Profile Post

Music 3.0

Music 3.0 is a blog where Bobby Owsinki gives tips that people could find useful when entering the music industry. He is a music industry veteran, as he describes himself. Owsinki started his career as a guitar and keyboard player as well as a songwriter and arranger. He has taught audio recording and multimedia production at Berklee College Music, Trebas Recording Institute and Nova Institute. He has also written 23 books on music so you can already tell he has a lot to say about the industry and his years of experience!

Bobby manages many blogs but Music 3.0, focuses in how the “new” Music Industry works. One thing that amazes me is his productivity and responsibility to post every Monday through Friday. Every post he does is short and concise. I believe his posts are very interesting but his tone tends to be dry sometimes since he has a very formal and informative kind of writing but when he includes a phrase or word that stands out as part of his personality it is easy to identify them. He’s been blogging for many years now, even before creating this blog, but Music 3.0 was created in November of 2009 and he hasn’t stop posting since, which I think is pretty remarkable. His layout tends to be very simple, organized and easy to read. Since the posts are short, it’s hard not to read them completely. He often includes videos or graphs to make the post more understandable and to back his ideas and opinions about certain things. His blogroll only lists blogs related to music. Websites like Vice.com, Cyberprmusic.com, music.tutsplus.com have mentioned Owsinki in their posts. Something I thought was very interesting is that there aren’t many comments from people visiting his blog, but when people comment, he rarely replies or he leaves a really quick response, without engaging much with the person.

By reading Owsinki’s post called “EDM Is Slowing Down” he argues that electronic music festivals are declining in popularity due to rising ticket prices and performer fees, as well as people getting tired of house music, the heart of EDM. Even though most of the post was very formal, I could really find a voice in the phrase where he said that the “show” that most DJ’s put is basically the same. I can tell that by using those quotations in the word show, he is in some way complaining and being sarcastic about it. Since he comes from a background of playing real instruments I believe that he feels music should be performed live and not just pressing the play button.

In a post called "Spotify Up to 28 million subscribers" he explains how that those rising numbers are very good in the long run for musicians since it lowers piracy and serves for a substitute of record sales. He said that “Regardless of the price, it's good to hear that paid streaming is finally catching on in a big way. This can be nothing but good for artists and songwriters in the long run, even though it might seem that the payouts are low now”. Reading past the dryness of his writing and in between the lines, I can say that it’s not hard to notice how much Owsinki cares about musicians getting the money they deserve.

The Importance of Doing Concerts

Concerts can have significant positive impact in musicians and listeners lives because of the benefits that it can offer to them.

1.     As a gigging musician, one of the most important benefits is to gain experience on stage. Having audiences will push you to get better in order to give them a better impression of you and your music. It will also boost your confidence seeing them react in a positive way towards your music. It is very important to be confortable playing your music for other people in order to transmit all the emotions that your music is suppose to portray.

2.     A concert gives you the opportunity to showcase your talent and your friends’ talents.

3.     Playing live t will give you the chance to meet new people and hopefully even make them new fans. They can either be friends of friends or people that have no connection with you whatsoever. You never know who could be at your concert. Many people have been signed to labels or deals that way because PR people were there at the right moment!

4.     Can be a good way for musicians to get money. Especially if they have a deal with labels that stops them from getting a good percentage of the money coming from record sales.

As a listener it has many benefits as well such as:

1.     Bringing people with interests in music together.

2.     Cultivating an atmosphere of respect to the fine arts.

3.     Gives people an opportunity to discover new music

Mistakes People Make When Trying To Become Professional Musicians

There are some common mistakes that musicians make when trying to make it in the music business. These mistakes can prevent you from advancing to the next level in your music endeavors and can make you waste valuable time that could be spent elsewhere towards your success as a musician.

1)   The first mistake would be not investing time to construct a musical career. We all know that dedicated musicians spend countless hours practicing their instruments, honing their other musical skills such as ear training and theory and composing music. Sadly, that is not all you need to be successful. Aside from all the music playing, time has to be devoted to all the business and marketing aspects of the music scene. Spend at least 25% of your time developing your musical career. That can mean self-promoting or talking to the right people while trying to get a record deal of some sort.

2)   Being surrounded by people who are not hard workers or are not focused in “making it” is not very good idea because you will feel like you are the only one making an effort to succeed but there are so many people doing just that and you have to compete with them. This one resonates with me a lot because it has happened to me and it really affects your drive to accomplish things. Try to be with people that you know are on the same path to success.

3)   Having good composition abilities is a great skill to have but if you are in a band or are a solo artist, having good live performing skills is a must. Playing mediocrely is not acceptable in a good live performance. People will not have a good memory of your concert if you don’t deliver a good show. Having good performance skills has to be accompanied by stage presence. For some people, stage presence comes naturally to them but for others it has to be developed by practicing with small audiences first and then escalating to more crowded audiences.

4)   Making music is not all in the music business. Image plays a huge rol in a musician or a band’s career. It might be on the same level of music in this era where image is very important because of videos. Creating a unique style and image that go with the type of music you do can really propel your career forward. Most people don’t take this into account and overlook it when building their music career but they have to understand that music is just part of a whole package.

5)   Another important one is that people try to build huge fanbases focusing on the quantity and not the quality and that can be detrimental. Try to build a fanbase with devoted fans. Just paying on Facebook to get more likes is just going to fill your page with more people that aren’t that interested in your music. If that is the case, every time you post something, many of your devoted fans are not going to get notifications of your posts Facebook only shows it to some of the people that liked your face, notifying your “not so devoted fans”, leaving some of your actual fans without knowing your latest news.

Importance of Playing with Other Musicians and on Stage

            When I started learning instruments I barely knew people who were also studying music.  That resulted in practicing by myself most of the time and don’t get me wrong! It was a lot of fun to learn how to play all my favorites songs in the guitar. I would sometimes meet with one of my friends that knew how to play guitar and jam with him that was pretty much it. I still felt that something was missing. I was when I came to USC to major in Music that I had the opportunity to play with other musicians in a band setting. That taught me many things that I consider very valuable. One of them is that music being shared with other people can be very magical and a truly unique and different experience than playing by yourself. The interaction you have with every member of the band is key, both in a personal way and musically. Learning to hear each other in order to lock in and not sound sloppy is a very important thing that only comes with practice. Another invaluable thing to take into account is to always be respectful to other members of the band in order to not cause chaos. Believe me, I’ve seen it happen many times and it can be very uncomfortable and just plain bad for everyone involved! Plying with other people is a great way to network. If they like how you play or even as a person, they will consider you for gigs or projects that might come up in the future. Being a respectful and good player will also result in getting some exposure of your name.

Playing on stage is another thing I got to do at USC. Before doing that I would only play in restaurants but that doesn’t have the same feeling since people are not going there for the music.

Playing on stage and and seeing people react to the music you are playing is an amazing thing that can’t really be put into words and you have to experience it once in your life if you are a musician. At first, it can be nerve-wracking and you will surely get nervous. I sure was nervous the first time I did it! Starting playing in small concerts or in front of your family and friends will build the confidence and stage presence that you will need once you have bigger concerts. Being on stage and seeing people enjoying my music is what got me to be a full-time musician and I haven’t stopped since.

How to Use Social Media to Promote Your Music Videos for Free

We all know that if we want to have a good amount of followers we can’t just be doing creative things all the time. We also need to put a lot of time and effort in marketing our work and that can sometimes be tricky if you don’t know where to start. Don’t worry! There are easy ways to start doing just that and they are free for everyone looking to promote themselves without spending money.

Youtube has been among us for quite a while now but getting a considerable audience has become really difficult since the Youtube celebrities have been uploading videos for a long time and competing with them can be daunting and sometimes discouraging. Just by uploading good videos isn’t enough anymore. You will need a plan to get more viewers and that’s why social media websites can be really helpful in building an audience.

Facebook has always been a place to make new friends, follow people you are interested in, maybe even get some news from it but can also be a great way to promote whatever you do. For musicians and bands this has become a big deal because you can promote your songs and reach a good amount of people that you wouldn’t have reached by putting posters on the streets. Sadly, Facebook limits the amount of people that see your posts because they also offer paid advertisements. Over time I realized that the posts regarding my music where not getting many views or likes. I realized that it was because when posting a link to Youtube, Facebook has an algorithm that recognizes where links come from and automatically restricts the amount of people seeing that post. After being frustrated trying to get more people to listen to my music, I found one trick that seems to avoid Facebook’s restriction by fooling it and it works very well. The trick consists in putting the link of whatever you are trying to promote in an Instagram photo’s description and share that photo to Facebook with the share option that Instagram offers you. Facebook then thinks you are just sharing a photo without realizing you are using it to put a link to your music. Once I tried that, my posts were getting a relatively high amount of likes. Another way to reach more people is to actually use the video function that Facebook has. When using Facebook features you are automatically reaching more people than when using links from other websites. When uploading a video with your music you can then put links to other websites or your artist/producer’s page in the description of the video without changing the amount of people seeing your post.

Another good way to promote your music videos can be to upload a little teaser as an Instagram video and telling people you are putting the link to it in your Instagram's biography. I found that many Youtube celebrities do that and it is effective and successful if you also have their audience following them on Instagram.