8 Ways to Keep Your Music Alive

Bob Baker writes about email marketing and branding for musicians. His article 7 Ways to Destroy Your Music Career is very witty and insightful…but it also struck me as a tad cynical and possibly dismissive of artists who may be genuinely struggling. Bob's tongue-in-cheek humour speaks to serious issues that affect many of today's independent musicians. I wondered if it would be worthwhile to re-frame his points in a positive way, maybe looking a little deeper at what's really going on in some musicians' "failing careers".

1) Bob writes, tongue-in-cheek: Give Away Your Personal Power

The first step to destroying your music career is to realize that your destiny is in the hands of other people and circumstances beyond your control. Fully embrace the fact that you need to be in the right place at the right time to get your "lucky break" and be "discovered." Industry people and music critics must deem you worthy of success for you to have value as a musician.

1) Translation: Reclaim Your Personal Power

If you feel angry, sad or anxious that you haven’t been recognized by the “powers that be” (whether you see them as industry people, music critics, influential musicians in your community or others), acknowledge your disappointment, but then reclaim your power by doing your best work for the people who appreciate it--whomever and wherever they are. Return to the people who do value you and your work, even if they are few in number and in places that are not part of the recognized music scene.

2. Turn Marketing, Promotion and Sales Into a Huge Burden

…Start referring to marketing as a "necessary evil" quick. Realize that you don't have what it takes to "sell yourself" and reach more fans. In fact, there's probably a biological reason you hate promotion: you were born without the critical marketing gene that all those "gift of gab" people have. Therefore, you are destined to live a lifetime of hardship as you struggle with having to engage in the ugly chore of self-promotion.

2) Maintain a Gentle and Steady Pace with Marketing

It may be true that you find marketing yourself uncomfortable. You may be an introvert, or you may have internalized judgmental messages that “promoting yourself” is self-centered or narcissistic. Get those messages out into the open, realize that they are false, and affirm that what you have to offer is valuable. Strive to communicate well and consistently with the people who want to hear your news, even if this requires you to stretch beyond your comfort zone at times. Reframe the activity as “communication” and “invitation” (or other words that are helpful to you) instead of “marketing” or “promotion”, if those have negative associations for you.

3) Be Fearful of Being Perceived as a Greedy, Capitalist Pig

It would be best not to even make people aware that you have things for sale. Just wait till they come to you. If they're interested, they'll ask. And if you want to score extra points, when they do ask, tell them you left all your CDs and T-shirts at home.

3) Affirm the Value of Your Work

If you have difficulty seeing your work as a commodity, notice your own buying patterns and how happily you spend money on music, books and art that you love. If spoken affirmations work for you, use them to reinforce your belief in the products you have created. Listen to your own work (either the recordings or the songs) and notice how much you love them and how much they have been worth to you. Take pride in these beautiful things you have made.

4) Use a Lack of Time, Money and Connections as Your Biggest Excuse

Have convenient scapegoats based on scarcity. Tell anyone who asks (as well as a lot of people who don't ask or care) how lousy your career is because of all the lack in your life. Frequently use phrases such as "There aren't enough hours in the day," "If I had that kind of money, I'd be a rock star too," and "It's not what you know, it's who you know."

4) Do What You Can With What You Have

Despite the particular challenges you face, make a decision to do your best. Circumstances do vary. Some artists do have more time or money or connections than others. Do not compare yourself to anyone. Instead, ask yourself if you are doing the best you can, today, with what you have. When (not “if”) you feel frustrated by difficult circumstances, use them to deepen your understanding of all human struggle—which in turn will deepen your artistic work.

5) Market Yourself to the Faceless Masses Using Traditional Big Media

Realize that it takes big bucks spent on radio promotion, retail placement, billboards, and paid display ads in national magazines to succeed. This mass media mindset is your ticket to success ... at hitting the fast track to failure.

5) Choose the Vehicle That's Right for You

If you have made the mistake of spending large amounts of money on traditional marketing vehicles that didn’t pay off, chalk it up to experience and don’t do it again. Question your faith in these vehicles. Notice how you, as a consumer, have been influenced by them. Gently acknowledge that, because you have been raised in a commercial consumer culture, you wanted major media attention (or for that matter, alternative media attention) for your work. Forgive your work, and yourself, if it didn't come your way. Protect your financial resources for your own ongoing stability and well-being.

Bonus tip: Never answer your email from fans, and rarely -- if ever -- log into your Facebook, MySpace or Twitter accounts. Better yet, don't even start these accounts.

In the absence of major marketing vehicles, communicate as well as you can with your fans, in the time that is available to you. If your fans are too numerous for you to maintain personal contact with (personally I think the limit is about 100), accept that fact and give yourself permission to stay kindly detached. Use social networking tools consciously and judiciously. Protect your "real life" time, especially time in nature, and be mindful of the addictive quality of electronic communication. Log off when necessary and for as long as necessary. Hans Selye (the Canadian stress researcher, now deceased) wrote: “The great art is to express one’s vitality through the particular channels and at the particular speed Nature foresaw for us.” Protect yourself against stress.

6) Promote Yourself Sporadically and Only When It's Urgent

If you have a mailing list (and with sucky email delivery and open rates these days, why bother?), be sure the fans on your list don't hear from you very often.

6) Keep in Touch

Maintain consistent and kind communication with the people on your list. Keep them informed about events and new music that’s likely to interest them. If your “open rates” are low, add more value to your mailings with relevant links and recommendations, inspirational quotes and other appropriate value-adds.

7) Know That Everyone Owes You Something Simply Because You Exist

Simply know that everyone will care as much about you and your music as you do. Understand that complete strangers will indeed listen to every note of your 70-minute concept album and read every word of your 10-page bio. Be sure to send long, in-depth emails and leave lengthy, rambling voice mail messages for the imbeciles who don't recognize your greatness. Also, be sure to insult anyone who doesn't get back to you within 10 minutes.

7) Respect Your Audience

You know what? I don’t believe that any artist--no matter how incompetent--is actually as ego-driven or self-centred as Bob suggests here. The joy of creative activity often blinds people to the fact that their work is inaccessible or unappealing to others; the impulse to share The 70-Minute Opus is, at heart, a generous and vital and deeply human act—and without that sharing, artists would never grow.

Remember the internalized negative judgments ("self-promoters are narcissists") mentioned in Point #2, that impede many artist's ability to promote themselves? They're implicit in Bob's last point. But I agree with what he's saying about respect, so I’d reframe his advice this way: Notice when your audience is engaged and enlivened vs. when they’re tuning out. Do what it takes to engage and enliven them. Make a conscious decision to treat the people listening to you with love and respect at all times, including when you send out emails, perform and seek gigs.

Bob's article contains two contradictory but true messages: 1) Go boldly forward and promote your work and 2) Few people may truly care about it.

Independent musicians today receive both of these heavily weighted messages, all the time. No wonder we're having trouble!

8). Embrace Paradox

The way I see it, in order to stay engaged and excited about any kind of public creative endeavor, we need to do two things at the same time: affirm the value of the creative work we do and offer it to people who can use it, and keep our work in perspective--a broader perspective today than ever before. Our songs are both very big (worth creating, worth sharing, worth selling, worth celebrating) and infinitesimally small ("your 70-song opus is one of millions in my inbox").

We have to embrace the "meaningful/not meaningful" paradox in order to keep our music alive, any way we can.

Thanks for reading.