Practice

You’ve heard it before, “practice makes perfect.”

-You should practice at least one hour per day.
-Play the same piece over and over again, even until you get blue in the face.
-To learn new songs, you should try not to figure it out by ear, it should be from the tabs and chords charts.

Performances

Your make or break, you wont want to mess this up.

-Never challenge yourself live, instead just play it the same way every time so you don’t make any mistakes.
-Book four shows a month, if possible at the same club/venue.
-Don’t take a gig for just playing covers, you will be stuck as an average artist.
-Don’t listen to other artists on stage, focus on yourself and the songs you will be playing later that night.

Fans & Social Media

The more people you get to your gigs, the more successful you can be

-Make sure you get your friends and family out to your performances, even if it’s the third performance they’ve seen this month.
-Use social media to promote your next performance or product, you need to keep your fans up to date.
-On the day of the show, make sure to update your friends and fans via facebook, twitter, etc.

The Studio and Recording

Do your research

-When selecting a studio to record your music, try not to select the cheapest one unless you have to… it is your sound we are talking about.
-Rehearse plenty of times before stepping into the studio to record, you are paying by the hour so you will want to get it done on your first couple of takes.
-Be open, if a producer suggests to take the song in a different direction, then you should listen.

Never settle on being that typical artist. Setting yourself apart from other artists will eventually gain you the attention you deserve.

The impact of social media on hip hop with words from Talib Kweli, Wiz Khalifa, Devi Dev, Bishop Lamont and more.

If you would like to be featured on the Audimated Blog, please contact support@audimated.com

First create a Facebook page:

1. Create a Facebook page (if you have a facebook page skip to the next section).
2. Go to Facebook.com (you need to be logged out of facebook first).
3. Create a page on Facebook but clicking on the bottom right hand side of the screen.
4. Select “Artist, Band or Public figure.” Choose a name and category for your business/music. Click “save.”
5. When prompted, click “I already have a Facebook account” and log in with your information.

Second, open a new window and create an Audimated account for your music:

1. Register with an Artist Account at www.audimated.com.
2. Confirm your email address by clicking the confirmation link in the email Audimated will send you after signing up.
3. Once confirmed, go back to Audimated and log in to your account with your account credentials.
4. Click “Edit Profile” in the top right side of your dashboard.
5. Click the “Store” link in the left hand menu.
6. Click “Singles” in the middle of the screen.
7. Click “Create Product” which is displayed under the singles header.
8. Click the “Browse” button on the top right, select a song from your computer and click “Upload.”
9. Next you can change the meta data (information associated with the song file) for your mp3 music. You can add a picture, title and song details as well as pricing information if you want to sell the music. Fill out the fields in the center and click “Update” at the bottom (you can continue to add as many songs as you like by repeating this process for each mp3).
10. Once you are finished uploading your songs click “Home” in the top right of the Audimated navigation bar.
11. In the center you will see your radio playlist with a orange “Get radio embed code.” Click this orange button and a flash script will be displayed (a bunch of text). Normally we will use this code to paste into any website, but Facebook is particular about what code is allowed on the site so we need to make some changes to it first.

Third, add the radio code to facebook:

1. Sign in to Facebook.
2. Click “Applications” on the left.
3. Search for “Static FBML.”
4. Click on “Static FBML.”
5. Click on “Add to page” on the left hand side, select the page you just created and click add to page.
6. Click “Home.”
7. Click on “Ads and pages” on the left.
8. Scroll down and click “edit” under FBML.
9. Change the box title to the name you want displayed on your Facebook profile (this will be the text in the tab when people view your Facebook page).

10. Paste the following code into the FBML box. You will notice that the code is a little different that when it was displayed on our Audimated profile. This is again because Facebook has specific requirements which must be met in order to add your own HTML to the site (which we are doing here).

If you want to read up on what else you can do you can visit the developers page. Make sure to change the YOURUSERNAME to your Audimated user name (this is the portion of text that comes after the .com/ when viewing your Audimated profile ie: www.audimated.com/YOURUSERNAME).

<fb:swf imgstyle=”border-width:3px; border-color:black;”
swfsrc=’http://www.audimated.com/widget/player.swf?playlist_url=http://www.audimated.com/widget/player.widget.php?user=YOURUSERNAME‘
imgsrc=”http://www.audimated.com/img/AudimatedRadioFacebookCover.png”
width=’514px’
height=’198px’
waitforclick=’true’
/>Get your own <a href=”http://www.audimated.com/”>Audimated Radio</a>

11. Click “Save.”
12. Click the name of your page in the top left of the screen to view the changes.

At first you might not see your tab at the top of the page, but this is likely because there is not enough room. If you click on the discussions tab you can click the pencil icon and select “delete” (this tab never gets used too much). We can create some more space and even change the order of the tabs by clicking and dragging them to a new position. I advise moving the tab as far left as possible to make sure people can see it.

You are done! Visitors to your site can now stream, download or purchase these songs. You can always access your account on Audimated and change the songs, prices or data associated with your playlist.

This list can be a great resource when looking to start physically distributing your independent music. Good luck!

Here is the list.

If you would like a complete version of this list including contact information you will need to join Audimated and submit a support ticket via your profile.

Here is a step by step guide for embedding your MP3 music on a blog, website or profile.

1. Register with an Artist Account at www.audimated.com.
2. Confirm your email address by clicking the confirmation link in the email Audimated will send you after signing up.
3. Once confirmed, go back to Audimated and log in to your account with your account credentials.
4. Click “Edit Profile” in the top right side of your dashboard.
5. Click the “Store” link in the left hand menu.
6. Click “Singles” in the middle of the screen.
7. Click “Create Product” which is displayed under the singles header.
8. Click the “Browse” button on the top right, select a song from your computer and click “Upload.”
9. Next you can change the meta data (information associated with the song file) for your mp3 music. You can add a picture, title and song details as well as pricing information if you want to sell the music. Fill out the fields in the center and click “Update” at the bottom (you can continue to add as many songs as you like by repeating this process for each mp3).
10. Once you are finished uploading your songs click “Home” in the top right of the Audimated navigation bar.
11. In the center you will see your radio playlist with a orange “Get radio embed code.” Click this orange button and a flash script will be displayed (a bunch of text). Simply select this text and copy it (control + v, right click or by using the copy function in your browser).
12. Log in to your website, blog or social media and paste the copied text into the space you would like your player to be displayed (make sure to save the changes on your site).

You are done! Visitors to your site can now stream, download or purchase these songs. You can always access your account on Audimated and change the songs, prices or data associated with your playlist.

Promotion is a great ways to reach out to the public in order to build upon your band’s following.  In this day and age, the best way to promote your band is through online websites and social networks.  Below are several widgets and gadgets that your group can use as online promotion.

Attendio is a widget that allows performers to release information such as tour dates and CD releases to fans on their websites.  In addition, Attendio enables performers to involve specific people to virally spread the word about these announcements.

Eventful Demand is another useful social networking tool utilized not only by musical groups, but by comedians and politicians, to name a few.  This service provides fans a means to weigh in on which groups they would like to see come to their area.  In addition, performers can inform their followers via Eventful of the cities they will be visiting.

Another gadget is SayNow, a service that delivers voice and text messages to fans in which they are able to call a number in order to obtain information regarding performances, take part in polls and purchase merchandise. These are only a few of the options that SayNow provides to performers to further inform and reach out to their followers.

Frappr! Maps is a free service that your band can utilize in order to further connect with your fan base.  Viewers that visit your sites can add their name, a picture and message so that performers can track where their followers are from, who they are, and how often they visit the website.  This application is compatible with any kind of website and is ultimately a much more personal method of interacting with the public.

Lastly, Voki is a talking character widget that can visually and verbally represent the band members of your group.  This character can also be an animal or imaginary creature, for instance, in which a voice can be recorded or uploaded.  This is a unique way to differentiate your band’s image and websites while remaining memorable to your fans.

This article was written by Nicolette for Audimated.com.  If you have any further information or recommendations for future articles, please contact Nicolette@audimated.com. www.audimated.com