From Scratch – Adventures in Independent Music Making

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Overhaulin‘ is my Dad’s favourite TV show. Thus, it was fitting for him to suggest that I call Chip Foose after I told him I was planning to ‘overhaul’ my website. That may have been the best plan of action, as I think I went in a bit over my head with this week’s challenge: Optimizing my website. It wasn’t enough to enhance the site I already have, oh no, I wanted to completely renovate my online communication vehicle … for a number of reasons: 1) I love doing this stuff, though I have no idea what I’m doing. The graphic design tasks are a lot of guess work for me, but luckily the content management and html business is MUCH easier since I use Bandzoogle 2) This is something I’ve been wanting to do for months now 3) We have a really big show coming up at the end of the month and since it is being advertized on a major radio station and in a magazine article, I want the site to visually represent me and where I am as an artist now. Challenge week 3 was the perfect excuse to make this project a priority for 7 days.

Ariel‘s Chapter/Challenge 3 is based around 6 key tactics in web design that have been shown through various studies to develop and maintain one’s fan base: The first builds off of the labours of Week 2 (Creating Your Perfect Pitch) and simply prompts you to put your newly crafted pitch on your website (and all other online/social networking sites). I did that as soon as I had it ready, but then I had to go back and do it again after making the new graphics. This time I wanted to make it part of the picture, not just a line of text below the menu, like it was in the old design:

You can barely see it there in yellow, right?

I wanted my pitch to have a more prominent and integrated place on my webpage, so it had to become part of the background image I was dreaming up in my head. The Pitch, along with the rest of the text on the site had to have the right font. A new font. I went to dafont.com, upon the recommendation of my housemate Beth Moore, and picked out many many many different fonts and downloaded them all, because … get this: they’re FREE! It was really hard to settle on one, but I ended up chosing Rosemary Roman as my primary font. There are some others that I’ll incorporate for menu buttons and body text, but I haven’t figured out how to upload custom fonts yet. Should hear back from the Bandzoogle headquarters tomorrow. I like this one because it has an ancient quality to it. I’ve been doing a lot of reading on celtic spirituality lately, so this font really spoke to me in a stylistic way. Incorporating visual representations of my current influences, as well as all the elements of my pitch, was also really important in the design process.

Before I could even think about putting my ideas into a digital image, I needed to learn how to make a background for a website. Though it is no substitute for an in-person teacher, I did come across this You Tube video which was a great resource for me while figuring out how to put the new site design together. There is a whole series on using dreamweaver, so if you use that builder, you should check it out.

After I got a basic idea for what I needed to do, I started searching for images. I already had some photos of me on the roof of our house back home that my Mum took of me during our informal photoshoot while I was in home in July for my brother’s graduation. She’s a great photographer. I wanted this webpage to be really visually interesting and surreal (Salvador Dali is my favourite fine artist), so I messed around with a ton of different effects and ended up using mostly a combination of “Diffuse Glow”, “High Pass”, “Photo Filter”, and “Ink Outlines”.

The rest of the background came from several hours of searching Creative Commons to find public domain and/or permission to copy images that were relevant to my vision. As soon as I have a chance (it’s 5am now and I need to sneak in a couple hours of sleep before going to the vocal school tomor- … uh, later today), in the “About” section of my website, I will be posting all of the original images (as well as crediting the authors/providers) with descriptions of how they were incorporated into the design and what they symbolize. A few noteworthy ones include the door/hedge/windows which were taken from a photo of the house Charles Dickens was born in. The water fall is the one that was used for Golum’s Pool in Lord of the Rings and the waves represent my East Coast heritage. I do miss the ocean. I grew up with the Atlantic in my backyard and though Lake Ontario is pretty big, it’s just not the same.

The finished product of the background image ended up looking like this:

If you click on the image it will open up to a bigger size so you can see the details. That being said, the image size (I learned) plays a big role in how fast your website can load. Ariel explains that if a site doesn’t load in less than 3.5 seconds, your chances of keeping potential new fans on your site is greatly decreased. I can understand that. We live in a fast paced, convenience based society here in North America. I didn’t want to sacrifice the artistic benefits of having a captivating background image, however, so I did a little research and trial-and-erroring and ended up making a 1400 x 730 pixel image which just fits into the screen (at least on my monitor. I still need to test this size out on some other monitors). I did test drive the new webpage with a few friends to see how fast it came up in their browsers and they all said it was really fast, so I think I’m okay for the 3.5 second rule.

After messing around with the Bandzoogle custom style builder, I came up with a finish product that looks like this:

For a variety of reasons, the next requirement Ariel sets out is to have no Flash intros. I don’t have an intro page, I think it’s better to just take people to the information they want, but my site does use Flash. I have a lot of content too though, so I think it balances itself out.

Having a consistent look across all of my online/social sites is the next big point of consideration. This is very important for me, as all of my sites are completely different at the moment. I didn’t have time to change them all this week, because it took a ridiculous number of hours to just create that background image. It will, however, be easy to transfer it into my other pages and I look forward to catching up with that later this week.

I was already giving away a free download of my album when people sign up for my newsletter list, so at least I was ahead with that one! It’s funny to me that Ariel describes this tactic as ‘bribing’ your potential subscribers. I had never thought of it that way before. Sure, it’s an incentive, but I’ve always thought of it as  being a gesture of gratitude. I’m more than happy to give my music to people who are keen to support me in my musical adventures. One thing I did have to do was add a disclaimer that I won’t sell or share subscribers personal information. I had never thought about that, but it makes total sense. With today’s plight of telemarkerting racket, identity theft paranoia, and general distrust of businesses folk, slipping a line of reassurance in there not only puts the subscriber’s mind at ease, but also makes you look more professional because it shows that you care about the wellbeing of your clients/customers.

That being said, I discovered from my Google Alerts today that someone copied and pasted my entire last blog entry into their own blog post. I’m very happy to be included, but it seems very bizarre to me as I’ve never been referred to as sounding like Tool before (author: if you’re reading, I’d like to hear your thoughts). What’s more bizarre is that, oddly enough, I have recently been wanting to do a cover of The Pot.

5 Successes from this past week:

1)Finished writing and recorded a new song for another compilation CD
2)Taught the guitarists the remaining songs they need to know for the “Nu Music Night” gig on August 31st
3)Put in an offer on a potential new house!
4)Finished the new web design!
5)Performed a great show at Studio BLR and the webcast went really smoothly again. We’re on a roll!

Goals Review/Update:

Well, it looks like I didn’t achieve any of the goals I had set out during Week 1 for this week. Why? I wasn’t organized enough to know what they were going in and had I kept them in mind while making my schedule for this week, I would have recognized that a) they were unrealistic due to the time I had available to me this week, given the pursuits of other more important goals and b) they were too far ahead. I need to try and keep my goals lined up with the week of the program I am working in so that I can get the most of the week’s challenge and actually manage to get it all done.

It’s now 5:35am and I have to be at the vocal school in 6 hours… sleep time.

www.meghanmorrison.com

Next Week/Chapter 4: Social Media For Musicians
Last Week/Chapter 2: Your Perfect Pitch

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Branded. I am now a commercial commodity; a product. Hard things to come to terms with as an artist whose music, regardless of its form, is meant to be the product, not the person. Today, however, the artists themselves are so salient in this industry (facebook, twitter, youtube, etc.) that the person creating the art also needs to be relate-able outside of their music in order for people to really pay attention… in the long term. A hit song isn’t enough anymore and in many cases isn’t even necessary to have a meaningful career as a musician. In the independent world, bands and artists can tour for years without ever being in the top 100, let alone 10, and make a living. Fans (aka: people) want to connect. That’s a good thing. Human connection is one of the biggest reasons for why I pursue music, I had just never thought of it as something that would be included in a marketing plan.

While many artists, myself included, cringe at the idea of defining themselves in relation to other artists (we’re all unique and special, right?), the truth of the matter is … my uniqueness isn’t in being completely different and separate from everybody else (after all, we are all made of DNA that has been recycled for billions of years), rather my individuality is in my own unique and complex mix of similarities to others. If I was completely different from anything else and anyone else that ever existed, no one would have a frame of reference for understanding me or my music and that’s not what I want.

Take, for example, being introduced to a new food. When someone tells you that alligator tastes like chicken, and you like chicken, you’re happy to at least try it. If you don’t like chicken, or you are a vegetarian, you know not to waste your time. If the person can’t tell you what it tastes like, because it’s never been tasted before, the two of you are left standing saying: “Okay, well … who’s going to try it first?”, “I don’t want to, you go first”, “What if it’s poisonous?!”, “You’re right, let’s go barbeque some chicken”. In terms of music marketing, the chicken lovers would be the target market, the non-chicken lovers and vegetarians would be people not yet (or who never will be) in the target market, and the unrelated consumers are the potential fans that got away.

These are all concepts that I had to contemplate and come to terms with while proceeding with Chapter 2 of Ariel Hyatt’s Music Success in Nine Weeks Blog Challenge: Developing “Your Perfect Pitch”.

I had a bit of an advantage going into this week. As I mentioned in my Chapter 1 blog, I read the whole book before starting. When I got to Chapter 2 though, my keen interest in problem solving got the best of me and I came up with the first draft of my Pitch in under 5 minutes … then continued reading. I came back to it this week to actually follow the rest of the steps in the chapter, check out the links in the book, and test drive the pitch in the forum (all of which I skipped over because I just wanted to read the book first).

The process began with looking over some examples that Ariel provides of clever, yet authentic, pitches that work well for her clients because they are both memorable and really represent their sound. I didn’t have a computer with me at the time, so I skipped over the video that Ariel and Derek Sivers (CD Baby) made which further rationalized the need for a pitch (which I did eventually watch this week). The fun began with the writing exercise though:

Brainstorming the genre of music I play has always been the most difficult part for me, as I’m still not really sure what genre I fit into, though I have been recently calling it Alternative/AAA/Rock (formerly Alt/Pop/Rock … not really feeling the pop influence anymore). During this past winter, in an effort to uncover my artistic self, I went through a declared ‘hibernating’ phase from performing. One result of this retreat was a blog I wrote while researching a bunch of different genres and trying to figure out which ‘family’ I belong to. At that point I was seeing myself in a Post-Rock light. Though the discovery of Post-Rock certainly influenced me and is shaping the sound I am creating now with my new music, I recognize that I am not pure Post-Rock and cannot claim to be. If you’d like to read that blog, you can access it here. Get a cup of coffee first though. It’s a long one!

Next: Creating a list of artists that other people say I sound like. This was easy. I’ve been collecting names ever since I started pondering my sound/musical direction and have been posting them in the “Sounds Like” box on my MySpace over the past year and a half. Because I didn’t really feel comfortable telling the world who I think I sound like, I decided to list the artists my fans and audience members have connected me to in conversations we’ve had following performances and then I invite new visitors to leave suggestions of their own. If you’re reading this, feel free to do the same!

Though there are a few, the most common and obvious ones are Alanis Morissette and Dolores O’Riorden (The Cranberries). Since an adolescent, I have been told on an ongoing basis that I look like Alanis Morissette. It doesn’t matter if my hair is short, long, or up in a bun. I get it everywhere I go. Probably because we’re both short girls with brown hair, wide jaws, and big smiles. When I started singing, during the end of my undergraduate studies, people started saying my voice sounds just like hers. I can’t escape it and in the past would get angry about it. Despite the comparison being a massive compliment, I wanted to be recognized as an artist who has their own sound. Well, I got over that. I came to the conclusion that a healthier, more productive way to approach the issue is to embrace our similarities while emphasizing our differences. Being from the East Coast of Canada, I have a strong Celtic connection in my background and musical influences. Also, my music is less angry and blunt (if we’re comparing sound to Jagged Little Pill, which she is known best for), but still at times aggressive and opinionated. I’m a little darker in an ethereal kind of way, sometimes referred to as “weird”. We both have a softer, hopeful side.

Third reflective category: A list of authors or famous people that have influenced me. I didn’t have to go any further in the pitch brainstorm exercise, because the answer for the whole thing came to me like a pie in the face: Alanis in Wonderland … and Charles Dickens is hanging out there too (not quite an elegant pitch, but the root is there!). Charles Dickens is by far the biggest influence on my music and writing style, more so than any musician or musical genre. The reasons are unraveled in my 2009 interview with IndieToronto.Com

To try and fuse things together a bit better, I asked myself “If I was in Wonderland, what would I do if I crossed paths with Charles Dickens?” … I would talk to him of course! There would be so much to talk about though, I’d need to sit down somewhere … over coffee? No, tea! I LOVE tea and Mr. Dickens is British so he must (stereotype) like tea too … and the Mad Hatter is having a party at his place down the rabbit hole! How convenient.

So, Alanis (my voice)… in Wonderland (illustrating my slightly weird and dark, though not inherently threatening, flavour) … having tea with Charles Dickens (my main songwriting influence). The picture painted is accurate, but feels cut short … like it is missing something: My Celtic roots. The Cranberries are the next in the list of artists, they have a similar sound, are also from the 90s (the time my musical vibe resonates the most with), are Celtic in origin and probably (stereotype) like tea too; they complete the scene. I love it! The image feels like the sound I have been struggling to define. Sealed, framed and hung all over my internet walls and spaces, my pitch was now on display… but still awkward to say.

“My music? It’s like Alanis in Wonderland having tea with Charles Dickens and The Cranberries”.

It’s hard to bring yourself to say something so bizarre when someone asks you what kind of music you play. I know they just want to hear “Alt/AAA/Rock”, but I want to wow them and give them a more specific sound to relate to… and I knew that would happen once I was more comfortable and confident with saying it. It took a lot of one-eyebrow-up-eyes-rolled-to-the-North-East-not-going-to-face-you-as-I-say-this-because-I-feel-silly attempts before I could look someone in the eyes and say the pitch with excitement. I know Ariel recommends that you pick something you CAN say, and do so comfortably, but I really believed in this pitch and recognized that the only thing awkward about it was my fear of trying it. Luckily, I’m becoming well rehearsed in pushing myself through fear (I wouldn’t be performing on stage today if I had never put myself in that fearful situation).

There was one other thing I came to see was contributing to the awkwardness of my pitch this week: the lead in. Starting with the name “Alanis” didn’t feel right for me. It didn’t feel like a complete sentence starting that way. I needed a segue from “What kind of music do you play?” to “Alanis in Wonderland … etc.”. I had been saying “It’s like …” , because that would be a logical way to start a reply sentence. On paper it worked, but in conversation it made me sound like I was unsure about what I was about to say and, as a result, I did feel unsure about it. I knew this for sure when I tried conveying the pitch during a telephone interview with Lenny Stoute of Cashbox Magazine on Tuesday. So, I tried practising in front of a mirror like Ariel recommends, but I just started laughing at myself instead.

I wanted more conviction in my delivery. So I approached the Chapter 2 forum to post my pitch for review by the other Challengers and Ariel’s Community. Before doing so, however, I read through a few of the other pitches that were posted and saw the word “Imagine”. Bingo! As Salavdor Dali says, “Good artists borrow; Great artists steal”.

“Imagine Alanis in Wonderland having tea with Charles Dickens and The Cranberries”

I like the word ‘Imagine’ as it is a call to action for the listener (right from the start) and paints an image of mystery in and of itself, which is something I do want to create sonically with my music. So, I posted the new edit on the Chapter 2 forum and the response was unanimous. “Imagine” was a better choice. I had also asked for opinions about the pitch length, as I was wondering if was too long for people to pay attention to. I hated the idea of uninviting Charles or The Cranberries from the tea party, it wouldn’t be the same with both of them there, but wanted to make sure it wasn’t just me being stubborn. With great relief, the results from the forum suggested that is was not too long. This blog, on the other hand, may be getting there!

So, now I have updated my pitch on all my web presence and am ready to really start putting it out there as the Meghan Morrison brand identity. I will include it on the new business cards, posters, etc. that I make after I redesign my website next week (Chapter 3) so that I have brand consistency across all platforms.

I tried using the 15secondpitch tool that Ariel suggests, but the save button isn’t working at the moment and every time I have tried to register over the past few days it gives me an error message. Alas, it will have to happen another time. I did, however, email my pitch to Ariel for review (at the end of the aforementioned video with Derek Sivers, she invites the viewers to do so). Fingers crossed!

5 Successes from this past week:
1)Created my perfect pitch!
2)Had 2 interviews (print and webstreamed)
3)Someone in California (who I don’t already know) bought my CD online!
4)Recruited potential new guitarist, PR assistant, and webcast directing assistants.
5)Performed well at a gig with Brad on a full kit for the first time in concert.

Goals Review/Update:

In reflecting on the goals I set for myself last week, we (mainly Leandra, my newly acquired manager) have made progress toward achieving the print and radio goals we set to be completed by August 18th. I’m well on my way on my way to achieving my songwriting goals that are to be completed by August 25th. Also, I see that if I complete my website overhaul next week, I will be ahead of the game!

I have, however, neglected my physical, psychological and spiritual goals over the past week in order to catch up with tasks that I should have done in July. Now that I am reminded through this reflection, I will make an effort to incorporate it into this week’s plan.

Next Week/Chapter 3: Optimizing Your Website
Last Week/Chapter 1: Getting Mentally Prepared

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www.meghanmorrison.com

I’m thinking of… by Davide Restivo (Creative Commons License 2.0)

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Thursday’s rehearsal led to my drummer telling me I need to stop taking on more than I can handle, as I typically have more projects on the go than any sane person would permit in their lives … and then I went home and joined Arial Hyatt’s Music Success in 9 Weeks Blog Challenge.

I was referred to the contest through a newsletter I started receiving after I bought the book from Ariel’s website. NOTE: She didn’t spam me, I wanted the newsletter. The winner of this challenge earns a 3 month Cyber PR campaign … a massive opportunity for an artist at the bottom of the totem pole, like myself. That however, isn’t the only reason I was compelled to take the challenge; Brad’s commentary on uber-ambitiousness was ringing at the back of my ears when I saw the posting. Not because I needed another task to wig me out (I can be a bit of a spaz when I’m stressed), but because I needed a task to help me stop wigging out. Follow my jive?

Though I am a very self-motivated individual, capable of directing my affairs, I have also been told that I am a pressure performer (which hearkens back to conversations I had in cold ice rinks with my coach when I was a competitive figure skater). I saw this as an opportunity to make a formal commitment to getting my act together (pun intended) and I believe having a weekly blog (aka deadline) will help move things along in a more structured way. Up until now, things having been happening so randomly I don’t know where I’m going other than forward. Though I don’t want blinders on while walking this journey, missing unpredicted paths, I would like to have 20:20 vision while taking each step.

I bought the book after attending a session that Ariel spoke in at CMW and after reading the first chapter “Getting Mentally Prepared”, which addresses the importance of goal setting and celebrating successes, I decided to read the entire book all the way through before setting my goals. The rationale: I figured I would be able to set more quality, target-focused goals if first I knew what would be expected of me in the coming 9 weeks (and beyond). The result: 10 pages of specific, time-oriented goals (big and small) conceived via 6 music-focused areas with 24 sub-focus areas, 1 family & socially-focused area, 1 general financial area, and 2 sets of lifetime goals (general and music-focused). I have always been a goal setter, but I’ve never treated my goal setting process like a project before. I feel much more confident in my compass now. If you would like to see some examples of goals I have set in the 6 music-focused areas I created for myself, please click on any of the titles  in the list below:

1. Artistic Development
2. Marketing
3. Finances
4. The Team
5. Health & Well-being
6. Fan Base

Ariel recommends hanging your goals in your space in an aesthetically pleasing way to keep them in your sight and inspiring you. So as not to become too narrowly focused on short term tasks, I have also created a representation of my current overarching (albeit lofty) goal for music:

“It is July 8^th, 2022 and I have just celebrated my 40^th birthday by returning home from my 5^th world tour”

I know, a little crazy… but not impossible.

I call this piece my statement piece. Being made from the CD spines of all the albums I bought as a teenager and young adult (my foundation), the Eiffel Tower represents my desire to return to Europe (my future), this time through my music. The sky is scattered with the occasional horoscope clipping, inspiring fortune cookie predictions, and one ‘music advice’ snippet from Now Weekly, all pointing upward beyond the tower and out of the view of the piece itself, representing the notion of having no limits or boundaries. The golden wrappers blanket the opportunities that exist, but are yet to be seen by the eye. This is the base of the piece and over the next year I will be painting over top of it, as I find and redefine myself as an artist and as I revisit my goals.

To take things even more overboard, when setting dates for my goals I bought The Secret Languages of Relationships by Gary Goldschneider & Joost Eiffers (1997). It’s a book about the interactions of personality based on week of birth which my friend introduced me to a few years back. It was so freakishly accurate with everything about me and the people I know, I figured it might also be relevant for events. As a person who believes in math and science just as much as spirituality and intuition, it seemed worth an experiment. If nothing else, it has brought me closer to my goals in a more personal, internally seeking way.

Just as important as setting goals, celebrating successes is also promoted in Chapter 1. The idea is that in order to keep your mind on your achievements and feeling like you are accomplishing your goals and moving forward (which you are), you should take 5 – 10 minutes to reflect on the successes of your day. This was earth moving for me. I’m the type who is very hard on themselves (recognition is the first step to recovery, right?), always panicking because they’re not getting everything (or enough) done in a day. Note: I also learned through this chapter that I’m trying to do too much in any given day. No more than six ‘things to do’ for me anymore. I am now in the habit of sitting down with my “Successes Binder” and pen before closing my eyes at night and enjoying the satisfaction of writing down each thing I achieved that day. Now the accomplishments (whether big or small; music or personally related) get the recognition they deserve. It’s like attending an awards ceremony every night. Luckily without all the trophies. My room is too small for that.

I have decided that I am comfortable with sharing my 5 successes with the world and will be posting them online at the end of each week with the hope that other people might be able to take something away from the process and get ideas of ‘successes’ for themselves.

Already today:

1. Celebrated exactly 1 month since working the last shift at my meaningless retail day job, which led to the creation of my new mantra of only taking jobs that are related to music. *I did so after having read The Dip by Seth Godin. I highly recommend it.
2. Haven’t looked back since.
3. Posted my first Challenge Blog … before the deadline!
4. Woke up after only one slap of the snooze button
5. Didn’t freak out when the network connection dropped as I was writing my blog, because I outsmarted the internet by saving it in Word first. Muahaha

Now I’m late for our writing session… that’s something to work on for next week.

Week/Chapter 2: Your Perfect Pitch

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www.meghanmorrison.com

Ariel Hyatt’s Music Success in Nine Weeks Website