A Sua Idade Ainda Ê Um Problema Na Indústria Da Música?

Is your age still an issue in the music business?

Three questions with the same answer:

Story #1: For a couple years I played as a sideman in a band that’d made a pretty good name for itself in “indie” circles after more than a decade of national touring. While we were on one of those tours, they were simultaneously shopping a new album to labels and contemplating a name change.

I asked them, why the hell would you change your name (and a cool name, at that) after spending so much time building a reputation and following?

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Story #2: I once opened an email from a Portland musician who was starting to have some success nationally, and the email was basically an apology to his fanbase for lying about his age. Turns out, he was actually 5 or 6 years older than he’d let on. He had a career outside of music. His life wasn’t all rock-n-roll glitz and glamor like he’d wanted us to believe.

I asked myself, why lie about a handful of years?

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Story #3: I heard about a band that recently had a major (MAJOR) hit after two decades of releasing music. The band was consciously trying to avoid drawing too much attention to their back catalog or their career prior to hitting it big.

I thought to myself, why — if you suddenly have millions of new fans — wouldn’t you encourage them to stream or buy the best stuff from your previous records too?

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I think the answer to all three of these questions is: the artists (and the managers, publicists, or labels they worked with) assumed — correctly or not — that age isn’t an asset in this industry; that audiences want freshness (if not youth); and that acknowledging you’ve been in the trenches for so long might somehow tarnish a prospective fan’s impression of you.

What’s in a number!?

Oh, I’ve never heard of you, but you’ve put out 6 records already? You must be old news!

Oh, You’re making pop music in your mid-30’s? Ewwww. 

Oh, it’s so much easier to promote an up-and-coming band. Less baggage!

Like, we’re all supposed to be fully-realized artists by age 18? Debut at #1? Never have any missteps or mere brushes with success? I call bullshit.

In all three of the cases above, I didn’t blame the artists. I felt bad for them. They were just dealing with a very real (or at least really perceived) pressure often placed on musicians to be young — and if not young, new.

But let’s deal with real life for a second.

Real life, where most people don’t hit it big on their first try.

Real life, where everyone ages, and sometimes for the better.

Real life, where diligence, productivity, and passion can yield results in the long run.

Why should it be any different in the music world?

Here’s the silver lining: it’s not different (under sane circumstances); you really can be young, old, new, seasoned, whatever. You can be YOU, and still find success — IF you define success as something that sustains you, pays the bills, and connects with audiences. 

Sure, if you want to be a teen-targeted pop star who sells out Madison Square Garden, you better get famous young. But if you’re making music for a more mature audience, it doesn’t matter how old you are, or how far back your career reaches, or how many albums you’ve put out.

Don’t invest your soul or your art in something that only pays dividends to the young and new. Everyone eventually is neither of those things.

Youth-obsession is a sickness in our culture. It’s a black hole that swallows our time, money, passions, relationships, health,… and it often pays nothing back but anxiety and self-contempt.

As far as your music career goes though, there’s a cure!

1. Every year at Folk Alliance International I’m reminded that a whole economy exists around house-concerts and listening rooms where audiences pay good money to listen to older artists (some of them relatively obscure) perform their songs. It feels so freeing, inspiring, community-oriented — especially because the music is kickass — to be in a musical space where age is not a barrier to success. No matter what genre you perform, there’s probably a similar community out there for you. Find it. Join it. Nurture it. It will nurture you back as you develop your talents, go gray in the beard, and change the ways you interact with your audience year after year.
2. With streaming platforms, music releases no longer have a shelf-life since there’s no such thing as shelf space. This also means there’s less focus on the “end-cap” mentality of pushing whatever is newest. My automatically-generated Discover Weekly playlists on Spotify contain just as many catalog songs as they do new releases, meaning old songs can continually be served to new listeners. They never get stale! Also, Perrin Lamb and Craig Cardiff, two CD Baby artists who’ve seen big things happen through Spotify playlisting, have both had their biggest playlist successes with songs that’d already been out for years. And when an artist like that finds success, their new fans DO go back and listen to other previous releases. That means a deeper connection, more loyal fans, and more streaming revenue.
3. And as for changing your name, or hiding your history, in order to appear shiny and new — okay, maybe you’re one in a thousand bands who takes that approach and has a big win. But the other 999 bands are now left traveling the same road they were already on, only without the benefit of whatever fanbase, press quotes, touring history, and catalog was associated with the old band name. If you have a crappy or confusing band name, change it right away. If your name suits you but you’re just worried the magic has worn off, dig in instead. Stick with the name, the fans, the “journey” (self help alert!). Keep putting out better and better music. Just like your actual name, hopefully the band name that you kept over the long haul comes to represent something that improved with age.

At least that’s my opinion. Do you disagree? What’s your experience been like as a musician when it comes to age or “newness?” I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments.

PRS for Music A Nova Plataforma Prova Eficiência Contra a Pirataria

PRS for Music's New Anti-Piracy Platform Proves Effective

One year after launching, PRS for Music’s Anti-Piracy System (MAPS) is striking a blow for artists and rights holders.

In the past 12 months, the U.K. collection society claims to have located 5 million infringing URLS and removed over 80 percent of reported links, as well as sending over 136,000 take down notices to websites linking to or hosting PRS for Music repertoire illegally.

PRS’ Member Anti-Piracy System, which enables users to track and request take downs of unlicensed material and was developed in association with the Publishers Association, has also forced 220 illegal websites to close and seen more than 275,000 live links de-listed from Google’s search pages.

According to the latest data from the U.K.’s Intellectual Property Office (IPO), an estimated 78 million music tracks were accessed illegally online in just the United Kingdom over a three month period (dating from March to May 2016). That number was, however, down from the corresponding period in 2015 when IPO reported 96 million tracks being illegally accessed online.

“We are proud to be able to tackle piracy on such scale, as well as empower our members to take action to protect their own repertoire,” said PRS for Music anti-piracy unit manager Sharan Ghuman in a statement.

Simon Bourn, PRS head of litigation, enforcement and anti-piracy, added that “as a licensing body” the organization’s “first approach is always to take steps to work with new digital platforms, to find a mechanism to license rather than enforce.” He went on to say that as the digital landscape evolves, “it is our mission to ensure that those who mandate us with their rights are always paid fairly for the use of their work, today and in the future.”

In December, a joint investigation between PRS for Music and City of London’s Police Intellectual Property Crime Unit (PIPCU) resulted in the conviction and sentencing of Wayne Evans for illegally uploading the U.K.’s Top 40 singles to various torrent sites and distributing tracks through his own website. The 39 year-old was sentenced to 12 months.

Since beginning its own takedown program in 2011, British labels trade body BPI has sent 450 million notices to Google and Microsoft’s Bing, with over 82 million URLs sent to Google last year alone.

Promovendo Sua Música Internacionalmente - Da Maneira Correta

Promoting Music Internationally – The Right Way

First of all thanks to Jesse Lakes CEO / Co-Founder from GeoRiot for this article

If you’re promoting music online, you’re probably encouraging listeners to purchase using links to iTunes and Amazon. On top of that, you’re probably using the Amazon Associates and iTunes Affiliate Programs to earn money from your referrals (but if not, you should be). The process should be that they click your iTunes or Amazon link, go to the music you’re promoting, purchase it, then rock out all night long.

Seems pretty straight forward, right?

Sadly, not so much. It doesn’t matter if you’re promoting music from your website, blogs, social media, or elsewhere, most marketing channels inherently have an issue that you may not even be aware of – something we call the Purchasing Gap.

The basic gist is that your fans click your links from any number of devices, with various operating systems, from all over the world. Unfortunately, online music stores, like iTunes and Amazon, are actually country/region and device-specific. If you send listeners to the wrong storefront, a storefront that doesn’t work with their device or credit card, then the probability of them going through with that purchase is slim to none.

For example, if someone using an Android phone or tablet clicks your iTunes link, you just lost out on a potential sale because Android users can’t directly purchase from iTunes. Not good.

On top of that, due to digital rights licensing (among other things), fans can only purchase digital tracks in the same country their credit card is based. This means if you send a German user to Amazon.com, they won’t be able to purchase because they can only buy digital music downloads from Amazon.de.

Okay, so it’s really difficult to cater to every one of your listeners!

While using lots of different links might be a solution, it quickly gets really confusing for your audience and might look something like this:

“Wait… where do I click?

So – if you’re promoting music that spans countries, devices, and storefronts, you’re probably curious how to ensure your fans can make a purchase with their existing account, in their local currency, language, and from the device they are currently using.

Further, if you’re using a fragmented affiliate program like Amazon’s, you may also be asking how to make sure you’re using the correct parameters to earn commissions from those international sales. Great questions.

Luckily, GeoRiot has a solution to these challenges in the form of a single link. Our “Genius Links” can be targeted differently based on a listener’s geographic location, device, operating system and even date. After adding in your affiliate parameters to the GeoRiot dashboard all you need to do is paste your iTunes or Amazon link into our Link Creator, add in optional custom scenarios, then grab the globalised link and paste it anywhere you want to promote your music.

These Genius Links help you ensure every click quickly makes it to the appropriate purchase destination, with the relevant affiliate parameters attached, so your fans end up exactly where they want – in the most convenient place to buy your music. They can then enjoy your new tunes and you end up with some money in your pocket. Everyone wins.

Sign up, absolutely free.

Ozzy Osbourne “Crazy Train” Guitarra Isolada

Ozzy Osbourne “Crazy Train” Isolated Guitar

First of all thanks to Bobby Owsinski for this article.

There are few guitar players that you can truly say are influential, but Randy Rhoads is certainly one of them. His playing on Ozzy Osbourne’s initial solo album set the guitar world on fire, and for many metal players, it’s still the bar that everyone aims for. When “Crazy Train” exploded onto the radio guitar players everyone said to themselves, “What the f$*k was that?” and that’s exactly what we’re going to listen to today – Randy’s isolated guitar track from that hit. Here’s what to listen for (the guitar enters at 0:19 on the video).

1. Yes, that’s two guitar parts spread left and right and not an electronic double (actually producer Max Norman claims that there’s a third part in the middle but for the life of me I can’t hear it). You can hear some inconsistencies with some of the harmonics and chords, but there are very few. Pretty amazing how close the parts are.

2. The ambience that you hear on the guitars is mostly from the room, again according to Norman. There’s also a little bit of an AMS 1580 delay set to a light flange.

3. The solo at 2:49 is just one guitar panned a bit to the left with a short delay from the AMS on the right.

4. Randy used a fully cranked Marshall 100 watt amp (no master volume) with 2 cabinets, so it was a full stack – unusual for recording. The mic on the cabinet was an SM-58 (!!), with an AKG 451 a few feet back outside the amp room, and a couple of Shure SM87s in the room. The use of microphones intended for live may have come from the fact that Norman was primarily a live sound engineer before moving over to the studio.

Como Os Músicos Deveriam Usar O Facebook Live Para Alcançar Os Resultados - Parte II

This is how musicians should use Facebook Live to get results! (Part 2)

Now it’s time to get into what happened the night of the show…both the great and the not-so-great.

I was driving to the venue in Ohio and had just pulled off an exit when it began snowing…HARD. I immediately began worrying about the weather impacting attendance but held out hope knowing that the band had played the venue two times previously and had packed in a large crowd both times.

And then it started snowing even harder. Fortunately I pulled into the venue’s parking lot and saw quite a few vehicles there. It wasn’t as many as I hoped to see but at least it wasn’t a ghost town and we still had about an hour to go before the band would take the stage.

DRESSED FOR SUCCESS

This is something that warrants a bit of discussion. I have a very low tolerance when it comes to how some music artists dress and present themselves during shows. I’ve had to lay into several clients over the years because of the lack of effort put into looking great on stage.

And, yes, it is a discussion I had with Amanda at one point after watching videos of some of their performances before I was brought in to help with their shows. They didn’t look BAD in those previous shows…they simply looked too casual. I always tell artists that there is a visual expectation that most fans carry into a show (whether they are conscious of it or not).

So it goes without saying that I was extremely excited when I walked into the room where the band was preparing and saw everybody was dressed to kill and the ladies’ hair and make-up were totally on point. They looked fantastic, the best I had ever seen from them…and I made it a point to yell as such upon seeing them.

Seriously.

You never know who is watching you perform at any given time and what it might do for you down the road (as you will see was the case for the band at the end of this article).

SHOWTIME

The band took the stage at 9:00 pm and the plan was to do the three-song Facebook Live broadcast at the tail end of the first set, which was expected to be around 10:00 pm.

The band hired a professional AV company to come in and set up a rear projection video screen on which we could show the FB Live broadcast to the crowd in the venue. That was set up to the side of the stage because the layout of the venue did not allow us to place the screen over the stage (which would have been optimal for what we were doing).

People were continuing to trickle in and the crowd was growing but it still wasn’t where we were all hoping it would be at the start of the first set. Making matters even more difficult was that a lot of the audience members who were there seemed a bit allergic to the dance floor and the area directly in front of the stage. And all of that seemed to be sapping some of the band’s energy as well. I had dinner with Amanda and Michael a week or two after the show and Michael admitted that the unexpectedly lower attendance was deflating when they first walked out on stage.

But they did exactly what they needed to do: they continued to perform with energy…something that would pay off as we got further into the night.

This is when things became interesting.

I was sitting with Alyce (the young lady tasked with operating the camera during the broadcast) and we were keeping an eye on where the band was in the set list. It wasn’t long before I realized we were running behind schedule. Even though the band promoted the Facebook Live broadcast as starting around ten, it looked more like that spot in the set list wouldn’t come up until closer to 10:30.

They realized the time issue as well because there was a sudden jump in the set list and the band skipped several songs to get us closer to where we needed to be prior to the start of the broadcast.

Which created another problem that required quick thinking.

As you will see from the broadcast video below, the FB Live broadcast started with Jones Family Reunion,a song that kicks off with a female audience member being brought up on stage to take part in a fake marriage proposal from Nathan. When the band skipped several songs, they went straight to the song in the set list that was directly before the start of the broadcast. And one of the songs that was skipped was an acoustic piece that allowed Nathan to leave the stage long enough to find an audience member for the proposal at the beginning of Jones Family Reunion.

That is when Alyce said “uh-oh” and asked me what we should do. My response: We grab the first female who walks by our table to ask her to help out.

That is exactly what we did. We had to work quickly because not only did we have to get a fan on board with going up on stage in front of everybody, we needed to hurry and have her sign release forms due to the fact that the images and video of her on stage would be used for the broadcast and various marketing for the band.

So I had to ask the young lady to help out, explain to her what we needed her to do on stage, talk her through everything on the release form, have her sign it, flag down Nathan while he was performing and point to the volunteer so he knew he didn’t have to worry about finding somebody, signal to him that I was taking her back stage, and then rush her to the back stage area all in the time that the band performed that three-and-a-half minute song.

And then we ran into another hiccup. As the last song before the broadcast was wrapping up, I was standing back stage with the volunteer and Alyce, who was suddenly having a difficult time maintaining a strong Internet signal on the phone that would be used for the FB Live broadcast.

Where the venue was located, 4G access was spotty due to it being in a rural area. The venue did have open wi-fi, which had sufficient strength earlier in the evening, but the signal strength began going up and down as we were getting ready for the show to begin. The phone we were using belonged to Brittany (Amanda’s sister and the band’s keyboard player) so I made the decision to attempt the broadcast using 3G and instructed Alyce to run up on stage to have Brittany make a few adjustments on the phone.

Here is something you need to keep in mind when attempting any FB Live broadcast from a venue. A lot of artists don’t have unlimited data and FB Live broadcasts are demanding since you are live streaming both video and audio. So those artists have a tendency to use the venue’s open wi-fi. In many situations that isn’t a bad approach but you have to take into consideration that a large crowd also attempting to access that open wi-fi at the time you are doing your broadcast can slow down the signal and it could potentially impact the quality of your broadcast. Even worse, you might find yourself being booted from the signal in the middle of it.

The problem can become even more severe if patrons of neighboring businesses are also attempting to access the venue’s wi-fi, something that is quite common. I remember staying in a hotel room in Nashville for CMA Fest and the hotel’s wi-fi signal was horrible on our side of the building so I had to utilize the wi-fi from the Taco Bell location next door for the entirety of my stay. Sometimes you just have to plan for the data usage that comes with a big Facebook Live broadcast and suck it up.

Back to the show.

Amanda instructed the audience prior to the start of the broadcast while Alyce set up the phone with Brittany and we shuffled the volunteer on stage. As soon as we went live on FB, the folks from the AV company projected the broadcast onto the big screen set up next to the stage and we were good to go.

THE BROADCAST

For as much energy as the band showed despite a lower than expected turnout, the start of the Facebook Live broadcast was like a switched had been flipped. Their energy instantly went to another level. People in the crowd who had been sitting down looking at their phones began looking up at the stage. They became more vocal over the course of those three songs and they slowly began making their way to the dance floor. Additionally, all of that momentum carried over into the last two hours of the show and totally changed the dynamics of the audience’s engagement with the band.

One of my favorite things about the broadcast came in the form of a comment a fan left on the Facebook Live feed, when she proclaimed the show the best she had ever seen at that venue. People had their phones out taking pics and video of the show and posting them on social media. They were doing exactly what we wanted them to do.

Here is the entire video of the FB Live feed…

In addition to the Facebook Live video, I also shot video of the performance from in front of the stage. I missed the first minute of the first song because I had to escort the volunteer for the proposal from the back stage area and, for some reason, my phone cut off at the tail end of the final song but much of this video will be repurposed for the band to use in a sizzle reel when attempting to get booked for other shows.

For any of you who are interested, the Facebook Live broadcast was captured on Brittany’s phone, which was an iPhone 6. The video I shot from the front of the stage was done on my phone, which is a Samsung Galaxy S5.

And for those of you who remember the picture of Amanda on Nathan’s shoulders during rehearsal (it was included in Part 1 of this case study), here is the same shot during the actual show.

SOME THINGS ABOUT THE SHOW

One of the first things you will probably notice is that we did NOT throw the beer mug through the section of the drum shield in front of Frank’s kit. Michael contacted a company in California that manufactures the stunt glass that we wanted to use but it was going to take too long to ship it to Ohio and still have time for the glass to be cut down to the size we needed. So while we had to shelve that specific moment in the show for the Facebook Live broadcast, it is something we will look to implement in a show later this year. It is too good of a card to have up our sleeves to go unused.

There are some things I would like to see us do a bit differently next time:

• For the next broadcast, I would like to see us utilize a three-axis stabilizer for the phone and camera. If you don’t know what that is, it is a device that holds the phone in a manner that completely eliminates any bouncing. The user holds onto a handle bar and can move their arm all over the place and the device revolves around the phone keeping it in one spot. You can get them on Amazon with some of the better quality ones costing between $100 and $200. There are some cheaper alternatives but many of them don’t use multiple axis points for keeping the phone steady. I’ve heard many people say that using them efficiently requires a little bit of practice so don’t chance busting it out of the box ten minutes before a show and trying to use it if that broadcast is an important one.
• Another slight change I would make when doing something like this again is make sure we hold the camera on each musician for just a bit longer before moving to the next person. Alyce did a fantastic job operating the camera, mostly considering it was her first time doing it and we had limited time to rehearse it.

The engagement between the band and the camera went much better than even I anticipated. It totally changes the dynamic of doing a Facebook Live broadcast from a live show. Viewers are no longer observing from a vantage point off to the side. With this approach they feel much more wrapped up and invested in the performance.

While the band struggled to get people out on the dance floor during the early part of their first one-hour set, doing the broadcast from the stage caused a radical shift in the crowd that carried on through the entire show that night. And the band even got caught up in it all, with Michael at one point getting down on his knees and playing guitar while people in the crowd threw popcorn up so he could catch it in his mouth. Below is a pic the band took during a guy/girl sing off…

And when I left the venue not long after the broadcast, I snapped this picture of the crowd dancing…

WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE?

Remember earlier in this piece when I said you never know who might be watching your show and to what it could lead? Prior to this show, Michael had spent the last two or three years attempting to get booked for two big shows that he had been targeting. One was at an important venue at Geneva On The Lake (a tourist hot spot on Lake Erie) and the other at a major festival near Mentor, Ohio. He couldn’t even get them to return his calls.

The night we did this show, an individual with ties to both the aforementioned venue and festival was in attendance. He was blown away by what he saw. Within 24 hours of this show taking place, both the venue and the festival had contacted the band. One of them booked them immediately and the other is working with the band to find an agreeable date for them to perform there. Two to three years of frustration trying to get on those people’s radars was erased just like that.

This was within 24 hours of the show!

Now the band is working to take the video we captured from both the broadcast and from what I shot in front of the stage to create a short sizzle reel. That will be used when they attend trade shows attempting to get booked at festivals and college campuses. The video WILL get them a lot of shows. We also plan to add that video to the band’s website and electronic press kit and find ways to use it on social media. Keep in mind that while the audio in the videos isn’t the greatest quality, the live audio will NOT appear in the sizzle reel as it will be replaced with one of their songs playing in the background.

Compared to the number of views many of the band’s previous Facebook Live videos generated, the broadcast of the three-song set had nearly 300% more views! BOOM!

We have several big shows to prepare for that will be coming up over the next few months and we have to keep the live show fresh with new elements. The first big show is scheduled for May and that will be the band’s first experience with including pyrotechnics as part of the show. I’ve also told Amanda to prepare for the intensity of the shows to become far more physically demanding. We are even making plans for her to perform on top of a large truss 40 feet in the air. We are also working on a bunch of ways to implement video into the show.

All of this came from a simple 12-minute, three song set created specifically for a Facebook Live broadcast. We went outside the box in what we wanted to present, did something a bit different from the norm, planned it out and rehearsed it, and then executed it in spectacular fashion.

The band has even captured the attention of an independent label based in Nashville, one that is made up of an incredible team of people with considerable experience in both the music and radio industries. The label even invited them to do an acoustic showcase during Country Radio Seminar in Nashville (that performance is taking place the same night I am writing this).

Como Os Músicos Deveriam Usar O Facebook Live Para Alcançar Os Resultados - Parte I

This is how musicians should use Facebook Live to get results! (Part 1)

First of all thanks to Wade Sutton for this article.

I’m going to say something that is going to upset a lot of musicians.

I totally understand why you feel the way you do when you complain about fans at shows constantly having their phones out and taking pictures or videos of the performance instead of just watching it without using mobile devices.

But with cell phones, cameras, and social media all playing such a major role in society and the way we communicate, we have to understand that they are not going away any time soon. So we can either keep bitching about them…or we can find a way to make them work to our own advantage.

This was the internal dialogue I was having in my own mind a few months ago while driving to Austintown, Ohio to work with the lead vocalist of one of my client-bands, Amanda Jones & the Family Band.

And it was during that 30-minute commute on Interstate 80 that I started kicking around an idea, one that I knew Amanda and her band would be the perfect band to experiment with.

This article, the first of two parts, is a detailed look at that idea, how we implemented and rehearsed it, and some of the important decisions that had to be made going into it. The second part, which I’ll release in the next week or two, will delve into what happened the night of the show, problems that arose and how we dealt with them, and will include video of the entire Facebook Live broadcast as well as video shot from the floor of the venue.

But I’m also going to talk about the things that could have gone better than they did as well as what I think we should do differently the next time we attempt something like this. Even the most planned out shows can have things go wrong or pop up forcing musicians to think on their feet and adapt. Like boxing legend Mike Tyson used to say…everybody has a plan until they get punched.

[Not yet set up with a Facebook page for your music? Go HERE.]

THE PEOPLE INVOLVED

It would be a good idea to introduce you to the folks involved and why all of this went down in the manner that it did.

For those of you reading this not already familiar with me, I’m Wade Sutton from Rocket to the Stars – Artist Development and Music PR. I work with bands all over the world (thanks to Skype) and provide to them an array of PR-related services like bio and press release writing (I have an extensive journalism background), website and press kit creation, live event production, and more.

The band involved in this little experiment — Amanda Jones & the Family Band (an actual family band) — is from an area just outside of Youngstown, Ohio, which is about half way between Pittsburgh and Cleveland. They have been clients of mine for about one year and we were just recently beginning to really dig into their live show.

Their current set list is made of up a healthy combination of originals and covers. And while their music would most certainly fall under the country genre, their original music, individual style, personal likeability, and energy gives them an incredible amount of crossover appeal.

They also don’t burn out their local audience, instead making it a point to book dates outside the Youngstown area, including shows in Cleveland, the Pittsburgh market, and even down into West Virginia.

So this is a group that has worked hard to grow beyond being a local band and, while they aren’t famous or well-known, they are performing and operating on a regional level.

LOOKING FOR SOMETHING A LITTLE BIT DIFFERENT

Back to the day I was driving to work with Amanda.

This idea of artists blasting audiences for using their phones at shows was weighing on me and I kept coming back to one question: If fans at a live show will have their phones out, what can we do that will get them to use those phones in a manner that benefits the bands?

I knew a couple of things going into this. I wanted it to be something that involved Facebook Live and I wanted it to be something much different than what people typically see of a FB Live broadcast.

Using Facebook Live in a different way

I began formulating an idea that was born from two immensely popular performances I had seen over the past few years.

The first source of inspiration for the idea was a U2 performance I saw a couple of years ago in which the band invited a member of the audience to join them on stage. The woman they selected was given a cell phone tied to the band’s Periscope account. For one song, the fan was given free reign to walk around the stage showing whatever she wanted on camera and it was all broadcast live on Periscope. If I remember correctly, this all happened in that time period between when Twitter really started pushing Periscope (in direct competition with Meerkat) but before FB announced that it was working on the now popular Facebook Live feature.

The second source of inspiration for the idea was when Bruce Springsteen performed during the Super Bowl halftime show several years ago. The thing about that particular show that I always carried with me after watching it wasn’t how much energy Springsteen had on stage but was how he interacted with the cameras in addition to playing to the live audience. It created a sense of breaking the fourth wall and made for a television broadcast that was much more engaging for those watching on TV.

So taking those two performances as sources of inspiration, I knew we wanted to do something that was extremely engaging for both the audience attending the show live as well as the folks watching on Facebook AND we wanted to create something that would encourage people to share the video AND we wanted to walk away from it with incredible footage that the band could then re-purpose and use for marketing materials, including a sizzle reel that could be shown at trade conventions or to send to colleges at which the band is hoping to be booked.

Why is most Facebook Live concert footage boring?

There is an inherent problem with the vast majority of Facebook Live broadcasts done by music artists wanting to air portions of their live show. More often than not, the artist places their phone on a tripod (or has somebody else hold it) and the phone is situated off to the side of the stage. The artist then performs for their audience and totally ignores the camera. So it leaves the viewer watching online feeling like they are a fly on the wall…a passive observer.

It results in a very strong feeling of detachment for the viewer, something that is in direct opposition of the engaging experience artists should be trying to create for fans.

What were we going to do different with FB Live?

When I arrived for my appointment with Amanda, the idea was pretty much fleshed out and we immediately began planning it:

We were going to take a three song portion of an upcoming live show, put together a high-energy performance for those three songs, and broadcast it live on Facebook Live… we were going to have the camera operator moving around on the stage with the band. This meant making sure the camera operator knew everything that was going on performance-wise so she would have the camera on the appropriate band member at any given time and so we could capture specific angles at specific times. And, most importantly, the band was going to be performing to the camera as much as the audience at the venue.

We were essentially creating a live mini-television production for FB Live.

We then decided to add an additional layer by erecting a video screen at the venue on which the broadcast would be shown as it was happening live. The reason we did that was because we wanted to encourage fans at the show to break out their phones, share the broadcast with their own Facebook friends, and leave comments so they could see their own names and comments pop up on the screen next to the stage…all things that would make Facebook detect the video as “interesting content” and hopefully push it into more people’s news feeds.

WHAT WE HAD TO DECIDE

In planning out this three song broadcast, we had to make some pretty important decisions. The two things that jumped out immediately were figuring out what three songs would be performed during that broadcast and during what live show would the broadcast take place.

Choosing the right songs to broadcast via Facebook Live

As far as what three songs we would use, we took a look at all of the band’s options. As I said previously, their set list includes a combination of originals and covers. I suggested to Amanda that we stick to using only originals for the broadcast. As many musicians know, Universal Music Group has been on a tear pulling down covers of their songs done by music artists and posted on Facebook. Even though we could have used covers owned by other publishing companies, I felt the broadcast and video content was too important for the band to risk butting heads with any publishing companies. And it wasn’t like they were lacking quality originals that could be used for the broadcast.

I also wanted them to use originals that were upbeat because the performances during that broadcast were going to utilize an extensive amount of movement. I wanted the entire broadcast to be full of energy so anything remotely close to a ballad was tossed from the start. We eventually whittled it down to three songs: “Jones Family Reunion,” “Ready to Fall,” and “Wine, Whiskey, and Beer.”

“Jones Family Reunion” was the perfect song to start the broadcast with for several reasons. Not only is it a very fun and upbeat song, it also does an incredible job reinforcing one of the most interesting aspects of the band’s branding in that most of the members are family. That was extremely important because it is one of the things about the band that a lot of fans remember when they are first exposed to them. So starting the broadcast with that song allowed us to introduce people watching it to one of the things about them that is different from most other bands out there and it was done in a very high-energy manner.

“Ready to Fall” was a natural fit for the second slot. It gave us an opportunity to do a song that was about falling in love but wasn’t a weepy, slow song. And while it was upbeat, it was one we could bring down the visual energy (for the first half) by having Amanda sing at the mic stand and putting more attention on the lyrics for a period of time. We did this on purpose because we wanted to come out of this song and ramp up the visual energy for the end of the broadcast but we needed the audience to SEE the energy increasing over that time period. Doing so keeps the show visually interesting for both the audience at the venue and watching on Facebook Live.

“Wine, Whiskey, and Beer” was the finale for the three song broadcast. The song is a fan favorite and includes a call-and-response. It was also a very appropriate song to continue increasing the visual energy coming out of “Ready to Fall,” enabling us to keep a very natural flow to the show and the Facebook Live broadcast. It also gave us an opportunity to show that even though the band’s performances are branded as something that families can take their kids to, the band can still let loose in a manner that parents would be okay with having their children at the show. It is a party…but it is a controlled party.

So all three of the songs were selected because not only were they catchy and energetic, they all had their own way of reinforcing the band’s brand and image. This is an area in which I’ve always felt too few bands are giving their attention and it is holding them back in a big way.

Choosing the right gig to broadcast via Facebook Live

The next thing on our plate was figuring out at which show this Facebook Live performance was going to take place. We had several options available to us but there were two that stood out: the band’s appearance at WinterFest in downtown Cleveland or at their show at a venue called Bootlegger’s near Yankee Lake, Ohio.

WinterFest was a great opportunity for them. It was a performance that was tied directly to a much bigger event (so they weren’t solely responsible for bringing in the crowd) and it was one at which a lot of people were expected to turn out. But there were some cons to trying to do the broadcast there. Because the show was going to be outdoors on a November Cleveland day, I was concerned the wind would nix any plans to erect the video screen on which the FB Live broadcast would be shown. One strong gust and that thing would have been sailing into the air and out over Lake Erie. And even though we knew attendance for the festival was expected to be pretty high, we knew attendees would have a lot of things to do and look at and we didn’t know to what extent that would suck people away from the stage to do other things. Lastly, WinterFest was right around the corner from when we started fleshing out this idea and we wouldn’t have very much time to rehearse for it.

Bootlegger’s was the other attractive option. The band had performed there on two other occasions and, both times, had big turnouts. The venue is pretty much in the band’s backyard and, like I said earlier, they make it a point to not over-saturate the local market by doing too many shows locally. The show was booked for late January and gave us more time to prepare. And, most importantly, we discovered that the venue had just spent major cash on a new lighting and effects system that would blow people’s socks off. Having decided that we wanted to take video from this performance to use for marketing purposes, this was too good of an opportunity to pass up.

We circled the Bootlegger’s date as the show during which the Facebook Live broadcast would take place.

INTO THE REHEARSAL ROOM

We set aside two Sunday afternoons to work on the production of the broadcast, with each session lasting two hours.

In helping the band with this, I had to focus on two things: Making sure their performances were planned out with a lot of energy and I had to work with the camera operator on walk her through everything we would need her to do. Remember that she needed to know everything that was going on during the performance, where on stage it was happening, and where she was going to have to be to get the best angle. A friend of the band, Alyce, volunteered to be the camera operator so I asked that she be present at both rehearsals.

We addressed the performances first. Fortunately, the band brings a lot of experience to the stage as well as a willingness to try new things, is fantastic at accepting coaching (a rarity in this business, believe it or not), and already came in with a greater than average level of energy and enthusiasm. So it wasn’t difficult to get them to ratchet the energy up a few more levels. We then focused on creating visuals that would stick out to people watching the show. This included sections in the broadcast in which Amanda was on her knees with Michael and Nathan on either side of her, Amanda tossing beach balls out into the crowd, and Amanda actually singing while riding on Nate’s shoulders while he walked around playing bass during the finale of the broadcast.

It was all stuff that would look great performance-wise even without the impressive lighting at the venue. Since we had only a couple of hours to sort everything out, we took a “broad strokes” approach creating and working on these very cool visuals in cleaning up any major problems that popped up.

While we were hammering down all the movements that would take place during the broadcast, we also had to hash out things like when Amanda and members of the band would be performing to the camera operated by Alyce vs when they were performing to the crowd attending the show at Bootlegger’s. Proving that they were in fact the perfect band to run this little experiment with, the band had no problem hamming it up for the camera during rehearsal.

Positioning the camera operator

Once all of that was done, we had to address the final layer: Alyce’s presence on the stage during the show. I wanted to make this as easy as possible for her so grabbed Brittany’s iPhone (the same one we would be using for the Facebook Live broadcast) and I had the band run through each of the three songs while I recorded the video as if we were doing the FB Live broadcast. We then sent the video file to Alyce so she could study before the second two-hour session. It basically provided her with a video walk-through of where she had to be and where the camera had to be pointed at any given time.

The second two-hour session was spent doing repeated run-throughs of the three song set. We also worked on Amanda’s delivery during the transitions when she would direct the crowd to sign-up for the band’s e-mail list, give them the rundown on the merchandise giveaway that was being run through sharing the FB Live video, and directing the audience on the call-and-response going into the last song. And this gave Alyce several opportunities to operate the camera through the entire set while we made adjustments to the performances and added more movements to the show.

We wrapped up that second rehearsal with a ten-minute FB Live broadcast during which the band and I discussed the work that went into it.

WRAPPING UP PART 1

So now you know about everything leading into the show and the Facebook Live broadcast. In Part 2, you will get a very detailed look at everything that took place during the show, problems that popped up, things that went exactly the way we were hoping as well as aspects of the show that could have gone better, and you will get to see the actual Facebook Live broadcast in its entirety as well as video of the performance shot from the floor.

9 Dicas Para Escrever Um Grande Refrão!

9 Secrets to Writing a Great Chorus

First of all thanks to Robin Yukiko  for this article.

One of the main tools in your songwriting arsenal is the almighty Chorus. Sometimes it comes naturally, sometimes it is elusive. Oftentimes, it gets lost in the other sections and needs a way to stand apart. Here are nine unabashed ways to make a chorus sound more like a chorus.

1. Use your hook at the beginning AND end of the chorus. Bookending it gives the listener a chance to hear it again and makes it clear that it’s important.

2. Place a solid I (one) chord at the beginning. Example: if you are in the key of C, give us a nice big C chord (or A minor) for that sense of arrival that marks a chorus. Bookend it for a classic chorus, or make it the second chord, but the ear wants it in there somewhere, especially at the start of the section. Avoid it, and your song will sound like it’s in a constant state of transition.

3. Write big sweeping melodies (wide intervals, long tones) or short rhythms. Whatever you have in your verse, make it the opposite in the chorus--and make it extreme. These are often the most memorable.

4. Change the feel. It doesn't have to be as dramatic as Alex Clare going into dubstep in “Too Close”. No Doubt did it in Sunday Morning to smokin' effect going from half-time reggae to four-on-the-floor(ish).

5. Keep the chorus's melody in a different range to differentiate it even more. Typically the chorus is higher in pitch, but not always.

6. Get vague. The time for lyrical specifics is usually in your verses. Let your choruses generalize/label, say how you feel, or have a catch phrase that will mesh with your entire song.

7. Add a pre-chorus or transitional bridge. Taking a few bars before the chorus to set up the change can make all the difference in defining your sections. (There are lots of ways to use this section, including making phrases twice as long or twice as short to highlight that something different is coming, especially if your chorus is similar to your verses.)

8. Color. This one is a little trickier but, if you can manage it, adds extra finesse to your lyrics. Create line in your chorus which, when repeated after each verse, takes on a new meaning. This is advanced stuff!

And finally...

9. Know when you need a chorus. Sometimes, when you have a rocking verse, all you need is a refrain (a short hook that gets tacked on like "Come Together right now over me"). Sometimes the song calls for AABA and all you need is a bridge.

Serve the song and she will serve you. Happy writing!