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How to improve your employment prospects as a musician.
How do you expand your opportunities to work in the music business? How do you improve your employment prospects? The key to doing that is developing your versatility. There are many ways of expanding what you already know how to do as a musician....
How To Succeed In The Music Business. Part 1
So you wanna be a star?
Part 1
So, you’ve made the decision! You’ve finished recording your album and it’s the “best” - it deserves to be heard by the world and you’re deserving of the adulation afforded to the creation of such a masterpiece!...
I Knew Her For An Eternity
As my horse galloped ever faster along the beach I pulled back on the reigns to slow him down. But it seemed as if something unforseen was quiding the horse. As I pulled the reigns back even harder my horse bolted into the air throwing me to the...
Legal Music Download Sites VS P2P File Sharing.
This article compares the differences between legal music
download sites VS file sharing networks.
1) Music files available for download:
The p2p file sharing networks heavily out number the legal music
sites when it comes to the...
The music of "Essex" charts the story of the Nantucket whaleship with ambition and imagination.
The story of the Essex was as well known in its time as that of
the Titanic today. Essex was a whaling ship that left the coast
of Nantucket, Massachusetts in 1819 on a two-and-a-half-year
voyage to the South Pacific to hunt sperm whales. The...
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Why are so many music sites making these mistakes?
The fundamentals of any site, especially music sites
(where the competition is harsh) is to 1) keep the
visitors and 2) for the visitors to find you. Most of the
methods listed have the other advantage of being search engine
friendly.
When your site loads up, it must load up quickly. Any
pictures must be quick, and small. This has an advantage. Within
15 seconds your visitors will either be saying "I like this
site", or "only half loaded, I will go to the other site listed
on the search engine". The visitor will leave your site and that
is one down. If you have other pages listed, would they go back
onto your site? Probably not. What the visitor should know is:
1.What your site is about
2.where to get what they want
3.what other things do you offer.
So with that in mind, any load up animations or any Flash
intros should be replaced (I personnally can't stand these,
some even have a "skip intro button", what is the point of
that?! Don't use it!). Any visitor wants information fast,
now. Not in 1 minute's time. You can save the anims to
another page, direct people to it if they want to download or
see it- they can judge it for themselves. The main problem with
too slow or no-info main pages is that the search engines
know the time people spend on the pages referred from them.
In other words, once a surfer has clicked through to a page from
a search engine, the engines then see how long the surfer is on
there for. If the surfer goes off the page quickly (due to slow
loading and frustration) then the engine will deem that page
poor, and rate it lower.
MIDI sounds are cool, great on mobile phones, but please
leave them off the web-site. It gives a tacky feel to the
site. If you are using your own tunes then why use a MIDI file?
MP3s are the way to go, use a 1 minute sample of an MP3 if your
really have to- sounds better, better quality, and shows off
your tunes much better.
Never ever go off subject. If you build a page talking
about Slipknot artists, thats great. But if you link to pages
talking about drum n' bass then this is bad. The search engines
will rate you much lower if your neighbouring pages are
unrelated. Related pages "Slipknot sounding, best Slipknot
tunes, Slipknot related artists" etc is fine and can then open
up and can expand your site.
The Alt tag for pictures- always name them. If your page
title is called best rock acts, and you include pictures of
them, the Alt tag would be called "bestrockactmetallica". Again
this tells the search engine that everything is related to the
main topic of the page.
Speak with passion about your subject, include little
anecdotes about the topic "I went to their concert and they did
this". Say how you came about liking the group. Virgin Music is
a competitor, they can only go off what the PR people tell them,
what the back of the CDs say. They have realised now that the
personal touch is much better at selling to customers and
attracting them, so
they have set up forums. Amazon does the
same, but they have "your view" under the CD that you clicked
on. A personalised chat is better than any amount of advertising
revenue being thrown at a product.
Make sure you have an RSS feed. If you have a newsletter
then you have to wait a while until someone submits their email
address (very sacred) and subscribes to you. With an RSS feed
they subscribe to your site, but telling their RSS software to
pick up the chosen sites feeds. No email addresses given out! If
interesting article links catch their fancy they can click
through to your site. Becasue you have only asked the software
to keep in contact with know sites to you there is no junk. A
sort of screened email. It is still in relative infancy, but it
is wise to start one now rather than wait. If it catches on you
will be at the forefront (most companies don't really know what
RSS is or its potential, at the moment). For musicians it is
a must. You can put MP3s into links for people to download,
increasing your marketing spread. The search engines seem to
like RSS, they either list more of your pages or rank your pages
slightly higher with a RSS feed attached.
Watch out for your spelling. A search engine will place
your site pages much higher than a site that has poor spelling.
Even street words could have a negative effect (unless it is a
specific searched for keyword)- MP3z, gr8, and tunez to name a
few.
Never assume. If you use words like accapella, Vibrato
etc how do you know that your readers know the words? If you did
your research, then you should know who your visitors are. But
always put a glossary, or brackets with an explanation.
It can become frustrating for someone who is just starting out
to look up another web site to find out what words mean from the
first web site. This disregard for new, rookie visitors (you
will get quite a few, no question) will have a negative effect
on your traffic. People will leave or just get fed-up with a
"members only site", they could email you with the same
question" what does this mean, why are you saying that". After a
while you then see FAQs appearing.
Never assume, part two. Yeah sure, you know how to work
the software, you know how to set your kit up, but it is a
really good idea to show how you did so. Pictures help
a great deal. With general text screens, after a while your
eyes start to see just a blurr of text. Hence that is why most
sites use colour, bold, or paragraphs to split text up. Write a
guide, write a "how to", include pictures, little tales of what
happened to you, and write in a logical step-wise manner.
Brief and to the point. This demonstrates that you know
your subject and are not lying. It also demonstrates commitment,
understanding and builds up a great web site term- trust.
About the author:
Dominic is web master of
http://www.make-your-own-dance-and-techno-songs.com which has
free guides and downloads regarding making your own techno
music. The site also includes guides on sampling, sequencing,
drum loops, marketing and much more.
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| Yahoo! Music - Internet Radio, Music Videos, Artists, Music News ... |
| Visitors may create a personal Internet radio station with Lauchcast and listen to music based on their own and other listener's tastes. |
| music.yahoo.com |
|
| All Music Guide |
| Comprehensive guide to recordings in every genre. Cross-indexed source of reviews, essays, and ratings; all available online, on in-store kiosks, ... |
| www.allmusic.com |
|
| MTV - Music Videos, Shows, Celebrity News, Movies, Games, and Photos |
| MTV is the ultimate destination for music and pop culture. We have the latest music videos, band info, entertainment news, photos, album previews, ... |
| www.mtv.com |
|
| Music Videos, Songs, Internet Radio, Free Music Downloads - AOL Music |
| Offers music news, artist bios, discographies, photo galleries, downloads and videos. Covers multiple music genres. |
| music.aol.com |
|
| MSN - Music: Home |
| http://music.msn.com/music/newthisweek;new this week;Gwen Stefani's "The ... Mary J. Blige takes home most honors at Billboard Music Awards in Las Vegas ... |
| music.msn.com |
|
| Free MP3 music downloads - Free Music Downloads - MP3 Downloads ... |
| Download.com Music is your source for legal and free MP3 downloads. Download MP3s from thousands of artists. |
| music.download.com |
|
| MySpace |
| Progressive / Alternative / Indie. MySpace Music Video Fresh Pick: Bloodlined Calligraphy (Last Goodbye). Rock the Bells Hip Hop USA Tour (Nov 11-Dec 22) ... |
| www.myspace.com |
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| College Music Society |
| It is a consortium of colleges, conservatories, universities, and independent musicians and scholars. Dedicated to gathering, considering, and disseminating ... |
| www.music.org |
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| Apple - iPod + iTunes |
| Complete line of flash memory and hard drive-based music, video, and media content players. Includes technical specifications, video clips, interactive demo ... |
| www.apple.com |
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| Music - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia |
| Music theory, within this realm, is studied with the pre-supposition that music is ... Amateur musicians compose and perform music for their own pleasure, ... |
| en.wikipedia.org |
|
| Worldwide Internet Music Resources |
| Categorized links to musicians and ensembles, composers, research sources by musical topic, the business of music, and performance-related subjects ... |
| www.music.indiana.edu |
|
| BBC - Music |
| Vote in 6 Music's roundup of the best singles of 2006! ... The Man In Black - a true American icon, and one of the giants of country music. ... |
| www.bbc.co.uk |
|
| Pandora Internet Radio - Find New Music, Listen to Free Web Radio |
| Pandora is the music discovery service that helps you find new music based on your old and current favorites. Create custom internet radio stations, ... |
| www.pandora.com |
|
| Yahoo! Music UK - Free Music Videos, Internet Radio, Music Charts ... |
| The latest official UK music charts, talent and music industry news and special areas. Includes chart commentary and music news round up. |
| uk.launch.yahoo.com |
|
| Napster |
| Add Music to Your IM, Email and Web Pages ... To see the terms for our Music Store and Subscription Service, click HERE. © 2003-2006, Napster, LLC. ... |
| www.napster.com |
|
| Read About Music News, Billboard Charts, Music Videos & Ringtones ... |
| Billboard.com is the music entertainment industry source for music news, information, and the popular Billboard Music Charts. |
| www.billboard.com |
|
| Lycos Music - Music Home |
| Comprehensive search engine by Lycos. Site also has news, reviews and information on players, encoders and rippers. |
| music.lycos.com |
|
| Welcome - Music India OnLine |
| Has a large collection of music and songs classified by type, language and region. All downloads are streamed through RealAudio. |
| www.musicindiaonline.com |
|
| calendarlive.com - MUSIC |
| Concerts, album reviews, pop, jazz and classical music news from the Los Angeles Times. |
| www.calendarlive.com |
|
| CLASSICAL MUSIC ARCHIVES - CLASSICAL MUSIC |
| Contains thousands of classical music files in MIDI format as well as live recordings. New contributions are solicited. A search engine is included. |
| www.classicalarchives.com |
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