Tips and Tricks

Tips and Tricks.
Today I am going to share with you some tips and tricks I learned from an indie friend who recently returned from a country tour as a DIY singer-songwriter. Just to let you in on his background, he is a San Diego-based folk singer-songwriter and has just finished touring the country with another musician. Together they went from the San Juan Islands to Brooklyn, living rooms to piano bars, dive bars to vineyards. If you are new to the entire indie music thing, this article will help you as long as you are committed and you have a talent to produce good music. If you are experienced, with a few EPs completed, working on an album, playing for a few years, don’t mind smelling like beer and go without a shave for days, yet want to know how to tour DIY, then this is the article for you.
All indie artists read countless articles and blogs before they plan a tour, looking for information on making it happen. However, mostly many crucial tips and nuances are not streamlined into one article that the artists can access, so I’m writing this to help other artists and bands. Everything from original material, creating routes, to social media accounts, merch, marketing. I am going to try and cover all the information in this post and the posts to follow. Just keep in mind that DIY touring is not just fun. It is a full-time job. I hope you can use what I’ve learned to enable your own success!

Keep Enough Original Material Handy
Typically, music venues will have you play a 45-minute to 1 hour set. However, unconventional music venues such as vineyards and breweries, may ask you to play longer. If you manage to grab such a chance, you don’t want to repeat songs. While most people won’t sit for three hours, it is important to keep them entertained and interested. A repeat is not going to go unnoticed. Also, many places want original music; some even have legal restrictions prohibiting other artists’ material. This is also a good chance for you to establish yourself as an original artist. In this situation, the more original music you have, the more you can make your music familiar.
Use Social Media
A professional music website, your twitter and Facebook account, YouTube and Instagram are all great tools. They give you immense opportunities to book shows, connect with fans, sell music and even advertise your work. In my blog “Indie Music in The Computer Age”, I have written about how web permits artists to acquaint their music with a conceivably large group of audience easily without essentially affiliating with any record label. Customized sites help artists associate all the more to their fans. Social media groups have turned into a universal system of music-audience members. Making music accessible to download on the web makes marketing as simple as clicking a button.
In this age of computers, having your own website is an absolute necessity. While it sounds like rocket science to create and manage a website, there are companies like Hyper Effects that can help you connect with your target audience efficiently. Hyper Effects is one stop for your website, marketing and cyber development requirements. It helps you to create a website to display your talent or sell your indie music or indie art. Their websites are easy to navigate. All you need to do is to make sure you have a bio, up-to-date images and videos and probably a link to your music when you contact them.
Your website establishes your authenticity as a professional musician and is in most cases your first impression to potential bookers. This is your point to connect to all of your social media. If you don’t have a professional bio, don’t waste your time trying to book with establishments that probably have hundreds of requests in the pipeline. Know that a good professional bio, which is a specific type of bio, is much more important than you currently think.. You can learn about it online.
YouTube has proven to help many indie artists and is a great way for people to hear your music. Live video is an instant way for bookers to know if you have the skills they desire. Work out a way to record some live videos that express your skill and style. Record videos that show the diversity in your art and always have your best video first.
Facebook will hit a certain group of friends and is a great way to post invites to your events, images of your tour and videos of anything that you are doing on the tour. Your unofficial activities and chat on Facebook doesn’t just interest your fans, it interests the bookers too.
A lot of bookers want to listen to your music on SoundCloud, so make sure that you have an active and updated account. Ensure that your email to bookers and even your website has a link to this.
Use Instagram often. Music clips are a great way to create excitement and get views.
Watch out for my next post where I will write about charting out a route for your tour and booking shows. Please leave your comments to help me pick what I might have missed, in my future blogs.