In Anthony Robbins groundbreaking book Unlimited Power, he writes, “Success leaves clues. It means that if I see anyone in this world producing a result I desire, I can produce the same results if I’m willing to pay the price of time and effort. If you want to achieve success, all you need to do is find a way to model those who have already succeeded.”

This is a brilliant concept. Even if you tried, there is no way that you could really be a clone of anyone else. However, you can still learn skills from the best if you’re willing to put in the time. Be original, but you don’t have to reinvent the wheel.

We live in a wonderful time where information is as close as our fingertips, thanks to the Internet. A visit to the Google search engine can lead you to new ideas to take you closer to your dreams of success. Reality shows such as American Idol and Making the Band give you a private (although biased) peek into the world of the platinum-plated music industry. If you’ve decided that you want to reach the top, then you have to do your research before you get there.

Written by Carla Lynne Hall

Article Source: http://rockstarlifelessons.com

For more education on careers in the music industry, check out: www.Music-Career-Guide.com

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Do your Music Business employers and/or fans remember you? Or are you just another hypnotized by Music Industry fantasies… a fan, another web site, another resume, another know it all?

In other words, are you forgettable?

Unfortunately, most are very forgettable.

What is doubly unfortunate is that it’s really not hard to stand out from the crowd. It isn’t that hard to get noticed.

You just have to do a LITTLE bit more than the next.

There are a few different ways to do this… but one of the most proven is to do good research and actually know what to expect, know where to be and where not to be.

For example, the Music Career Guide is based on research and networking! Consider this: When I first endeavored on my journey to be successful in music I quickly got sent home with my tail between my legs.

Why? Because I thought what I saw on music video channels was all I had to do to be successful. I thought that all I had to do was duplicate the fame and glamour I was so compelled by. But that’s just it. That is all that needs to be done… but in its entirety!

No matter what music career you’re interested in, all you need to do is duplicate the fun and glamour… AND the smart and hard work. I didn’t know that! I thought the end result in music was the only result.

Why? Because I was a know it all and thought research and networking were what those that don’t possess natural talent do. Nowadays, this one little change makes me completely different from 95% of competitors who will end up stepped on and forgotten by the Music Business.

Another example… By doing research I realized a couple of things:

1st I realized I knew more about the career direction I was interested in BUT… then I realized maybe there was something else in music that I may be just as interested in if not even more interested in. Without knowing that and to just assume is basically being the same old know it all I was before and would probably end up throwing my time & effort in the trash and failing… again!

2nd If I was to gain the advantage over my competitors by researching my destiny and not researching the pieces of the puzzle, i.e. the adjoining careers in music I would have to collaborate with, how & who am I going to network with?!

So here I am, now educated and on the hunt for more knowledge, connections and money.

So how did I prepare? I created a platform to insure my foundation of success stays strong and fed. I wrote an over 450 page book on researching and networking all the careers in music. This was kind of a tribute to my trials & tribulations.

In addition, I’ve built a website, a Music Career advice blog, I’ve written Newsletters, I’ve shared and will continue to share music industry resources from experts in the business, and have blueprinted future plans to help others out in avoiding the sure to come failure of the inexperienced.

This is important stuff! It’s how you build a base of rabid employers, affiliates and fans. It’s how you build success.

So… after 16 months of writing and publishing the “Music Careers Guide”, I am finally about to release it. The only complete source of research on 98% of all the careers that exist in the music business… this is your ground zero!

The book is done and will OFFICIALLY LAUNCH on 10-27-08 @ 12:00 pm EST!

Also, if you haven’t peeped the “sneak preview” yet, check it out: http://www.music-career-guide.com/sneakpreview.html

Oh, yeah… if you haven’t heard the Music Career Q & A tele-seminar yet, check it out: http://www.music-career-guide.com/teleseminar.html

Best regards,

Dave
Ground Zero To The Music Biz!
www.Music-Career-Guide.com

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Forbes recently sat down with Jermaine Dupri, the Grammy-winning songwriter, producer and rapper, who has worked with performers ranging from Mariah Carey to Jay-Z to Alicia Keys, to try to answer that question. Dupri, 35, is now the president of Island Def Jam’s Urban Music division. Here, he discusses how YouTube has taken the place of radio, how record companies need to do a better job of distributing music and why there needs to be the equivalent of a stock market crash in the music industry.

Forbes.com: What can a music label still do for an artist that he couldn’t do for himself?

Jermaine Dupri: The setup that comes from a record company is still the biggest setup. If somebody independent showed a real rollout, then I think that it would definitely pose a problem. But if a record company does what a record company is supposed to do–and we’ve seen that many times when an artist sells 10 million or whatever records–when a record company is dead balls on, it’s hard to beat the movement and the machine.

Do you think YouTube has taken the place of radio?

YouTube has taken the interest of radio. Radio is not interesting to fans. Radio has become lost basically. The fans are obviously showing me that radio is not the way they’re learning about an artist. The fans have spoken and said “we’re tired of not knowing about these artists you keep trying to force us to go buy. Let us know about the artist. Let us know the artist likes pink, let us know the artist lives in this place, let us know they drive this.” YouTube and MySpace have opened the door to fans actually getting to know the people that we’re putting out again. They offer more to a fan.

Madonna and Jay-Z both recently signed so-called 360 deals with LiveNation that include record sales, touring revenue, merchandising and sponsorship agreements. Do you think that these types of deals are good for the industry?

It’s great for the artist. The label, on the other hand, I don’t know. If the label does a 360 deal with an artist that’s got seven albums left in them and is really showing that they’ve got that many albums left in them, then it’s a smart deal to do. I think that right now they’re doing these deals with these older artists that have almost done 10 albums of a career. I don’t know how many albums Jay-Z has left in him. I don’t know how many albums Madonna has left in her.

What needs to change to get more people to buy music?

I have a new theory about record selling that I call my “quench my thirst theory.” When fans are hungry for music, we’re not giving it to them. Take movies. When a movie comes out, they promote the movie, they see the excitement, they give it. In the music business, we look for signs that don’t mean nothing really and we don’t pay attention to the signs that mean something. With that being said, put the records out faster, and you’ll see that people are still buying albums.

What signs should we be looking for?

MySpace, YouTube, Facebook–things where people are talking. I set my own channel up on YouTube, and I started promoting things. The comments are what I’m watching. I’m not watching the numbers.

What signs do people look at now that they shouldn’t?

They’re looking at signs of radio, signs of how much press they get, lot of things that don’t really matter like that. MTV and BET for example, they play our videos probably 20 times a week, if that. MTV wasn’t playing no videos a minute ago. YouTube, you can put a video up and get 200,000 plays in a week.

Is spending money on videos still worth it?

Yeah, based on the outlets that we have. When we put out Kriss Kross, there was no YouTube. You spent money on artists back then, and this was back in ‘91, ‘92. Big-money videos were coming out based on being seen on BET and MTV. It makes sense to spend money on a video if you put it in on YouTube because viewers will watch it endless times. They keep clicking on it, and you can see how many times they watch it and understand that you’re getting your money’s worth.

If you get a video seen 500,000 times, and you spent a nice piece of money on it, you should feel good about it because that’s 500,000 times on this one network. You could put it on MySpace and have another 500,000 times, and then you can take the little bitty spins that MTV and BET give you, and as far as I’m concerned you’ve had 2 million eyeballs see your video. I don’t believe that would have happened in ‘92.

Are you worried at all that people won’t buy a song because they can click and watch the video anytime?

No, because watching a video doesn’t really determine selling music. Watching a video to me is that you’re trying to get people to know who your artist is. You’re trying to introduce the artist to the world, and through the video is how the world sees the artist.

How do you deal with questions of piracy and illegal downloading?

I believe that works into the thirst thing. If a person posts your album early, that means they’re excited. That’s a sign that you should follow. If people are posting early, why are they posting early? Because I’m putting out the record too late, and this person already knows that the fans want it.

We buy bootlegs because we want to buy music when it comes out. I’m reading about this new album by Usher. I want to buy it because it sounds incredible. Then you walk down the street, and this dude is saying “I got Usher’s album.” All your excitement is right there. So they react on their excitement. That’s all it is. The bootleggers are beating the distribution to getting the record on the streets.

iTunes proves that nobody wants to steal music. If you were to ask Steve Jobs about that he’ll tell you, “Nobody wants to steal it, everybody wants to buy it. I put every record store out of the business the last five years because they all want to come to my store.” And iTunes was not meant to be like that. iTunes was something he just did based on the iPod.

Do you think that people still want to buy albums? Or are they only interested in buying singles?

We sell singles now because we don’t have the albums prepared, or we think that people don’t want to buy albums. People want to buy albums. It’s just like DVDs. People still buy things.

Do you think that singles will continue to sell for 99 cents online?

99-cent singles create excitement. Whoever came up with that was somebody who was a little bit older and remembered buying 45s. The thing about it is, once they buy the singles, what’s next. And that’s what the record companies are not doing.

Where do you think the industry is going?

I would hope that it crashes completely like the stock market and rebuilds because a person like myself would be able to deal with it. Only the strong can survive crashes. If you’re talented, the music business can’t crash; a crash won’t affect you. If you’re not talented and you just been bouncing from wall to wall and getting by, a crash will definitely destroy you. That’s what needs to happen.

We’ve got to weed out the ones who can’t keep pace with what’s going on because they’re hindering it. They’re still not doing anything about piracy. They’re still putting records out the same way they were putting records out when piracy first came in the game. Nobody’s changed.

Article Source: http://www.forbes.com

For more education on careers in the music industry, check out: www.Music-Career-Guide.com

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With Douglas Merrill’s hiring of Second Life co-founder Cory Ondrejka at EMI, at least one label is wising up to the fact that making music more difficult to buy and find is no way to compete with online file sharing. Say what you will about Second Life, but within the context of the virtual world it was very easy to participate in the economy (maybe even a little too easy) and buy and sell ephemeral, digital goods.

Now that labels have realized that their core business will no longer be moving units through outlets like the now-defunct Tower Records, they’re moving towards “360 degree” deals that ask for a piece of event income, licensing and merchandising. Which in the old model used to be the artist’s bread and butter, as musicians didn’t actually see much of a cut from album sales. The album was, as they say in Hollywood, a “tent pole” upon which other business opportunities were supported — and now the labels want the whole tent.

Reznor had the foresight to go independent as the old circus collapses around him. Owning his own production studio and promoting and distributing his content digitally means his costs are minimal. And production, promotion and distribution was exactly what labels used to lured artists into contractual cages. Reaching beyond the concept of moving units in mass volume and instead servicing hardcore fans with what they want, when and where they want it while making it easy for people to find and listen to his music, Reznor’s got an opportunity to make a lot more money for himself than he ever would have with a label — and more creative flexibility as well.

Article Source: http://valleywag.com

For more education on careers in the music industry, check out: www.Music-Career-Guide.com

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Gawley, an HLS graduate, focused his talk on the highly publicized all-in-one contracts of big-name stars such as Madonna and Jay-Z.

He said that despite the threat of music piracy to CD sales, the music industry continues to thrive with profitable tours and merchandising.

“Music has never been more popular,” said Gawley, adding that he is not convinced by claims of the record industry’s imminent demise. “The music industry will survive, but in what form?”

As consumer spending shifts from albums to live shows, Gawley said, celebrities like Jay-Z have left their record labels in favor of all-inclusive contracts with concert promoters such as LiveNation.

These promoters purchase the rights to an artist’s entire profitable output­—CDs, tours, T-shirts, and even collectible bobblehead dolls—for one lump sum.

Gawley predicts that record companies will ultimately embrace these so-called “360 deals” and will be best equipped for these contracts because of their experience in brand management.

Friday’s talk was hosted by the Harvard Law School Recording Artists Project (RAP), which provides legal services to local artists and hosts lectures on legal issues in the music industry.

According to RAP co-director Ethan B. Schiffres, lawyers will play an important role in the negotiations of these emerging 360 deals.

“Artists’ attorneys will continue to fight to allow more creative and financial control for their clients and will continue to play a role in the creative process of scouting and shopping acts,” Schiffres said.

Written by By MARK A. VANMIDDLESWORTH
Contributing Writer

Article Source: http://www.thecrimson.com

For more education on careers in the music industry, check out: www.Music-Career-Guide.com

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