Don’t hesitate to ask for advice from music industry professionals on Groover to get honest and constructive feedback on the progress of your projects and career moves.

Step 1. The Music Creation Phase

Writing and Producing Songs

Before strategizing and coming up with a master plan for reaching success in the industry, you must first have the material you’ll be working with. The most important step in the entire endeavor that is a career in music is making the music itself.

Not all artists are songwriters, but consider how much more control you’ll have if you are. You’ll own larger shares of royalties of your music, have more creative freedom in the studio, and be able to use your own experiences to shape your sound and the emotion it evokes for listeners.

Songwriting is a skill that comes from a lot of listening, learning, analyzing, and reading. How do your favorite artists tell a story through song? Active listening is something you can do at any time that will greatly benefit you when you start working on new music. Apply this to instrumentals, melodies, and lyrics: look for how instruments are layered in the beat, a story arc within the lyrics, and repetition or lack thereof in the melody.

Do not hold yourself back when you’re creating. Give every idea a chance, and document anything that comes to mind when you’re away from your workspace. The Notes and Voice Memos apps are your best friends.

Using the Best Tools Available

Whether it’s a plugin, app, or sample, it’s important to use high quality tools to both learn and create.

Plugins

As you go about your production process, the additional tools you need will become clear to you. Plugins for musicians exist by the thousands and are designed to make music creation easier and more accessible, regardless of your studio setup and available equipment.

When it comes to plugins, choose quality over quantity always. It is better to spend your money wisely on the few plugins you need rather than a number of different ones that serve the same purpose because of one or two small differences in features.

Invest in good compression, EQ, piano, guitar, autotune, saturations, and limiter plugins.

Apps

No matter your level of musical proficiency, there exist apps that can streamline your music making process or note-taking efficiency. Optimize your process by figuring out what you need the most. Some ideas are:

• General music production
• Identifying chords
• Identifying a key
• Tuning an instrument
• Vocal exercises
• Learning an instrument
• Music file storage/sharing
• DJing

If an app can help you overcome an obstacle of yours, it is worth the download. Just ask Steve Lacy, who produced parts of his Grammy-winning album on his iPhone.

Sampling

Samples are an element of production that are easy to source but tricky to master. Nothing special is required to find samples – they are simply an excerpt of any pre-existing music you like.

The two ways to sample music nowadays are by 1) finding them yourself, or 2) using a sampling service online. Finding them yourself requires meticulous listening, and often a large collection of music. For the very ambitious, a vinyl collection + a turntable that allows you to convert the physical music to digital music is a great way to go about it. If you’re a quick worker and prefer to have a vast library of sounds and songs to use, online music platforms that focus on sampling, like Splice, are a perfect investment.

2. Making your Music Professional: Recording, Mixing, and Mastering

How to Find the Right Recording Studio

The quality of the recording and production of your songs is immensely important. Choosing the right music studio will give you access to high quality equipment you may not have at home and engineers that will save you time in the recording process.

There are a lot of music studios out there, but the best way to filter them and find the right fit is by taking both budget and location into account. Some studios are open to public bookings and can be rented out for however many hours on whatever days available, while others require you to reach out well in advance and discuss prices. These studios do this to vet their guests. A healthy in-between is studios who work on a subscription basis and charge per month for access to their facilities. Do a quick search for studios around you and figure out what makes the most sense for your situation.

With the right equipment, you don’t even need a professional studio. Countless successful artists record at home – you can also create an incredible studio in your own home if necessary. Here’s a breakdown of how to build a quality home studio.

Mixing

Mixing is a key step in the music production process that cannot be skipped.It is the point in the process where all elements of your track are made balanced and clear in relation to each other. Effects are added to vocals, unnecessary frequencies are cut from instruments, and the song is ready to be passed on to the mastering phrase, which is vital if you’re planning to release it to the public.

Check out our mixing tips and tricks to make your music sound good

Mastering

Mastering is the misunderstood step in music-making that actually makes the biggest difference. It is what makes a song file ready to distribute to the public through the adjustment of levels, compression, and more to make it compatible with playback devices.

Without mastering, a song would sound completely different on a phone than it would in a car or through speakers. The rumble you feel when a bass hits hard or the intimacy that comes through when a vocalist is singing softly but loudly at the same time is made possible through mastering and the processing that happens during this step. Make absolutely sure to do this before getting your music on Spotify or any other streaming service.

3. Create a Universe Around You and Your Music

Storytelling and Branding

Turning your listeners into fans requires strong storytelling that will allow them to identify you and your personality. Creating the impression for your audience that they know and have a personal connection with you will deepen the bond you have and build an even stronger community of listeners.

This requires consistency across all public channels: photos, videos, tweets, captions, etc. Hone in on what makes your personality unique and highlight it to the world. This will be your “brand” and will dictate the way you’re perceived as an artist. Look to the artists you admire and think about their persona and what they did to shape that image for you.

Find out here how to find your own way of storytelling and how to execute it.

Visual Content

Today’s social media mania requires that musicians also have a knack for visual content. Only after your music is made should you focus on visuals, but make sure to give some thought. In fact, give it a lot of thought, as it will be your primary way of getting the public’s attention and directing them to your music online.

If you don’t have a record label backing you and you’re balling on a budget, that’s ok. All you need is a phone to record something to pair with a snippet of your new music and post on social media. Try to have some short form and long form content to post on Spotify, Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok that will prompt people to find you on streaming services. The goal is to convert viewers to listeners.

Study what other artists are posting on social media to better understand what each platform likes to push. You’ll notice that Spotify likes very short, high-quality video for Canvases, Instagram likes well-edited photos and videos, and TikTok prefers informal, short-form iPhone content. Cater your content to each platform for maximum effect.

– Written by Marguerite Beaussant in its original version, translated into english by Betty Gonzalez Gray –

—

L’article How to Grow Your Music Career Effectively est apparu en premier sur Groover Blog.

And when it comes to artist branding, the “packaging” refers to all the different ways you present yourself to your audience. Logo, colors, tone of voice… All these elements will contribute to creating a story around your music.

In this article, we are going to cover everything you need to know about artist branding! Ready? Let’s dive in 👇 

1. What is Branding?

Before we dive any deeper, let’s explore what branding actually is. We all have an intuition of what brands are. But giving a precise definition is a bit harder.

A brand is defined as “a name, term, design, symbol or any other feature that distinguishes one seller’s good or service from those of other sellers” (Wikipedia).

By extension, the components of a “branding” strategy include product design, brand identity, communication style, and “any other technique that aims to create a lasting impression in the minds of customers”.

While we often think of branding in the context of companies, the truth is that all these concepts are applicable to a musical project. A band’s logo, the way they communicate with their fans, the type of photos they post on Instagram… All these elements contribute to an artist’s branding.

Is your music ready to be released? Then it’s time to prepare your promotion strategy! The best way to do this is to contact playlist curators, radio stations, media outlets, record labels...

With Groover, you can contact curators and music professionals that precisely match your song 👇

2. First: Define What your Brand Stands For

In the intro, we mentioned that your artist branding will convey a story around your music. So, ask yourself this question: what is the story you want to tell?

What does your musical project stand for? Do you aim to bring joy and love to your listeners? Or is your music dark and introspective? Or maybe it’s light and not meant to be taken too seriously?

Whatever the case may be, you need to define a few keywords that your music project stands for. Of course, this doesn’t happen in a vacuum. Your brand is closely tied to the music you make. If you’re not sure how to position your brand, ask some friends how they would describe your music. You can also get in touch with branding experts, on Fiverr for instance, to help you define your project.

Once you have a few words to describe your music, it’s time to move on to the actual branding.

3. Build your Visual Identity

The most obvious part of any brand is its logo. McDonalds, Coca-Cola, Apple… When you think of those brands, you immediately have an image that springs to mind.

The goal should be the same with your music. When people hear your band or artist name, they should immediately have an image in mind.

As an artist, you can either develop your own logo, or use a picture of yourself or your band. In both cases, your visual identity should communicate the words you’ve identified in Step #1.

Let’s look at two examples. When Skrillex burst onto the scene in 2010, his music could be qualified of “extreme”, “chaotic” and even “futuristic”. At the time, this was the logo he was using:

We can clearly see how this logo is a perfect encapsulation of his music.

Another example we can look at is the band The National. The National are known for their classy, elegant and serious style of indie rock. When we look at their band pictures, we see them all dressed in black, and rarely smiling:

Once you settle on a logo or picture, make sure to use it consistently across all your social media channels. This includes Facebook and Instagram, but also platforms like Spotify, Soundcloud and Apple Music. The goal is to become immediately recognizable.

However, your visual identity goes beyond just your logo. Take a look at the Instagram account of House producer Oliver Schories:

With the black-and-white filter, there is a deliberate choice here to convey a sober and serious image. When defining your visual identity, think about the colors you use, as well as the typography. All these choices should reinforce the words that you defined in Step #1.

4. Choose your Tone of Voice

“Tone of voice” is a marketing term that defines the language in which a company expresses itself. This includes not only the words it uses, but also the way it speaks to its customers.

In the context of artist branding, your tone of voice also covers how you communicate with your listeners. How do you express yourself on your social channels? Is it funny and jokey? Or serious and mysterious?

If we look at Fred Again, one of the most popular electronic artists currently, his communication style is very distinctive:

We could qualify this style of communication as “excited”, “raw” and “unfiltered”. This tone of voice contributes to making Fred Again a very relatable artist, and someone people connect with.

When thinking about your tone of voice, think about how you communicate naturally.

For example, Billie Eilish rarely writes any captions on her Instagram posts. However, she will post a lot of random photographs that convey her universe.

Do you prefer posting pictures and short captions on Instagram? Or do you prefer long debates on Twitter? The more natural your tone of voice, the easier it will be to keep it up. Don’t pick any tone of voice just because you think it’s cool. Pick something that matches your own personality. This will make it easier to stay consistent.

5. What’s the Bottom Line

The truth is, people want to connect with a person, not just an artist. And the more they know about you, the more they will connect with you. However, this doesn’t mean that you have to share every aspect of your personal life on social media. But the more you communicate with your audience, the more they will connect with you and your music.

A great concept popularized by Gary Vee is “Document vs. Create”. The idea is to focus more of your time on documenting your journey instead of the creation phase.

Instead of posting just once to Instagram when your song is out, document the journey of creating the song. Post behind-the-scenes pictures, videos of recording sessions, extracts of the song as it evolves etc. This will help your audience connect with you on a more personal level.

That’s It for This Guide on Artist Branding!

This wraps up our guide on artist branding! Hopefully we were able to give you some guidelines to start thinking about your own artist branding.

Ready to share your music with playlists, radio stations and people of the music industry? Let’s go 👇

What are the most important elements of an artist’s brand in your opinion? Let us know in the comments down below 👇

L’article Artist Branding: How to Make your Musical Project Unforgettable? est apparu en premier sur Groover Blog.

One thing that is often criticized about streaming services is the difficulty of getting music fans to be interested in more than just a song – getting the audience to invest in the personality of an artist and his or her world.

Zane Lowe (Radio host from Apple Music) 

Here are a few tips to make your project a unique experience so that fans will want to listen and keep coming back.

1. What is Storytelling?

Storytelling used to be the only way we passed on information. Prior to written text, humans learned everything they knew by being passed information from generation to generation. This is also how the oldest myths and legends have survived and are still common knowledge today. Stories that are informative, exciting, and entertaining have a way of sticking with us. So does music. Whether you are a musician or a listener, is goes without saying that music is a means of storytelling in its own right. Even without lyrics, a melody can convey meaning through its movements, dynamics, and rhythms. Now imagine a combination of text and song, and how powerful it can be. When something we hear is able to bring us to another place in our minds and trigger our imagination and emotions, it becomes memorable. It tickles the five senses through the descriptive words, a lyrical story development, and chord progressions.

The art of storytelling allows you to capture the attention of your listeners beyond your music.

As an artist, you can tell a story in your music as well as your persona. Each song can have its own universe, but the way you present yourself to the public should be consistent with what you wish to convey. That, too, is a story.

2. The Power of Storytelling

The most successful artists know the value of storytelling and know how to sell themselves. With around 100,000 songs being released on Spotify every day, you have to stand out from the crowd in order to exist. How do you get your track onto the appropriate playlist or on radio stations? Think about when you discover new music while watching Youtube videos, for example. What makes you click subscribe or seek out music by the same artist? Apart from making a high-quality song, you need to use storytelling to entice listeners to invest more in your project. If you look at your music library, you probably know at least a little bit about the lives of your favorite artists.

Think of your musical world as a movie or a novel consisting of several hundred pages. Musicians are, after all, creators. Every action you take is a chance to move your story forward and make additional connections with your audience. Every concert you play, every video you create, every new song you release, every newsletter you send out, every article that is written about your project is part of your story. And that story stimulates imagination and passion and creates a sense of community between you and your fans.

For film score composers, the images and storyline are given. The composer’s job is to find the right melody and rhythm to make the story that much more powerful and immersive. As a musician, you’ve got the melody and rhythm. You just need to find the right images to bring your story to life.

Looking to promote your music? ⬇️

3. What’s Your Story?

Personal Influences

Are you an avid David Bowie fan? Do you love the beats of Notorious B.I.G.? Maybe Mozart is more your style. Let it be known. By associating yourself with your music icons, you instantly give the listener other songs to reference before they listen to your tracks. The type of music you listen to can say a lot about the type of music you make. Making playlists that compile your favorite genres, from folk to funk, and then sharing them on your social networks can be a great way to connect with your audience.

Background/Culture

Your heritage or even just the place you live may be an influential part of your music and what you represent. Take for example the hip-hop scene in Atlanta, which in 2009 was called the “center of gravity of hip-hop” by the New York Times. The city is home to many famous hip-hop, R&B and neo-soul musicians such as Childish Gambino, The Migos, OutKast, T.I., Future and Gucci Mane. You can also pull from your personal heritage and where your family originates. If you have an international background, don’t hesitate to incorporate some of its cultural elements into your music and style

Experiences

If you’ve had a unique experience or have been greatly affected by something and are comfortable sharing, don’t be afraid to write about it or make it known. For those who can’t relate, it will be a fascinating look into what it was like, and for those who understand, they’ll feel a sense of connection to you and your music.

4. Building a Universe Around Your Music

As “the art of narration”, storytelling requires creativity, vision, skills, and also practice. Whether you’re a director, painter, or writer, all artists follow a creative process of their own. This creative process helps them know where to start, how to develop their visions and how to perfect their practice over time. The same applies to storytelling.

In the digital age, artists need to get noticed on social networks. With Facebook, Youtube, Twitter, Instagram and TikTok, you have a multitude of platforms to express yourself and share your musical project. Building your music career doesn’t just happen on music sites or Soundcloud anymore. It happens across the internet and through outlets that weren’t originally built for users to listen to music. The challenge is learning how to juggle between these different platforms: your story can take many forms. Some elements can be read or watched, and others listened to.

The communication medium you choose depends on how you want to express yourself, as well as on your resources such as time and money. Of course, music videos are a great way to tell your story. Nowadays, releasing music without a video, especially a single, is a wasted opportunity to entice new fans. Even a well crafted lyric video can do the trick. All your audience needs is a little extra context to your song.

There are other forms of communicating with your audience that can really add depth to your project. Podcasts are a great way to maintain narrative control over your creations and give your fans something extra. Releasing exclusive demo recordings can also be a good way to intimately connect with your audience. Are you also a sound engineer or producer? Share short tutorials about how you work on your mixes or create your loops.

5. The Transmedia Strategy: the example of Gorillaz

Transmedia storytelling is a derivative of storytelling. It consists of creating a universe through various forms of media. The pooling of all these narrative elements aims to create an artistic experience in its own right. This process has existed since the arrival of the internet and was intended to develop the relationship between various artists and their respective communities. One of the pioneers of transmedia storytelling is the band Gorillaz.

Band members Damon Albarn (also the frontman of Blur) and Jamie Hewlett created a virtual band that lived in their own universe and led different lives. These cartoon characters produced a strong visual identity for Gorillaz. Throughout their clips, the two artists built a story around the lives of the characters. To promote one of their world tours, the group organized an online treasure hunt. They were not only making music, but making an entirely new world.

Gorillaz launched an app for the release of their album “Humanz” (2017). This app allowed fans to explore the space in the “sacred rooms of the Gorillaz house”, and discover virtual reality experiments, playlists and a behind the scenes look at the new album. As you can see, their efforts around promoting their project went much further than just listening to music!

Among the best known examples of this technique is Daft Punk with the film Interstellar 5555 from the album Discovery (2001), whose universe is inspired by the famous Japanese manga and tells the story of several characters, not to mention the mystery surrounding the true identity of the masked duo.

You can develop your storytelling in the form of a web series, too, just like the psychedelic rock band Magon. In “Magon The Dragon”, they take you behind the scenes with exclusive footage from their life in Paris. Creating a web series like they did can also allow you to create music tracks specifically for these short videos. Why not experiment with composing instrumentals or soft background music?

6. The Most Important Tip: Stay Authentic

Don’t pretend to be something you’re not. Your audience and the media will see right through it. That being said, figure out what truly sets you apart from others? What aspect of your life will connect emotionally with your listeners? How far can your creative potential go? Take the time to find your authentic self and the rest will follow. These are the elements that will attract fans and music critics alike. It’s all of these things that need to be at the center of your story. Don’t become background music. Many gay and LGBTQ+ music icons, from David Bowie to Elton John, built lasting careers by remaining authentically themselves.

Conclusion

In conclusion, storytelling in music is a powerful tool that can captivate and engage audiences. Some of the best music out there has a strong universe supporting it. By incorporating unique elements, building a world around your songs, and telling a story, musicians can stand out from the crowd and create a loyal following. So, if you’re a composer and a music lover, storytelling in music can help you take your passion to the next level.

| To stand out from the crowd, check out CMC Studio’s tips here 👈

– Article written by Amy Cimpaye in its original version, translated by Mackenzie Leighton –

Next article:

> 9 tips for small budget music video productions

To go further:

> How to build your musical project and attract the interest of professionals and fans

—

To get article coverage and added to playlists to share on your social networks, check out Groover 🚀

L’article Storytelling: Building a Universe Around Your Musical Project est apparu en premier sur Groover Blog.