How to write the perfect song to put your name on the map

 

It starts with a dream. The dream of becoming a superstar, performing in major concerts and touring the world. That perfect picture -thousands of fans screaming your name with love and adoration. I must also add that; the picture wouldn’t be complete if you don’t add the millions of Dollars that comes with such fame. As decent and energizing as this pursuit might seem, it expectedly must come with some demands.

First, it means you would need a good song… a song perfect enough to make those dreams come true.

A perfect song is one that meets the taste of one or more category of listeners. It must give them the type of vibe they love. Now before we continue, it is important I emphasize that no single artiste can satisfy every single listener. People have different tastes for music, and music is of different genres (Styles, mood, rhythm, elements). Some popular genres are Reggae, Pop, EDM, Disco, Hip-Hop etc.  An artiste must first identify the category of music lovers he or she wants to target with their music. We shall discuss these further in subsequent articles. For now, just concentrate on understanding what it takes to write a perfect song, regardless of the category of listeners you want to appeal to.

If you are ready, let’s get into it.

WHAT MAKES A SONG PERFECT?                                                                                                                                                                  

A lot of people would argue that there’s no such thing as a perfect song. But, that’s funny; because it would also mean that there’s no such thing as a terrible song. You and I know that this isn’t exactly true. Well! To cut the inherently long argument short; why do you think some songs win awards and so many others just cannot ever get nominated for any award. There must be certain criteria that judges look out for in a song, right? Now those qualities are what makes any song perfect.

So, what are those qualities? Read on…

Below are Six major qualities of a perfect song with examples:

1.       The production must be simple and appealing

2.       The lyrics must be targeted at the simplest of minds (You will understand better what this means during the explanation below)

3.       You must have ‘catchy hooks’ in the song

4.       The song must not be too long; maximum 2:30mins- 3mins

5.       Try adding ‘code-switching’ to your songs. (You will understand better what this means during the explanation below)

6.       The mix and mastering must be standard and sound right on all devices

By now, I’m sure you already have an idea why some artistes are making it big; while some others are just wasting their energy and resources recording songs that may never bring them fortune. For your superstar dreams to come true, you must try to achieve the aforementioned qualities.

The good news is that anybody can achieve it. Just keep reading!

1)      THE PRODUCTION MUST BE SIMPLE AND APPEALING

The production style is a very important part of any song. It determines to a large extent your target audience. This requires a fair knowledge of elements of different genres. The producer needs to have a clear picture of where the song is headed; is it going to be a reggae, hip hop style or any other genre? At this point, you and your producer must listen to songs in that category together and agree. In the future, we shall also discuss fusion of two or more genres in your production.

Meanwhile, the most important point here is to ensure that the production comes out simple and easy for you, so that you can best express yourself during the ‘voicing’ studio session.

Listen to these simple productions by some popular award-winning artistes; so that you would appreciate what I’m talking about.

 

 

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How to place your song on iTunes, Spotify and other stores for FREE

The music industry has become more profitable than ever before. The reason is simply because more and more artistes can now access the global market with their music easily through the various digital stores. 

In case you are hearing 'Digital Stores' for the first time in your life; you shouldn't feel bad or feel like you have been left behind. Don't worry, i shall just tell you about it quickly so that you can also be part of this conversation. Other wise you won't be able to understand why you even need iTunes or Spotify in the first place.   Back in the 80's and early 90's, the only way artistes could sell their music would require songs to be on physical CDs - those shinny discs that contain music-. And such artiste would also still need to take the CDs to the market so that people may buy. Such place where the artist may showcases his music on CDs is the music store. It used to be the only place people could go to for their music. 

These days, artistes no longer need CDs to sell music; what they need now are just storage devices with which they use for keeping their music safe or for sharing with prospects. Also the artistes no longer need physical stores to place their music for their fans to go buy; fans no longer need to literally walk to any store around in order to purchase their favorite artistes' new songs. All the fan needs to do today is just to download it via certain special platforms on the internet. Those special platforms are whats called 'digital stores'. There are virtual stores that can only be accessed via compatible devices and the internet. Some of the most popular ones are "iTunes, Spotify, Deezer, Tidal, Amazon music, Google play etc". There are over 250 digital stores out there. That means a huge market for any artistes' material. These digital stores will help you place your music for easy access by fans. It also gives the convenience for fans to be able to purchase any music they desire without leaving their homes or offices. Through their phones, from the convenience of their homes, they can buy any music of any artiste any where in the world; so long as the song is on any of those digital stores.

However, to submit your song to all these stores, you will need a distribution company. They are the only people who can help you submit your music directly to the stores. They also help you collect your income from sales and streaming of your songs on those stores. They serve as the middle man between the artistes and the digital stores.

Also Read: "Starting a career in Music"

The one obstacle many artistes encounter however, is how to get their songs to all those stores. it usually requires some money and can be very cumbersome, if not impossible, Just imagine travelling all the states and countries where these digital stores are situated. That could amount to hundreds of thousands of US Dollars in transport expenses. Now you see why you need a distribution company. For the distribution companies to help you place your music on those stores, the artiste needs to pay certain amount of money. There is usually also an annual charge for keeping your songs in the stores. That means that once you can't make that annual payment, all your songs will be pulled down from those stores and your fans would not be able to get your releases any long. That is bad business.

But don't worry, i have discovered a distribution company that help artistes place songs on all the stores for absolutely FREE. Yes... you won't pay a dine and they will keep the song in those stores for you forever.

Isn't that great?

I bet you are itching to join them and start releasing your songs on all the available stores; just like other big artistes out there./ It would interest you to know that all the big artiste we listen to and watch on TV always makes sure that their music are on the stores a week before they announce the official release date. Each time their fans stream or download the songs on those platforms, the artiste makes money. It is that simple.

So if you want to be releasing your songs immediately for FREE, and you wouldn't to be paying annual fees to keep your songs in all digital stores worldwide, then register with RouteNote and start making money with your music. The name of the company is ROUTENOTE. They are the only company that would help grow your music career for absolutely FREE

Just click the Link now to Register: FREE Music Distribution

Once you have registered, you can easily upload your song and start making money right away. Leave any question in the comment box below and i shall respond withing 24 hours. Go and start making money today. Just visit www . Routenote.com

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Starting a Career in Music

About two decades ago, the whole concept of earning a living through music required very sophisticated maneuvers and various professionals to even scratch the surface. That was when only Big labels with huge budgets could succeed in the game. You could call that period the "analog Era". That was so because the process of getting the music to the people usually involved huge expenses, energy and resources . Talk about radio, TV and the vinyl. 

One would really need to personally walk into a radio station and beg them to spin your music. Sometimes give tips to OAPs and DJ; plus you would also need to duplicate several thousand copies of your CD for distribution to DJs so that they could jam your music at their gigs... and you may also need to give tips as well. Those days DJs used turntables that were compatible with only CDs. But times have changed now and the process is relatively easier and more effective. But i hope you can appreciate the degree of effort and expenses required to make it all happen in those days. You can imagine the expenses involved. 

Let us delve a little into the actual process of producing the music itself. The ease brought about by the likes of your popular Cubase, FL studio, Logic Pro etc, was not available then; everything was analog. Meaning you'd actually need musicians to play the tones you need. So for instance, if your genre of music requires guitar lines, Drum sets, Saxophones, Bass lines, Violins etc; you would need to practically contract individuals who play each instrument professionally to achieve the sequences required. These makes the budget for even a single track very expensive. And you also need to make provisions for the days of rehearsals... fees are involved. You don't even want to think of producing a music video then without a budget that can pull down the roof.

Thank God that era is now history. Today, all you need to produce a track might just be one individual who knows how to play the Keyboard and also understands how to sequence drums and other instrument for any particular genre. This is so because with the keyboard and tone generators, any instrument can be simulated using the MIDI functionality with the DAW (Digital Audio Workstation)

The New Era:

Producing music now is very easy and effective. So that anyone who has the 'calling' can practically begin to make a living within the shortest period possible... and with minimal effort. The is possible because technology has made everything flawlessly simple. We call this period the "Digital Era". Yep! This is the Era where everything has been digitized. Production equipment has been greatly shrunk and manpower reduced efficiently as mentioned above. All you need nowadays is just one individual to sequence all the needed instrument. The probability of earning a decent living from music has been greatly improved due to the advent of advanced technology.

Communication is now at the finger tip and every body and any body can be reached via the social networking environment. Businesses have harnessed the possibilities brought about by this era... and thank God, music business has not been left behind. Yes! It is now easier and faster to make it in the current music industry globally than ever before. You are no longer constrained by distance or finance. All you need now to succeed is the "right" information and network. 

And that is why you should continue reading this article.

The good news, however is that you do not need a huge budget to start a career in music any longer. As we progress in this course, we shall discuss the easiest ways to produce quality music. But assuming we just want to concentrate on HOW TO EARN A LIVING WITH YOUR MUSIC, i shall just start by highlighting the basic foundation requirements for success in this  venture. 

You need to set up the right infrastructure. 

Read on to unravel this ever important structure for success in the music business. 

The first thing you need in order to achieve success in the trade is an impressive presence on social media. You need to grow your social capital (Followers). These followers are going to form the first layer of supporters and prospective consumers of your music; in other words... your customers. They will help you make money. In subsequent articles, i shall show you how they can actually help you do that. The good thing about the whole prospect is that they get to do this without necessarily spending a dine of their own money. They do not need to spend their physical currency. Beautiful, isn't it?

READ ON...

It makes great sense for you to build your followers. To build followers, you need to register an account with Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. There are others, but these three are the most popular ones in recent times. These social networks have helped many A' List artistes, as you know them, become famous and rich. There is a way these networks enable wealth growth and every serious artiste need to work his or her way to it. We shall also discuss that  in future considerations. Right now, it is just cool to say "Please get a social network presence". The interesting thing is that... it is ABSOLUTELY FREE.

What Next...

Once you have registered on these networks, the next step is to begin to interact with people by making friends. You make more friends when you are active on those platforms. Being active simply means updating your timeline frequently with useful and interesting materials; while also interacting with other peoples updates. You should make effort to learn how each of these platforms operate. One of the key thing to remember here is that...

YOU WILL NOT MAKE ANY MONEY, IF YOU CAN NOT BE FOUND ON THE SOCIAL NETWORKING COMMUNITY.

The first thing you must strive to achieve on these different platforms with your profile is to define who you are. That is what the profile photo and status space is meant for. You must make it clear that you are an artiste. People need to have an idea of what to expect from you as a friend on social media. That way, it is no longer strange when you ask them give their opinion about your next single. And it also helps you decide what kind of interactions you can expect. Now how do you achieve that with your profile photo and status message!

Well! It is very simple: Have a graphic artiste design a beautiful art cover for you. Put it up as your profile pix and you are good to go. For a status message, simply write a brief introduction of yourself. 

For Example: 

"Hi, I am Oritse Femi; singer/song writer & Performing artiste"

"When you think quality music, you think Toritseju aka Flekta Man"

"Davido is an AfroPop artiste from Nigeria"

The above examples shows how easy an artiste status message can be. It is usually an introduction of the person in question. There are no fast rules about it at all.  Any body can do this, don't you think?

The next thing is mandatory to ensure that your songs is on digital stores around the world. In case you do not know what digital stores are... READ THIS! 

You will have positioned yourself to start making money once your song/songs are placed on those digital store. Below are a list of the popular digital distribution platforms:

iTunes

Spotify

Apple Music

Spinlet

MTN music Plus etc

It is also noteworthy that you can not just submit your music to these platforms on your own; you would need those that are referred to as "Distributors". Some of the popular ones are TUNECORE, CD BABY, DISTROKID, SYMPHONIC etc

But remember, just having your material on this platforms does not automatically guaranty instant money. You still need to market the links provided for you by the distributors.

The secret is VOLUME. Yes! start amassing your revenue from the One Cents to the thousands of $Dollars. The more friends to whom you market your links, the more revenue that will pour in. So when you start marketing to your friends, also indulge them to share to their own friends. And in a matter of hours, your link will be on millions of timelines across the globe...and that means huge income.

Having understood how to start earning income with your music, it pertinent that you also know which distribution company is ideal to work with and why you need them. Stay glued to this blog for all the info on MusicBiz

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Three Simple Steps Every Artiste Must Take to Start Making Money With Their Music!

Every artiste wants to be able to make a living from his/her music. The problem is not always about the quality of the music (Though quality matters a lot as well), but often time it is about the know-how. To so many artiste, once the song is ready... mixed and mastered... they are clueless as to what next to do to start earning some income from the material. Below are three steps that must be taken so that you can start making money with your music:

Step One:

Get a smart phone. A simple android phone with a substantial processor speed can suffice. This is so important because phones are becoming an integral part of every business nowadays. You can do a whole lot with your phone. Most of which we shall discuss in subsequent topics. For now, just get a smart phone if you want to start making money with your music.

Step Two:

Build a social media presence by registering with the three most popular social networking platforms. This is a very important step as you will need to market yourself to the world. Believe me, the social media offers a huge marketing audience; potential fans and consumers of your music. 

Facebook, Instagram and Twitter are the three most popular social networking platforms among others. They are very easy to join and also FREE. It will take you less than 10 minutes to sign up and start marketing to the world. Each of them has features that makes communication with potential fans easy and fast across the globe.

Step Three

Get your song to be uploaded on digital stores so that people can purchase or stream them; that is one of the ways all big artistes earn income from their songs. I shall talk more about digital stores in subsequent blogs, but it is enough for now to just ensure that your song is on the stores. 

There are over 150 digital stores worldwide, and for effective distribution, you'd need to have your song in all the stores. It may please to learn that the process to do this is also very easy.

Examples of these digital stores are: 

Spotify

iTune

Amazon Music

Google Play

As simple as these steps might seem, they will determine your ultimate fate in the music business. Just be faithful and ensure that you have those areas covered. Next Saturday i shall talk more on how to harness these three steps in your career growth. Take care and keep writing those songs.

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