Artist and Producer - Page 2 - A songwriters journey to surviving from music

Types of Songs to Release, Based on Month

when to release certain songs based on month — You wouldn’t release a reggaetón beach anthem going into pumpkin spice latte season, would you?
(Photo: Bernd Schulz)

In light of certain moods fitting certain months (eg. people getting into working out in New Year, love songs around Valentines day, Christmas songs for Christmas, etc) here are some ideas for what month to you might want to release your song, if it fits a certain criteria:

My Song Release Strategy for 2023

Introduction

In my previous post I wrote about the best time to release music (hour, day, and month). In this post I will break down my release strategy for 2023.

A strategy should be based on goals. What are mine? Here’s what I plan to accomplish in 2023:

Release first and second EP
(Hence the release planning)
Play covers in cafe’s / bars 1-3x per week
(Best way to practice the craft while making money from it). Incorporate some of my own songs in the sets to gauge interest
Do whatever else I need to do to make $1000 / mo from music
This can include teaching songwriting, writing jingles / foley work, anything where I grow my craft while simultaneously making enough money to survive (which for me is $1k / mo, since I moved outside the US)

Best Time to Release Music (Hour, Day, Month)

Introduction

When releasing music, your goal is getting your music listened to, by as many people as possible, within the first day of release. This helps to gain traction and bust your track through the noise, hopefully garnering the attention of music industry professionals that might want to work with you and get your music featured in more places.

To do this, you want to limit distractions, and guarantee the most people possible will get the chance to sit down and give your track a good listen.

So you’re going to want to plan around those distractions, which can be:

Festivals (ie. SXSW)
Releases of similar artists, who might be in the same geographical region, or share the same genre, fanbase, etc
Releases of big artists that might drown out your release
Holidays (people on vacation and not paying attention to releases, busy with parties, don’t have their phone near them, etc, etc)
Weather (eg. nice weather in winter = people out and about being busy, etc. Cold weather = people inside and more likely to be paying attention to online releases)

Think these things through and strategize like Sun Tzu in this War we call Art. Be one with the Spotify.

Let’s start with the best day, and actual hour of the day:

Branding for Artists – Step By Step Instructions

(Note: Go directly to “Summary” to only see the branding questions you need to ask yourself to determine your branding).

These are my notes from the Berklee Online video on how to develop your brand as a musical artist. Stephen Webber breaks down the IVI process for branding for musical artists – Identity, Vision, and Intention.

Use these notes as a worksheet to fill out to determine your own [solid] branding as an artist.

(You can watch the video here).

Patreon for Artists part 2: The Art of Asking

patreon for artists - asking for support — The art of asking. (Credit: Claudio Schwarz)

Watching this YouTube video from Amanda Palmers TED Talk: The Art of Asking.

It’s very much in line with what I’ve read in the book “The Cycle – Managing Arts Organizations”. Asking for help (monetary contributions) doesn’t need to be begging, it can be a fair exchange.

A fair exchange of music, goods, but also experiences and emotions. Human connection. When Amanda Palmer raised a ton of money for her album, after giving away her music for free and encouraging free music, reporters asked her how she makes people pay for all of her music, in the midst of free downloads and torrenting.

To this Amanda replied “I didn’t make them. I asked them. And through the very act of asking people, I connected with them. And when you connect with them, people want to help you.“

Patreon for Artists and Singer/Songwriters

From reading “The Cycle – Managing Arts Organizations”, it made me think a lot about how arts organizations get financial support, based on their mission. Basically, have a strong mission, share it with the world, and get support from people who believe in your mission (and/or love your music).

Patreon seems like a great way to do this – people who believe in your mission can support you, and so it isn’t just a charity-type dynamic, you can offer behind the scenes perks or benefits for people who want to know more about you or your art, for $1, $5 a month or whatever. I found a good youtube video on the subject, I’ll drop here.

That book “The Cycle” is also a great resource… theoretical, but nonetheless gives great ideas and examples of what it takes to survive from making art.

What are the best acoustic guitar strings?

I decided to finally find the best sounding set of strings for my Martin X acoustic guitar, and as usual when buying a product, I dove deep into reviews online to hear what the consensus was about what sounds best.

I cruised around reddit and guitar forums, and took notes on what people said, for future reference.

I’ll list them here, but read down further for a more detailed explanation.

Best size acoustic guitar strings for beginners

In general, the lighter the size (gauge), the easier they are to play.

The easier they are the play, the better your performance will be.

The better your performance, the better your recordings will be. (You can always make things sound different with adding plugins, effect, etc, in your DAW.

Lighter gauge strings will be easier for your fingers to play. So if you’re struggling to play certain chords, you really want to get lighter gauge strings.

Some people don’t like the sound of lighter gauges, but personally I like their sound more, over heavier gauges.

Here’s a quick comparison on lighter vs heavier gauge strings: