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Head Above Music is a community of musicians providing tips and advice
about music, songwriting, gear, booking, touring, travel and health.
Here is some insight on what performing musicians have learned from
their journeys.
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Friday, July 23, 2010 |
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The Skinny of Show Preparation
By Skinny Paul
I’ve been playing music on stage since I was 9 years old. I’ve tried it all when it comes to vocal show prep. Throat coats, vocal exercises, honey, cough syrups, and gum were always a way to get through shows when I was playing 3 or 4 nights a week. It took me “blowing my voice up” at 22 years old and never having it come back clear to learn from an E.N.T. Dr. on how to sing without hurting myself.
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Posted by admin at 08:31 AM
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Monday, July 19, 2010 |
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Leave Your Drama At Home: More Rockin’ And Less Squawkin’!
By Sheena Metal
No matter how we, as human beings, live our lives…drama happens. And the average musician has more drama than the crazy cat lady down the block has bags of used litter on her porch. At every turn, your average wannabe rockstar has a crazy squeeze, a crazier ex, a harem of would-be lovers, and a gaggle of insane stalkers. Then there’s the band drama, manager drama, club drama, fan drama, gear drama, and let’s not even get started on the online drama potential. Before you know it, your band makes “Desperate Housewives” look like 60 Minutes.
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Posted by admin at 08:51 AM
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Sunday, June 13, 2010 |
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BECAUSE I LOVE IT!
By Robert Rolfe Feddersen
When asked to do anything in the realm of music I am always flattered. Whether it be a performance, a song for a no budget film, or an article of advice for musicians. Here it is:
Play, write, record music because you love it. Any other motive is bullshit. I want to be a star, I don’t want to work, I want to be rich….etc. Although it does happen for some, it does not happen for most. Music first and foremost is something you feel, something you hear, and something you express. Make it mean something to YOU first. Honesty and truth when done well always gets through to the listener.
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Posted by admin at 06:18 PM
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Wednesday, June 9, 2010 |
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The Blogging Side Of Music – Part 2 of 5 – Dave Tamkin
Tuesday, 8 June 2010, 1 Comments
Today, we once again open the floor to Chicago-based (and now Colorado located) national touring musician, Dave Tamkin. We spoke with Dave about the promotional strategies that he finds to be most effective on his own blog, Head Above Music. Dave created Head Above Music as a free resource for musicians to find tips about gear, touring, travel, health and other important interests related to the working musician:
Describe yourself as an artist.
I’ve been a full time national touring musician for the last 8 years, maybe more but I don’t want to admit it. I try to write honest, upbeat, percussive songs that tell stories from a few different perspectives.
How important is social media marketing to your overall goals as an artist. Do you use it often? What is the level of engagement between you and your fans through various social networking channels?
It’s important to stay in contact with your friends and fans at a few different levels. It’s a creative outlet like anything else and the more you can give your audience new material to keep them updated and entertained the better. I use Facebook daily. I have a good time posting crazy ass videos and try to find something either personal or external that provokes some comments. Its fun to see people I’ve met from across the country interact on a topic.
I’m not a huge twitter fan but keep it updated through other platforms. Myspace is still great to tool to connect with other musicians but I’m not sure how many people still use it.
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Posted by admin at 04:48 PM
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Friday, June 4, 2010 |
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Are You An Unhappy Musician?
10 Tips To Get Musical Pain Relief
by Tom Hess
Are you satisfied with your guitar playing skills right now? Are you playing guitar at the level you want to? Have you been making the kind of progress you are happy with throughout your life as a musician?
I don’t know about you, but when I was starting to learn guitar (many years ago), I couldn’t honestly answer “Yes” to any of these questions. So if your response is similar, then you and I probably have a lot in common. I used to doubt if I would ever develop guitar skills to the same level as my favorite guitarists and become the musician I wanted to be. If you are still reading this, then you probably are wondering (or have thought about) the same things. Looking back now, I understand why I was feeling this way. I also understand that if I had stayed in that mental state, I would never have gotten out of the rut I was in and progressed as a player.
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Posted by admin at 10:53 AM
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Tuesday, June 1, 2010 |
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Songwriting in Traffic
By Ed Gershon Singer/Songwriter for Chicago’s Butterfly In Traffic
As a songwriter, it’s always fascinating for me to learn about how a musician creates their music. What are their secrets? It’s really just a spiritual ordeal that is beyond me. Since I’m not formally educated in music, I don’t sit down and write theoretically. I rely heavily on repetition- which means recording constantly to archive ideas and complete songs.
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Posted by admin at 08:05 AM
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Wednesday, May 19, 2010 |
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17 Ways Bands Should Use Email to Grow Their Fan Base and Sales
By MusicNomad
Your relationship with your fans has never been more important. They hold the money and are the ones that want to buy directly from you. They love your music and are whom you need to develop an intimate relationship with if you want your band’s career to grow. If used right Email and Email management is a powerful tool to make that fan relationship grow. Email can be used in a range of ways such as a personalized message to give them an update on your band or a call for action to buy something from you. We have put together what we believe are the 17 best ways to use Email to connect with and grow your fan base and sales.
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Posted by admin at 11:33 AM
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Tuesday, May 18, 2010 |
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Recording on a Shoestring Budget
By Tom Canning
Ipswich,
United Kingdom
Finding information about recording on a shoestring budget isn’t easy. Sure, there are plenty of articles online that can guide you through buying sensibly and cheaply, but very few that actually, from start to finish, give you an idea of how to record your songs with the most merge of funds. There must be thousands out of people out there in the same position – many of whom have never even tried to record for this very reason. Cost can be prohibitive, but in fact, excluding instruments and assuming you have a desktop computer, you can get pretty good results for less than £100 ($150).
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Posted by admin at 10:47 AM
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Saturday, April 24, 2010 |
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The Death of the Bridge
By Brian Hazard of Passive Promotion
Many of my all-time favorite songs are “growers” – album tracks that don’t really grab you the first few spins, but eventually dig their hooks in and don’t let go. Few artists these days have the luxury of writing growers, because listeners aren’t willing to invest that kind of time. Unless the artist is proven to deliver, the listener will tune out and move on. While I’m a huge fan of the album format, it’s hard to deny the shifting focus from albums to individual songs. Every one of those songs needs to grab the listener’s attention and hold it until the last note – preferably longer! In order for your songs to be grabbers rather than growers, they must have clear and familiar structures.
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Posted by admin at 09:27 AM
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Wednesday, April 21, 2010 |
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The Music Biz : Five Important Tips for Staying Sane and in the Game
By T.Reed – Composer @ TAO X Productions
Be honest. Not just to others, but to yourself. Be introspective. Don’t let people blow smoke up your ass and get swelled with it and don’t let the critics bog you down…be dead on honest with what caliber you are in the food chain and live with it or up your game, but don’t BS yourself. Make side-by-side comparisons to professionally recorded and well-crafted songs and honestly try to figure out the difference. VIDEO RECORD your shows and observe what you really look like, not what you think you look like. I’ll never forget the time we had a temp GTR player who tried to do some kind of Van Halen ‘back to back buddy’ poses with me on stage when I wasn’t looking…He thought it was cool, I thought he was just bumping into me by accident…The videotape revealed the painful truth;)
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Posted by admin at 05:49 AM
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keep looking »
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Jul 29, 2010
