Feature ~ Blog

    Making a living making music. The elusive pursuit. As in most arts disciplines, we can all look to examples of success and identify our heart’s desire. However the exact steps towards getting there are much harder to distill. When I decided to be singer for a living a piano player who was in the midst of a swell of success in his career, advised me that “being a musician for a living is very difficult. It’s not like other jobs where you put in your time, take certain steps up a corporate ladder and achieve promotions in due course. There is no set of steps to follow, and what worked for others will not necessarily work for you.”

    Ever since that conversation I’ve spent almost as much of my time as singer cultivating my business skills, as I have my musical skills.  This has taken up much time, and often much money, reading and researching, attending conferences, and producing marketing materials. I am reminded of another wise observation: “Those who profited from the gold rush weren’t those who sifted for gold. It was the people who sold shovels and sieves”. I’ve always held that perspective close at hand, because in the world of independent music making, there are countless spin-off businesses lying in wait to take your money in exchange for the promise of helping you “make it”. Whether I’m paying for a producer and time in a studio, or paying for an online EPK, there’s lots of ways to spend my money furthering my career, and none of them guarantee a return.

    Thank goodness then, for the solid and trustworthy advice contained in the series of podcasts “The New Indie” produced by the Canadian Independent Recording Artists’ Association (CIRAA). With the likes of singer/songwriters Katherine Rose and Ember Swift on their board of Directors you can be sure that CIRAA is able to produce a career advice guide that is well directed towards the needs of musicians. The format also indicates an intelligent application of funds. Volume One of “The New Indie” consists of four radio show type installments that are well focused on the topics of Labels, Management and Publishing. This reflects an understanding that audio is more efficient, both to produce and distribute, then the printed word these days.  It also supports the premise of the series: That the entertainment industry is continually changing and that currency is a large part of valuable advice.

    The New Indie proves itself to be of great worth by snagging interviews with influential industry insiders such as Hayden Neil, of Jack Soul, Sheri Jones, manager to Kim Stockwood and Joel Plaskit, among others, and Randi Lennox, the president of Universal Music Canada, to name just a few. This focus on the Canadian music industry helps to set the tone towards a long-term vision of the career musician, as opposed to the star machine model famous south of the border. It also allowed me unparalleled access to career advice from the big guns in the industry; people with coveted experience.

    The series fills a much-needed gap regarding general understanding of how the industry works in this country. I do confess that even after being involved in the release of five independent albums, each of which can be considered artistically and financially successful, I didn’t fully understand the roles of managers, labels, and publishers. Many bands struggle with the great questions of when and why to pursue working with these elements of the industry. Usually this is because we are all balancing delicate budgets, and packed schedules, and it’s hard to know when your company is big enough to employ others. Part of that confusion is precisely because these roles are changing as technology forces the whole industry to re-evaluate distribution and profit models. The importance placed on creativity and perseverance in this series was encouraging enough to get me through my fear of the unknown. The installments also clarify several elements of the industry’s expectation of the artist and allow you to set out goals by placing yourself against the grid illustrated by the interview subjects.

    Whether you’re starting out, or you’ve just sold 1500 albums and toured to a solid following, you’ll be able to make use of the advice in this series. I really appreciated the focus on long term career artists over “lucky break” type advice. It turns out there may in fact be a clearer path to follow then I thought. At least The New Indy allows you to get a better lay of the land. And thank god, they’re offering you the sieve for free.

 

You can download the podcasts at http://www.thenewindie.com