As I get older and pick up more responsibility, I find myself working harder to secure a good life. This involves hours of implementing and employing new marketing strategies to make money as an independent musician.

One of the new ideas I have turned into reality has been organizing my own concert and drumming up people to come and watch.

As opposed to getting hired to play a gig somewhere (which can still pay well), I wanted to set the bar higher and take control of the whole concept.

Thanks to some great advice on the internet and support from friends and fans, I have successfully done this 2 times now.

Here is a stripped down version of some of the major details required to hold a live concert.

1) Find a great place to hold it.

You need to find somewhere convenient and make sure it has the acoustics for great sound. I chose a local community theatre here in Japan that has an amazing stage already equipped with lighting, speakers, and all that jazz. It’s also relatively cheap since it belongs to the community.

2) Design the tickets.

I made sure to design some tickets that look professional. The cheaper they look, the less professional you appear also. Do these properly and people will feel like they’re going to watch the real deal when they pay for one.

3) Getting the word out.

This is probably the most important and most difficult part of the whole process. You must do everything in your power to find people to come to the event if you want a successful show. Here are some things that I did.

a) make colour flyers

b) make posters

c) make small pass-outs

d) ask for a radio interview. I went into the local radio station with two other members and performed live.

e) Make an audio commercial about 30 seconds long that you can use on the radio (if you want to pay a small fee for air time) and also you can burn it onto a CD rom with three songs from your CD and pass them out. This was quite successful. I passed out a lot of CD’s as PR and with three free songs and a quick spiel on the upcoming show.

f) Get a street team together. Ask band members and friends to help out. I promised some fans they could come for free if they help sell tickets. You’ll be surprised what a lot of fans will do because they believe in you. I also promised the band two different guarantees. I told them I’d pay them “X” amount of money more, if we sold over 80% of the tickets we made. I was really surprised at the effort they put into helping out.

g) Make sure you start the campaigning a good 2 months in advance. People need time to plan and spread the vibe of the event.

h) Talk about it all the time. Don’t push it in peoples faces but there are ways of talking about the event that don’t come across as sales. “I went to bed late last night because I was rehearsing with the band”. You never asked anyone to come but you refreshed their memory that you’re working hard towards the gig.

i) Offer prizes like t-shirts (if you have them), or free CD’s.

j) Ask local shops if you can put a poster on their window.

k) Play at local CD stores for free.

4) How can you make the show unique?

In other words, how can you justify charging people to come to your show? For me, since this was my second time doing this, I wanted to step up the game and make it better than the first time. The first concert I held on my own consisted of 4 band members. This time, I invited two friends (who are pro musicians) to come spend some time with me in Japan and do the gig making it a 6 piece band. They wanted the holiday/experience and the Japanese were thrilled to have two professional foreign musicians adding heaps of colour to the show. I should point out that I held this concert in a relatively rural area. This was to my advantage because more of the local people don’t normally get an opportunity to see a rock concert so close by. It was easier to convince people that they’re about to see something normally held in Tokyo.

5) Practice.

Let’s face it, if you want to impress your fans and make them leave the concert feeling they spent their money wisely, practice hard and make the band tight!

6) Please those around you first!

If you want to do this again in the future then your name is important. Don’t get too greedy and try to keep every single penny you made from the gig. You might want to do this because you worked 99% harder than anyone else did to make this happen. However, paying the right people and doing it fairly is good business. They will be willing to do more for you next time and you’ll even find more doors opening for you.

7) Make a to do list.

Organization is key to everything running smoothly. I had several lists and still found it hard to keep everything running well.

Day of the gig.

Check your lists. Be prepared for things to go wrong. Try to stay calm and don’t snap at anyone. If you’re going to have a moment, find a place to chill for a minute.

9) Showtime!

Get out on that stage and play like there’s no tomorrow. Do your thing and do it as best you can. Don’t leave anything behind because this is your moment to prove that you’re worthy to be there!

10) Sell CD’s.

Sell them at a low price and come out into the lobby with the band and sign them. Chat and take pictures and be personable! Leave a sheet they can sign with their email address and contact info. This is really important for future contact.

11) Next day.

You’re still not done. Now, you have lots of thank you’s, and last minute payouts and things to do. Don’t just leave your fans forgotten. They are your bread and butter so personally thank as many as you can!

I’m sure there are other things that I’ve forgotten to mention but in general these are the basics. For me, the key to success is not leaving it all to the last minute and more importantly, making sure that everyone is happy.

Go get ‘em!

There are 7 factors that I require when writing a good song and they are:

1) Emotions: The best place to find these are through a woman or a bottle of whiskey (note* whiskey was created after emotions were lost on a woman)

2) Catchy melody: Usually my songs start with some sort of chord progression on the guitar but not always. Then a vocal melody wrapped around the chords in an

interesting and satisfying way. If you interviewed most famous songwriters, they’d tell you most of their best songs seemed to channel through them

in an almost effortless fashion. If I look back on the songs I’ve written, I’d agree that my stronger songs were the ones that seemed to write themselves.

3) Strong lyrics: If you put strong lyrics with a very catchy melody then you’ve got something to be proud of for sure. For me, lyrics don’t come easy. I seem to lack something important to say for the most part.

Note to self: must find a woman or buy more whiskey.

4) Re-writing: This is where a lot of people fail miserably. They’re always too damn proud of their first take and are afraid to throw away something to make the song better because they really like one line.

Changing Chords and melody can lift a song too. Sometimes for example, you can replace the root chord with a minor 6 and give it some mood.

Or again, pour a stiff drink.

5) Play it live: Play your song to your friends and ask for honest opinions. Don’t let the negative vibes get you down either. A lot of the time, you’re friends won’t know what they’re talking about-

(Those drunken wankers). But a good song is pretty much universally liked and you’ll be able to weed out the good from the bad and generally get a sense of what is strong.

6) Write lots: You’ll get different opinions on this but for me, writing a lot of songs just makes me a better songwriter. It’s like learning to play the guitar. If you practice every day, you’re going to be much better than if you play it once a month.

7) Sleep on it: It’s weird but often I’ll wake up in the morning and play the new song again and it doesn’t have the same impact on me. That’s a sign that perhaps it just wasn’t a good song.

Or your just hung over to the nines!

Check out reviews and listen

Woooo Hoooo!

I just wanted to share the news that I’ve been inducted into the Numata Music Hall of Fame!

The category is for best white foreign musician!

For those of you who don’t know about it let me explain:

Numata is a city in Japan of about 50,000 people.

There are approximately 10 white foreigners here.

There are two musicians.

I started the Numata Music Hall of Fame.

I won last night!

The other musician doesn’t know about the Hall of Fame.

I woke up this morning, told myself about the winning, and was completely surprised and thrilled.

Life is good!

There are many musicians that I worship and have incredible respect for. The beatles are just one for example. However, recently being an indie artists has turned being a singer/songwriter/performer into a BUSINESS man too. Let´s face it, we are all now running a business. It´s been a really great experience learning all the facets of the industry and trying to promote my product (my music). What I seem to need along the way is something to keep me motivated.

If you are looking for a source to find motivation, here are my hero´s and recommendations:

1) Dean Karnazes - ultramarathon man. This guy runs for 3 days straight without a break. He´s extreme but he proves we can really do anything we set our mind too. His book is an easy and totally entertaining read.

2) The Endurance - an incredible true story about the ship Endurance which became trapped in sea ice. Frozen fast for ten months, the ship was crushed and destroyed by ice pressure, and the crew was forced to abandon ship. After camping on the ice for five months, Shackleton made two open boat journeys, one of which—a treacherous 800-mile ocean crossing to South Georgia Island—is now considered one of the greatest boat journeys in history. Trekking across the mountains of South Georgia, Shackleton reached the island´s remote whaling station, organized a rescue team, and saved all of the men he had left behind. I still can´t shake the read of this book. Amazing!

3) Lance Armstrong´s book titled ´´It´s Not About the Bike: My Journey Back to Life´´
another great read about someone who pushes himself to the extreme. Winning 7 tour de France´s after life threatening cancer, brain surgery and so much more. This book made me realize I am capable of bigger things if I work at it!

4) Terry Fox - a Canadian who started running across Canada from East to West on just one leg to raise money for Cancer. The cancer came back and he only made it half way, but he has raised incredible amounts of money since and is a Canadian hero now. Very motivational.

What is it that motiviates you to keep going in the music industry besides just your love for music?

Record the next top ten hit with the help of your PC

By Fiona Wagner

Over his 20-year career, Kelly Pettit went from recording his first song at age 17 in a studio, to recording his fourth and latest CD, Fuel, “all over the place.”

Drums and bass were recorded in a Vancouver studio, vocals were recorded in his apartment in Japan, and a friend recorded fiddle in his hotel room while on tour with Kelly Clarkson. Pettit even mixed his songs over the Internet (he was in Japan; his editor, in Vancouver) and used his computer to design the CD jacket.

“People can create amazing music from their home studios,” says Pettit. “A lot of gear that used to be in the studios is now a software plug-in that only takes up space on your hard drive.”

Live the dream

Technology has made recording music at home cheap and easy. Every day, Jason Johnston, owner of Revolution Audio in Mississauga, Ontario, meets hobbyists and wannabe professionals who want to set up home studios and live out their music dreams. “It really is a revolution right now because people can finish up with a professional product that could easily run neck and neck with anything produced in a larger studio,” Johnston says.

Larger studios can be intimidating to people who just want to record a song or two but have never performed outside the shower. Other people are turned off by the cost of studio time. When you’re paying between $60 and $100 an hour, you focus more on watching the clock than on creating the sounds. Home studios give you the best of both worlds—the artistic freedom of working at your own pace and a professional sound.

Hardware and software

There are a lot of hardware and software options for recording at home, but your choices depend on your music and budget.

Whether your budget is $400 or $10,000, you need the following basics for your personal studio:

• software to record on (for example, Cubase and Sonar for mixing synthesized music, and ProTools for live-off-the-floor recording and collaborating with larger studios)
• an audio interface (such as a stand-alone USB box or a PCI card that goes inside your desktop) to connect your guitar, speakers and microphone to your computer
• a PC with the recommended system requirements (that is, at least one GB of RAM, a P4 or AMD 2-GHz processor, and a second hard drive with at least 7200 RPM)
• a good microphone, quality monitors and the right cables (that is, a USB or FireWire connection)

Getting started

Before you record your first track, you might want to brush up on your technique or even learn new skills. Berklee Music offers online courses in subjects such as music production, song writing, arranging and music theory. Trufire.com offers online guitar instruction through downloads, streaming videos and CDs. Songwriting software MasterWriter features various dictionaries to help you capture the perfect rhyme, phrase or idea.

If you want help putting it all together, Emusician.com offers home studio musicians information on music production technology and techniques. The Studio at Home forum has product reviews, helpful tips and tricks, and tons of postings on everything from recording voices to mixing sound on your computer.

It’s important to have enough hard- drive space. If you plan on capturing and archiving everything you record, you’re going to need lots of internal or external storage space.

Most computers bought within the last year come with a CD and/or a DVD burner. While a single standard CD can hold up to 700 MB of data, a standard DVD can hold up to 4.7 GB which is important when you’re backing up data. DVDs are pricier than CDs but hold much more information.

Sharing your music

Once you’ve played with your sound, recorded some music and burned your first CD, the Internet gives musicians direct access to their fans and distribution networks, cutting out middlemen.

If hosting your own Web site seems too daunting, launch your online presence with Windows Live™ Spaces. By adding the Microsoft Windows Media Player module to your space, you can play a clip of your music for visitors. If they like it, they can contact you for more information about your tunes.

A site like InDiscover also helps musicians get noticed. It uses “collaborative filtering” to recommend independent artists and their music to new listeners based on how listeners previously rated other songs. The more often your music is rated, the more likely it will be recommended to other visitors.

You can promote your music online and sell songs as digital downloads on popular indie sites such as Broadjam and Soundclick. Then, when you’re ready to hit the road, you can use an Electronic Press Kit (EPK) at sonicbids to connect you with promoters and help you land gigs.

“I don’t think anyone can survive by solely relying on the Internet. Performing live and getting good reviews in newspapers, TV and radio offer very strong exposure,” says Pettit. “But the combination of everything is pretty powerful.”

It’s been years since I started this journey of life as a musician (Over 20 to be honest).

Most musicians will agree that it’s not an easy road taken and if I had done this for the money then I’d have been a fool a thousand times over. However, I don’t think I have worked harder on any one thing in my life as I do with music.

And now that the computer and the internet have made it possible to pursue the business side of music with equal force, the work load has doubled.

What has been really rewarding to me is that I’ve discovered something inside myself I never knew existed. I have actually started my own business and I like it! Selling my product and building a clientèle one brick at a time has been a lot of fun despite the fact it still remains a second job.

Performing live is definitely the best way to connect with new fans; however, it’s very hard to reach a large mass that way.

And while music is subjective, I am thrilled at the amount of fans that have gotten behind me and believe in my songs as much as I do. They’re the reason I am able to keep moving forward one step at a time.

From a business perspective, the hardest part is letting the world know that you’ve got a great product. Imagine if you could connect with even just 1/1000^th of the 6.60 billion people on this planet!

Fortunately, those that have come on board have given me ample amount of strength to believe in myself enough to know someday ~ I just might be able to do it!

Holding duel citizenship in Canada and Australia, currently residing in Japan, and having spent significant amounts of time in several other countries around the world, pop / singer songwriter Kelly Pettit surely has a lot to write about. His song catalog most likely illustrates the richness of the cultural experiences he has been exposed to over the years. However, my favorite Pettit song is simply a story about a father and son. It’s called, “Stone After Stone,” off of his CD, FUEL, and it’s a great tune.

“Stone After Stone,” is a well-produced and recorded song with a great storyline. The lyrics describe how a young child, who spends time with his father, will someday grow up to be a father himself and possibly be able to return some of the wisdom the elder gave him. In one of my favorite verses, Pettit sings,

“I’ve wandered the world for some time now. Rumbled, tumbled and tossed. Looking to share what my life had to bare. Many times lonely and lost. But old man like you I’m complete now. Got a life with a wife and a home. So the river can bend or go straight to its end. For I’ve got me a son of my own.”

The “river” is what Pettit is comparing life to, and he references it throughout the song. Pettit handles this comparison creatively, and quite impressively. The chorus goes,

“If everyone’s lives like a river, a river we each call our own. A past left behind, a future to find, rolling on stone after stone.”

I think comparing the river to a “past left behind” and a “future to find” is quite an illustrative and innovative way of looking at things. That’s what hooked me in.

Pettit is a multi-instrumentalist (mandolin, guitar, and harmonica) with strong, smooth vocals. He’s recruited a very professional team of recording engineers and musicians to assist him with this recording, and their efforts are paying off. Pettit’s CD, FUEL, won him top honors in the Ultimate Band Contest at UBL.com out of a field of 2,000 other bands from around the world. He’s also had some of his music on TV and radio.

You should check out Kelly Pettit’s music for yourself, especially my favorite of his tunes, “Stone After Stone,” off of his FUEL CD. The music is great, the storytelling is moving, and the chorus is fantastic.

Artist Website: www.myspace.com/kellypettit

Reviewed By: ListenersGeneration.com