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A service there has long been a need for, a way to get advice for your music career and composition from real music business professionals. With Music 180 you can talk to the same producers, songwriters, managers and other pros who work with some of the biggest artists in the business today. The site will be launching this winter and looks like it could be a very powerful tool for musicians.

Slash Talks About His Songwriting Process

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Check Out The USB Octomod In Action

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Check out Linelight's YouTube channel for some awesome new videos on life as a songwriter.
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About a month ago we got excited when Phoenix released the stems to their most recent album, Wolfgang Amadeus. They have now done another awesome thing and put up a 9 part series showing the making of this record. A very cool insight into how a wildly successful record was made. Scroll down to see it here.

Band Tip: Practice On Your Own

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Every band knows that you must practice together in order to give some semblance of a performance.  But practicing on your own can be equally as important.  While many people dread the idea of sitting in a room by themselves with their instrument, it's often what separates the good and the great players (as well as bands).  Here are some of the ways that practicing on your own can take you to the next level:


Confidence
The confidence you build as a player is going to show in the risks you are willing to take because of an improved skills set. This will probably translate into better live performances as well.  

Respect
The respect of your bandmates goes a long way.  If you've practiced your chops and everyone doesn't have to wait on you to nail a part (in practice or in the studio) it only helps band morale. 

Better Songwriting
Sometimes bands try to exclusively "jam" to write songs. While this can yield some very interesting results, it can also lead to a listless nightmare if you have no direction. If you practice on your own you can come in with a few fresh ideas to bounce off other members. Bands often break up or begin fighting when creative juices come to a halt.  While some slump in creativity is natural, you can minimize it's effect but having some prepared material waiting on the back burner.

Some Cool Ways To Change A Key

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Changing keys in your song can go one of two ways. It can be an amazingly cool way to give your song an awesome emotional lift. If failed it can bring a total WTF moment to your song. The Secrets of Songwriting blog has some great insights on how to do it right. Check it here.

Letting Go Of A Song/Mix

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The great 20th century author F. Scott Fitzgerald once said: "Genius is the ability to put into effect what is on your mind." When writing music or working on a mix, it is the goal to get out the exact sound that is in your head - that's what artists do, turn thoughts and ideas into tangible things.  What Fitzgerald didn't mention is that the product you come up with is never EXACTLY what it was in your head.  It should certainly be the goal to recreate on record the vision that is in your mind, but you can easily drive yourself crazy striving for "perfection".  From a listeners perspective, they can never really hear what you heard in your had and are very unlikely to hear all the things that you perceive as "mistakes".

We would never advocate giving up on your sonic vision, but you must make compromises. You might want the bass to be a screaming monster but also want the vocal to be crystal clear and upfront. A mix is a dynamic thing and everything effects everything else. Stay true to your musical plans but learn to pick out the things that are really important and focus on those instead of micro-managing. Too much focus on minutia will make you lose perspective and drive you over a cliff. Especially if you've been working on it for a while, finalizing a mix and letting out into the world can be a frightening experience - you expose yourself to criticism and have no more chances to "fix" things for the last time.  Remember also that if you never finish and release your material you have no way of getting distance and perspective on it so that you might improve next time around.    

Making Of The 3rd Cut Copy Album

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Tips On Building A Song's Climax

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Making your melody memorable and the climax of your song happen in the best way possible is a tricky thing. It takes much thought and understanding some of the noances of this subject can help you grow your song to its potential. Check out this great blog entry on this subject here.

Awesome Video: Where Good Ideas Come From

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Thumbnail image for Thumbnail image for tunecore_vert_logo_20070129_145953.jpgTuneCore has announced a partnership with ASCAP where the publishing company's members will receive discounts and access to TuneCore's tools for artists. This partnership looks to be a step ASCAP is taking to show their members how to maximize their profits and get with the times of self releasing your music. Sign up here.

Clearing Your Mind For Better Songwriting

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MIDI Color Mapping With The Novation Dicer

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Leading With the Chorus

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There's a story about the Beatles and their producer George Martin from early in their career, at the start of their long line of hit songs and before they had totally mastered their craft. They were getting ready to record what would become "She Loves You," and as usual, Lennon and McCartney brought the song in and played it for Martin to see if he had any changes. And he suggested a simple one - instead of starting with the verse, start with the chorus.

 

Take a listen to the track above and it's easy to hear why Martin thought this - the chorus grabs you right away, it's super catchy, and the song is short enough that it doesn't get tiresome. By contrast, try starting the track at the 0:10 mark with the verse. Not bad, but it doesn't smack you across the face in the same way.

The Insanity Of Licensing

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It is no secret that online radio is one of the best ways to promote your music. With services like Pandora, Last.FM, Jango, Blip.FM and other services not only can you get your music before the ears of listeners who like the type of music you make, but you can also get paid for your plays as you begin to dominate the online radio airwaves.






It all comes down to this. As you come down to entering the studio and then recording your songs you are now tasked with one of the most difficult balancing acts ever known to man (ok... well maybe to musicians). We have written countless articles on how to avoid many of the pitfalls many musicians fall into when they go to capture their material. Read on and make something great for us all to hear.









With everyday, as the gatekeepers die and the major labels lose power it becomes more and more about just having a great song. This being the case you better start brushing up on your skills! We have assembled a lot of advice and tools for you to use to write better songs on the other side of this link.






When trying to break your music out of your circle of friends and out to the whole world, you are inevitably going to have to take on the hat of doing some publicity for your own music. As you begin to take on this large task there is numerous bits of advice that you may have overlooked on how to do this effectively. We have assembled numerous articles on how to take over the world of music and get it out there.






Now that you actually have songs recorded you need to get them out to the world to be heard. With every day that passes more and more amazing tools become available for artists to do this without the help of a label. We keep an up to date guide of everything you could ever want to know about what you should do in order to make the right choice on how to get your music out to the world.






Twitter, Facebook, Myspace, Tumblr, YouTube all become more and more important everyday (well maybe not Myspace, but contrary to much chatter it is still important to know the most up to date ways to make Myspace feed your other pages). We keep musicians up to date with the most current ways to use all of these social networks to promote your music. If you are not reading our guides to social networks you are missing out on the crucial knowledge of how to promote your music with the most up to date techniques.






What separates the winners and losers is how well you handle playing live and then getting your show on the road. Playing live and touring may seem easy but there are countless pitfalls that one can encounted over time. We show you all the new tricks of the trade as well as wise advice that has been passed down over the years.






Managing a group of people and keeping everyone on the same page and motivated is one of the biggest make or break factors of any sucessful group. There are many emerging tools that can make this easier and we sort through them, all the while dispensing valuable advice on how to deal with your members with minimal chaos.






Getting covered by blogs is fast becoming one of the things that everyone wants to figure out. Sadly, there is not a lot of information out there on how to do just this. We have quite a few articles with the techniques we use to get the bands we work with on to some of the top blogs out there.