Category Archives: My Thoughts

I followed you back on Twitter, and this is the thanks I get?

huh WHAT

I get self-promotion, really, I do.  I do it myself.  You have to put yourself out there to find your niche and to make fans and friends.  What I don’t get is annoying your potential fans/friends, first thing, right out the gate.

My biggest peeve at the moment is probably this:

I am on Twitter.  There is this method that some on the social network employ.  Namely, they follow you in hopes of a follow back.  Cool, you scratched my back, I’ll scratch yours.  I mean, I know they aren’t actually going to ever download my song Don’t Poop In Your Pants.  But maybe their +1 gives a little boost to my image and others will think I am important enough to follow if my number is “big enough”.

So I follow them back, thinking that our transacted business is complete.  And then I get the DM, yes the Direct Message that boldly presents the sender’s song, or service, or website, as if it’s something that I was searching for.  Like it’s the answer to a question burning in my heart.

Really?  To me, this falls somewhere in between “Why, the nerve!” and “How dare you?!”

And sometimes it’s not just a quick Copy and Pasted message inviting me to “check out this cool” whateveritis, sometimes this message assumes that I am so genuinely interested in the sender’s cause that I want to champion it.  I’m sorry, I am not going to “tweet (my) favorite youtube video” of yours.  If I like an artist and their work, I will share it and you won’t have to ask me.  But if you come messaging me, commanding me to be your street team, you’ve got the wrong idea.  I have my own wares to peddle.  I can’t imagine approaching strangers and asking them to share my stuff.  If you like it, you’ll share it, right?

 

How much Spotify (and others) pay artists

Updated: 9/14/2017

Being new to the world of selling music online, I had questions about the process and being a technologically savvy individual, I turned to the internet to search for the answers to these questions.  Unfortunately, the internet was less helpful than I had hoped it would be, and my search results were mostly null.

Since first sharing this information, other sources have opened up and it’s easier to find music distributor pay-rate information. Hurray for transparency!

I had previously written about my experience with RouteNote and how long it took to release my first song to Amazon, iTunes, Spotify, etc.  I wanted to share my experience with other independent musicians releasing their own music for the first time.

Continue reading →

My experience with RouteNote.com (so far)

Update, November 21st, 2018:  After using RouteNote for many years and now CD Baby, I can recommend RouteNote for almost anybody. They have worked to improve several issues I’ve had with them over the years. They always pay on time, and they have been willing to work out some of the particular issues I’ve had. Read on for more details on my long journey.

If you decide to sign up for RouteNote, please use my referral code: 2f72c02f

https://routenote.com/referral/2f72c02f

I’ve also written a guidebook on how to use RouteNote to release your music to the world, available at Amazon. If you’ve never used a music aggregator, this book takes you through the whole process from sign-up to submission.

routenote logo

Originally posted January 29th, 2014:

I’ve been bitten by the “create a bunch of music and then publish it” bug.  I wish I would have contracted this virus earlier, but timing can’t always be helped.  Since I am new (very, very new) to distributing my music online, and there was no help online when I searched for certain information, I decided to chronicle my experience to share with others.

I had some questions, like:

What services should I release my music on?

How long does it take for a song to be released on iTunes?

How long does it take for a song to be released on Amazon, or Spotify, or Groove (Xbox) Music?

Is it easy to release my own music online?

How do you pronounce RouteNote? (it’s pronounced like root)

How much do iTunes, Spotify, Google Play, Groove Music, etc. pay artists?

So hopefully, by sharing my experience with some of the details, it will make it clearer for others trying to go the same path.  Maybe my experiences will even give you confidence, so it doesn’t feel like you are jumping into a big dark ocean, in the middle of the night, naked. Continue reading →

This is how I make burritos

My kids and I sat down to a dinner of Costco tamales (delicious) and homemade burritos.  My five-year-old daughter remembered a song that I wrote, that is well known in our house, entitled “This is how I make burritos”.  She sang the main hook and we all chuckled at the appropriateness of her reference.

Soon after, the three of us were singing it and making fun of it and replacing it with different phrases.  I love that something as silly as a song about making burritos can turn, years down the road, into a moment shared.  A father with his children, eating Mexican food and laughing.  Thank you God, for music, that it can bring relief and joy, repeatedly.

Microsoft Photosynth is better than mere pictures

This week I was approved to take part in a preview of Microsoft’s new Photosynth.  A free service that allows you to take multiple photos of an object or place, and then combine them into a sort of 3D image.  You can “play” a moving version of your images or even scrub through with your mouse, or touch on a compatible device.  The coolest part of this tech is how well it interpolates the frames between the photos you supply.  It’s as smooth as video, but with far less raw data, and using high-res photos produces high res Photosynths.

The previous version of Photosynth could be used to take fantastic 360 degree panoramic pictures.  The new preview adds three new types of interactive photo:

There is Wall, which is used to combine several photos of a 2D plane such as a mural or building face, but can also be used to capture an extended landscape view.

The new Photosynth also features what is called a “Walk”, which is great for actually giving the feeling of navigating an area along a set path.  I used, as an example, walking through a MACS Cooler that was being constructed in Santa Maria, CA.  Taking roughly 15 pictures yielded the results seen below.  (Not mobile browser friendly)

Through the MACS Cooler by ToolOfGod on Photosynth

The final new Photosynth is the “Spin”, sort of like a reverse panorama.  Where a panorama has you stand in the middle and take photos in 360 degrees around you, the Spin has you rotate 360 degrees around an object or subject.  The one below used about 15 pictures and suffers some distortion at times due to the amount of foreground images.  But I’m quite impressed overall.  More photos equals better Photosynths.

Here is a MACS Cooler in the yard where it is being built for a facility in Oxnard, CA.

Around the MACS Cooler by ToolOfGod on Photosynth

These Photosynth images were taking using a minimal 15 photos, but if a little more time was put into snapping more photos, I think this technology could be a great way to promote a product.  Maybe MACS Coolers will be the first to use such technology in promotion.  I’ll have to run that by my boss.