5 Music Marketing Tips EVERY Musician Can't Live Without!

1. Say Something

Seriously, there is a massively huge world out there. In case you didn't get the memo, the economy sucks, people around the world are starving to death, corporations are raking in billions, and the media keeps shoving expensive crap down our throats.

So say something. Don't waste your talent, whether its in music, or art, or writing, or math, or whatever. Don't waste it. Use it. And make a freaking difference.

Musicians, there are thousands of songs out there about dum tweeny bop crushes and partying. Are we really that lame? There are tens of thousands of string quartets, thousands of symphonies, and tens of thousands of piano solos. Is that what we are about? Tiny little notes on scraps of tree bark?

Make a difference with your music, your art. Change the world one note at a time.

2. Get with the program.

Which program? Garageband, Audacity, Acid, Fruity Loops, Cubase, Cakewalk, Ableton, Logic, ProTools, Finale, Sibelius, PC, Mac, or Linux...it doesn't matter. The program is just the tool, the creator of great music is you. And don't worry if you can't read a note, never wrote a lyric in your life, or don't know a major dominant from a majordomo. Music is sequential and exponential. You learn one new skill today, you will know two tomorrow, and four the next.

I wish I could tell you that I have a top of the line studio back home. That I run everything on only the best equipment in the world, and that I have tens of thousands of dollars of engineering goods at my disposal. Truth is, my studio used to be the most ghetto of studios. For years I composed using a crappy kid's keyboard hooked to a decade old MOTU and used a demo version of Pro Tools. The tools didn't matter. During that same time, one of my film scores made it to the NY International Independent Film Festival, another was a finalist in Miramax's Greenlight Competion, and another was chosen for an international sound festival. My studio was garbage. I am not.

So don't stress what program, just get the program. Any program, and start making music.

3. Get it out there

What's the point of writing the most amazing symphony, love song, or beat in the world if you keep it all to yourself? Get the music out there. You don't need to wait for a contract or someone's permission. Get your music out there.

How are you going to know if it is good or bad or just plain ugly if you keep it safe at home? Set your music free, and wait to see where it lands (or crashes), then write some more. One day you will find that you actually are good at what you do, and you won't even realize it until people start asking you for advice.

4. Keep at it

Figure out why you do what you do. And I am not just talking about music. Why do you study what you study? Find what you are passionate about, whatever it is, and pursue it like a starving wolf hunts its prey. Thirst and hunger for what you do. If you don't care about what you do (what you write), then no one else will care about it. Be passionate, and screw everything else.

5. Share the wealth

Once you get to the point where you are doing what you love and actually living your dream, and you will if you work hard, then share the wealth. Share your knowledge and your experiences. Help those around you get to where you are. It makes you a better person, it helps someone else, and it makes this crazy world just that much more livable.

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Top 10 Mistakes When Writing for Percussion

10. Indicating the wrong mallets for an instrument.
Brass mallets on vibes? Try a hammer on a violin!

9. Writing the glockenspiel part as heard.
You shouldn't have to climb a ladder of leger lines to read a glock part. Keep it in the staff.

8. When in doubt, adding more suspended cymbal.
This is a huge mistake made by arrangers. Yep, cymbals add automatic intensity to a piece, but so can a bass drum roll, a rousing hand drum part, exciting mallet licks, or a hundred other combinations. Well-written percussion parts stand out in the band and church repertoire.

7. Better means more complicated, right?
This is my main mistake. A percussion part can be simple enough for a middle school, but it is the ability to use the different tone colors of the percussion palette properly that indicates a maturity in writing, not that impossible part for the timpanist that has them playing timpani, gong, crash cymbals, and triangle in the span of two beats.

6. Never trust Band-in-a-Box to write the timpan…

Experimental Film - World Order #2 - Sabrina Pena Young

Experimental indie film World Order #2 originally created for the Turkey Cinema for Peace. A mix of images with the cinematic soundtrack of Sabrina Pena Young. (2003). The short film was filmed in an afternoon at my parent's home, with most special effects in-camera (ex. the "world' is really scrambled eggs with blue food coloring). Shot through glass decorative bulbs from my parent's patio. Student work.

Screening History

DVD Compilation Release of Cinema for Peace 2003 Istanbul, Turkey, 2006

Cinema for Peace (Turkey), 2003

IEEE and Association for Computer Machinery (ACM) conference, 2003

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Music Industry Insider: 50 Ways to Make Money as a Musician

50 Ways to Make Money as a MusicianWant to have a musical career but not sure how to make money as a musician in today's market? Well, first you need to redefine your goals as a musician and realize that like any job, being a musician involves a lot of work, perseverance, and talent. And in today's Digital Age, you need to be able to combine your skills to help you make a living as a musician. You will probably need to select at least a dozen forms of income and micro-incomes in order to make a full time living as a musician or choose a primary steady gig and add on other projects (what most musicians have done for centuries).

Each method of making money has a $, $$, $$$ or S for work that will make you a little pocket money ($), possibly significant money - hundreds to thousands ($$), at least part time or possible full time work ($$$), or is steady work (S). Notice that none of these options involve making millions of dollars so you can drive around in a diamond-crusted limo…

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