Mantofa Articles Directory

If you are trying to learn how to start and run your own record label then you have come to the right place. Positioning your record label, along with producing and selling your first records will take time. But how quickly things progress along will depend on how much time and dough you are able to put into the label itself. It also depends on what genre and format of music you are releasing.

If you have no experience in knowing how to start a record label, it might be worth gaining some work experience at a label, getting some advice from a trusted label owner you know, or attending some training or workshops. There are also a number of music industry books and websites you can check for advice on how to start an independent record label. Don’t ever be afraid of getting help from people who have succeeded themselves.

An alternative way when figuring out how to start a record label may be to start small. Do this by licensing a recording to a compilation or to another label, or by releasing a small run of singles. Sometimes selling recordings at gigs or through your website, and aiding the band in booking gigs is a great place to start. Also, building a fan base is a good way to build up music industry contacts, a market for your recordings, and some powerful experience.

Managing and promoting artists is a standard way of getting into the how to start an independent record label side of the biz. Once you are confident that you can handle a release, a typical lead in time for promoting an album release could be around ten to fifteen weeks on average. This allows time to pick up coverage from monthly magazines, radio, and reviewers.

You will need to have absolutely everything in place. Organize the contacts with the press and your distribution deal before starting your promotions. It is imperative to build momentum and break into the marketplace at the peak of the public’s recognition of your merchandise.

Both the media and business partners involved will want to hear “the plan” the story about the artist/s, and what makes them and their music so special. But this doesn’t have to be as much work as it seems. Stay organized, have a plan of attack so that you can ensure your artists, your label and your name will succeed. See, planning how to start and run an independent record label is not as difficult as you thought.

Owner of Platinum Millennium publishing, former record label owner & national music industry seminar speaker/panelist. Author & creator of best-selling music biz books, courses, audio products & “How to” resources that helped 1000s. Go to http://www.TheUltimateRecordLabel.com for more.

Is it truly harder to get a recording contract than ever before? Maybe it is because the music biz seems more about the business side rather than the music side these days. It is true that the music and the people making it is still how they make their money, but the approach is much different when it comes to giving out music contracts.

Remember when record companies actually opened the unsolicited demo tapes that were sent to them and listened to them in hopes to find the next big thing. Now, it is too difficult to listen to every single one of them because everyone has the ability to have a demo tape made. Music contracts seem scarce. Now, it seems too difficult or to risky to accept demos from just anyone.

Don’t worry there is still a chance for you or your band to be noticed and get heard. It just may not be done the old fashioned way. It is all about the self-promotion tactic. You have to market your band in such a way that A&R and record labels will be dying to offer recording contracts.

Self-promotion isn’t as easy as it sounds. This does require a lot of planning and organizing. One way to do this is make and sell your own CDs. If you can prove to a label that you can sell CDs on your own, then they will know a music business contract with you is not so risky.

You need to make sure your album is good quality and sell it as fast as you can. Also, take a mini tour. Network with places in your region or tri-state area so you can book gigs and be seen! Build a resume with tons of recommendations from club and bar owners. Start out at places 30 miles away then move to 100 miles then 200 and so on. Building a solid fan base is a sure fire way to get the attention of a major label and get offered music contracts.

Keep in mind that before you make thousands of CDs, put a marketing plan in place. Make sure you have a clear cut and concise idea of just how you will sell all those bad boys.

It is all about planning and some killer self-promotions. You have to be seen, known and heard by and at as many place and by as many people as possible. The industry isn’t what it used to be. You have to work for the attention of a label and to be offered music contracts. But luckily, it isn’t impossible so get to planning!

Owner of Platinum Millennium publishing, former record label owner & national music industry seminar speaker/panelist. Author & creator of best-selling music biz books, courses, audio products & “How to” resources that helped 1000s. Go to http://www.order-yours-now.com/ for more.

E-major is a very common key for guitar oriented songs. Many blues songs are written in this key and a lot of riffs can also be found. We will now explore some of the exciting open chords you will find in this key!

We will start this guitar lesson by playing the most common E-major chord:

E: 0/6 2/5 2/4 1/3 0/2 0/1

What type of tab notation is this?

I use this type of guitar tablature notation because the more common tablature staffs are sometimes displayed incorrectly on article sites.

The first number indicates the fret to press down. The number after the slash shows which string to play. For example, 2/5 means: Press down the second fret on string five.

This E-major chord can be slided to various frets on the guitar creating a lot of nice sounding chords.

In order not to complicate this guitar lesson too much I will use a very easy notation only showing which fret to put your left index finger on with the assumption that you use the most common left hand fingering for this chord.

Here you have the fingering I am referring to:

Index finger on 1/3
Ring finger on 2/4
Middle finger on 2/5

The other notes in the chord are on open strings so by sliding the chord we will now create a lot of different guitar chord progressions that can be used as intros to songs or in other ways.

We will call the E-major chord previously explained for I because I is the roman numeral for one and the index finger is on fret one in this normal E-major position.

If we slide the chord up so that we preserve the chord shape and place the index finger on fret 4 we will call the chord IV because this is the roman numeral 4 and roman numerals are often used to indicate positions on the guitar.

This sliding will result in a chord sounding like a mix between G-major and E-minor actually Em7.

We will now slide the chord up to position VI and we will get a new nice chord sounding like A-major.

Time for our first chord progression:

I / / / IV / / / VI / / / I / / /

We will now add just one more chord by sliding the E-major chord up to the eigth position notated VIII. It is a B-major chord with some spices added.

Time for a new guitar chord progression:

I / / / IV / / / VI / / / VIII / / /

Of course there are many other possibilities. You might have come up with other ones already. We will now try a flamenco flavoured chord progression. We will use the F-major chord with some added notes.

We will find this special F-major chord by sliding up the E-major chord just one fret. We will notate this chord position as II.

Time to listen to the flamenco progression:

I / / / II / / / IV / / / II / / / I

Try a rassgueado

Rasgueado is a strumming technique that can be used in conjunction with the previous chords.

Rasgueado generally uses only one digit (finger, thumb, etc) for each strum; this means that multiple strums can be done more quickly than usual by using multiple digits in quick succession.

Let us make a fist with the right hand fingers. Try to make one finger at a time explode on the strings. For example in the order pinky, ring finger, middle finger and index.

There are two remaining progressions for you to explore. The first one with the E-major shape moved to the eleventh position meaning as you already know that the left hand index finger presses down fret eleven. This will result in a D-major chord with some flavours.

Here is the guitar progression:

I / / / XI / / / VI / / / VIII / / /

In the next progression we will use a version of the F#7 chord by sliding the E-major up to the third position:

I / / / III / / / VI / / / VIII / / /

These are some of the exciting guitar chords you will find in the key of E. This key really gives many opportunities for the inventive guitarist to find interesting chord changes!

Peter Edvinsson is a musician, composer and music teacher. Visit his site Capotasto Music and download your free sheet music and read his music blog at http://www.capotastomusic.com

The most commonly asked question to the A&R Reps is how can I get noticed by the people the man? The answer is that your efforts need to start locally and work your way out. Following are some very useful tips, suggestions and music promotional ideas that should be applied in your plan of attack for getting noticed.

#1.Rule to live by: Never send your package to a label that doesn’t accept unsolicited material. Unfortunately, these days, this applies to most major labels.

#2. Build a Press Pack: This is the best musician resource for you to use because it is an independent piece of product that can be used for booking your band, writing or reviewing your material or perhaps just forwarding it to a friend. It should include the following: Your CD, properly labeled, band name, song titles, and contact person.

#3. Live Shows: Have your stuff together at your show! Know that this is how to promote your CD and promote yourselves to whoever may show up.

#4. Your Photo: One of the best music promotional ideas is a killer photo of you or your band.

#5. Fanbase: Constantly grow your fan base because they know how to promote your CD. How many people come to your shows? Do you have a mailing list? How many CDs have you sold independently? How many T-shirts have you sold? Make sure you have a place where new fans can sign up for your mailing list which is a powerful musician resource itself.

#6. Don’t underestimate the power of local press: Get all of the willing and able local media involved in the happenings of your band.

#7. Identify Local Resources: Make use of all your local resources , such as record stores, schools, colleges, festivals, holiday events. Build locally, first then work on expanding. Never consider yourself to big for anyone’s music promotional ideas.

#8. Network! Network! Network!: People are the best musician resources there are. Meet as many people as possible and give your card to everyone. Remember, it is not always what you know, but who you know.

As a musician searching for how to promote your CD or looking to get noticed by A&R then live by these tips. A career-minded artist never should sit back and wait for things to happen to them. Start small with big goals and only good things can come your way!

Owner of Platinum Millennium publishing, former record label owner & national music industry seminar speaker/panelist. Author & creator of best-selling music biz books, courses, audio products & “How to” resources that helped 1000s. Go to http://www.musiccontracts101.com/docs/products/002/ for more.

A great way to explore chords and at the same time learn to use them is to learn them together in usable guitar progressions like II-V-I. Let’s concentrate on the key of C!

What is a II-V-I progression?

Is is a chord progression with three chords built on the roots of the second, fifth and first note of a key.

The three roman numerals correspond to the digits 2, 5 and 1. In it’s most basic form the numbers indicate the root of a triad. For example, the roman number I in C-major means a triad built from the note C. This triad consists of the notes C, E and G.

The Roman numeral II in the key of C-major indicates that you are to play a triad built from the notes in the C-major scale beginning with the second note. The notes will be D, F and A.

The Roman numeral V indicates a triad built from the fifth step on the C-scale. The fifth note in the C-scale is G so the triad will include the notes G, B and D.

Our first guitar chords will be the most commonly used II-V-I chords in the key of C. The first chord is of course Dm. This is the way it is normally played:

Dm: 0/4 2/3 3/2 1/1

What does this notation mean?

This is a type of guitar tablature notation with numbers showing what fret to press down and on which string. 2/3 for example means, press down the second fret on string three.

The V chord G7 we will play this way:

G7: 3/6 2/5 0/4 0/3 0/2 1/1

The remaining chord in this progression is C-major. It is played this way:

C: 3/5 2/4 3/0 1/2 0/1

If we write this progression with ordinary chord notation it will look like this:

Dm / / / G7 / / / C / / /

I will now take this lesson up one level. We will only use four strings at a time. I suggest that you use your right hand fingers as you pluck the strings.

I also recommend that you play the lowest string in a chord with your thumb and the other notes with your index, middle finger and ring finger. Remember, it is only a suggestion!

We will now spice the guitar chords in the previous progression by first changing Dm to Dm7:

Dm7: 0/4 2/3 1/2 1/1

The G7 chord we will change to G9:

G9: 3/6 2/3 0/2 1/1

Finally we will change the C-major chord to Cmaj7:

Cmaj7: 3/5 0/3 0/2 0/1

The resulting guitar chord progression looks like this:

Dm7 / / / G9 / / / C / / /

As you can see as you play the notes on your guitar the minor changes on the first three strings results in a smooth transition between the chords.

This is one way to make the chords in guitar progressions work well together.

Peter Edvinsson at Capotasto Music invites you to download your free sheet music, guitar tabs, ebooks, music lessons and read his music blog at http://www.capotastomusic.com