Trying to make it in Music?

"Trying to make it in Music? here are 20 key tips"

It doesn't matter if you are a rock artist, Hip Hop artists or Jazz, the rules rarely change. Here are some key steps for you soon to stars.
1) You must be prepared to invest in your own production. Remember the saying "You get out of it what you put into it" In this case its true. You spend money on cars, cloths, girlfriends, or boyfriends, your house, and when it comes to your production don't nickel and dime it, take out even a personal loan if you must, but who must pay for your production? You must.

2) Be careful where and who you get your advice from, try and link up either by in person or Internet someone who will at least answer your questions, so if there is an urgent must know before you do anything stupid, you have someone to run things by. There are several sites with professionals on them who will answer your questions.

3) Find a place affordable and competent enough for you to record and on some what a regular basis at that location you want to establish at some point a discount but you must show that you are going to patron there by you do business (record there) there for a while so that the studio will be comfortable with you to do that. If you go to just one place to record, in a short while the owner of the studio will make it worth your while to come there because not all studios have regular business.

4) Find as great a producer as you can because you must, and if you can't afford to pay them, beg them to have mercy on you, or work out something, find them someone who can pay them for services, or what ever you must do, get that producer to work with you, then LISTEN to their advice, when you record. Often a great producer sometimes owns or works out of a particular studio on the regular so often you get a great engineer and producer out of the deal.

5) Get your stuff done!! Don't waste time footing around, get it done, no matter how long it takes, DO NOT PROCRASTINATE This little desease will kill any production.

6) Spend some money on your CD's and cover, don't be cheap, its not that expensive. Today in this business no matter you are an alternative rock band or a Hip Hop singer, your cd and cover must look like it was bought out of a store PERIOD or your stuff will not even get heard, (there are some exceptions to this rule, For instance you may have an agent who hands your CDR directly to Peter Geffen ) outside of that, go to disc makers or some other credible place and get your cover and cd done professionally. Often there are people who do a good and inexpensive job on covers and cd duplication and even basic printing on your CD's this is acceptable. The covers are not expensive. Often very stupid and or stubborn artists will not go this extra mile and this is the very thing that holds them back.

7) CO-SIGNMENT Many Stores will sell your CD's with a 60/40 split or sometimes 50/50 split, some will even let you put up advertisements for your stuff. Work hard. At this point, you should have gotten your music recorded, duplicated, covers done, with graphics, CD printed. now do the work!!! Go into the internet and type in google "Co-signment music stores" for your city and or surrounding counties and print it out. Go to these places, every one of them even if there are 200 of them, DO IT! Then don't sit back, I SAID THEN, DON'T SIT BACK get out there at least 12 ours a week and sell your CD's sell yourself, when you are selling them hand to hand, sell them cheaper than what they cost in the store, sell them for $2 or $3 dollars Why? hey a sale is a sale when you're no one, and also record everything, create Excell spread sheet, Hey, 100 cd's sold at $2 isn't allot of doe, but still counts as a sell, when you are showing an important person verifications of sells.

8) INTERNET SALES: go to Amazon and others , fill out what ever you must online, through mail whatever, mail your CD's complying with which ever way they ask, and get stock to them ready to sell.

9) DON'T RELAX AND OR GO TO THE CLUBS BRAGGING YET Now promote like hell!!! Through all the social networks you can do, have your friends help, if they are really friends, they will. GET ON INTERNET READY for interviews as well as get your music played on these Internet stations. It is fairly easy to accomplish both right now, you will be surprised. The reason is, this medium although is everywhere, its still new, so these people need you like you need them.

10) REMEMBER A.B. P ALWAYS BE PROMOTING!! this should never stop. If you say came into a few thousand dollars say $2,000 Take half of it and promote yourself on the radio, pay for a commercial, playing your song and a voice (yours or someone else) telling the audience where they can buy your music, stores and net. You'll be surprised what this will do for you IF YOU DO IT.

11) Read a book : THE PLAIN A SIMPLE GUIDE TO MUSIC PUBLISHING by .... D. Wixen (forgot the first name) Once you read this book, you will understand (at least a better than 50% understanding of music publishing.

12) Really push to get 10,000 records sold as soon as you can. Why? Because unless you are as good as Jay-Z or Bonjovi and everybody else feels that way, you will need to have10,000 or at least very close to 10,000 Cd's sold for a Publisher worth its weight to Publish you. Also decide which company you want to collect your publishing, BMI, ASCAP or SESAC and NO THESE ARE NOT PUBLISHERS MANY PEOPLE THINK THEY ARE, THEY ARE NOT. If you read the book I referred to above, you will understand all this.

13) Attend or at least make a showing at the popular clubs and lounges weekly. You can even spend say 1 hour at each, the point is to have a somewhat regular schedule of attending these (the) places where MANAGERS & AGENTS HANG as well as popular artists and artists period.

14) Make artist friends, but choose them wisely. Often, an artist friend will lead you to some good stuff, opportunities and other if you are awake and attentive to opportunities.

15) Do at least 4 open mics a month, and really kill when you do. This is where a manager of agent will approach you, but remember, if you take my advice from number 2, you will have someone you can verify facts with once you have been approached by 7 managers who want to sign you and 5 of them are full of smack, your business guru/ friend who knows, mentor, will be able to tell you what is what, so you can make an informed decision. Besides the fact that these days you can check out most managers online.

16) Don't rush into contracts unless you understand them, if not it only cost about $100 to have an Entertainment Attorney look at the agreement and give you some brief advice, at least "this is good", or "this is bad".

17) Do something somewhat regularly for charity, even if its just donating your time, DO IT. Do this under your ARTIST NAME. Why? Everybody loves that musical artists who donates time and or money to charity and or non-profit organizations, no matter what genre of music you are, this will enhance your career, and even get you paid performance dates, out of doing a few for nothing, or just helping out, or talking to youth.

18) Help others along the way and always, Good karma goes a long way, and people will see you doing this, and will help you when you need help.

19) Don't talk bad about other artists. If you do, always do it only in private, You never know who backs who or who will back who in the future, or what alliances will curve in or out of your favor. Back biting in music, usually only hurts the person who is biting.

20) Use ego, don't get one. Know when to show off and know when to shut up. Too much of one of these at the wrong time will ruin you and your career.