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“Coronavirus And The Music Industry: This Startup Wants To Help Tackle The Problems” plus 2 more |
Coronavirus And The Music Industry: This Startup Wants To Help Tackle The Problems Posted: 25 Sep 2020 03:58 AM PDT The music industry is one of the sectors that the coronavirus has hit the hardest. With concerts, festivals and other live events being canceled worldwide, many music professionals are seeing a historically unprecedented loss of income. Artists, organizers, promoters and many others were quick to resort to live streaming and engaging fans online, thus strengthening the importance of digital media and increasing competition. On Spotify alone, around 40,000 tracks are reportedly uploaded daily – proving that success often comes down to simply being able to break through the noise. One of the music-tech companies that’s tackling the Covid crisis is Viberate. This week, they launched their own data analytics tool, promising to help anyone in the music industry dig into online performance and popularity stats, and learn how to effectively get ahead. Viberate analytics turn accurate music data into clear and actionable insights for any artist or music professional in the world. The tool collects and examines the important social and streaming metrics of over 450,000 artists, and translates them into invaluable information regarding genres, countries, and fanbases worldwide. Ultimately, it allows music pros to keep a pulse on emerging trends and talent, explore which channels work best for specific genres, and check what fans listen to all around the world. “Every crisis is an opportunity to change for the better,” says Matej Gregorcic, Viberate CEO. “We’ve been in the music business for almost 20 years now, and yet we keep hearing the same problems: lack of information, uncertainty with business decisions, etc. So we decided to do something about it. Everyone should have the chance to build a career that they love. And if there was ever a perfect time for the entire music industry to become more agile, it’s 2020.” You can read more about Viberate analytics before you try them out here. This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
The Takeover Online Music Conference For Independent Artists Posted: 24 Sep 2020 07:32 PM PDT Back in May, Right Chord Music launched The Takeover, an online music festival championing incredible independent artists. The Festival showcased 49 artists, from 11 different countries playing live on Facebook. The Festival presented by BOSE generated over 600,000 video views and raised over £4,000 for Nordoff Robbins music therapy. Now The Takeover returns as an online music conference. It’s the first online music conference designed specifically to support the challenges faced by unsigned artists. Tickets on sale now via DICE Right Chord Music Founder, Mark Knight explains. “In my experience, even music conferences which say they support unsigned artists don’t really cater to their needs. Tickets costs are high and all you hear is major record label execs talking about their big budget campaigns and success with radio, live, and John Lewis TV sync deals. Unsigned artists leave feeling frustrated because none of this is in their grasp or relevant to their realities.” In response to this problem, Right Chord Music have created a conference that gives unsigned and independent artists the inspiration, skills and practical tools to further their careers now. The Takeover Conference takes place throughout October. Whereas physical conferences often cram as many talks as they can into one or two days The Takeover will run one session a day, so you don’t miss a thing. The conference will run via Zoom Call, bringing together content creators and marketing experts to provide practical workshops and support for independent artists. Every workshop at The Takeover Conference is designed to provide practical, relevant skills for the modern day unsigned, independent and self released artist. At The Takeover Conference you’ll learn how to: Grow an online audience with Feed Get press without PR with Musosoup Plan to promote music with Major Labl Win on streaming music services with EmuBands Make music videos with The RedRed video Befriend a music blog with Right Chord Music Create a brand for your band with Bannersnack Produce music holistically with Magic Garden Studios Get gigs and build an audience with Twisterella Get your music played on radio with Chris Hawkins (BBC Radio 6 Music) Release, promote and monetise your music with CD Baby Promote music on TikTok Tickets for The Takeover Conference can be purchased via DICE directly via this link or via The Takeover Conference website. Win BOSE Headphones and a FREE Conference pass by supporting Nordoff Robbins Following their incredible support of The Takeover Festival, BOSE are also back to power The Takeover Conference. BOSE are kindly offering musicians the chance to win one of five Takeover Conference passes (providing access to all workshops) plus a pair of BOSE Noise Cancelling 700 headphones. To be in with a chance of winning, you just need to buy a £5 raffle ticket. All money raised goes to support the life changing work of Nordoff Robbins. Since lockdown Nordoff Robbins has seen their donations drop by 70% YOY so we were keen to continue to support them at this most testing of times. BANNERSNACK We are hugely grateful for the support of all our partners including Bannersnack who provided us with a free premium account to produce all of the social media content used to promote The Takeover Conference. Press Contact For further information or to arrange an interview please contact Mark Knight mark@rightchordmusic.co.uk (Founder Right Chord Music / The Takeover)
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How To Build Confidence As A Beginner Singer Posted: 24 Sep 2020 12:48 PM PDT Are you just getting started as a singer? Great! What many beginners or wannabes have in common is that they’re a little unsure of themselves. They’re often self-conscious of their voice. This comes across in their performance. And, for better or for worse, it can even negatively impact how they’re coming across. If there’s one quality that makes a singer stand out, it’s confidence. If they sing with confidence, even if their technique isn’t perfect, the audience will often respond favorably. But how does a singer improve their confidence? That’s what we’re going to look at here. Practice At HomeWe can all practice from home. You could download an app or go onto YouTube and find some warmup exercises to follow along with. After you’ve warmed up, you could pick a few of your favorite songs and try singing through them. This will probably feel awkward and weird at first. But you can’t become a better signer without spending time singing. You must learn to use your voice well, understand its limitations, and begin to develop good breathing and singing technique. Breathing is half the battle, since you need to move air if you want to project your voice. Consider watching a few tutorials or lessons online, so you have a good sense of how to use your voice without harming it. Many singers don’t start out with the best technique and end up straining and even injuring their voice. So, you should become a student of the voice and learn about the various do’s and don’ts to keep your voice in ship shape. Read up on best practices to keep yourself sharp. Accompany Yourself Or Practice With TracksIf you can play an instrument like the guitar or piano, you should try accompanying yourself on an instrument while singing. Early on, I was better at guitar than I was at singing. In many ways, I still think I’m a better guitarist than singer, but in time I learned to sing a lot better. This is partly because accompanying myself on guitar gave me a greater sense of confidence. When you think about it, well-known artists like Bob Dylan, Britney Spears and Rihanna aren’t the best singers in the world. They’ve learned how to make the most of their voices, sure, but that’s about it. Interesting, then, that they would have the confidence to go out and sing in front of tens of thousands of people, isn’t it? Anyway, I’m getting a little sidetracked. If you can accompany yourself on an instrument, awesome. If not, then find tracks to sing along to. You should be able to find plenty of backing tracks or karaoke tracks on YouTube, and in some cases, you can even find them in your preferred key. How convenient! You could even find jam tracks intended for lead instrumentalists and practice coming up with your own melodies. Although singing a cappella should be part of your practice regime, singing along to your instrument or backing track can help you develop better pitch, and that’s super important. Record & Listen To YourselfSome singers have no idea what they really sound like. Unfortunately, the sound you hear while you’re singing isn’t accurate. This is the reason you see so many audition fails on American Idol. These singers aren’t aware how they’re coming across. There are a couple of important factors that play into this. First, you must remember that your ears are not pointed in the direction of your mouth. They are pointed outwardly. So, you have no idea what it’s sounding like at the source. If you’re using a microphone, it is pointed in the direction of your mouth, which makes it a more trustworthy source. What’s coming out of the speakers is a truer reflection of your voice, though the mic and speakers are undoubtedly coloring your tone. But even if you’re singing into a mic, while it may help you hear yourself better, it still won’t be an accurate representation of how your sounding. This is because, second, your voice is vibrating in your head and your body, so it’s incredibly difficult if not impossible to pick up on all the nuances of your vocal pitch and tonality while you’re singing. When you stop and think about it, singing is an incredible human feat! So, I would encourage you to record and listen to yourself often to get a better idea of how you’re sounding. A lot of people don’t like the recorded sound of their voice. It’s fine. Don’t panic. You’ll get used to it. What you want to pay attention to is your pitch, timing, tone, enunciation and the like. Make note of any areas where you could improve and work on them. Jam With FriendsDo you have friends who play piano, bass, guitar, drums or otherwise? Why not organize a jam, get together with them and test out your singing chops? Working on your music in a collaborative setting is a lot more fun than practicing alone. And, if your friends are just getting started, they probably aren’t going to criticize you for your lack of skill. Together, you can choose which songs to work on and have some fun with them. This is generally a low-pressure situation since your friends will be more concerned with their own performance than yours. Just make sure you have a microphone and preferably a PA system, as it may prove difficult to hear yourself over the instruments. And, who knows? You might end up forming a band. Perform For A Small Group Of Friends & FamilySome people find this to be more nerve wracking than performing in front of a concert audience made up entirely of strangers, so beware. Still, performing for a small group of friends and family should be an easy sell, because they all love you. Whether you’re good or bad, they will clap and cheer for you. Just don’t make them sit through a full concert please (I’m being facetious, of course). Even if you are nervous performing for people you know, the experience will be well worth it. You’ll learn and discover a lot through the experience. More than likely, you will discover areas you need to improve upon – areas you weren’t even conscious of until you performed in front of an audience. That’s the value of performance. You can set up as many “home concerts” as you like. It’s worth doing periodically to show off your progress and to get more experience. Get LessonsIt’s all well and good to spend time in practice on your own. But without proper training, guidance and technique, you could end up doing more warm than good to your voice. An experienced vocal teacher should be able to help you make the most of your voice. Not only that, but they’ll be able to teach you singing techniques and tools you wouldn’t otherwise learn by yourself, such as minor scales, solfege, music note reading and more. I’ve had a few vocal coaches who’ve helped me on my journey. I recall that one of them once asked me: “You’re not looking to become a singer, are you?” He was asking me because there’s a difference between someone who can sing and someone who’s a singer. I told him all I needed to do was to be able to sing with good technique and stay on pitch. Now, you may have bigger ambitions than I, and if that’s the case, you’ll need to dedicate yourself to years of training and lessons. But like me, maybe you just want to get to the point where you can sing well. If that’s the case, you may only need a few months’ worth of lessons. Either way, lessons will prove invaluable to your progress as a singer and will help you gain more confidence. Your teacher can help you find your range, work on your breathing technique, correct your pitch, project and more. While there’s an argument for getting good at singing without lessons, I’d strongly suggest you take lessons if you want to speed up your learning progress. Practice At Karaoke BarsKaraoke audiences are generally easy to please (oftentimes because they’re drinking), and what matters is most is a) song choice, and b) confidence. Keep in mind that the karaoke crowd is there to have fun, and that’s what you should aim to do too. So, if you pick the right song, you’ll be able to get them having fun and singing along. And, if you perform with confidence, it won’t matter if you mess up. People will have fun anyway. So, it’s fair to say a karaoke bar is a low-pressure environment, making it the perfect place for you to try out some songs and gain some confidence in yourself and singing ability. Others who get up to sing will be quite good at signing. But most will not be. So, you should be in good company either way. Get out there and sing. And, make it your goal to try a new song every time you go out to a karaoke bar. Book A Show & PerformIt’s human nature to procrastinate and put off what we say we’re going to do. It doesn’t help us reach our goals, but it does help us stay warm and cozy in our comfort zones. And, the desire to be comfortable is essentially hardwired into our DNA. But our willingness to step outside of that comfort zone is what leads to breakthrough. So, if you’ve been signing for a while, I would suggest booking a show at a local pub, bar, or coffeehouse immediately. It doesn’t matter if you don’t have your set list or band together yet. Having a deadline will motivate you to prepare, practice and get all your ducks in a row. If you’re a singer, you should absolutely go through this process, even if it proves stressful. After all, if you end up loving performing and have the desire to make a career out of it, you’ll need to keep stepping outside of your comfort zone for a long time to come. Get used to it! This isn’t to say it won’t become more comfortable in time, however, because it will. Regardless, live performance is the best form of practice there is. This isn’t to suggest that you shouldn’t rehearse well. What I’m saying is that there are some things you’ll never learn if you don’t get out there and share your talents with an audience. ConclusionMany aspiring singers assume if they just keep practicing and get good enough at what they do, they’ll eventually have enough confidence to go up and perform in front of a crowd. I’m here to tell you there is no correlation. You can spend years, even decades, improving as a singer, only to find your confidence is about the same. Confidence does not come from being good at what you do. It comes from being sure about who you are. So, focus not on how good you are or what you get in the process. Focus on knowing yourself. That’s where true confidence comes from, and what will help you become a happier singer. Then, get out there and sing, no matter how nervous it might make you feel! This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
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