Every year, thousands of people attempt to start their music career. With new technology and online services, this is now a journey that anyone can navigate. Making yourself knowledgeable about the evolving music industry is your key to starting a sustainable and successful music career.
How serious are you about your music career? This question might seem silly, but knowing the answer is essential to defining your personal success. Do you want this to be your side job or your career? Figure this out for yourself and you can approach your career with purpose, and this will be evident in your work.
Create your own music. As an unsigned artist, you can differentiate yourself from other emerging or established musicians by showcasing your original work. Have a repertoire of original songs readily available to showcase and perform. Record your music well; either invest in recording equipment, software or time at a local recording studio. However, the quality of your production is not the deciding factor for a label or manager. Nonetheless, it is important to ensure that you provide labels and managers with the best representation of your sound.
Copyright and protect your music. If you distribute your music online via aggregators or record labels, then you must protect yourself from intellectual property theft and copyright infringement. Copyright can be conducted without a lawyer, maximizing efficiency and reducing expenses. This is a necessity, regardless of the status of your career.
Consider a membership to performing rights organizations such as ASCAP, BMI or SESAC. They will work to ensure that royalties are distributed to you appropriately. While it might not seem important in the beginning, the foundation of legal protection is necessary for your music to flourish commercially in the future.
Analyze your current situation in terms of your career status, expectations, and goals. Should you be looking for a manager, aggregator, or label? Managers book shows, put you in contact with labels, and cover public relations, usually at the price of a retainment cost, however certain agreements result in a percentage of your revenue. Aggregators distribute your music efficiently to all the digital retailers and streaming services for a fee. Record labels assume responsibility for distribution, legalities, and marketing for a percentage of your revenue. When finalizing a contract with a label, there are two avenues to consider: Assignment and Licensing. Assignment results in the signing away of all rights to the label in return for extreme support as well as commitment from the label. Assignment ensures trust on both ends as the artist believes the label is fully capable of handling not only their music but their career. On the other hand, the other conclusion is through licensing your music to the label. The artist will be able to maintain their rights to the music, however, the relationship with the label will be weaker as less trust is evident. What you decide will depend on the size of the label that signs you, your desired relationship with your label, and your vision for your music career.
You need to be heard, seen, and constantly thought of. Create a simple webpage that describes who you are, gives upcoming show dates, and links visitors to music and social networking feeds. Your social media presence must be strong if you want to be a relevant force in an extremely competitive industry.
Backtrack, a music service dedicated to connecting unsigned artists with managers and record labels throughout the world, makes the rapidly evolving music industry more accessible to those who seek to start a professional music career. The conventional method of starting any music career requires a lot of time, effort, dedication, and money–all of which are the necessary and inevitable costs of touring. By giving artists direct access to managers and labels on its digital platform, Backtrack reduces the amount of touring that is needed to get noticed or discovered by labels and managers, thus saving the artist a significant amount of money. Backtrack uses software to connect you to the global labels and managers that would be best for you, based on your goals, sounds, and visions. Furthermore, Backtrack offers organizational and analytical tools which you can use to further develop your sound and image, thus growing your musical career and potential and making you an attractive prospect for record labels and managers.
Starting a successful music career used to seem impossible. It was easy to feel hopeless and overwhelmed by the roadblocks, uncertainty, and magnitude of competition. However, Backtrack is committed to making your music career a very feasible reality, because we believe every voice should have the opportunity to be heard by the right people throughout the world. So go ahead, if you’re talented and passionate and ready to start your career, you can be confident that Backtrack is actively rooting for you and ready to take your career to the next level.
For more information on Backtrack and our services follow the link below:
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