Have you been looking for a site that offers Pandora-like features with advanced promotional tools that benefits independent artists? Gooveshark.com is the site you are searching for.
GrooveShark provides a user-friendly platform for both music fans and artists. Fans can easily search for bands, view popular music on the site and search for artists under their favorite music category. The site offers an array of genres such as classical, rock, rap and electronica. Music fans are able to:
Shane Blay is a guitarist/vocalist for the indie band, Oh, Sleeper. The Texas based group has been compared to Slipknot and Underoath. You can learn more about the band here. Follow the band on Twitter @weareohsleeper.
For the past five years my brothers in Oh, Sleeper and myself have sacrificed our lives, our time, relationships, birthdays, holidays, health (haha) to travel around and play shows for our fans. Not to say that isn’t been a fun ride!
I would just like to bring a few things to our fans attention.
I would like to show you guys an average day in finances for a “mid-level” band like us. I’m going to breakdown the average monetary ins and outs of a day on tour.
On tour, bands have two ways to make money – guarantees and merchandise.
Twitter is a great tool for musicians to market their music, but many musicians are unsure how it can be helpful to them. The typical musician spends much of their time being musically creative, but many musicians who should be using Twitter to market their music aren’t sure where to start or how to use it to its full potential.
Luckily, Twitter is simple and easy. The only work that really needs putting in is a little thought and some time on a regular basis, and I’d like to share a few ways that this popular social network can supercharge your music career:
Find New Fans of Your Music
Many people are on Twitter these days – and many of them are music fans that live in your town, and the cities you visit. With Twitter’s search function, you can find local music lovers who enjoy the style of music that you play. Twitter also allows for two-way communication via replies and direct messages, so you have the opportunity to make true connections.
In an ideal world, the music is all that would matter. You would play and the legions of fans would come. This is not, unfortunately, an ideal world, which means that you need to market yourself if you want to be successful. Fortunately, we are living in a time when marketing your music and yourself has never been easier. The Internet has brought the whole world closer together, and this has made it easier and cheaper to both contact your fans and potential fans as well as made it easy to give them a wide variety of stuff to sell. But marketing can seem overwhelming, so here are six ways to market yourself and your music:
Have an Online Presence
First of all, I am not saying that you should go and join a “networking group” (although Meetup.com is a great place to do that). I’m pointing out that simply leaving your house can be looked at as a networking opportunity.
There Are 3 Reasons Why We Network
To find a direct target or a customer. For example, a fan who will buy tickets, music, or merch and support you.
To gain a sphere of influence, and therefore a source for referrals (i.e. the people who like the people who know & support your band).
You have just seen a great performance by a new independent band touring the country. You are already a fan after hearing two hours of fresh heart-thumping sound, and stopped to pick up their self-released album earlier during the concert break. You gaze over at the crowd surrounding the merchandise stand, contemplating whether or not you should join the masses.
You are hesitant because the line seems long, filled with other eager fans hoping to speak with their idols of the evening. Many concert-goers are paying for posters to have signed by grateful band members, and some are proudly donning their new T-shirts. Do you wait and sacrifice another hour of sleep?