February Album Writing Month (FAWM) officially started today at midnight wherever you live. For the last 8 years, the site has provided a platform for songwriters to write 14 full songs during all 28 days of February. Members (or FAWMers as they like to call themselves) think of the event as a big, free, international songwriting workshop that allows people to participate remotely instead of in person.

FAWM welcomes beginner and advanced songwriters from all styles of music and walks of life. The focus is on songwriting, so rough demos are encouraged over slick production values. The point is to get new material written and ready as soon as possible.

FAWM has quite an active and impressive online community. Writers are encouraged to write as many 3-minute songs as they can within the shortest month of the year. As of this writing (about 3pm EST) there are already almost 200 submissions to date. Listen to them here on the FAWM jukebox.

The organization tracks progress by song title, so there’s no need to post an .mp3 of each song unless you want to. Many FAWMers post fully produced demos with lyric sheets so they can get feedback from other members. It’s a great way to get encouragement from your peer group.

To help cope with writer’s block, the site also offers weekly challenges, such as this week’s challenge to write a song about numbers. They also tweet daily song ideas at http://twitter.com/fawm. These activities are purely optional and only offered to help writers get their creative juices flowing.

According to the site’s FAQ page, song posting is officially unlocked at midnight at the end of Feb 1 on the international date line. That’s 9:00pm in Tokyo, 7am in New York, and 3am in Los Angeles. You can post songs all month long up until the same time on March 1.

There’s no winners or prizes associated with FAWM. The only reward is the satisfaction you get out of writing 14 full songs in one month plus the admiration of your fellow songwriters and fan base. So what are you waiting for? Get your songs on and join FAWM now at http://fawm.org.

Everyone knows the best way to get your name and music out in the world is to perform live. But what if you can’t tour due to family and/or job responsibilities? One answer is to broadcast yourself live over the internet on USTREAM or a similar video streaming service. It’s something you can easily do from the comfort of your own home. In this post I’ll show you how to use this free software to start building a fan base from anywhere in the world.

Step One – Download USTREAM Producer

USTREAM is quickly becoming the standard choice for live video streaming on the web. It is incredibly easy to setup and use. First you will need to setup a USTREAM account on their website here. Once you have an account, download and install the USTREAM Producer software from your PC or Mac. When the software is successfully installed you’re ready to create your show.

Step Two – Create and Name Your USTREAM Show

Next, login to your USTREAM account and click on “create show”. This will create the USTREAM URL your fans will need to be able to access your live broadcast, along with and a web page and tools that you can use to communicate show details.

Step Three – Schedule an Event

Decide on a title for your show and schedule it as an event on the calendar. Simply click on the event calendar and enter your details. Now your event is also available to other USTREAM members in addition to your own fans who have the URL.

Step Four – Start Promoting Your Event

Now it’s time to tell everyone you know about your upcoming broadcast. Send a series of emails to your list and post the link to Facebook, Twitter and your own website. For my most recent online concert, I also posted a teaser video on YouTube and offered the chance to win a $25 iTunes Gift Card in exchange for signing up for my mailing list. For best results, plan to promote your event several times over a 3-6 week period.

Step Five – Do A Test

To ensure a smooth production, make sure you test everything ahead of time. You’ll need decent lighting or the picture will appear grainy with most webcams. You’ll also need to use a quality USB microphone. I recommend the Apogee One (see review) or Rode podcaster mic for their clarity and ease of use. Here’s a handy checklist to make sure you are ready for your test:

• Microphone is plugged in and ready to go
• Quality lighting is setup
• Webcam is ready – Experiment with the best camera angle and position.
• Turn off your computer’s sleep and screensaver functions so there are no unpleasant surprises.
• If you are using a laptop, plug it in so you don’t run down the battery.

Step Six – Live Show Prep

Once you’ve done your test you’ll want to duplicate everything about an hour before showtime. Also make sure you have everything you need to be comfortable during your actual performance, such as water, set list, extra picks, etc.

Step Seven – Broadcast Your Show

Ok, now you’re ready for the big show. When it’s time to start your program, launch the USTREAM Producer software and click “Broadcast”. Wait a few seconds and click “Record” to make sure you get a clean recording of your show. When you’re done, click “Record” again to save it and click “Broadcast” to go off-air. Easy peasy.

Step Eight – Promote The Video Replay

The Record feature allows fans who aren’t able to catch your live show to watch it later when it suits their schedule. They’ll have to put up with more ads, which is the price of using the service for free. You can also embed the video in any web site or blog to use it to drive post-show buzz like I’ve done here

While USTREAM has been around a while and is no longer considered “bleeding edge” by the technorati, many people are not yet aware of this technology and will be blown away when you show it to them.

When Is Your Show?

USTREAM offers DIY musicians and songwriters an excellent platform for promoting their music online. Have you used video streaming technology to get the word out about your music? What did you like about it? What could be better? Please tell us about it in the comments.

Seeking Guest Bloggers

In an effort to expand the reach of this blog, we’re looking for guest bloggers to contribute posts, stories and/or videos.  It’s always great to include a wide variety of perspectives, backgrounds, and creative ideas from the vast songwriting community.

If you host a blog or website, guest blogging is a great way to reach out to new readers and drive traffic back to your site.  Even if you don’t have a website, or don’t normally write blog posts, now is your chance!  Get those thoughts and ideas out there through Serve The Song!  Think of this as as place to connect with fellow songwriters and musicians and offer your experiences and tips for excelling in our craft.

If you have something to say, a great idea for a post, or an article already written (but not yet published anywhere else on the web), use the contact form to send me an email.  All serious inquiries will receive a response.

Band Interviews!

It’s an idea I’ve been kicking around for a little while.  I am looking for bands and songwriters to interview and feature here on Serve The Song.  The interviews will focus on a variety of topics related to songwriting, production, online music marketing, and more.  This will be a great way to have a peek behind the scenes of how different bands approach the songwriting process, and how they use the internet to connect with fans and promote their music.  The interviews will be conducted via email, video, or possibly live via UStream.tv.

If you are a songwriter, band, artist, or producer and you’re interested in taking part (and gaining some exposure), email me.  Provide one or a couple reasons why you feel an interview with your band would be of interest to the Serve The Song community.

You don’t have to have a huge following!  In fact, I’m even more interested in those artists who are working hard to promote themselves on the internet.  So even if you’re new to the scene, get in touch and be heard!

Other Ideas in the Works…

I’ve got a few other ideas I’m kicking around, which I’d love to get your feedback on.  Please share your opinions in the comments section.

Band / Songwriter Battles

Seems like a cool idea to pit two bands head-to-head and readers vote for their favorite.  This could take several forms.  One would be each band submits a video of one song and the readers vote on their favorite.  Or it could be a double interview, where readers vote on which personality / approach they like better.  It could even be run as a bracket – where winning bands move on to higher rounds until we reach the finals.  There would be a possibility for prizes.

Serve The Song Email Newsletter

How about a monthly email newsletter, featuring exclusive content and other things of interest to the songwriting community?  This would be quite different from the automated RSS and email posts feeds.  This would only go out once a month and it would feature popular articles from the Serve The Song archives, plus callouts to other worthy links from across the web.  It could also feature a “reader spotlight” or a “twitterer spotlight”, promoting an active reader or twitter follower from the community.

Songwriters / Musicians Forum

A forum could serve to support the community vibe.  It would be a place to discuss various topics and connect with fellow musicians.  It could also serve as job board for music industry gigs.

I’ll likely wait to pull the trigger on the forum idea since there are other hugely popular forums out there already, and it would likely require a tremendous amount of time and effort to moderate and prevent spam.  But if it’s something you want, then I’ll take it into more consideration.

Over to YOU

Please share your thoughts on all of the above in the comments section.  Once again, this blog is all about you, the readers and the songwriting community.  Tell me which items you like best and offer up some ideas of your own.

Thanks for making this a great online community.

John Radcliff is putting an interesting twist on the promotion for this great cause.  Head on over to his website, where he and several musicians are offering their music for free as an incentive to drive traffic to Relay for Life.

Here’s a quote from his site:

What I am asking from you is that you go to my Relay for Life team page (it’ll open in a new window) and make a donation. In return, you can download all the music on this page for free. Many of my songwriter friends have donated songs to this cause. To them, I am eternally grateful for their support. I would also ask that you follow the links below the music player and get to know the fine musicians that have made this possible.

Check it out and join your fellow songwriters in showing some support!

photo by judepics

In this final installment of the series of making money with production music libraries, we take the process full circle and use our music for picture placements as leverage to gain more projects and placements moving forward.  It’s all about using your achievements to snowball into more success as you roll along in your career as a music composer.

For composers who are new here, check out the rest of this series and be sure to sign up for free email updates or the RSS feed to keep up!

1. Introduction / What are production music libraries
2. Produce tracks that sell
3. Copyright your music
4. Register with a Performing Rights Organization (PRO)
5. Submit your songs to production music libraries
6. Leverage your music placements to gain future music for picture work

Your First Music for Picture Placements

If you have released a batch of songs to production music libraries and they have been in circulation for a number of months, you should have successfully landed some placements on television shows, films, video games, or other media.  But you may not know about all of them, or exactly when they aired.

The way you can find out is by looking at your statement from your performing rights organization.  Not only will this show you how much royalty income you have earned over the past quarter, but it will also list the names of the productions where your music has been placed.

These names may not always be very descriptive, but they often give you enough info that you can use to your advantage.  For example, it may say “Fox Sports”, or “Discover Channel” along with the name of the television program.  You may have received international placements.  The statement will show the country of origin for each placement as well.

There’s nothing like that bit of excitement you get when you realize your music was heard on the airwaves!  In fact, one time I was home watching television and I happened to see a commercial come on that used one of my tracks!  Great feeling.  A few months later, that placement was reflected in my royalty statement.

Turn Your Music Placements into a Marketing Tool

Now the key is to use these successes to your advantage and gain more work as a composer.  The way you do this is to promote the fact that your music has been placed on such widely recognized networks as “Discovery Channel”, and “Fox Sports” (for example).  People know these names.  This name recognition helps to support your credibility as a composer and serves to create the impression of success.

It’s OK to name-drop a bit in your bio and your description of services.  Work these names into the copy on your personal website, your social network page bios, your email signature line, author bio on blog posts, etc.  You might even want to consider dropping their logos somewhere on your site or in other promotional materials.  Use this stuff in your email marketing campagn.

Go ahead and utilize your successes in actual conversations with folks in your industry, friends and family.  Your music has been placed on television.  Be proud of that.  You can now be confident in presenting yourself as a composer of music for picture with placements on nationally recognized media outlets.

The music business is all about networking, promoting, networking, promoting, marketing yourself, promoting, and networking (oh, and writing some great music too).  Utlizing production music libraries gives you an easy point of entry into the music for picture business.  The successes you gain from it, like music placements on television, will help you take your composing career to the next level.

photo by BL1961

Welcome back to our series on making money with production music libraries. If you’re a music composer looking to find placements in television, film, video games, and other places, submitting your music to production music libraries is a great place to start. In this installment, we will look at the process of evaluating online production music libraries, and submitting your music.

For those songwriters and composers who are new here, check out the other articles in this series and be sure to sign up for free email updates or the RSS feed to keep up!

1. Introduction / What are production music libraries
2. Produce tracks that sell
3. Copyright your music
4. Register with a Performing Rights Organization (PRO)
5. Submit your songs to production music libraries
6. Leverage your music placements to gain future music for picture work

Find Online Production Music Libraries

Through just a bit of Googling or Twitter search, you will quickly find a ton of online production music libraries. Some of the terms that generate lots of results are, “Production Music Library“, “Stock Music Library“, and “Royalty Free Music Library“.

Included at the end of this article is a list of production music libraries that openly encourage music submissions. This could be a good starting point for finding the right set of libraries to shoot for.

Differences Among Music Libraries

Online music libraries tend to fall into one of three categories:

1) Those that act as the Publisher

These production music libraries will generally control 100% publisher’s share of performance royalties. You, the composer, will still retain 100% writer’s share. In addition, each library varies in the way they split licensing fees (if any) with the composer. A song that is licensed through this type of music library cannot be licensed through another library under the same song title.

While this option may seem to offer the least financial benefit to the composer, these libraries do offer the potential for lots of placements, which can generate a sizable amount of performance royalties over time. Remember, your tracks can be licensed over and over on a non-exclusive basis, which makes them a continuous money-maker over the long-term.

One example of this type of music library is Freeplay Music.

2) Those that act as the Administrative Agent

These production music libraries allow you the flexibility to submit and license your music through other libraries in addition to theirs. Here’s how these types of music libraries generally work: Upon accepting your submitted music, they will rename your songs. Then they will register your renamed songs with their PRO, and handle all collections and distributions of performance royalties. This renaming and PRO registration process is for the purposes of this library only. You are free to submit your songs (under your own titles) to other music libraries.

An example of this type of music library is Pump Audio. Through their system, Pump Audio takes 50% of the publisher’s share of performance royalties. You, the composer retains 100% of the writer’s share (150% total for you). In addition, all licensing fee’s are split 50/50 between you and Pump Audio.

Pump Audio is a great place to submit music to since they are among the most popular services out there. Aside from the large amount of TV placements they can deliver, their service also drives the music section of Getty Images.

3) Micro-payment sites

These music libraries stay out of the publishing game altogether. You are free to submit your music for their library as well as others. Your music is posted on their site for relatively small licensing fees (usually only a couple bucks per download). They offer you a percentage of the licensing fees collected through downloads of your music. Your cut is usually fairly small so it requires a long period of time to really accumulate a decent amount of cash from licensing. Of course, you still retain 200% of the performance royalties should your music end up on a TV show, radio spot, or other royalty-generating exposure.

An example of this type of music library is Audio Jungle. They offer the composer 25% of the download fee, which ranges from $1 to $10. Not much, but give it time. They also offer you the option to become an “exclusive” composer, which means you agree not to offer your music anywhere else besides Audio Jungle. Exclusive composers get 40% – 70% of sales, depending on volume.

Research / Contact / Submit

As you can see, it takes a bit of digging through the fine print on these websites to figure out which category of music library they are.  Some offer extensive FAQ’s while others simply offer an email address.  Find out as much as you can, then use the provided contact form or email address to get in touch.

Follow the instructions they provide for submitting music.  This usually involves mailing in a CD, but it may be as simple as uploading your tracks through the website.  Each library has a different system, and some have more advanced websites than others.  Sometimes this info may be a bit hard to find.  If the website doesn’t have a dedicated page for composers, the info is usually located in the “Help”, “FAQ”, or “Contact” sections.

List of Production Music Libraries

Here’s a list of production music libraries to get you started on your search.  Some of these have generated nice sums of money for my music, others just seem to show potential (although I have not personally used them for my music).  Dig in:

• Freeplay Music
• Pump Audio
• Audio Jungle
• Stock Music (stockmusic.net)
• Beat Suite
• Proud Music Library
• Ditty Base
• Gratis Music Library
• Sound Image
• Fresh Music
• Premium Beat
• S3MX
• Oak Stock Music
• 615 Music
• Production Music Library
• APM Music

taken in Union Square, NYC

Anyone who has traveled the underground metro system of New York City is familiar with NYC subway performers. If you’re a band, songwriter, or solo performer, you (yes you!) can set up shop in a busy subway station and perform for thousands! This article serves as a guide to performing in public in New York City.

Street and subway performers are everywhere in New York City. You see sax players in the tunnels of Central Park, mariachi bands jumping through subway cars, jazz quartets in Penn Station, acoustic folk rockers in the Union Square subway station, and horn and drums combos at Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn. They’re in all five boroughs, covering all genres and styles. I have witnessed some of the most amazing and unique talent just by walking the streets and tunnels of New York City.

If you’re a musician living in New York City, performing in the transit system could be a tremendously rewarding experience.  You have the opportunity to share your live music with thousands of listeners from all walks of life.  The convenience of living in the NYC area allows you to try out different locations to see which spots work best.  Once you have a few favorites, you could stick with them in hopes of reaching repeat-passers-by and gaining fans.

If you’re not local to the big apple, you might want to consider traveling here to take advantage of the live music culture of the NYC underground.  Be sure to walk the city a bit before you start playing.  Watch the subway performers and see how things are done.  Take note of where they set up, the volume, the way they interact with listeners, etc.  Take in as much as you can first, and then get out there and and perform.

Can anyone just play in the NYC subway?

There are mixed messages out there about the legality of performing without a permit (more info on permits below). It seems to me that many people DO perform without a permit and without hassle from police or station agents. To be sure you can rock out without problems, be sure to follow these general (and obvious) guidelines:

• Play acoustic, or with a low-volume, non-intrusive amplifier.
• Don’t block any stairways, escalators, elevators, entrances, exits or subway boarding areas.
• Don’t block the flow of walking traffic.
• Don’t play during public service announcements.
• Use common sense.  Be cool.

For the most part, your music is welcomed and appreciated by commuters who dread the daily grind of riding and waiting for the subways.  Serve them with well-rehearsed performances and pleasing and interesting material.

Permits and Music Under New York (MUNY)

There is an official program sponsored by the MTA (metropolitan transportation authority) called Music Under New York.  This program  sponsors musical performances at 150 of the most popular locations inside the New York City transit system.

To join MUNY, you must complete an application and perform an audition to be considered for membership.  It’s a fairly exclusive program which makes for a high level of talent as well as diversity in genre and style.

The advantage of performing with a scheduled MUNY permit is that you have the exclusive right to the most popular spaces and times.  If another non-MUNY performer is in your space, they need to stop playing or relocate during your scheduled performance.

More info

Arts for Transit: Music Under New York

NYC MTA Rules of Conduct

A Guide for Subway Musicians & Other Performers

It’s one of the most feature-packed Twitter clients out there, and it’s geared towards the power-Twitter user.  TweetDeck is the perfect solution for songwriters and bands who need to manage a very large Twitter following, while connecting with lots of new like-minded fans.  TweetDeck is still considered to be in “beta”, but they just released the latest version, TweetDeck 0.25, which brings a handful of cool features on-top of all the gems it already had.

Multiple Twitter Streams with TweetDeck

While the overcrowded lot of Twitter clients out there stick to the traditional single stream of tweets – TweetDeck goes much farther.  You can set up an unlimited amount of streams (columns), each filtered for a specific purpose.  One could be for your favorite twitter followers, one could be for a search term, one could be for your facebook friends (yup, facebook is now integrated… more on this below), and one to view everyone.

Here’s a screen shot of my TweetDeck.  As you can see, I keep about 4-5 columns open most of the day:

I know what you’re probably thinking: “Information overload!  I thought twitter was supposed to be simple!”  Let me make some sense of all this.

Twitter Groupies!

OK, not exactly.  With TweetDeck, you could separate the people you follow on Twitter into groups.  This is perfect for those who follow hundreds or thousands of people and want to be sure they’re keeping track of the ones they’re most interested in.  For example, you might want to create a group for your real-world friends on Twitter, or a group for those who are based in the same region as you.

As of this writing, I’m currently following 871 people on Twitter.  I created a group called “My Favs” which contains roughly 30 of my favorite people on Twitter.  It’s a combination of some real-world friends, folks who I’ve been in frequent @reply conversations with, interesting people in my industries (music and web design), and people that regularly post hilarious or super-interesting tweets.

That’s not to say I’m ignoring the rest the 830 people I follow on Twitter.  My next column contains my entire Twitter network.

“This One Goes to 11″ or Power Twitter Search

As I’ve written about previously in the article, Grow Your Band’s Following with Twitter, Twitter search is the key to expanding your reach on Twitter and creating meaningful relationships with those who matter to you – people who have share the same interests… Those who are most likely to follow you on Twitter, dig your music, and become a fan of your band.

In TweetDeck, you could create a column which feeds you tweets from across the twittersphere based on a search term.  I like to keep one search column open at all times.  This week, my search term is “composing music”.  This allows me to find, follow, and connect with anyone who is tweeting about composing music – something I’m personally very interested in.  Other search terms I often use are “Reason 4.0″, “Pro Tools”, “studio recording”, and of course “The Mets”.

Now with Facebook!

The latest version of TweetDeck nicely incorporates Facebook into the mix.  You could create a column which contains all of your Facebook friends status updates.  It also allows you to choose to send tweets to Twitter, Facebook, or both simultaneously.  Pretty sweet.

I have found this feature has already rejouvenated my interest in Facebook and brought about connections with old friends.

The Rest…

Those are the things that truly set TweetDeck apart from your common Twitter app.  As if that wasn’t enough, here’s a list of the other cool features they packed into this tweeting-beast:

• URL shortening with several shortening services (including the new digg.com shortening service)
• TwitPic integration
• Language translation of tweets
• Ability to “favorite” tweets
• Twitter tag cloud (they call it “TwitScoop”)
• Integration with 12seconds.tv for video tweets (haven’t checked this out yet.  Sounds interesting)
• StockTwits integration (Lets face it.  Musicians don’t care about the stock market)
• Super-easy follow, reply, re-tweet, direct message functionality
• Custom colors

What’s your TweetDeck Set up?

As you can see, TweetDeck is highly customizable with various groups, search, and columns options.  If you’re a TweetDeck user, what’s your set up, and how do you use TweetDeck to enhance your musical / songwriting efforts?

I wrote extensively about the how to use your email list effectively in these posts:

• Pack the House at Your Next Gig With Email Blasts
• Tips for Growing Your Band’s Email List

Here are a few of the cool features offered by Champion Sound:

• Easily subscribe and manage a large list of fans email and contact info.
• Create slick looking emails with colors, graphics, flyers, and links galore.
• Track how many folks open, click the links, and forward on your emails.
• Super useful iPhone app for signing up new fans on the fly when you’re out on the road.

The Freebie!

Go to championsound.com and enter Serve the Song during registration (in the “referral box”).  Within 24 hours your account will be upgraded from 1,000 emails per month to 10,000 emails per month at no charge (a $69/month value!).  It’s seriously a great deal people, and I highly recommend this service for managing your email list.

Thank You

I’d like to extend a sincere thank you to all of you who have been visiting and reading Serve The Song. We’re still lifting this community off the ground and thanks to your support, we’re seeing some serious growth… And with growth, come lots of goodies like the coupon above!

Keep commenting away, connecting on Twitter, subscribing to the feeds, and passing on the word! Lots of cool new features are in the works for Serve The Song, so stay tuned…

photo by tupton

Today I came across a fantastic opinion post called In Defense Of The Album, where Scott Perry makes a very compelling argument for sticking with the full-length album format over succumbing to the single mp3 download trend happening in today’s music industry.

His piece is mainly focused on the financial aspect, which I totally agree with. He makes the point that a single hot mp3 download may generate some quick sales at a $1 a piece, but they won’t generate large concert ticket sales or long-term fan loyalty.

Here’s a quick excerpt from the article:

I see the single (cover your eyes mom) as a booty call – sure, it’s fun, and you go back to it again and again until the novelty wears off, but if you want a RELATIONSHIP with the artist, then you get the album — you WANT to take that 45-minute journey into that band’s world.

Read the full article here.

The Creativity Angle

Taking the defense of the album format a step further – I believe it’s essential to realize a band’s full creativity in the form of a full-length album. 45 minutes or more of music can completely display the dynamic range of an artist’s voice, opinions, styles, and creative direction. You can’t tell the whole store in a single 3 minute mp3 – no matter how great the song is.

An album is an event. It should be painstakingly crafted from rough takes to the final mix. This extended effort is appreciated by fans – both new and old. A great album stays in heavy rotation in music lover’s iPods for a very long time. You can’t say that about a great single, which may be repeated for a month but then forgotten.