it’s pretty hard to say, the guys @ myspace don’t really wanna help you with that, wanna get some royalties from them for streaming your music? You’d better get lost…cause that’s not gonna happen (they might consider it on an individual basis, since they’re making money from ads, but it’s just my view on the subject, please don’t take my word for it).

By any ways I am no myspace expert and I’d like to hear from you guys if those things can be done. Drop your 2 cents in the comment box will ya?

Last.fm:

Last.fm is the best music network out there. period.

I’ve been a fan of these guys for a long time, myself being a user since 2005 when the whole thing was still called audioscrobbler.

How does it work? You just install their plugin on your computing devices, then whenever you play a song (winamp, iTunes, whatever) you send them a notification. This builds up to your last.fm profile over time, so that they find out about your taste (or lack of!) in music and soon enought they start proposing you music that you’ve never heard based on the fact that many other listeners out there share your likes or dislikes.

Very smart stuff right? but that’s for listeners, and we’re music producers, so what’s in it for us?

Last.fm has developed much since the audioscrobbler days and now they offer many new services to artists and labels alike. You can now upload your own music and make it available for streaming or download, but what’s the catch? Since a couple of months they have a royalties program: in short they offer to pay you for streaming or listening of your music on their network, it’s just too good to be true, isn’t it? get many listeners and you will get more money in royalties. You could simply cash in or decide to spend your money on last.fm other services, wanna get more “airtime”? buy some “powerplays” and you’ll get more plays on their network, maybe some more suggestions and so on…or you could just buy some old fashioned advertising on last.fm, it’s up to you.

They also have some pretty serious stats to help you understand who’s playing your music, when and which songs get the most play… wonderful!

Last.fm as I see it could really shape the future of music distribution, so stay tuned and subscribe now!

my nickname is jensung so add me to your friends when you join.

END OF PART 1

…check this blog soon and often for part 2 of this post…we’ll discuss some lesser known service like Soundclick, Imeem, Sonichall (beta), Mp3.com, Jamendo and iJigg…

All the Best!

Simmessa.