Using TV Talent Shows

We have a new theory about music talent shows.

An Artists popularity can surge if an artist who has appeared on one show years before appears on another, one example is two Young Talent Time singers in 2012 reappeared on The Voice in 2017 and both had their YouTube numbers spike.

Popularity can also surge if you have never been on Television before, people do get curious and decide to hunt down past material and if you really make an impact using TV it will keep going as long as you are on TV.

The downside is that the surge in views doesn’t last very long, an Artist will have to move very quickly to capitalize on any interest so it is best they get the attention of local newspapers and also keep up the positive news on social media because people love good news.

What is good news? Doing shows is good news, a video making it to 100, 500, 1000 and any thousand after that is good news, a new dress, suit, haircut is also considered good news to people.

What are your thoughts?

Is fundraising worth it?

Not too long ago, if you wanted to do something like make a single, album or EP it was basically down to the artist, family and friends to pay for it.

Now these days we can just fundraise for whatever we want to make our dreams and ambitions come true.

Fundraising is a slippery slope because it can give you everything you want to get ahead in life but there is drawbacks to it all and some of them ain’t pretty.

Seeking funds can make or break your reputation, If you make what you declare you’ll make with X amount of dollars then people will have absolute faith in your career and perhaps spread that faith to others who are trying to get their projects off the ground.

People who donate may feel they are now friends with you and also in a way they are your shareholders and if you don’t do what is promised things will crash faster than a novice behind the wheel of a Formula One car.

Some donors may think that giving you a heap of money entitles them to friendship and high praise and if you don’t give them both and you thought to be ‘screwing them over’ they can screw you over too.

It has happened, just the other day we were witness to the breakup of a partnership between artist and fan and it could be very damaging to the artist in the future because this person was very active in promoting the artist (solicited and unsolicited help).

So artists have to be careful all the time, be careful in what they say and be careful in what they do and keep things as professional as possible.

It is not a one way street because there are risks for donors who give their money.

Donors must be aware that there is time to time there are people who take money and they run, in the gaming industry there is a thing called Early Access where people can develop a game and people pay for the game’s development and some people either abandon the project or rush release it so it is considered a fulfilment of commitment yet the gamers are left with a piece of junk and there is nothing they can do about it.

So choose wisely artists and fans, artists should always make sure they don’t promise people the world for their donation and make sure that nobody thinks a donation is the price of friendship and donors have to make sure they know exactly what they are paying for.

Communication

There’s a performer that we know of who can sing really well, move really good and is considered to have great looks.

She has a ‘Street team’ and a guy who is absolutely devoted to her until she missteps that is.

The other night she was meant to do a Stageit show, she cancelled without a word and the Street Team leader ripped in to her for not saying a word about it.

She was apparently spotted on Instagram on the same day talking about some problems she is having, she was blasted about that too even though the problems could be linked to why she did not perform.

Two things have been gleaned from all of this

1. Performers must communicate all intentions
2. Street team/Fan Club leaders should not be berating their subject

To point one, A performer must tell his or her fans if something is wrong that may or will affect shows, song releases etc it doesn’t have to be long winded but just write a brief apology, state there are some issues and will keep people updated.

Point two, if you are a leader of some fan club you don’t rip into the person you are serving, you have to be diplomatic at all times, if there is a cancellation say something like ‘Tonights show is cancelled for reasons yet unknown, we will let you know what is going on ASAP’.

You can’t lift a person up with one hand in support while punching them in the back of the head with the other hand.

Does crowdfunding work?

Crowdfunding is currently a very popular method in attaining funds to release an EP or Album but it can be a hit or miss affair.

Some of the things to consider are the following;

1. How much are you seeking?
2. What payment options are there?
3. Are backers getting any rewards for their donation?
4. Can you hit any release date you have set for your EP etc?
5. Have you promoted the fundraiser?

Always be aware that not everyone has a credit card so try aim for a crowdfunder that offers PayPal or bank deposit as well as credit card.

Rewards are a great carrot but make sure if it is an item you got plenty of them and postage if it’s something physical doesn’t cost more than the donation to send it.

Only set a release date for your work if you are confident of hitting that target or releasing it early, people are getting less and less patient with product releases so make sure you hit your target.

It’s often said that donations come flooding in at the beginning and end of a campaign so don’t stress if it slows down, chances are it will pick back up just keep people updated on how the campaign is going as time goes by.

TYMG wishes everyone the best of success when crowdfunding and hopes it opens doors for new adventures for you and your donors.

Tyler Wilford’s ‘Live Again’ out now

Tyler Wilford’s ‘Live Again’ has today been released on iTunes, Amazon and YouTube.

This song has been awaited by fans for some time and the good news is that it was at least in TYMG’s opinion well worth waiting for.

Long ago in 2012 Tyler was a rocker of the future and that future has arrived today, so far the song has been met with positive feedback and TYMG hopes that the listens, watches and feedback continue flowing for some time into the future.

TYMG will continue to report on how ‘Live Again’ is faring for Tyler as further news comes to hand.

Why is someone ‘Amazing’?

In the music world there is three words that pop up in almost every comment about young performers and they are ‘Beautiful’, ‘Young’ and ‘Amazing’.

‘Beautiful’ no comment on, ‘Young’ obviously they are and ‘Amazing’ well that’s ore that is always wondered about.

Why is somebody ‘Amazing’? What is so special about somebody? Do they dance so well it inspires? Do their voices go so high it can knock you for six? Do they play their instruments so well that you wonder how they get such sounds made?.

Don’t just tell performers that they are amazing, tell them why they are amazing because it will inspire the performer you tell that little bit more.

The Social Media Creepiness

Like many people on this planet, I spend a lot of time on Twitter mostly keeping people updated on the news and replying to any messages I get from those I write about.

One thing that bothers me is that the majority of  young female performers fans are not young people, on any given day 90% of tweets to artists are from middle aged or older men and when some tweets contain <3’s it gets the creepiness radar spinning into overdrive.

The thing is without older people support, the path to success will be difficult and so a performer has to decide what is comfortable for them, do they post pictures, do they respond to messages, do they fund raise for albums etc?

I couldn’t stomach putting in ❤ in a message or say somebody is beautiful, that’s for the youth to do but when somebody is 20+ then you could probably do so, it just feels so wrong to do those kind of things yet you see it all the time.

Always be aware young performers that some people may think you owe them if they follow you through your journey, people who pay money to support efforts expect great acknowledgement and could bite if you don’t live up to expectations or give the right amount of attention.

It’s been observed for some time that young female artists outnumber young male artists on social media and male artists rarely get bothered but they are harder to notice and you have to wait for something like X Factor to see them in large numbers.

No matter if you are a male or female performer, be careful out there.

Does music sound inspirational anymore?

The world loves music but recently I’ve gotten to wonder if songs themselves have inspiration in them or not these days.

A good song puts images into the listeners, ‘The End’ and ‘Riders On The Storm’ puts images of war and driving through rain, lightning and thunder into listeners heads respectively.

‘Gonna Fly Now’ by Bill Conti is so tied in with Rocky that you think Boxing or Jogging when you hear it even without Rocky it is a song to get you moving, the Village People’s ‘YMCA’ makes you do the YMCA years after hearing it for the first time and U2’s ‘Sunday Bloody Sunday’ makes you think about the nastiness of the IRA and British forces when they did nasty things to each other and innocent civilians for decades.

A song can be inspirational by it’s sound as well as the lyrics, many songs have that special sound just think ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’, when the song changes pace and it’s a whole new song and Wayne’s World seized on that to create the iconic head banging scene in the movie.

Singing wise, high notes can really make things happens just think of The Eagles ‘Take It To The Limit’ with Randy Meisner hitting the high note that goes on and on, hearing the live version really shows you how good it is because you can sense the song building up and then bang greatness.

Right words + Right tune = hit

Think about it, if Taylor Swift’s ‘Shake It Off’ had one or two less uses of ‘hate’ or ‘shake’ it wouldn’t make sense and if it didn’t have it’s tune it probably would of sounded ridiculous, some people still think the song is ridiculous not because they ‘hate’ Taylor Swift but because it’s a really basic song but it struck gold with the right sound.

Don’t be afraid to dig deep through history and borrow ‘retro’ styles, don’t be afraid to churn out songs that clock in just over 2 minutes because those songs are songs that are short, sweet and very memorable, don’t be afraid to put in some solos whether it’s a guitar one or drums or just the tune being played before launching into the lyrics, take a chance and shake things up.

Browse Around

Youth around the world are in a unique position, they have the opportunity to plot out their future and to get to the future they’ll have to put their fingers in quite a lot of pies.

Don’t put all your eggs in the one basket, a long and world travelling career in music won’t happen if you focus 100% on YouTube because people have to see you live firstly because it will help pay your bills, it will also put a name to a face because people want to be in on the action, playing live will also show how good you are on stage because people want to see and hear somebody who sounds confident and natural not somebody who needs a pile of technology to appear flawless.

Everything takes time, you will not be raking in the cash immediately, you won’t be making a major profit for sometime but if you plan out the right balance you will get there so make sure you do some videos with a mix of live and recorded material, make sure your site is good working order, make sure you got some places to play some good live music and keep on going.

Also remember that nothing is easy and disappointments will happen in life, what you do after those disappointments will define who you are lastly remember to have fun because none of it is worth it if you don’t have fun.

Previous blog clarification

I was discussing the most recent blog entry with a good friend of mine who pointed out that the entry may of been looking at the behaviors of parents of young performers after it got them thinking about what was said.

The article was not about parents of performers, It is true that I have had some strange experiences with some parents here and there since I’ve been writing about music way back in early 2011 but parents were not the focus or were considered in the previous blog entry, It was all about fans who can overstep the boundaries with those they like to listen to.

I’m not a parent and I can’t tell you the odds of me being one apart from there is always a chance but from what I know, Being the parent of a performer must be a very tough thing to be because you have to be the manager, the cheerleader, the hard truth teller and so many other roles as a child becomes a teen and then an adult and they must figure out where their destiny lays.

I hope there are no parents out there who are using the mental whip to propel their children forward in the industry, parents should trust in their child’s ability, support them faithfully and politely and let results speak for themselves knowing there is nothing more either yourself or your child can do once everything is done.