Promote Indie Music – Best Sites For Music Distribution

To promote your own style of indie music you need to find out where your style is being played on radio stations online. and get your songs played on those where the audience is going to be YOUR audience. You need to work out which are the best web sites to get reviewed on and how visible such a review might be. You don’t want to submit a country song to a hip hop site or vice versa, it defeats the objective.

You’ll also want to start shopping around for a label or an indie distribution site that will make it possible to upload your tracks and allow them to handle the creation of the CD, the collection of payment and postage costs, packaging the CDs and distribution of them.

A very good reference to these types of websites, that is being constantly updated – as it needs to be online – is the Indie Bible. If you live in the United States or anywhere else in the World and you don’t own a copy of the Indie Bible you are missing out on a resource that can be the difference between success and failure online.

Music Distribution Sites Reach a Global Audience.

While everyone is aware of MySpace and Facebook – both of which are important sites to use to promote Indie music, far fewer people are aware of the thousands of other web sites that have other services that they can perform for you.

You can promote indie music on music review sites by uploading a demo or free single and asking it to be reviewed. If you get a rave review this can immediately impact on your profile and perhaps your sales. You can promote indie music by actually selling a download or CD through a variety of music distribution sites. Many of these are community sites and the community of listeners is an audience well worth playing to. These sites are great for promotion but they also allow you to earn some money from your songs.

Many of these music distribution sites allow you to list your product on Amazon or iTunes. If nothing else, doing this makes it possible to have a place to refer fans to, when they ask if you have recordings available. Some of these music distribution sites also make it possible to earn money in different ways as well. If you visit the site in my signature, you’ll discover more information about this there.

When you have a CD released, there are press release sites where you can submit a press release about the recording and also let people know if you are touring somewhere. If this is of interest to local papers, they may print it in their paper. A press release that they don’t have to pay for is always welcomed. A story about your band could be of interest in a local paper and can have a very positive effect towards your promotional campaign.

Even if it’s not picked up independently, it won’t hurt to put in a short call to your local paper and bring it to their attention and this is a good strategy, well worth following through on. Having the article already created, where an editor can immediately read it, formatted and already online, makes their job easier. I have found it has a better result than cold calling an editor and asking them if they’ll run an article they have not seen.

If you are a classical musician or you have ever felt you’d like to write soundtracks for TV or film, there are several music sites where you can submit samples for assessment. Service sites that can help you write for these industries can prove very lucrative in the long run.  These are just a few ways to promote indie music.

If you are looking for ways to promote indie music, then look online.

Opportunities don’t come round knocking on doors but they are in abundance online if you just know where to look. Get the Indie Bible for advice, there’s a stack of articles that will give you invaluable information. Don’t get stuck or freeze in confusion when you see so many sites. If necessary pick a site at random and start there. But make a start today with MySpace and Facebook.

Hyper link each site together on your profiles so that people can hook up easily with you on all your sites or profiles. If you don’t know how, learn how, you don’t need to do any programming anymore, nearly all the sites make it really easy to upload a picture, upload an audio and paste in some text. Start simple and go back and add more as you gain experience.

You’ll quickly get the hang of it. Learning how to promote indie music is not as hard as you think. It does take time to have effect but if you spend a little time each day on it, you’ll be surprised how fast you get results, so long as you keep adding to it. The most important thing you can do is ask any friends you have to link to you wherever they may have a site or blog and to use your name or band name in the link as often and wherever you can.

When you have a little more experience, read the articles on this site about marketing and promotion with articles. These is so much free information available it would be a shame not to benefit from it.

If you want to know more about how to promote Indie Music, you can read articles about a range of ways for creating, distributing

 

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5 Music Festivals That Rock In Southern California

Southern California is home to some of the best music festivals in the country. Blues, reggae, gospel, and more — the Long Beach music scene is just as exciting as it is diverse, making this SoCal city a true destination for music fans everywhere. These exciting music festivals feature national, award-winning acts to up-and-coming artists. Block off the streets and turn up the ‘tunes! Here are five of Long Beach’s best music festivals you can’t miss!

Long Beach Jazz Festival: A weekend of smooth beats and soothing saxophones from top jazz headlining artists and local acts awaits you at the Long Beach Jazz Festival. This music festival will be held from August 13 to August 15. Festivities begin at 5PM on Friday night and wrap up at 10:30PM on Sunday night. Tickets can be purchased in advanced or at the door — both VIP and box seats are available.

Annual Blues Festival: Going on its 31st year, Long Beach Blues Festival is the longest-running and most prominent blues event in the United States. This festival is a fundraiser for KKJZ 88.1FM, a publicly-supported radio station. In past years, this music festival has featured top blues performers including the Black Crowes, Kenny Wayne Shepard, and the Allman Brothers. The Blues Festival is held during Labor Day weekend and features musical acts spread out over two stages, shopping, and local food vendors. Tickets can be purchased at the door or in advance. Free admission for children under 12.

Gospel Fest: Gospel Fest is a new addition to Long Beach’s music festival scene — its first even was held in 2009. This feel-good music festival is held during the middle of July and features performances by local choirs and national headlining performers. Along with upbeat performances, Gospel Fest features excellent food, beautiful ocean views, and it’s a great way to spend the afternoon with people from the community.

Ragga Muffins Festival: This family-friendly reggae indoor music festival honoring Bob Marley takes place annually in February at the Long Beach Arena. Tickets can be purchased online or on the day of the concert. Ragga Muffin’s lineup typically includes nationally recognized reggae artists as well as up-and-coming independent acts. Past events featured artists such as Rootz Underground, Stephan Marley, and Queen Ifrica. The Ragga Muffins Festival also features a huge craft sale and excellent food choices, as well as a kid’s play area with face painting, storytelling, and other activities.

Bayou Festival: You don’t have to travel to Louisiana to experience a Madri Gras-style party! The Bayou Festival is held annually in Long Beach, California’s Rainbow Lagoon near the end of June. This exciting music festival features two stages of Cajun, zydeco, jazz, and blues-style musical acts. Also available are hundreds of craft vendors, traditional Cajun and Creole food, a parade, dancing, and parties — all the the style and tradition of Madri Gras! Tickets can be purchased online or at the event. VIP passes are also available.

These Long Beach music festivals are a great way to support independent artists, see live performances from award-winning acts, meet members of the community, and get out of the house and have a great time. Music festivals are a great way to come together with people to celebrate a love for music, community, and great food.

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Do Parents Need Any Musical Education?

As you know general education is very valuable. General education becomes more profound and effective when your child starts taking music lessons. However, I am not talking about music lessons taken in a regular public school curriculum. Instead, I would like to talk about private instruction, where children work one-on-one with a professional music teacher and are taught how to master music.  

In order to find out about the advantages of playing musical instruments, all you have to do is read a few articles on how the small motor skills influence the development of a child. Besides improving his/her ability to speak, it also stimulates his/her abilities in many other ways. Some of these can be noticed at first glance. 

So, let’s say that you agree that music lessons will greatly benefit your child. Moreover, all children to some extent like music and each one is ready for musical education in their own time. Your role as a parent is to notice your child’s interest in music and help them prepare for the lessons and organize the educational process. Participation in motivating and supporting his/her interest in music lessons is important.  

If you were to make the teacher responsible for your child learning how to master music, there is definitely a ninety-nine percent chance out of a hundred you would encounter problems during the course of the music lessons. You would spend your time reminding your child to do his/her homework and convincing him/her how important homework is. 

Teaching your child how to master music could involve giving them unpleasant lectures about their responsibility in the learning process. However, there is some good news. You are not alone. This happens to most parents who know nothing about musical education. It has also happened to those parents who had a similar experience during their own childhood. This happens because parents do not have special musical education.  

I do not mean that moms and dads have to know how to read music although this would be great. I am talking about the basic issues parents encounter preparing their child for music lessons themselves. One example of an issue is how to make a regular child into a musical child. As long as a family has basic knowledge and resources they should be able to develop a child’s musical ear as long as the child was born without any hearing impediments. If the child has good hearing there is almost a one hundred percent guarantee that with the parents help the child will develop a musical ear. Even parents with no musical talents can help their child become a musician. 

How can a parent learn to assist their child in his/her musical education? Reading and learning about other people’s experiences of which a few examples can be found in the book “Voices of our children”. This book contains real life stories which serve as examples. You can read and learn from other people’s experiences! It is easy and informative! 

Let’s say you got lucky and it is clear that your child is musically inclined. Now your job is to find out the level of his/her musical abilities. The first thing most parents do in this case is start looking for a music teacher who’d tell them that their child is meant to be a musician. This is an absolutely a right and sound decision and nobody is going to argue with you.  

The next step is to find a good music teacher and buy (or rent) a musical instrument. You may say this is all fine and good, but what does the musical education for parents have to do with all this? What do you mean by this? Everyone knows that in order for a child to learn music all you need is a good specialist and the parent’s job is to find a good specialist and pay for the lessons! You are partially right but don’t be in a hurry to rush to any conclusions. Now we’ll take a little break from the subject of teaching a child how to master music. We will come back to it later, because from this moment on everything that happens to your child deserves close attention and discussion.

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Is Music and Education Important

Music Education is an important part of every child’s learning experience and is older than high schools sports, yet high school sports are increasing while music education may be soon demised.

Education, and particularly mandatory education, is an effective agent in the formation of an individual’s tastes, preferences and value systems. Schools try to focus on the more important academic classes because of the high testing standards they must now meet.

However, music education is an important aspect of student growth and is not a luxury, but a necessity to all children. Music education is a broad-based discipline, using words and phrases from many areas of study, including psychology, sociology, physics, anatomy, philosophy, research, technology, and general education.

Music education is vital to a well-rounded education and is an investment of time, effort, and money, which can result in a lifetime of enjoying music. Music has the ability to facilitate language acquisition, reading readiness, and general intellectual development; to foster positive attitudes and to lower truancy in middle and high school; to enhance creativity; and to promote social development, personality adjustment, and self-worth.

Music also helps with math and science and also brings higher thinking to our children. Music and education have always gone hand in hand. Music influences all areas of our lives, and as each student masters the skills and discipline used in music he/she will also build greater confidence, poise, and sense of accomplishment that will pervade all aspects of life.

This education reinforces all other curricula by connecting concepts and processes to everyday life. Music, we say, provides so many benefits that are applicable to the more traditional academic subjects, that it is a basic.

Music study teaches the value of sustained effort and it’s positive impact on learning is becoming well known, and one of the groups trumpeting that message is NAMM, the International Music Products Association. NAMM can help provide support for your school’s music cirriculum.

Music Education is vital to a well-rounded education. It develps the intellect and music education has long been anecdotally linked to increased intellectual ability. Students, particularly high-risk students, do well in arts education classes yet suffer when confined to learning through a more traditional curriculum.

Students learn to count, keep a steady rhythm, and how to multiply and divide (to figure out how long each note is). Students also use science to help them discover what sounds good together and what doesn’t.

They also need science to understand something called the “overtone series,” which Pythagorus came up with around Medieval times. Students learn to understand a little bit of Italian in order to interpret the markings in their music.

They also learn an incredible amount of coordination through music — it isn’t unlike being an athlete. Students that study the arts learn to think creatively. Learning to play an instrument may also keep children out of trouble by giving them something to do after school.

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