Johnathan Coulton: from coder to professional songwriter in one year.

Here's another story about Songwriter Jonathan Coulton, who quit his "dilbert-like" existance and became an internet success story by writing one song a week...and promoting his website site 24/7.

http://potw.news.yahoo.com/s/potw/61785/how-to-become-a-rock-star

Good luck to him.

JG

Britney and her Manager: Update.

More problems with Britney Spears and her manager.

http://www.time.com/time/arts/article/0,8599,1710362,00.html

Creative Career: Custom Songwriter

Here's a story about a gentleman who writes custom love songs. According to the article on Yahoo.com, He gets paid "anywhere from $2,000 to $25,000 (per song) depending on whether he performs (the song) Live or not. "

Talk about finding and serving a niche!

One question not addressed is this: who owns the copyright on these songs? Are they considered a "work for hire", because the money is paid up front, or is the cost listed as a licensing fee? The difference may seem to be unimportant, but it's actually quite signifigant. Under the first arrangement, the songwriter gets a large upfront fee, but no royalties. If one of those songs later becomes a hit, this lack of additional (passive) income could make a huge influence on his ability to make a live, or not. In the later arrangement, the songwriter would have another source of income, something vitally important to the long term sustainability of the self-emlpyed.

Students will be reminded to watch this fact as we go forward: Know who owns the copyright before you sign anything!

Best Always,

JG

Recipe to Become a You Tube Star?: Part 2

An update from yesterday's comment on You Tube promotion:

Sometimes talent *is* part of the mix (see below).

Also: if you backlink to this artist's homepage, you'll see that she says she had to remove the comments section as others were using her page to promote their own businesses, some of which she refers to as "nasty" (I shudder to think of what kind of business those might be...)

So there you have it, another example of the dark side of fame (You can see my previous post on this subject here).

Students: please bookmark this link, as we'll be referencing this when we discuss fame (and both it's positive and negative aspects) in class.

Best to you,

JG

Recipe to Become a You Tube Star?

Want to be a You Tube star?

As I was telling my students this week, all it really seems to take are the following elements:

1. A few songs
2. An instrument of some kind that you can play reasonably well.
3. An inexpensive digital recorder.
4. An internet connecttion
5. Time - to record, edit (optional), upload, and promote your "work".
6. Looks/personal appeal.

Talent, of course, is optional. But then that's nothing new. ;)

Here's an example, found at random by You Tube and placed on the "recently featured" listing via Yahoo.

Students and others will please notice that this young lady shows as having over 15 thousand hits just on this one video (she has several). Please also note the fair amount of comments left by others (287 about this video, as of the date and time of this post), and the fact that she offers CDs for sale (no hard numbers available). She also has a myspace and personal domain site (http://www.julianunes.com/).

Those interested may want to compare this listing to the previous post on Andy Mckee. Following the backlinks from that post to his profile and his record company will show an excellent example of a more formalized, and business-like, approach.

So, is this the future of the music industry? Is the grass roots/viral marketing and indi/artist-owned label/publishing house the wave of the future? Will we see more and more people who stay "small time" yet make a living with their music, rather than the select set of mega-million dollar stars we have seen in the past? Or will equilibrium be reached by blending the two approaches, so that both have their own, very specific, place in the new order?

We shall have to wait, and see.

In the meantime, at least we'll have plenty to watch.

Happy, and safe, viewing.

JG