The Social Media for Independent Musicians

It is actually fairly easy to get thousands of Facebook likes, Twitter followers etc. in a very short space of time. I wouldn't recommend it though. After all, if the ultimate aim is to find people that actually like your music, finding thousands of people who aren't even vaguely interested is totally pointless. The only justification I can see, is that it makes you look 'bigger', perhaps fooling people into believing that they are following the wisdom of the crowd by supporting you. In my opinion though, a steady approach works best; networking and building genuine relationships. This strategy demands more of an investment of your time - but don't most things worth doing?

Perhaps counter-intuitively, I would suggest starting by building a network of fellow musicians on video-sharing sites such as YouTube and Musicians Together. MT is the better option, because it not only provides the community, but also actively seek out ways to promote its members' music. The reason I recommend video-sharing, rather than just audio-sharing, is that people are many times more likely to listen to music on the internet if they have something to look at too. The web is mainly a visual medium - and you need to provide something to grab a casual browser's interest.

The harsh reality is that the overwhelming majority of people browsing the internet for music don't even consider seeking out the work of indie musicians. It has to be stuck right under their noses, with big flashing lights and sirens wailing. This is where your network of peers comes into play. If you have gone about it the right way (taking a genuine interest in other people's music) you will be part of a community of individuals who champion each other's cause. For example, if I have a good relationship with a fellow musician and they bring out a great song, I will share it on my Facebook page and maybe Tweet about it too, for good measure. Between my Facebook friends and Twitter followers alone, I have over 2,000 contacts. That's 2,000 potential fans just from my sharing activity - others in your network may well be doing it too. That's why I would start by building a genuine network of mutually beneficial relationships.

From this point on it all comes down to the quality of your music. If it is just slightly better than average, the song might make it to your contacts' contacts before it loses momentum. If it is exceptional, it has the possibility of 'going viral' - that is, carrying on through other people's contacts, growing exponentially in reach, like the branches of a family tree with each generation.

Because I have a website, I can see where all of my visitors arrive at the site from - so I can confidently report that Facebook brings me the highest number of new people by a wide margin. Twitter brings a few - but I wouldn't bother investing much time into it. The rest, like MySpace and ReverbNation have barely registered.

So in summary, my advice would be to concentrate on:

1. A video sharing website

2. Facebook - have a personal profile and a fan page, so you can get friends and 'likes.'

Unless you've got loads of time to spare, give the rest a miss.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Mark_Halsall

Learn Guitar Scales

When you were a kid and your papa made you take piano lessons, chances are you groaned and groaned every week about having to practice your scales. Its not even music, you might have fenced, and inquired why in the world your nasty instructor was telling you to go over and over those horrific notes . All you wanted to do was educate yourself on to play songs, isn't that why you started up at all? It could be you then decided to change to a cooler instrument , like the guitar. Dont get too surprised when you notice you will then be recommended to learn guitar scales as well. More than only an awful torture, understanding scales is an really important part of becoming a quality musician. Here are some of the reasons why :.

A scale is a range of musical notes that delegates a certain key that a piece of music is set in. Basically , it is the playing field you step into as you get to play. If you can understand and be familiar with a number of different scales on the guitar, not only will you develop the dexterity and smoothness that youll ultimately want to be able to have, but you will also accomplish a magnificent advantage in being able to do things like compose, make solos, and work with other musicians.

If you are not very familiar with music, don't precisely write scales off as some kind of busywork, eventhough it can be used for that as well. There are more scales than you think, not only are there those kinds of standard scales, like the one hence cheerfully used in the Sound of Music, but there are other scales that will interest you, depending on the genre of music you are interested in. There are blues scales that can be moved all along the neck of the guitar. There are pentatonic scales that can be used in almost every song , yielding you a fantastic secret of making straightforward but good quality solos. There are jazz musical scales, and blue grass runs, and all kinds of things that can hardly be numbered or ranked . But all of them are valuable to you as a guitar player, and as you educate yourself on guitar scales, your abilities will begin to skyrocket.

Therefore trust your teacher. Take out those scales, and get educated on them until you can play them in the dark. This is not just some insane game plan. This is what all music is built upon, and committing is a privilege. Educate yourself on guitar scales, and then use them, to be able to portray just the kind of passion you have for music in your soul.

If you want to learn how to play the guitar for beginners just learn guitar scales first.

Article Source:
http://www.articlebiz.com/article/1051407238-1-learn-guitar-scales/