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One of the things I have learned in recent years is the value of seeking out the best musicians and building long term relationships. A friend of mine and longstanding musician commented “Always play with people better than you!” Never a truer word was spoken!

I met Laurent Zeller at The Lagoa Guitar Festival a few years ago when my band The Small Change Diaries was supporting his trio Les Kostards. Laurent Zeller and the other members of the trio are extraordinary musicians and Laurent was good enough to have us all play an encore at the festival.

In “the music business” often artists look after their own concerns and its rare that there is an attitude of sharing and reciprocation. I’m a big fan of both these elements and have found it leads to mutually successful long term relationships. This was one of the reasons I set up Music for The Head and Heart which is all about collaboration and avoiding the niche stereotypical categorisations that in my view a problem for the music business

After the Lagoa festival. Laurent was kind enough to play on some of the Small Change Diaries 2nd album “Lullabies for Cynics” and came over to the UK to play at the launch party. As usual he was brilliant. Since then Laurent has become a great friend and terrific sounding board for great musical advice. He was good enough to contribute to this promo clip for the album

There’s no substitute for experience and Laurent has this in spades as well as a wicked sense of humour and a great attitude of sharing so rare in the music industry. Below is one of the many clips you can find online of him playing with all manner of musicians.

Three years ago I set up Original Ukulele Songs which brings together original ukulele based music from all over the globe. The idea was to build a platform online and then to run live events to showcase artists. We ran one stage with a UK uke festival in 2017, but I soon realised that this was a far too limited audience and as with many niche musical genres there was far too many politics. For this reason I abandoned sponsoring any more ukulele festival stages and instead starting to think about a bigger more inclusive platform for music lovers.

The problem with niche musical interests is that often (not always) the emphasis is on social meet ups and music becomes at best a secondary consideration. I appreciate that’s a personal choice, but its really not of interest to me. I’m far more interested in focussing on great music and not especially bothered about other issues. For me, music has the power to connect and inspire people and the best artists have a great love of what they do.

Music for the Head and Heart has been in the works for almost two years. The platform consists of live artist video and interviews, articles and live showcase events. All artist videos are transcribed as some people prefer to read as opposed to watch video. Artists are invited to the platform and artists who appear on the platform can then freely invite other performers. This ensures that the platform grows organically. Dean Anthony Murray, Nicky Bray and Nick Bloomfield are part of the Music for Head and Heart team and provide invaluable support.

To date we have recorded over twenty artists from all over the globe from many musical genres and the response has been terrific. As well as adding performers to the site, I am also adding interviews with promoters, the latest one being the Leeds legend John F Keenan, who changed the face of music in Leeds.

Live Launch Oct 26th

The live launch of the platform will be on Oct 26th in Leeds

 

The artists for the evening are

Captain of the Lost Waves

Miranda Arieh

Emily Mercer

Behla Hutchinson

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I’ve recently had the pleasure of interviewing a substantial number of artists for the Music for Head and Heart platform. Everyone has their own story about how they create music, their inspirations and their writing process. They all uniformly confirm that earning a living from music alone is a tough call. Its one thing playing music for a few extra quid at the weekend, but making a living from music so music is your primary income and you become a “music professional” in the true sense is a very different matter.

There is a trend of venues opting for open mic evenings rather than paying for actual bands, which means less opportunities to earn a living. One artist commented that they would typically earn a predicable income from selling CDs, but now many people don’t even have CD players. Platforms like Spotify may be great for “exposure” but essentially recorded music is mostly free these days. HMV is the last physical store on the high street and almost closed down, which would mean all purchases would mostly have to be online. As a big fan of physical products I’m mindful that there are just a few great stores left, Tower Records in Japan and Dublin, Amoeba in California and Waterloo Records in Austin Texas.

Back in the UK pre brexit its increasingly getting tougher for many artists to find a paying audience and even tougher to find a an appreciative listening audience. Music for The Head and Heart will showcase four artists each quarter for a very affordable ticket price. Essentially I am underwriting the costs of such events to generate momentum for growing the platform. I have long pondered on creating a new platform which mixes the essential ingredients of live performances and an online presence. I truly lament the downturn in live music opportunities where bands find it increasingly hard to find paying gigs and promoters seek out open mics which mean paying less money or endless covers bands. I know many live this stuff but for me its my idea of hell.

Diverse income streams and streaming

Many artists appreciate the need to have diverse income streams and incorporate teaching, playing live and selling products. That said only this week another niche UK musician announced that it was no longer viable for him to be a professional musician, ie earning his main income from music alone. He is going to get a 40 hour paid job, so he can pay the bills. Previously he has played festivals, given music lessons and sold products, but all of these even in a good year don’t really pay the bills.

An article in Rolling Stone last year observed

“By recent research estimates, U.S. musicians only take home one-tenth of national industry revenues. One reason for such a meager percentage is that streaming services — while reinvigorating the music industry at large — aren’t lucrative for artists unless they’re chart-topping names like Drake or Cardi B. According to one Spotify company filing, average per-stream payouts from the company are between $0.006 and $0.0084; numbers from Apple Music, YouTube Music, Deezer and other streaming services are comparable. That creates a winner-takes-all situation in which big artists nab millions and small ones can’t earn a living wage. It’s nothing new — one could argue that such were the dynamics in almost every era of music past — but the numbers are more dramatic than before“

The Myth of The Golden Era?

Michael Ross from Guitar Moderne made some really interesting comments on this question of making a living from music in his interview for Music for The Head and Heart (soon to be released)

“You can make a living, there are people making livings playing music. It’s not easy, it never was easy, but the outlets are there. I mean, but as we discussed, part of it is going back to the early days of recording when nobody made money from records, but they were an advertisement for your live shows. So, if you can do a great live show, and you can bring people into that live show, and you’re willing to tour around, and you’re young enough or old enough but have the constitution to keep doing it and love to do it, you do it and you make money.
There were people back in the day who weren’t that famous, like the Meat Puppets, one of my all time favourite band names, if not all time favourite bands. They were all buying houses in Texas when they were playing around, you know, because they were living, first of all, in Texas, where it wasn’t expensive, and they were making money and, you know, travelling in a van and, you know, not, apparently, putting all the money up their noses or doing many of the other things musicians do, and they did find there are plenty of regional musicians like that who, you know, have regional gigs.”

Is getting signed the answer?

Some new artists imagine that getting signed to a label will be the solution to making a living from music, without perhaps realising that like any company “the record company” understandably wants a god return on their investment! I know of one terrific USA duo that released a number of albums with the record company were disappointed that there was not a year on year increase in sales, so they were dropped to the amazement and disappointment of fans. They then went their separate ways as they couldn’t make it financially viable.

Another industry professional when asked about this gave the following advice

“I would recommend focusing more on creating amazing music that gets passed around and makes waves. Create a sizable fan base and buzz. Do some releases on smaller labels first. The majors usually come after an artist has a real track record and “story”. It’s great to want a record deal, but know which label you want to be on and why. Major labels can create huge results for some artist, but they are also capable of stalling careers“

Getting a manager

Some imagine that getting management will solve all such problems, not perhaps realising that any professional manager will like a record company need to do a risk v reward analysis. I spoke to a very experienced music manager recently who was approached by an artist for management and he politely declined commenting that she didn’t have enough released material and social media presence to make it viable. Another manager who had a similar request from a female artist commented that at age 39, it was too late in the day.

The following 3 minute clip is worth watching to demystify the idea that a music manager will ride to the rescue of a creative artist and wave a magic wand to make sure the business aspect is sorted. Of course in the right situations a manager is a perfect fit, BUT the artist needs to have a body of work and be investable. Managing an artist means an investment of time and money.

Conclusion

Like any business the ability to make money depends on many different factors. Anyone can make some money, but earning enough to support yourself financially means a lot of work. The idea of creating a life of abundant wealth and residing in LA is with respect a bit optimistic to say the least… For most artists its about playing the long game and appreciating that its not about just talent, its about business strategy and a lot of luck. I fund projects for my love of music and would hate to depend on music for y financial well being, but that’s just a personal view!

I set up the new Music for the Head and Heart platform partly as an experiment to satisfy my own curiosity as to how to get music to a wider audience. The Music for the Head and Heart platform is to promote independent artists who mostly don’t have record deals. I took a partial cue from the excellent Tiny Desk Concert platform along with Elvis Costello’s excellent Spectacle TV series where he interviews artists on their work.

Creating Music for the Head and Heart from scratch means a lot of work in sorting out the online presence and this requires clear thinking and ensuring that everything that goes into the public domain is of the highest quality.

You never get a 2nd chance to make a first impression

I’m constantly amazed that many really excellent artists don’t get the need to invest in creating a good impactful image and crucially don’t maintain good momentum in marketing their music to connect to a wider audience. Yes, social media is essential, but its not a replacement for a good functioning website. Many artists still don’t use professional photos or blog about their work. Of course everyone has budgets to consider, but often there’s sporadic momentum in connecting to a wider audience and many artists don’t have the stamina needed to maintain a constant presence in the public domain that strikes the right balance of maintaining public interest and not overloading people with information.

Creating a body of work

I was talking to a longstanding producer recently and he mentioned that the most well known band he worked with only received good recognition after releasing three albums. He laughed at the idea of an artist releasing a single or EP and expecting the world of A and R to flock to their door. Despite all that’s in the media most artists appreciate that to get any kind of attention you need to create a body of work.

This means balancing time and money. Many performers have supplementary income streams from teaching and doing function work and this helps sustain their creative output. Its a tough job and I suspect many of the public would be surprised at how little net income many artists actually make. Only today another longstanding musician commented on having to return to full time employment as music alone didn’t create enough predictable income.

Conclusion

In one of the first Music for the Head and Heart videos, Captain of the Lost Waves brilliantly talks about balancing commercial interests for financial survival and developing your own creative voice. Doing this requires a great deal of stamina and smart thinking. You may have brilliant material, but to connect to the wider public you need to have other skills to market your material or fund somebody to do it for you.