From Scratch – Adventures in Independent Music Making

Posts Tagged ‘Music’

The main goal for this week’s challenge: Take steps to start growing my mailing list.

I must admit, I have always been a bit shy when it comes to my mailing list. Some days are better than others. Sometimes, I’m in such a great mood that I’ll ask anyone if they want to be on my mailing list and they will usually say yes because I am genuinely enthusiastic about them signing up. I am confident that my newsletters are entertaining and worth reading, that I keep the reader in mind and that it’s not all about me, and that receiving a full album download in return for letting me email them once a month is a pretty good deal. Other days though, even if I have played a great set, I feel really hesitant to ask. I’ll put out the sign up sheet, knowing that at least one person always signs up on their own, but also knowing that I could rally way more people if I carried it around with me. New and old fans and friends always approach me after my set, why wouldn’t I offer for them to receive my newsletter and a free album download? They are obviously the ones who are seriously interested in my music. I did this once and signed up almost everyone in the room.

I don’t like walking around with a clipboard though; I feel too much like a charity canvasser. Having worked in retail and telemarketing in the past, my insides still tigten up in instinctual anticipation of backlash from people who don’t trust your intentions for using their personal information. As such, I don’t relish the thought of switching into my business hat immediately following a set, but at the same time I also want to make sure I am reaching out to everyone who wants to stay connected. If I don’t make this offer to them, I am doing them a disservice if they sincerely do want: my album, to know more about me, and when my next show is… right? These are the kinds of arguments that go back and forth in my head. Ultimately, it’s more of a mind game for me than it could ever be for my subscribers and I think that will be the biggest obstacle to overcome. The actual subscription and list building processes are quite easy. Ariel Hyatt illustrates this well in Chapter 7 of her book, Music Success in Nine Weeks.

Ariel proposes 6 strategies for bringing more people onto your mailing list. Adding friends and family is the first … and is exactly where I had apparently committed a major mailing list crime. As I explained in my Challenge Week 6 blog, my newsletter originated in the Netherlands when I moved there to study in 2003. It was a very informal letter home to my friends and family. When I revived it last year with the intention of sharing stories from my musical adventures, it didn’t occur to me that I should treat it any differently. This is a business, however, and as such I shouldn’t have just started emailing these newsletters to everyone in my contact list. This is especially true now that my endeavours have become much more focused and formal. It’s not just a mass email to friends anymore, though I still want it to maintain the undertones of camaraderie.

Bandzoogle, the site builder I use, has been very helpful for this week’s challenge. Not only does it host mailing and text message lists (Ariel recommends having both), but it has a function that automatically picks up the location of your mailing list members when they open your newsletter (one fewer awkward piece of information I have to ask people for, thank you Bandzoogle!). The intention for this function is to give you the option to target mailing campaigns to specific regions, that way you’re not sending Toronto show dates to people in London, for example. Fans don’t understand this when you ask them for their postal code though. They just think, “Why is she asking for my email address and postal code?”. This service provided a different purpose for me this week: figuring out who reads the newsletters and who doesn’t. The process of elimination was pretty simple, if the person has a location recorded next to their name that means they have read the newsletter at some point in time. I am choosing to assume that if my mailing list members have opened a newsletter, they are consenting to its receipt since they can clearly see that it is from me and the subject line says “Newsletter”. If they have not opened a newsletter (no location info) and were signed up on March 23 2010 (when I added my entire email contact list to my bandzoogle mailing list), I have removed them from the list and will send a personal email to their address explaining the situation and asking if they would like to be added back to the list. I had a lot of people on the list, so this process is going to take more than a week. As such, I’m going to continue picking away at it a few names each day until it is finished.

Two more of Ariel’s strategies work in tandem: creating a place on your email server for potential sign-ups (as you receive correspondence from new people, you put them in a folder or box) and then sending these new contacts an email approaching them with the idea of signing up for your newsletter during a scheduled time that your set for yourself to focus specifically on list building. If your fans are the most important building block for your career as an artist, then it makes sense to me that you should set aside time to focus solely on tasks that faciliate your communication with them.

Ariel mentions earlier in her book that you should offer an exclusive gift to people who subscribe to your website. I had already been giving a digital copy of my album to new mailing list members before starting the challenge, so this prompted me to reflect on what I am offering and how I can make it better. After the excitement I felt from learning that I could get the entire Isle of Thieves album for signing up to their mailing list, I didn’t want to give away just one track to my fans. It felt cheap. As an artist who wants everyone that wants her music to have it, I am more than happy to give a digital copy of an album (which doesn’t cost anything extra to make) to someone who connects with my songs. So, that was an easy decision. The album I currently have available was recorded before I took the vocal immersion course with Diana Yampolsky at The Royans School (where I work part time now) and was a collaboration of my first stabs at writing, recording in studio and producing songs. Knowing this, I would rather invest in connecting with fans now, giving away my album for free, while I’m growing as a songwriter so that when my music has matured and the next album comes out I will feel not only justified in asking them to buy it, but proud to. In the meantime, however, I did want a better quality representation of my singing ability out there, so I rented a good mic and re-recorded the vocals to a bunch of the songs. I’m working on the new mixes now, which will become an album giveaway that is exclusive to my newsletter listers.

The concept of a live show giveaway was the last big concept in Chapter 7. I like the idea of drawing an audience’s attention to the existence of your mailing address via a contest or giveaway. It provides a fun segue into asking for what you really want them to do: keep in touch by signing up for your newsletter. I will definitely use this strategy at our next show. I decided I wanted to introduce the newsletter to the audience before I even go on stage (they say a person needs to be presented with a product or service, on average, 7 times before they will buy), so I took the sign holders I bought on clearance when I still worked at Staples (one large one to be at the door when people come in and 10 small ones to sit on tables and/or bars around the venue), designed colourful signs that match my website branding, and had them printed off at Lyle Green’s Copy Centre “The Fine Print” in downtown Toronto (6 College St. to be exact). Lyle was one of my favourite customers when I worked at Staples, because he was always so nice, so I wanted to take my business to his business. When he learned about what I was doing, he gave me the posters for free … and with a blessing for good karma in my music business. Lyle is awesome. I hope the karma comes back to him.

[to protect my mailing list subscribers's personal information, I photoshopped the sign up sheet]

Share

Original Blog Post
Read this Blog in 27 different languages

It was very timely that I would receive Ariel Hyatt‘s own newsletter during Challenge Week 6: Connecting With Fans Via Your Newsletter List & Conducting Surveys. Though I had been receiving her newsletters for months prior to starting the blog challenge (note: I learned about the contest via her newsletter), I read this one with new eyes after it arrived in my inbox while working through the exercises in Chapter 6. It’s not just Ariel’s newsletter anymore, it is a real life example of the plan and strategy she teaches. As such, I kept it close while evaluating and re-working the format of my newsletter this week.

Entitled “Where in the World is Meghan Sandiego?”, I started sending out a regular newsletter after I moved to the Netherlands to study Physiotherapy. I arrived in late spring so that I would have time to learn enough Dutch before school started in September, but knew practically no one. Regula, the one close friend I had there at the time was from Switzerland and she took off shortly after my arrival to spend her summer holidays back home with her family. Luckily for me she let me live in her apartment! In North America we take housing for granted, because land mass per capita is much greater -especially in Canada. The Netherlands is a small country with LOTS of people. Waiting lists for apartment buildings are sometimes years in length. So, when you get one, you don’t give it up when you move home for the summer; you sublet it or lend it to a friend like me instead! In fact, my friend was actually subletting from her friend who took a job wandering around the world as a travel guide.

In the beginning, knowing no one (and not knowing their language if I had known anyone) strengthened my desire to connect with people back home. Also, being a foreigner without a working visa forced me to operate on a very strict budget and since emailing was by far the most cost effective way to communicate simultaneously with a large number of people overseas, the newsletter was born. Expecting to be there for 4 years, my intention for the newsletter was to simply tell stories about the adventures I was engaging in while exploring a new country and to allow me to keep in touch with people I couldn’t afford to call long distance. It turned into something much bigger than I had expected. I loved writing those issues and took a lot of pride in my new found ability to write, what I thought were, witty stories. The stories started getting longer and friends started replying regularly to tell me how much they enjoyed the accounts and to ask for more details. I guess you could say I had ‘subscribers’ even back then.

In the first draft of this blog, I continued on to describe my summer in Utrecht and the development of my newsletter throughout my time in Europe. In an effort to stay on track with the week 6 challenge, however, I have posted that story on the newsletter page of my website as “origins of my newsletter” for those of you who are interested in hearing more about that adventure and how it relates to my music now.

It has been almost a year since reviving my newsletter and it has gone through many makeovers. From simple, long emails to web hosted, template-based PDF documents. Always content heavy, they have become more organized with a table of contents, hyperlinks and anchors to help readers navigate the body of the text. After reading Chapter 6, however, I realized that I need to start thinking of more direct ways of formatting the letter so that it is less cumbersome. Afterall, our methods of communication are extensions of ourselves, so if I’m becoming more focused as an artist and business person, then my newsletters need to reflect that as well.

Ariel breaks down the creative process of newsletter writing and development into three steps:

1. Building rapport with your email list. The main idea here is to make some observations about your fan base, learn more about the things you have in common (other than your music) and to keep these themes in mind when writing your newsletter, so that your communicative efforts feel more connected than self-serving.
2. Creating an engaging newsletter (greetings, guts & getting). For me, this means scaling back. Essentially, Ariel promotes having a 3 part newsletter: start with a personal intro (1), talk about what is developing musically (2), and then providing a call-to-action to encourage your readers to have an active role in what you are doing (3). My newsletter at present has 7 categories, all of which are important to me, but I think I have figured out a way to blend some of these things together more succinctly.
3. Surveys (asking your fans what they want). Practically speaking, this is where you test the waters of your target market and find out what they are interested in buying from you before you spend a ton of money on duplicating Cds, silk screening T-Shirts, etc. Why spend a lot of money on a product you may not have a market for, right? Also, reaching out to your fans for feedback might stir up some new, unique ideas for merch that are way more interesting anyway.

To help develop rapport with one’s email list, Ariel recommends first taking a moment to reflect upon who your fans are. How old are they? What kinds of activities or elements of pop culture are they interested in? What parts of everyday life do you share in common? Basically, before you even start writing a communicative piece to them, you should already have an idea of who you are writing to. In this way, it’s like writing a letter to a friend rather than a group of distant consumers you fear imposing upon.

Building off of the increasingly popular concept of 1000 true fans, Ariel’s idea is to develop more meaningful connections with your mailing list through well planned, personal newsletters in order to unite your fanbase of customers and friends as customer-friends; people who want to support you and your career, not just because they love your music, but becaue they love you too. What an amazing and fullfilling business to be in.

My fan base is quite diverse. Yesterday, for instance, I received a photo greeting from two of my younger fans (6 and 11 years of age), worked on a film set with a twenty-something who was wearing my button, and spoke with a middle-aged gentleman who came to one of my recent shows and commented himself on how varied of a crowd I had brought out that night. In terms of target market, I see my music resonating most strongly with the 20-35 year old crowd. The more I play, however, the more I see that my style appeals to other markets as well and I need to keep that in mind, especially within the context of the newsletter (no legal reading age for access to this party).

From this assessment, I have decided that the language I use needs to be easily understood (neither too much slang, nor too much academic jargon), but shouldn’t dumb me down as a writer. When discussing market-specific topics, I think I should present them in ways that other markets can at least relate to even if they’re not interested in embracing the topic themself. For example, not everyone who uses email wants to use facebook. As such, they might not be able to relate to a statement of excitement surrounding the addition of a new calf to your FarmVille estate, but they might chuckle over it (instead of ignoring it) if you give a cursory description of what FarmVille is and why you like it so much… because now they have learned a little more about you … which is all they really wanted anyway.

I wanted my newsletter to be more visually striking, so I started by creating a header. Using Photoshop to mess around with one of the photos Tom Henheffer shot of me playing at The Horseshoe, I adjusted the colours to match my branding, filled in the header background with black and then inserted a text box with the name of my newsletter. I also felt compelled to have a pitch for the newsletter and placed that below the title of the newsletter. I uploaded the final image into my newsletter template and now it will appear in every newsletter I write without me having to re-insert the jpeg every time (thank you again, Bandzoogle!). I even created and inserted a few social networking buttons (a labourious task worthy of it’s own blog -which I will write after Challenge Week 9 in case anyone else wants to make their own).

When tackling the format for my content I decided to skip to step 3 (surveys) in order to help me decide, with my fans’ input, how to tackle step 2 (greeting, guts, getting). I have used SurveyMonkey (recommended by Ariel) in the past and have seen it work quite effectively for academic folks, as well as market researchers. For quick and simple questions with quick and simple answers, it is a great facilitator of data collection. For more reflective and collaborative questions, however, it is a bit impersonal. As such, it wasn’t the best tool for the questions I wanted to ask and, because I wanted to reach out in a personal way, I wanted my participants to know they were replying directly to me and not a robot on a third party collections agency’s website.

I set up 4 different email focus groups (a trick I learned in grad school) with a handful of my “truest” fans. For the purposes of this study, these “true fans” were selected based on their initiative to a) respond to my newsletters and/or b) share feedback with regards to my music and/or c) discuss ideas for the business side of my career. In the interest of keeping the committment brief for the participants, each group was posed only one question. Not only does this consideration improve my odds of receiving a response in a timely manner, but it also allows the participants to focus their attention more deeply on that one answer, rather than trying to rush through four or five different questions before they have to go attend to the questions and answers in their own careers and personal lives. I don’t know about you, but I rarely fill out those 20 question long BFF questionnaires that go around asking you to list your favourite ice cream flavour, etc. If somone asks me one question, however, I will almost certainly reply immediately; It’s one question. It’s easy. I’m happy to help.

The questions were:

Group 1: “Are my newsletters too long?”

(I know they’re long, but wasn’t sure if it was a bad thing)

Group 2: “Which 3 Categories/Topics do you enjoy reading the most?”

(In case I need to scale back from the seven I currently write in each newsletter)

Group 3: “Should I make it a full fledged choose-your-own-adventure style newsletter?”

(I currently use a hyperlink + anchor system so that readers can choose how they want to navigate the document. To see an example, check out my Jun-Uly 2010 Newsletter (didn’t quite get it out in time for June… merged into July. You’ll need a PDF reader to view it. I like Foxit, personally). Lately, however, I have been considering turning the newsletter into a narrative document and threw the idea out there for review)

Group 4: “Is there something missing from the newsletter or is there something you would like to see included in the newsletter?”

(I always just write what I want and/or think people will find interesting … but I never actually ask what they are interested in reading about)

I haven’t heard back from everyone yet, but so far from their feedback I have learned that my newsletters are indeed perceived to be long, but not necessarily too long, because they find my “ramblings” “entertaining” (it’s “true to [my]self”) and the hyperlink-anchor system allows them to pick through the parts that interest them the most when they only have time to skim. In other words, they appreciate not having to read the whole document to get the info they want and like being able to easily skip the stuff they’re not interested in. I also learned that there is no clear favourite in terms of categories or topics, but a more focused intro with a few key news highlights would polish the piece up a bit. Also, sometimes I provide more links to cool stuff (like videos, websites, etc.) than they have time to check out. Some find this disappointing and others feel this makes them “generic and then dilutes the value of [the links] as a whole”, so “less would be more” in this regard. Good to know!

In terms of pursuing the narrative approach, I learned that my readers “love” stories and the idea of a choose your own adventure style newsletter excites them. Inspired by the idea, they suggested including hidden videos or audio tracks that would have to be uncovered as part of the adventure. Coincidentally, one of the readers had just finished reading this article on the ‘game element’ of marketing and forwarded it to me as part of his response. They also want more pictures, which is something I can easily incorporate into story telling.

As a bonus, my focus group fans also revealed to me that I have inspired one of them to start playing bass, that my next album is anxiously awaited, and my friend’s little guy can almost pronounce the name of their family pet. I need to start doing this more often, even if only for the smiles

:)

So … how am I going to pull all of this together?

I could tell you right now, but I think you’d have more fun if you sign up for my monthly newsletter and have the First Ever Issue of the New “Where in the World is Meghan Sandiego?” sent directly to your inbox this Saturday, September 18^th (Wink, wink. Nudge, nudge)

Also, a FREE digital copy of my album is emailed to you when you subscribe and you can unsubscribe at any time, no hassle, no questions asked and I will never sell, lend, or share your email address with anyone -ever!

(What?!) -I know, it’s crazy. Sign up now before you lose your mind ; )

Share

Original Blog Post

Read this blog in 27 different languages

I have become immersed in the world of blogging. Chapter 5 of Ariel Hyatt’s Music Success in Nine Weeks does a great job of summarizing a strong rationale for why musicians should blog. It also provides a number of valuable resources for starting a blog and, later, takes you step by step through establishing a protocol for getting the most out of your blogging efforts. This provided some reassurance when I started going into panic mode this week because, let’s face it, blogging is a big commitment and we musician-types still need to have time to write music too.

The overall process, in short, is something like this:

1) start a blog

2) subscribe to some relevent blogs (publications that might review your music)

3) start reading those subscriptions

4) leave some comments (that are related to the actual post, not just a plug for yourself)

5) then ask for a review after you have developed some rapport with the writers

I already had a blog, so I was able to skip step one. I didn’t, however, subscribe to or read any other blogs. I have a hard enough time keeping up with my email, so I’m not sure how this is going to go, but I’m determined to try. Ariel suggests establishing a list of 50 blogs to subscribe to, so that’s what I did and though there are 50 of the list, for now I have decided to just focus on one or two of these blogs for a few weeks and then move on to a few more afterwards. That way I can give adequate attention to any particular blog even when I don’t have a lot of time for reading.

That number 50 was a bit intimidating at first, I must admit. It took a lot of mouse clicking and searching on Technorati and then often times struggling to find the RSS feed links/buttons on a page I liked once I found it. That part was very frustrating. In my head I kept saying, time after time, “I want to follow you, but you’re making it impossible!!!”. Who knew having that little orange icon would make such a difference.

Once I found one good and relevent blog it became easy because their blog roll was also relevant to what I was looking for. I found a lot of great blogs in the blog roll of Einstein Music. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find an RSS feed for their own page though, so I had to bookmark them instead. Chances aren’t good that I’ll remember to go back and check on that one when I have 50 others being brought to my Google Reader though.

This “blog roll” thing had me a bit perplexed at first. I understood what it was (a list of links to other blogs and sites that blogger post on their own pages -usually in the right hand column), but I couldn’t figure out where mine was on my page. After some handy Google Mcguivering I learned that it was a multi staged process with WordPress (the program I use) and was able to set up my blog roll after watching a few videos. If you use word press, here are videos on how to add a link to your blog roll and How to make your blog roll visable to readers

Other ways I found blogs to follow: 1) New Twitter followers (a lot of bloggers have Twitter accounts). Here’s one for local Toronto bloggers 2) Indie Charts – you create a profile and submit songs for review by other artists, industry professionals and … yep, writers. 3) Newsletters. In particular, The Digital Media Wire newsletter is where I learned about the MOG Music Network (a network of top music blogs).

Another strategy for finding potential reviewers/bloggers that Ariel recommends is searching your name for existing articles you don’t know about and leaving comments on articles written about artists you know/play with. She suggests starting with a list of ten. This is what I came up with:

Chloe Charles – we share a violinist (Kelly). Chloe is amazing!
Radio Belle – I met Cristina and her brother at the MIAC/PAL 2010 tradeshow and have since gigged together
The Mudmen – a mutual fan connected me with their guitarist
Oliver Pigott – I met through MySpace and wanted to do a cover of his song. He gave me permission and invited me to open a show for him.
The Station Agents – Billy Fong has been playing guitar with me, has been on my webcast, and we gig together often
Beth Moore - she lives across the kitchen from me and has been on my webcast
Hayley Stark – Did a songwriters showcase together and they have also been on my webcast
MIP – I met at The Painted Lady open mic and, coincidentally, my favourite computer repair man is her drummer
Alice Stops Time – I set up a show with them in Halifax on Leg 2 of Dara’s Wedding Tour 2009
First Rate People – we were on Indie Idol (indielove.ca) together and they were one of the first guests on my webcast
Blake Bliss – used to gig together in Hamilton when Purl of Surf was in full swing.
The Skirt Chasers - Hilary and I used to fence together. Now we gig together.
The Danger Bees - played a show with David in Dartmouth during Leg 2 of Dara’s Wedding Tour
Courtesy Blush - Jon and I go to the same vocal school
Axe to Mouth - I’ve been gigging regularly with these guys thanks to The Dishes

… as you can see, I started getting carried away (extending my list past 10). Though there are many more I would like to add to this list, I had to cut myself off and move forward with this week’s challenge (including leaving a comment on each artist’s myspace, since they don’t all have blogs, to let them know I’ve mentioned them in my blog. Sig file -or signature file- will be added at the end, as recommended by Ariel)

Another time saving strategy Ariel recommends is to join MyBlogLog and/or GoogleFriendConnect. That way, if you don’t have time to leave a comment on everyone’s blog, the authors still know you have visited their site. Though not as memorable as a comment, it helps to establish a connection and rapport over time.

Blogging. Some call it a hassle; some call it an addiction. It certainly is an avenue for ranting, raving and sharing news. It is also a networking and marketing tool. My favourite function of a blog: discovery.

Blogs have the ability to tell stories: within an individual post, through a nine week series, or over the writer’s life. It’s not just about connection, but also growth. The writer opens a window for the public to see  into their inner world but can also control how high up they pull the blinds. By reading blogs we discover new things others want to share with us. By writing blogs we reflect and learn more about ourselves. This has certainly been true for me as an artist. While my Dad was up visiting this week, there were a number of times where there was no technology around to distract or interrupt our conversations and as such, I heard tales of his childhood and my own (which I don’t remember) that I had never heard before. With all the blogging I have been doing lately, this experience triggered the thought in my mind that people are more than their thoughts and opinions, they are their stories … and blogs are a great way to tell stories.

My story this week (outside the context of blogging itself) was pretty exciting. The Horsehoe show (my biggest show to date) was a success, we bought a house (home studio and webcasting set here we come!), I finally got caught up with all of my social media sites from last week (the MySpace page was the biggest obstacle) and I found out that Mike the Bee featured one of my songs on his podcast in the UK after I signed up with Music Alley last week. Not too shabby.

I feel more comfortable moving forward with the marketing side of blogging now that the idea of storytelling has returned to my line of sight. I started blogging by telling stories, but lately, with all this reading about business and promotions, I have found myself becoming a bit blinded by the exciting statistics, increasing quality of interactions online, and other new developments.

Now, if Ariel could just teach us how to deal with Blog Comment Spam. I had over 200 comments this week, which made me very excited until I saw that they were mostly either:

1) Utterly vague: “Incredible, that’s definitely what I was scanning for! You just spared me alot of looking around”

2) Self-promoting and irrelevant to the subject matter of the post: “if the cops werent so bad in florida it would be really awesome” has nothing to do with my Week 3 post on website optimization.

3) Template messages being sent from different people from the same agencies. Grrrrrr.

For example, I received such similar posts from a 3 different virastop.net users:

“What a blogpost!! Very informative and also easy to understand. Looking for more such blog posts!! Do you have a myspace? I recommended it on stumbleupon. The only thing that it’s missing is a bit of new design. However thank you for this information.”

The other commenters just substituted “twitter” or “facebook” for “myspace” and “digg” for “stumbleupon”. If it wasn’t for the fact that there was more than one comment saying the same thing, I would have thought it was a legitimate comment. So now how do I know which ones are the fakes and which ones are real? I would hate to delete a legitimate comment.

To end on a positive note, my web guru Byron has hooked me up with a translator for my blog so that anyone around the world can read my posts. I just need him to help me install it now haha

Next Week – Challenge Week 6: Newsletters & Surveys

Last Week – Challenge Week 4: Social Media for Musicians

Ariel’s Book: Music Success in Nine Weeks

www.meghanmorrison.com

Share

Twitter escultura de arena by rosauraochoa Available for use by Creative Commons License 2.0

Original Blog Post Read this Blog in 27 different languages Sitting at my computer Thursday morning, I looked out my window at the vines that have grown up our fence over the summer. Before Oskar left for his European tour with Worldly Savages there was just dirt and a wooden fence (Oskar is the guy who steers this crazy communal and musical ship we live in). I knew he had planted some flower seeds, but a massive collection of green leaved vines grew instead. It looks pretty cool, but that’s not the point. I bet you’re expecting a segue into how social marketing is like a network of vines growing because of their interactions with each other and the environment. It’s true, but I didn’t think about that until I started writing this now. I brought it up because I have spent over a year practically locked indoors to my computer during my days off, missing the seasons and the growth around me, while struggling to construct the backbone of my music marketing skeleton that I know is so crucial to the advancement of my career. That’s right, career. This isn’t a hobby for me anymore. I’m not making a comfortable or stable living from my music … yet, but I gave up too much and jumped too blindly with both feet into this crazy business to not at least have the decency and self-respect to call it my career. I’m tired of careers being defined in my mind by secure employment status and income. Perhaps you can relate to this: Growing up in North American society, the impression I developed was that a job was something you do to make money and a career was a job that is viewed with more respect by yourself and others because you had to have an education or special skills in order to have a ‘career’ and that generally meant you made more money too. But get this: The copy of the New Merriam-Webster Dictionary which has also accompanied me since childhood (and is missing the front cover, so I can’t give you a year of reference) states the definition of “career” as such (I just looked it up now): “1 : a course of action or events: esp : a person’s progress in his or her chosen occupation 2 : an occupation or profession followed as a life’s work” 28 years and only now do I understand a career to be any chosen occupation that I want to pursue as my life’s work. ANY CHOSEN OCCUPATION. Nothing to do with money, or status, or education. I know, it probably sounds very obvious when it’s laid out like that. “Of course, Meghan. That’s what a career is”. My educational background suggests I’m not stupid, but I feel pretty stupid for not having had the sense to be able to lift and see under the veil I had put on and kept on without ever questioning its fabric. That being said, a more current definition of the word has included the element of ‘success’ and ‘special training’ in it. This is unsurprising given today’s increasing pressure to succeed and obtain an expensive education. But I’m choosing not to adopt this modern definition of the word. Not after that glimmering moment of empowerment and hope you just witnessed. In fact, I think I am going to adopt the original, broader, meaning of “career” instead of any of the others. Documented as originating between 1525-35, the literal meaning of the word was “road”. This is the road I want to travel on. It is the one I have enjoyed the most so far. In the end, that’s all I really need… right? Did you know career is also a verb? “to go at top speed esp. in a headlong manner” (My ripped up Merriam, circa 1990s) Sounds like fun to me :) Now … back to the business of Challenge Week 4: Social Media for Musicians. As I am writing this I am currently uploading songs to my new Music Alley account -a great resource for podcasters. It’s basically a database where podcasters can search for tunes to play during their shows and not have to worry about copyright infringement (as a member on the site you give them permission to use your music). Being an artist who has a webcast with different guests every week, I really look forward to having my work appearing in other peoples’ shows. Full circle. This is one of what seems like endless sites I had to put together this week. I knew from the start that it was going to be a handfull: Sooooo many sites to sign up for, design, add media to, and link accounts with. The work isn’t as difficult as designing and optimizing a website, but it’s still very time consuming. If you decide to do this program in 9 weeks, make sure you don’t schedule too much else during this week or it will be difficult to give each site the time and attention it needs in order to catch (and keep) your visitor’s attention. Believe me, I learned the hard way… This week, I had a lot of obligations to attend to outside of my blog challenge (this is my 5th of 6 straight nights working at the computer until at least 3am), so my sites aren’t up to the standards I have for myself, but I’m glad they are at least on their way to being complete and that is the biggest step forward. If I add another song, video, press quote, or show each day I will eventually have them all at 100%. Baby steps, right? Being a bit of a perfectionist I have to remind myself that my career isn’t over because I didn’t get every last song uploaded this week … rather my career is moving forward because I got the site started and I have at least one more song uploaded than I did yesterday, or last week, or … ever. It would be boring to simply take you through the steps of how I put each page together , because the process for each is pretty much the same, the pages just have different purposes. Ariel does a great job of breaking down these sites in her book, so if you’re interested in the nitty gritty, I suggest you buy it. For my blog this week, I’d rather talk about some of the interesting things that came up during the process formerly known as “this week”, so I will list the sites for you to visit at your leisure and then continue on with my new learnings. Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, Reverbnation, Flickr, Music Alley Social Bookmarking is something new I learned about and am excited to start to using. Having done qualitative research for my grad studies, I appreciate the idea of having websites already coded for themes (aka: bookmarking with tags). It saves a lot of time and makes scanning or skimming very easy (though, as an academic I am obliged to recognize the weaknesses of this method as well: making an interpretation of a pre-coded document means I do not make an interpretation of the original document myself, thus facing the possibility of missing new themes that the first interpreter didn’t catch or see through their philosophical lens …. yayaya I know). Anyway, I signed up for delicious (a social bookmarking program for your web browser). I think it’s funny how when you press ‘replay’ (or just ‘play’ a second time) this Social Bookmarking in Plain English video starts playing in French. This also inspired me to start labeling my emails too. With over 1200 unread messages mixed amongst over 3000 emails (shameful, I know. None of them are spam) I tend to miss things I should be reading. Luckily, Gmail (where all of my different accounts redirect to) has a labeling system, so now after I read an email I go to the top of the message and label it (if I want to keep it) and take the inbox label off so it goes into a folder and is no longer mixed in with my unread messages. Some interesting things about Twitter: I have been using Twitter for about a year now and have it linked to my cell phone (Canadians send a text to 21212 once the account is set up. People in the USA use 40404).  I didn’t know, however, that I could message specific friends on twitter from my phone by simply using a ‘d’. There are a bunch of functions that you can use (all listed under Settings: Mobile). I printed them off to tape into my agenda, because I’ll never remember all of the different codes. When I first opened my account, “meghanmorrison” and “meghan_morrison” were already taken, much to my disappointment. So I chose “megsmorrison”. In the book, Ariel recommends having a personal account that redirects to your main/band page so that people searching for you can find you or your band/main page. I wanted to do this because people won’t think to search for me as megsmorrison, but the dilemma still existed: my name was already taken. Then I had an idea: the underscore AFTER the name : “meghanmorrison_” … I searched and … it was available! So I took it. Now I have a second twitter page which prompts people to follow me on my megsmorrison page where I have already created my twitter foundation. Then I got greedy: underscore before the name too! It was also free, so I set that one up as well. Once again, simply to help people find me in searches and redirect them to my main page. If you hate the idea of joining Twitter and think it’s stupid, you’re not alone; lots of people don’t like it. I didn’t jump on board right away because I didn’t want the hassle of having to keep up with another social media site, especially one I didn’t understand. I joined over a year ago without really fully understanding how it can serve my project. But a lot of people do! If you are a musician and on the fence about whether or not to join, read this Music Think Tank article:  I started adding people Ariel recommends toward the bottom of the article and within an hour 16 new people were following me, after 8 hours: 65! … up until now I would normally only get 1 or 2 per week … and most of them were not people I had added. I had made a couple of posts/replies to a few of these new connections though, so my new followers must have seen my replies to other people we were mutually following. Crazy. Other cool things I learned about: 1) on Twitter: Follow Fridays = masses of people tweeting about people they think you should follow (put a #FF in a post and any user you put in your post becomes exceptionally follow worthy on that day) and here is a good resource for making a twitter background. 2) Selective Tweet = putting a #fb at the end of your tweet so that the system knows which tweets to send to update your facebook profile. If you don’t put it in the tweet, it doesn’t go through. This is great because it’s easy to send out a ton of tweets, especially with replies, but it doesn’t make sense to your facebook friends because they’re not already part of the conversation. You have to set up the application for it to work though. 3) In the Blog Forums on Ariel’s Cyber PR site (you get access to this magical cyber space when you buy the book) a fellow musician made a post about Social Oomph.com (not to be confused with oompa loompas … wow it must be getting late for me to make that connection haha … hmmm) but after giving it a chance, I have decided I’m really in love with TWEET DECK! It’s amazing. If you’re trying to coordinate mutiple social networking sites at the same time (or separately. You can choose at any given moment), get it! It will save you a lot of time. On that note, I had been experiencing some network sync issues, as I had my pages all synced in a weird way. I knew how it was wired together, but my new manager Leandra (who I have as an admin on my facebook fan page) did not … it wasn’t her fault, but a few posts ended up being published in places they weren’t intended to. haha. The old system looked like this: After setting up additional sites and learning about Tweet Deck and Selective Tweets, it was definitely time to reconfigure the set up. Now it looks like this: My Facebook fan page is at the bottom of the posting chain now, so there is no way Leandra can update my entire online world without me knowing. haha. Things that didn’t rub me the right way: Facebook2YouTube was a  big disappointment and I have removed it. I thought it was going to sync with my youtube page, but it didn’t (or at least not in a way that was easy to discern or use). It just created a general you tube page where I could search for my ‘favourite’ videos and share them in a post. I was hoping I’d be able to upload or link my youtube videos into my facebook video tab to speed up the process and avoid having to wait for each one to load. The facebook bookmark function didn’t work either, so fans couldn’t access it anyway. It’s likely that there is somekind of glitch because the Flickr2Facebook script isn’t working right now either (I’m not the only one who found this). I also didn’t have any luck with the FacebookiLikeApp. It kept giving me a message saying the page couldn’t redirect properly and that “This problem can sometimes be caused by disabling or refusing to accept cookies”. I can’t figure out how to change the cookies settings in my browser, so this one is also going to have to wait … any suggestions? I hope they fix the bugs with the others soon. I was really looking forward to those apps. Now, how did I start this post? Oh, right: vines and ships. I’m happy to be returning the wheel of this ship back to it’s captain. It was a good experience, but I need more time and psychological space for focusing on the next 5 weeks of this Blog Challenge. Having one less responsibility that isn’t related to my music career is certainly going to help me focus and more foward, so that I can find a pace that allows me to be more successful while also being able to enjoy the seasons again. During the first 4 weeks of this program I have accomplished more than I have in the past year, so I am grateful to Ariel and her team for that. On a side note, Oskar lost his cell phone (it was stolen in Europe). My eye caught sight of my old one and so I thought I’d clear off it’s memory and give it to him. In the process I found these old text messages I had saved because they make me laugh and since I’m giddy with sleep deprivation, I thought I’d leave you this week with them: “My sister is the best sister in the world. I wouldn’t trade her in for anything. Well maybe for super powers, but not for most things” 6:09am Fri Feb 20 2010 My brother bear, Evan “Oh man. I thought I let the words out of my head, but I didn’t”. Quoted and sent from one of my very best friends, Gina. Apparently I said this in my sleep when I crashed at her place during the second leg of Dara’s Wedding Tour. Next Week/Challenge: Blogging Last Week/Challenge: Optimizing Your Website Share

Original Blog Post

Read this blog in 27 different languages

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

Share

Share

Original Blog Post

Read this blog in 27 different languages

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

Get a Free Download of my Tour Album When You…

I will never sell, rent, or lend your email address to anyone ever and you can unsubscribe at any time

www.meghanmorrison.com

Snowball by redjar (Creative Commons License 2.0)

In response to a message from Igor: 

Hey Meghan, I wanted to ask you something that I find very
interesting. I like to hear musician's stories and I saw your little
documentary that you had on your website and you mentioned that you
went to university and have only been doing music for couple years.
Being a musician I sometimes question myself and I was just
wondering if you would share with me your reasons for pursuing music
and what inspired you to do it instead of focusing on some other
career etc.

Thanks

-Igor

Gladly!

I actually did the same thing a couple of years ago when I was starting to question where I was going in my life.

I happened to stumble upon an old acquaintance -a cousin of one of my good friends who I also knew from a drama program I attended back in my elementary school days. Fittingly, he decided to make acting his career. For him, he knew what he was meant to do from a very young age. I did not. I have always been left and right brained. I love science and I love art. But art wasn’t a ‘career option’. It was a valuable and desirable set of skills that make one well rounded and help foster creativity. At least that is what I thought growing up. Having always been so excited and curious about almost everything, I went from wanting to be a dentist to an architect, to a marine biologist, to a small business owner, back to an architect, on to an athletic trainer and phys ed teacher, to physiotherapist, back to physical education with figure skating coach on the side, and making an unexpected decision to take the path of grad studies and become a professor in health sciences. Of that list I did become a small business owner (twice), a figure skating coach (counts as a third small business), physical educator (though, my degree doesn’t actually qualify me for teaching … basically, it’s a self-designed Kinesiology degree… long story … how life throws us surprises!) and I did finish my master’s degree in health sciences (the doctoral studies are on hold until it’s the right time to go back. At this point, I can’t see that happening until I’m 60, haha, but it IS going to happen). While pursuing these career options, art was always there with me in various forms (mostly painting, some theatre and then a bit of dabbling with music), but only ever as a hobby; always on the side.

I fantasized about the idea of being a performing artist, but never with the sense that it could actually be my reality. Even when I played the Sims I wouldn’t let my character be a musician, actor, or artist… but creativity was always the first skill I would have them master and they would always be playing instruments or painting in their spare time. I taught myself to believe that art was a selfish pursuit and that in order to be a good person and live a good life I had to have a career that could help people directly (which is why I gave up on architecture and moved towards health sciences). I didn’t think art could do that.  I was very wrong. The reasons I pursue music  now are 1) because I need to… can’t really explain that … and 2) because it allows me to help people by connecting with them on an emotional level. By overcoming my own fears of expression and judgment in songs, as an artist I am able to put out something listeners can resonate with and find comfort in. That is cathartic and healing. That is helping. Especially if I am emoting sentiments they are too afraid to express out loud in their every day lives. I know my life is improved by the connection I find in other artists’ music in this same way. We humans are so self-torturous!

Over the years I had heard about my childhood acquaintance’s move to the UK to study drama and even back then I was envious. Perhaps that should have been a sign. After re-meeting him as an ‘adult’ (I still have a hard time thinking of myself in such a light) while his cousin/my friend was up visiting, a kind of craziness started to stir inside me. His fantasy was his reality. He was doing what I, deep down, really wanted to do but could never rationalize. Not that I wanted to be an actor … but along the same vein, what I wanted was to be a performing artist. I needed to create, share and, most importantly, connect with people on an emotional level through my creations. And though I always found ways to create in all of my life’s pursuits, I was starting to realize that it wasn’t enough anymore. I wanted to commit fully to creating, not just working it in where I could. I needed to talk to him. Not wanted, but needed. It was something much deeper than desire alone.

So, being the weirdo I am, I called up another mutual friend whom I rarely spoke to since high school, but knew had his number and got it from her. Then called him and, with nerve-quakes like I had never experienced before in my life, asked him if he’d be willing to sit down and talk in person about his decision to be an actor. He said yes.

I don’t get shaky like that even at the most important of shows, so despite the fact that my brother and I had started a band and I was taking music more seriously than ever before, his reappearance in my life was the light switch. Up until then I was writing, with fervour, by match light; struggling to maintain illumination for my project with the risk of dropping the flame on my paper, while a room full of bookcases, maps and other resources were always there … but invisible in the shadows. For the first time in my life I saw that being a performing artist WAS a possibility. The proof: someone I knew was doing it and making a living with it because he wasn’t compromising his quest to follow his heart.

Having the opportunity to connect with another human being on such a deeply buried issue changed everything. It didn’t matter to me that I wasn’t fresh out of high school anymore and possibly my most ‘marketable’ (aka early twenties) years were in the past (the industry is changing, by the way), my mind was opening up to possibilities that weren’t purely academic, in the ‘let’s publish a research paper!’ sense. Art (and research on, with, and through art) has been institutionalized at the university level, so it too is academic in such a context. Then you’ve got the whole Arts vs. Sciences bullshit. I would go on to argue that science is art and art is science, but I’m getting off topic, so that’s a conversation for another day.

… where was I? Oh, yes…

So, the remaining year and a half of my master’s program was brutal. I almost quit. Not because I couldn’t handle the work or because I wasn’t interested in the research, I actually quite enjoy doing research, but because I still had not fully committed to pursuing my art. Knowing that I wouldn’t quit, because I always force myself to get to the end, was making my life more frustrating on every level. As an aside: I’ve started learning that sometimes it’s much healthier and more prosperous to quit … if done smartly and with purpose -see Seth Godin’s “The Dip” (2007).

Back to the frustration: I did go through a brief rebellious phase, however, when my advisor and I were butting heads (we are both stubborn but are in many ways like family now. I miss you, Phil!) and I basically called a moratorium on all things thesis-related. I still went to classes (which in grad school are infrequent, it’s more independent) and did that work, but did only as much as I had to to get by because I was holding my own personal songwriting retreat. For 2 weeks I took a portion of my grad funding, bought all the songwriting and music business books that I could find and read, wrote, and sang at my friend’s place while I house/pet-sat for them when they went on vacation.

This process took me another step towards committing, I was starting to see myself more as an artist and professional, but I still wasn’t really letting myself do it yet. I was thinking of career options in terms of how the job would afford me the ability to pursue my music, instead of just pursuing the music. Though destructive for me, this actually works really well for some people! Chris Addeny (Wax Mannequin) is a school teacher who capitalizes on summer vacation and other flexible scheduling to tour all over the world.

Initially I was still planning to start my PhD right way and was thinking about moving to England. Though I did find an advisor who was willing to take me on (and happened to be numero uno in our field), I didn’t receive the funding I needed to go and the personal reasons I would have moved to England for became complicated on my end and with great sadness I cut that cord. Still ultimately in ‘safe mode’, I decided it would be smarter to try pursuing a ‘real’ job and music at the same time, so that I could afford to do music. While my actions suggested I was pursuing a career in health research, my intentions were becoming more and more focused on music, though I kept it on the down-low.

Underneath it all though, everything after graduation was really about music and, as such, I moved to the city that would surely take a lead pipe to my knees and make me cry trying… I moved to Toronto. Home of the harshest critics and the fiercest competition in our country, I knew that if I was going to give everything else up to make it happen, it had to be here: where it was the hardest, where there are the most lessons to be learned and the greatest chances of failing and remaining in obscurity, where you are forced to rise to the occasion or give up and go home to where it’s easier to be successful as an artist … but also where there are so many other like-minded individuals to draw inspiration from and strategize with, endless possibilities for networking and venues for performing, numerous educational resources and conferences to attend, and an incredible buzzing energy so vibrant that it makes you feel like your progress is moving as fast as the cars on the 401 (excluding rush hour and Friday afternoons on long weekends … and any time or day when it rains) and as if your ambition is as concrete as the CN Tower, pointing one long finger (I won’t say which one) up towards the satellite stations in the sky declaring “Hey World! You couldn’t miss me if you tried!”

I tried to get a ‘real’ job. I bought the power suits. Went to the interviews. Kept coming in second for the job. I was aggravated, less out of hurt pride, more out of the fact that I didn’t want the job to begin with, yet  I was putting so much time, energy and attention into the hunt because I thought I had to get the real job so that I could afford to start pursuing my music more seriously. I did get some meaningless work and eventually realized it wasn’t worth it. After I came back from part 2 of the tour (October 2009), having proven to my family that this isn’t just a phase and having gained their unconditional support in my decision to follow my passion, I went part time and started focusing on creating my own business… putting my art first.

In summary, it was more of a snowball transition than a decision. I fought myself all along the way and eventually what I really wanted came out on top anyway. I just allowed my focus to change incrementally and stuck through the process: 1) Acting upon instincts I don’t understand, but trust (even if only in baby steps) 2) Connecting with mentor-like figures 3) Putting myself in positions and situations that test my dedication 4) Weening myself off of my own, and other people’s, previous expectations of myself 5) reflecting, a lot, and often. 6) Making a lot of mistakes, going through a lot of trial and error, and letting myself  hit rock bottom, then embracing it to move forward with a clear, unidirectional vision.

I haven’t given up on other ‘career options’ indefinitely. I still want to pursue other paths (and even other avenues in the music industry), but now those paths are the hobbies and my art, which I pursue with my fullest passion, is my career :) Wow, at the same time it feels perfectly crazy AND totally sane to say that. I imagine it will take awhile to fully break myself of the self-inflicted conditioning and suppression  I created over all these years.

Thank you for your message! The process of responding has really helped me. I tend to ramble a bit, so I hope I answered all your questions :)

Cheers

-Meghan