Language of Music - Part One

Marty Buttwinick is a successful musician, teacher, composer and author. Throughout his colorful career he has played a multitude of venues from clubs to major concert halls, and has recorded for film, records, and television. Not only has Marty had a spectacular career himself, his students have gone on to great success, too.

You can find out more about Marty's experience here.

Marty is one of the stable contributors of articles at Help 2 Succeed.

His recent two part article series may be of great benefit to you in your music career. The first article is titled Language of Music - Part One and speaks of music as a language. You can click HERE to read the article.



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Creating Press Kit Information
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Create Polls to Find Out About Sellability

How do you find out if people want your music? And once you find out that information, how do you create a demand for your music?

Creating a survey - also called a poll - can get you the much needed answers that you are seeking. You can sell your music, if you do your homework first.

First start by creating a poll. You can do that easily at Help 2 Succeed in the community area.

You can put a link to your musical piece(s), ask people to listen and in the poll, ask questions about the piece. Help 2 Succeed is a "No Criticism Allowed" website, so you can be certain of not being invalidated about your creative works.


Ask questions about the emotions that people feel when listening to your music.

When you get answers, use the information to present your music in order to make sales.

To Your Success!
ILIA
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Creating Press Kit Information
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Musician Band Singer and CD Replication

Technology is available, in this day and age, for any inspiring musician, band and singer to record, create, and even duplicate CDs which is a boon to your music career.

The cost of the duplication of CDs have dropped a lot over the last several years, making itaffordable for anyone who wants to create CD's.

If your band is ready to start selling CDs, your best option may be to have your CDs replicated. Replicated CDs are the same CDs that you'll find in music stores by major label artists. The presentation includes excellent artwork printed on the CD inserts, nice tray card inserts, screened art on the CD, and they are even shrink wrapped.

You can utilize the artists at Help 2 Succeed to create the presentational aspect of your CD. IN that manner you not only help yourself but help an aspiring artist, too.

The retail CDs that you buy aren't duplicated, they are replicated. This means that an exact replica of your master CD has been stamped out on all of the other CDs. If you are serious about selling your music for profit, replication is the way to go.

The fact is, most stores simply won't sell duplicated CDs. Duplicated CDs can be against the law, which is the main reason retail stores simply won't carry them. Replicated CDs let the stores know that the CD is legit, and they will almost always carry replicated CDs.

For musicians and inspiring bands, CD duplicationcan tend to be a bit more expensive than that of replication. To duplicate CDs, you need a computer with a CD burner, your CD-R media, cases, and man hours.

An investment of time in yourself and/or band is well worth the effort.

Replication is obviously just right for musicians looking to make profit off of their CDs. You can get a bar code that can be printed on the back of the case insert and sell your CD's most anywhere - including just setting up on a crowded sidewalk with the CD on display while you entice your audience with music.

In today's world, you can succeed with a little bit of ingenuity.








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Creating Press Kit Information
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Creating A Press Kit

The definition of Press Kit from the Random House Dictionary is "a packet of promotional materials, as background information, photographs, or samples, for distribution to the press, as at a press conference".

One of the most important steps in marketing your band or act is developing a strong press kit. Press kits can introduce your band to media contacts, talent buyers, booking agents and record labels.

Your press kit should be creative, succinct and should accurately represent the image of your band.

You can not only create the press kit in a printed version but also as an electronic press kit online. This has been found to be a very successful action.

A Press Kit typically consists of the following elements:

- Band Biography
The bio should include a brief history of the band and its accomplishments. If you're a new band don't make things up, just list your influences and a brief musical history of key members. Avoid over-selling your band. Never use statements like "the greatest band since..." You can always list influences but keep the list short. Include anything unique that sets your band or act apart from others. Hopefully music journalists will use this as a foundation for any articles or reviews on your band, so help them make it interesting.

- Press clippings
Include any favorable reviews of recordings or live performances. Make sure press clippings are presented in a visually appealing format. If necessary, re-type them with correct attribution in the same font.

- Band Photo
The photo should be black and white so it can be easily duplicated in weekly entertainment newspapers. Make sure to include booking information at the bottom of the photo as well as a logo if you have one. Venues can use this to create ads for upcoming shows featuring your band, so it is important that the picture represents the band. Creativity is important even in your promo photo. There are several promo photo cliches to avoid: band against - brick wall, chain link fence, train track, in an alley etc.

- Quote Sheet from music professionals (including club talent buyers, radio, press, music professionals). The quotes you include should hopefully highlight the quality of your music, skill at marketing concerts and your level of professionalism.

- A CD with your two best songs.Remember that most people are busy and get plenty of CDs in the mail so you've got one song, two at the most of your very best songs to really make an impression.

For resources at your fingertips for designing the graphics, How-to articles, presentation tips and supplies, the latest live job listings, free marketplace and more, stop by the free Musician Band Resource page at Help 2 Succeed.


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Creating Press Kit Information
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Starving Musician?

How about changing your Starving Musician status to Flourishing Musician? Writing a plan of action will enable you to achieve your goals and change your label from starving musician to flourishing musician.

Decisions that you make to change your starving musician status on a daily basis are great but for the long term plans of action that you want to achieve, it’s a very good practice to sit down and work it out first – then charge through the steps to attain your goals.

The first thing to include in your ‘change from being a starving musician’ plan is to decide what you should call yourself and/or your band. Staying with a plain old ‘John Doe’ type of name may keep you in the starving musician status, finding a name that will be remembered is better.

To stay a starving musician, just pick one name that you like and go with it. To get into the big time, make yourself a list of possibilities. Why? A bright idea may or may not communicate to the audience that you are attempting to reach. Making a list of possibilities, then going out to ask the type of person that you want as an audience which name is liked the most is what will get the results and change the starving musician status.

Don’t just ask family and friends. You know the type of music you play and the audience that listens to your type of music. Ask that crowd as it is the one that is going to become fans and purchase your releases thus taking you from starving to thriving musician.

The above should be included in your "change the starving musician status to thriving musician" plan for success. Stay tuned for more tips on writing your plan of action.

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Creating Press Kit Information
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Decisions, Decisions...

Before you set out to create the press kit for you and your band, the very first thing to do after you decide that you are going to make your music your work, is to create a plan of action.

It helps to dream big and with that huge dream, state your overall purpose that you have for creating music.

A statement such as "Creating Music in Order to Make money" is not going to get you very far.

A statement such as "Creating Music That Makes People Feel Happy" or "Creating Music That Inspires Others to Create" or "Creating Music That Invokes the Idea That a Person Can Acheive His/Her Dreams" will get you a long way in your endeavor.

Putting the dreams down on paper is the very first step to making the dream come true - and this is done long before you create your Press Kit.

A stated purpose and a general layout of the steps to do are vital to the success of any venture, whether it's a project around the house, a business idea that you want to bring to fruition or any type of dream that you want to achieve - getting the basics written is the first step.

A bright idea, no matter how out of this world, can be accomplished if a person sits down and works it out. Keep it simple. It is not necessary to get complicated or verbose about your ideas or purposes.

What is needed is to create a simple statement of purpose, then a concise layout of the steps that you can do to accomplish it.

For example, to name the purpose of being a successful working musician, consider the following questions in order to write your purpose:

1. Are you creating music to help people in any way? or inspire others? or to help yourself to express emotions that are important to let others know about?
2. Why music? Why not working in a factory? Why would you want to get famous as a singer/musician?
3. What is it that you are looking to acheive with your music?

Write out your purpose, work on it until you have it just right. The next article will be about how to write your plan.

To Your Success!
ILIA



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Creating Press Kit Information
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Got Fans?

You can get your fans to help you to get the getting the word out but you can include the custom made products with your press kit, sell along with your cd's at booths at art shows and use the custom made (real) stamps to mail every press kit, letter, bill or card with.

Utilizing the services at Zazzle can help you not only