Your post-Rally game plan?

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PDebik
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Re: Your post-Rally game plan?

Post by PDebik » Fri Nov 13, 2020 10:02 am

@cosmicdolphin I learn from this discussion that we should differentiate the music. For production music that is meant to go to libraries I absolutely agree that the quality is the most important aspect, and that you are right with your assessment.

For other music, the songs not going to libraries, I believe that it's a number game. Of all people on earth there will always be a million who just love a song, even if there are tens of millions who don't. I think the trick is to find the one million who love it, because it will be enough to have a successful song that earns you something.

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Re: Your post-Rally game plan?

Post by cosmicdolphin » Sat Nov 14, 2020 8:26 am

PDebik wrote:
Fri Nov 13, 2020 10:02 am
For other music, the songs not going to libraries, I believe that it's a number game.
I wish you luck but if you're relying on the numbers game the odds heavily stacked against you :-

Spotify..over 50 million songs

iTumes ..over 60 millions

Youtube ..around 60 million

Also it's not only a numbers game ( chance ) it's a game of skill as well. The best marketing in the world won't keep fans engaged if the product is inferior
PDebik wrote:
Fri Nov 13, 2020 10:02 am
Of all people on earth there will always be a million who just love a song, even if there are tens of millions who don't. I think the trick is to find the one million who love it, because it will be enough to have a successful song that earns you something.


Well if you write a million seller / streamer I'll be the first to congratulate you but ask yourself a question. Have you ever bought a song from an unknown artist who's music you stumbled across ? I know I haven't.

Good Luck with it though.

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Re: Your post-Rally game plan?

Post by Kolstad » Sun Nov 15, 2020 6:03 am

No game plan here. I play music at home because I love my guitars. Sometimes I like to wrap my guitars in an arrangement, and record it, and enjoy that too.

I have spent about 20k on music so far, and hope to get half of it back someday. :lol:
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Re: Your post-Rally game plan?

Post by PDebik » Sun Nov 15, 2020 6:13 am

@cosmicdolphin
That may be true that there is a lot of music out there, increasing heavily by the hour. But this does not keep new songs from bubbling up into the charts. There can be 60 million songs while only 10,000 are marketed properly so that they find their audience. My plan is that if only a tenth of a percent of all listeners like a song, it will still be sufficient to rank it up into a platinum status, because the overall number of listeners is so high. And honestly, don't you think that the music TAXI composers are creating is only good for 0.1 % of listeners? I believe that after some education here and some experience we are more in the double digit area already, and with genre specific audience my experience is that I can easily get 80 % likes for "good" songs, not speaking of freaking awesome songs.

Another observance through the past months by me was that the "hit" songs that make it into the charts normally have an approval rate of >92 % of all listeners. I am not reaching that level with my music. This is probably what you'd achieve when you are argueing that quality is the key. But do I need to reach that level? No, because even with an approval rate of 80 to 90 % the song might not break the charts, but it will still find an audience so large that for the low production investment compared to chart breaking hits (that often need a huge crowd of marketing, production, sales, administration staff) the ROI is just as good.

O.k., so here we are, working on it. My idea might fail, and in that case I'll gladly report it here that it failed. But currently, it does not really seem to fail. Time will tell.

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Re: Your post-Rally game plan?

Post by Robertj64 » Sun Nov 15, 2020 8:06 am

PDebik wrote:
Sun Nov 15, 2020 6:13 am
@cosmicdolphin
That may be true that there is a lot of music out there, increasing heavily by the hour. But this does not keep new songs from bubbling up into the charts. There can be 60 million songs while only 10,000 are marketed properly so that they find their audience. My plan is that if only a tenth of a percent of all listeners like a song, it will still be sufficient to rank it up into a platinum status, because the overall number of listeners is so high. And honestly, don't you think that the music TAXI composers are creating is only good for 0.1 % of listeners? I believe that after some education here and some experience we are more in the double digit area already, and with genre specific audience my experience is that I can easily get 80 % likes for "good" songs, not speaking of freaking awesome songs.

Another observance through the past months by me was that the "hit" songs that make it into the charts normally have an approval rate of >92 % of all listeners. I am not reaching that level with my music. This is probably what you'd achieve when you are argueing that quality is the key. But do I need to reach that level? No, because even with an approval rate of 80 to 90 % the song might not break the charts, but it will still find an audience so large that for the low production investment compared to chart breaking hits (that often need a huge crowd of marketing, production, sales, administration staff) the ROI is just as good.

O.k., so here we are, working on it. My idea might fail, and in that case I'll gladly report it here that it failed. But currently, it does not really seem to fail. Time will tell.
Most of those hits in the charts are backed by a lot of money by the bigger labels. Some of marketing revolves around skill but the bulk of that requires a lot of money. Whatever the case, your song must resonate enough with people that they will want to spread it around. Anything short of that and they won't share it whether it is on Spotify, Apple Music..etc. Spotify for me at this point is a huge waste of time. I do not have any expectations that my songs will be streamed 40 million times allowing for me to get a decent salary to get by. Placements into films is probably a better way to go. If you get some high quality placements, then that could result in the Spotify to provide some gravy money. Spotify will starve out the smaller musicians if they rely on it for their sole answers and marketing.

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Re: Your post-Rally game plan?

Post by Kolstad » Sun Nov 15, 2020 10:55 am

Music for public consumption has basically been free for two decades now. Streaming services is not really a sales channel, it is a free marketing channel. You can use the metrics from streaming to get gigs, but you wont make coffee money from it.
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Re: Your post-Rally game plan?

Post by cosmicdolphin » Sun Nov 15, 2020 2:29 pm

PDebik wrote:
Sun Nov 15, 2020 6:13 am
But this does not keep new songs from bubbling up into the charts.
Those songs that chart have a marketing budget ( circa $50k+ ..depending what / who it is ) with experienced teams of marketeers and pluggers people behind them.

As an example , I am a fan of a very talented English Singer Songwriter called David Ford..not a household name but has a loyal following. He tours consistently and has supported the likes of Starsailor , KT Tunstall, Richard Ashcroft, Elvis Costello and Suzanne Vega.

After several releases he has no record label now and self publishes everything. His most played Spotify track " State of The Union " released in 2005 has 462,275 streams which is worth around £1,470 ..or about half a month's pay of an average UK worker.

Yet despite all this none of his singles or albums ever reached the Top 40 despite being heralded as the " next big thing " and getting airplay on UK national radio.

His songs are way better than anything I've ever heard on Taxi and in his younger days befriended an up and coming engineer/mixer called James Brown who went on to become a Grammy winner and still mixes his songs for him.

On one of his series of recent lockdown Youtube gigs he said that music only just about pays the bills and he was on the verge of jacking it in a few years to get a job, and the only reason he can keep going is because a famous French singer Johnny Hallyday covered one of his songs which was on a Number One album. And it's those royalties that allow him to continue.

I think you are massively underestimating how hard it is to get ANYONE to listen to and pay for your music, let alone go platinum ?

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Re: Your post-Rally game plan?

Post by aswann » Wed Nov 18, 2020 9:23 am

Yes Vikki! Great post and I feel almost exactly the same about all you said! Very inspiring Rally! It's amazing how much energy, inspiration and knowledge, even a virtual Rally can give us! :)

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Re: Your post-Rally game plan?

Post by RickElliott » Mon Nov 08, 2021 6:08 am

I'm missing, already, chatting with the early birds in the morning. It's the reason I came here today.

I recently re-joined in August I think. I told myself I'm going to give it a real go. I didn't take it seriously last time I was a member - but considering what else is out there (nothing) - I came back. So glad I did, but face-palming myself for being so hard-headed and thin-skinned in the past.

My first rally really opened my eyes. Great, great, GREAT community of people, great staff, great chief, & those of them (and us) around Michael. As a former military officer, I KNOW that you can assess the effectiveness of a leader by how everyone else reacts & acts around him. There's no animosity, no fighting, just love and sincere service of the mission.

Many of the things presented in the panels, I already do and have done for the last 12 or so years. But plodding along to make tracks for streaming just isn't cutting it. Yes, I will continue to feed my artist brand, but my primary mission is to submit to requests and feed the libraries I get signed to. I've already read some of the books and ordered a couple more.

Because of the rally, I did learn some things that will change my process a little, like different templates for different genres in my DAW of choice. I bought a couple more plugins that will be useful in the next year and many more years to come. I've learned that I will go back to the genres that I've tossed on the side of the road when I pigeon-holed myself into my current genre.

Right before the rally, I had 4 forwards. I went in knowing that I CAN do this. I feel very lucky, but very confident because of the things I've learned.

The notes I took and the things I've learned put a fire under me to NOT be lazy, to NOT be satisfied with "artistic" decisions I've made in the past. Though there are trillions of possibilities in creating, it's pretty finite on what music cultivators for media are looking for. We can use our art to make something wonderful, be heard, and that's the bottom line. It's a challenge. It's a challenge that's attainable and rewarding. It's not easy, but it's extremely worthwhile.

I really regret not being able to go to Robbie's hangs.

I wish I had done this years ago, but I'm here now. I'm in it for the long haul.

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