Hi Everyone,
When I'm coaching someone in live performance, and in articles I write over at the main MusicBizAdvice.com site, I often refer to specific artists, songs, or performances as an example to get the point across...
...And since the beginning of MusicBizAdvice.com 10 years ago, we've wanted to implement video examples into the site by including video of artist's specific performances. Until recently, performance royalties and bandwidth expense made it impractical.
Therefore, we give you The MBADC Performance Coach. You'll find it in the left-hand menu over at MusicBizAdvice.com.
When you click on it, you'll find links to video clips, along with what you can learn from each performance, and what to look for that made us cite it as an example. (Where applicable, you'll also find a link to the MusicBizAdvice.com article in which we've cited it as an example.)
Each clip, and each artist, has something you can learn...whether or not the artist is in your musical genre, or whether or not you even like that particular artist. It's all about learning from the best, and expanding your creativity.
More links to video are coming weekly, as we find them. In most cases have specific performances in mind, so it sometimes takes a little while to track it down and find the best version.
In fact, as soon as I post this I'm off to continue the search for a clip of this one band that...well, I'll leave that for you to see later.
Make something great happen today,
Randi Reed
Founder / Editor in Chief, MusicBizAdvice.com
Showing posts with label music consultation. Show all posts
Showing posts with label music consultation. Show all posts
Monday, March 10, 2008
Saturday, January 21, 2006
Dread and the Client Drop (or How to Work with Others)
This week, I performed one of my least favorite tasks: notifying an artist I won't be working with them.
Contrary to popular belief about managers, agents, A&R people, and other music executives, it's not something I ever relish or look forward to. Although I will admit to sometimes feeling a sense of "good riddance" if someone's been a real pain in the bleep.
I mention it because the artist made a key mistake you'll want to avoid in your own career: we're dropping the artist from our radar because the artist is too difficult to work with. (To protect the artist's privacy, I'll change the details.)
"Difficult" isn't bad in itself. Frankly I worry when someone blindly follows everything I tell them without question, because it means they can't say no (which leads to other problems later on).
What matters is the degree of "difficult."
State your case, and defend your art. But pick your battles. You can be hands on without being a bleep. If you're paying someone to advise you--especially when you've contacted them for help, not the other way around--don't argue with everything they're telling you. Artists who do are exhausting to work with, and people go out of their way to avoid working with them. (I once had a client who once spent 45 minutes arguing with me on the placement of a comma in his bio...Even after I showed him the entry in Strunk and White's Elements of Style and an English textbook. True story.)
Let me give you another example: Getting someone to redo some seriously off-pitch notes that are prominently heard in a chorus shouldn't take the band, a producer, an engineer, myself, and ten rocket scientists from Teledyne an hour to convince them. (OK, I exaggerated on this one. But close...)
And that's just one chorus, of one song...Of an entire CD. (Can we say expensive studio time?)
I don't claim that it's easy taking criticism, letting others into the process, delegating, or dealing with control issues. But we all go through it, no matter what we do for a living. It's all in how you handle it.
Assuming you have good people working with you, at some point you have to relax a little and let people do their jobs. Otherwise you're wasting your money, and their time. (Not to mention the time of everyone else who's working on the project.) If you can't trust them enough to let yourself relax a little, either you haven't done your job in hiring people you're comfortable with, or you're having trouble with control issues.
It's sad, because this artist is talented, and I'd really like to see them succeed.
But it ain't gonna be with me. Nor the previous other people who tried to manage them...Is it any surprise that the more successful the artist, the easier they are to work with?
©2006 Randi Reed
Contrary to popular belief about managers, agents, A&R people, and other music executives, it's not something I ever relish or look forward to. Although I will admit to sometimes feeling a sense of "good riddance" if someone's been a real pain in the bleep.
I mention it because the artist made a key mistake you'll want to avoid in your own career: we're dropping the artist from our radar because the artist is too difficult to work with. (To protect the artist's privacy, I'll change the details.)
"Difficult" isn't bad in itself. Frankly I worry when someone blindly follows everything I tell them without question, because it means they can't say no (which leads to other problems later on).
What matters is the degree of "difficult."
State your case, and defend your art. But pick your battles. You can be hands on without being a bleep. If you're paying someone to advise you--especially when you've contacted them for help, not the other way around--don't argue with everything they're telling you. Artists who do are exhausting to work with, and people go out of their way to avoid working with them. (I once had a client who once spent 45 minutes arguing with me on the placement of a comma in his bio...Even after I showed him the entry in Strunk and White's Elements of Style and an English textbook. True story.)
Let me give you another example: Getting someone to redo some seriously off-pitch notes that are prominently heard in a chorus shouldn't take the band, a producer, an engineer, myself, and ten rocket scientists from Teledyne an hour to convince them. (OK, I exaggerated on this one. But close...)
And that's just one chorus, of one song...Of an entire CD. (Can we say expensive studio time?)
I don't claim that it's easy taking criticism, letting others into the process, delegating, or dealing with control issues. But we all go through it, no matter what we do for a living. It's all in how you handle it.
Assuming you have good people working with you, at some point you have to relax a little and let people do their jobs. Otherwise you're wasting your money, and their time. (Not to mention the time of everyone else who's working on the project.) If you can't trust them enough to let yourself relax a little, either you haven't done your job in hiring people you're comfortable with, or you're having trouble with control issues.
It's sad, because this artist is talented, and I'd really like to see them succeed.
But it ain't gonna be with me. Nor the previous other people who tried to manage them...Is it any surprise that the more successful the artist, the easier they are to work with?
©2006 Randi Reed
About Your Friendly Editor, and What I Do
Welcome to my blog! Make yourself at home. (The Food's to the right, the bar's to the left, and non-alcoholic beverages are there too...)
Frankly I'd rather dive right in, but should probably tell you something about myself...
I'm the Founder and Editor-in-Chief of MusicBizAdvice.com, and a music business consultant. I started as a singer-songwriter in a band, hated it (those of you who are reading this with a sore throat from last night's gig or recording session, I salute you), and discovered that although music was (and still is) my passion, I liked the behind-the-scenes aspects a lot more than performing.
I won't tell you how long ago that was, but over the years I've worked in artist management, booking, and concert promotion at the national level. Along the way I was also an assistant manager at a record store, a personal assistant to a platinum artist, and was the editor for another platinum artist's official fan club newsletter.
The most adamantly anti-business artists (why you're reading this I don't know, but welcome) say I think too much like a suit. The most business-minded non-creatives (ditto to you) say I think too much like a musician. Often on the same day. I can live with that, because balancing the two isn't easy. But I can tell you that I'm fiercely protective of my clients, even if I don't always tell them what they want to hear. (Sidebar: A good manager should tell you what you don't want to hear. If you're surrounded by yes people who only tell you what you want to hear, you're screwed.)
MusicBizAdvice.com came about when I lost my job at a major Hollywoood entertainment firm after getting a chronic immune system disorder. It affected the part of my brain that controls math functions, reading, and writing, and was so bad that at one point I couldn't read a calendar, dial the phone, read, or use a computer because the numbers and letters scrambled in front of me. (Really conducive to booking bands, right?) My sensory perception was also affected, so watching TV or listening to music made me dizzy and nauseous. (Remember how you felt during the worst drunken episode of your life, when you felt sick and the room wouldn't stop spinning and you felt like you had to hang onto the floor so you wouldn't spin off? That's it.) I was confined to bed for quite a while, and coming back was a slow process.
During my convalescence I started outlining ideas for projects on a legal pad from my bed. In 1997, MusicBizAdvice.com was one of them. So, here we are. I hope it helps you get where you want to go in your career, helps one of your clients, or is helpful to that research paper you're writing.
As for this blog? This is where I get a little more personal, a little more editorial, give kudos to people I like, and rant about those I don't. Here's hoping it's entertaining.
©2006 Randi Reed
Frankly I'd rather dive right in, but should probably tell you something about myself...
I'm the Founder and Editor-in-Chief of MusicBizAdvice.com, and a music business consultant. I started as a singer-songwriter in a band, hated it (those of you who are reading this with a sore throat from last night's gig or recording session, I salute you), and discovered that although music was (and still is) my passion, I liked the behind-the-scenes aspects a lot more than performing.
I won't tell you how long ago that was, but over the years I've worked in artist management, booking, and concert promotion at the national level. Along the way I was also an assistant manager at a record store, a personal assistant to a platinum artist, and was the editor for another platinum artist's official fan club newsletter.
The most adamantly anti-business artists (why you're reading this I don't know, but welcome) say I think too much like a suit. The most business-minded non-creatives (ditto to you) say I think too much like a musician. Often on the same day. I can live with that, because balancing the two isn't easy. But I can tell you that I'm fiercely protective of my clients, even if I don't always tell them what they want to hear. (Sidebar: A good manager should tell you what you don't want to hear. If you're surrounded by yes people who only tell you what you want to hear, you're screwed.)
MusicBizAdvice.com came about when I lost my job at a major Hollywoood entertainment firm after getting a chronic immune system disorder. It affected the part of my brain that controls math functions, reading, and writing, and was so bad that at one point I couldn't read a calendar, dial the phone, read, or use a computer because the numbers and letters scrambled in front of me. (Really conducive to booking bands, right?) My sensory perception was also affected, so watching TV or listening to music made me dizzy and nauseous. (Remember how you felt during the worst drunken episode of your life, when you felt sick and the room wouldn't stop spinning and you felt like you had to hang onto the floor so you wouldn't spin off? That's it.) I was confined to bed for quite a while, and coming back was a slow process.
During my convalescence I started outlining ideas for projects on a legal pad from my bed. In 1997, MusicBizAdvice.com was one of them. So, here we are. I hope it helps you get where you want to go in your career, helps one of your clients, or is helpful to that research paper you're writing.
As for this blog? This is where I get a little more personal, a little more editorial, give kudos to people I like, and rant about those I don't. Here's hoping it's entertaining.
©2006 Randi Reed
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)