State of Becoming

"An artist always has to be in a state of becoming" - Bob Dylan

The New Music Industry Resources and Links

The “New Music Industry” Resources and Links for Bands and Artists IN PROGRESS

This list began as a way for me to catalog and put all of the fantastic resources regarding the DIY Music Industry in one place.

This serves two substantial purposes: (1) to better inform you, the artist, what WoodStack Records can do for you, and (2) to inspire you to make the most of your (musical) work ethic with or without the help of WoodStack.

“The New Music Industry” or “Music Industry 2.0” refers to the age of social media, and the rapidly changing landscape of the conventional music industry. Now more than ever, new revenue streams are being generated; new mediums of distribution are becoming popular. An unprecedented number of bands have the ability to produce and market themselves on their own, without the help of a major label.

It is my belief that the artist should place their highest value the generation of innovative and different quality content. There’s an old saying in the industry, “Quality Content is King” for good reason. The musician is a servant to the people; their service is the quality of their music. Too many young bands are trying to “make it” before they do the hard work of generating the quality content that gives them a real product to sell.

[Existentialists note: Music is interesting because when it works, the product the musician or band is selling is their whole life, in a sense… fans buy not only music, but a message, lifestyle, and ethos.... WoodStack is selling the ethos of Self-Sustainable Local Living economy.]

This means, that the musician ought rightly focus on the creation of music. The dream, nowadays, is to be able to have the resources to dedicate time and energy to the creation of music. Resourcefulness and Efficiency are crucial.

Both hinge on information processing.... how much you can do with the information you process.

We might call resourcefulness “Knowledge” --- and efficiency, “power”.

SO: on with the good links: “KNOWLEDGE IS POWER”.

“1000 True Fans article.” Awesome blueprint of what “making it” means without major label support means nowadays. Find it HERE:

http://www.kk.org/thetechnium/archives/2008/03/1000_true_fans.php

“Better Than Free.” More and more artists are giving away their products for FREE online. Radiohead, Madonna, and more locally, Pretty Lights and the Motet. THINK: “When copies are super abundant, stuff which can't be copied becomes scarce and valuable…When copies are free, you need to sell things which cannot be copied.” Think about what YOU have to offer that cannot be copied. Also see “differentiation strategy” in marketing language. THINK: What makes you importantly different?

http://www.kk.org/thetechnium/archives/2008/01/better_than_fre.php

GENERATING REVENUE: Trent Reznor and Future Music Business Models
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20090201/1408273588.shtml/

GENERATING REVENUE: How Amanda Palmer (Dresden Dolls) made $19K in 10 Hours getting creative on Twitter. OUR MORAL: Be Yourself and Get Creative!
http://www.hypebot.com/hypebot/2009/06/amanda-palmer.html

GENERATING REVENUE: 10 Wierdest Ways to distribute Music
http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2009/07/the-10-weirdest-ways-to-distribute-music/

GENERATING REVENUE: Case Study of Jonathan Coulton
http://www.hypebot.com/hypebot/2009/02/how-jonathan-coulton-became-an-internet-rock-star-on-the-cheap.html

more to come, masters-to-be,.....

10,000 Hours of Deliberate Practice

The following is a response to a query started by Ron Marks (http://ronmarks.zozuz.com) that I thought would be helpful for developing artists/musicians. Ron wondered whether or not the 10,000 hours rule of deliberate practice -- how to become an expert/master at some activity -- applied to creative and/or novel endeavors such as music composition.

Well, we believe so. We believe that creativity is the birthright of a musical consciousness, and that we must stimulate our neural connections towards ever-growing creativity: make our imaginations the drivers of our conscious evolution as persons and communities. This takes time.

Chomp on this, you would be artists:
10,000 hours means 1 hour a day for 27.3 years, or
10,000 hours means 3 hours a day for 9 years....

I think I've logged about 3,000 hours playing music,... and I just now feel like I am getting somewhere.

Woodstack Records Says:
August 4th, 2009 at 1:29 pm

RE: Deliberate practice for the creation and production of quality music.

Gladwell cites that the Beatles had 10,000 of performance time BEFORE they “made it big” by being better at playing pop music than anyone else.

It is my belief that conscious growth and deliberate practice TREMENDOUSLY applies to creative and imaginative endeavors. Creativity and Imagination are aspects of our growing brains: the more we execute and stimulate our creative and imaginative centers, the more talented and proficient we become in creative endeavors. WoodStack’s business is music.

Today, un-signed and underfunded talented musicians are taking on the bulk of the production and promotion work. Ideally, these artists should be within an organization that does a lot of the groundwork for them, and they can focus on the music.

This is our experiment in the 21st century music business: What happens when dedicated artists take the time (10,000) hours to perfect their craft? Focusing and generating creative processes, if they are going to stand the test of time, takes an aweful lot of time. That is what we are all about, and I wanted to write this comment because I feel that disciplined creativity IS possible, and is crucial to maintain a deliberate practice to create great art.