Week 4 (music success in 9 weeks)

Social Networking

The task this week is to setup and learn how to “water your social media garden”

(In case you haven’t been following, here’s what this is all about: “Music success in 9 weeks”)

Twitter

I’ve already been active on Twitter for around two years http://twitter.com/AfricanABC I’ve found it to be one of the most valuable tools for spreading the word about my music. I’ve made many connections with people, and the relationships are often symbiotic. This isn’t a platform to push products, rather it is a platform to connect with people. If people I follow are producing music/literature/art or any product that I think is valuable or interesting, I will share the info with my followers on twitter. Almost every review or article that has been published about our music has been through my twitter friends. Some examples: Portfolio Collection Harassed Mom Times Live

 

Facebook

I started a Facebook group a couple of years ago, and made a rather unfortunate mistake in doing so: I invited, coaxed and cajoled all of my personal Facebook friends to join the group. I had a few hundred fans in days. Then I began to push the kids CD and promote live kids shows which we were doing at the time. I did this regularly for months. Then one day I bumped into a friend who mentioned that she had hidden all posts from my Facebook group. Turns out I was posting way too often, and the majority of people that I had enticed to join the group were not in the least bit interested in kids music! So I sent an email to the entire group announcing the closure of the group and apologising for the spam. I also announced a new fan page (http://www.facebook.com/AfricanTreehouse) and requested that people only join if they are interested in kids music. So from a few hundred fans, I ended up with around 50 on the new page. Its growing a little every month and I’m planning a contest to get more fans. But the best thing is that those who joined the new fan page are there because they want to be there.

 

MySpace

By the time I had got into social networking (around 2 years ago) MySpace was dying. I decided that Facebook & Twitter (and my website) were enough. MySpace has recently been revamped so I may reconsider.

 

YouTube

We have a YouTube presence, but I guess I should try and update it a bit more regularly http://www.youtube.com/user/AfricanABC

 

Music Alley

I had never even heard of Music Alley before reading “Music success in 9 weeks”! It is a fantastic site for podcasters to source music for their podcasts. I have just signed up and uploaded some tracks. Too soon to tell if any of our music will be used, but watch this space….

Week 3 (music success in 9 weeks)

Week 2 was about creating the perfect pitch…we’ve created a pitch. But is it perfect? It’s a work in progress!

This week is about optimising the website: http://www.africantreehouse.com

Some of the concepts suggested in “Music success in 9 Weeks”

• We’ve added our current pitch to the site.
• It should load in less than 3.5seconds…however with our “broadband” speeds in South Africa, this is rather difficult to ascertain! I think it loads fairly quickly though.
• I ditched the flash site months ago. It was slow, and not compatible with all browsers.
• I’ve added free downloads – and as a result have already had new fans sign up to the mailing list!
• I try to keep the home page current, by regularly adding news & reviews.

 

Side Note: African Numbers got the most fantastic review from “Portfolio Collection”!

Music Lessons–a new approach

My talented 9 year old "aspie" nephew is nuts about about music. He's been going to piano lessons for a few years, and has perfect pitch as well as great rhythm.

I had an idea to start giving him music lessons in my studio, and approached a friend of mine (an adult with Asperger's) for suggestions on how best to go about it. She gave me some valuable advice:

1. Remove clutter/distractions. Since this was not possible in my studio, which is littered with cables, guitars, sheet music, microphones etc. I turned the keyboard around so that my nephew would be facing a wall when we worked.

2. Don't busk. Have clear goals. I sat my nephew down and explained the process. I told him that the song would take weeks, possibly months to complete. Every week I reinforced this, explaining the day's activity & outcome, and how the lesson fitted into the long term goal of completing the song.

 

Here's how the first song was put together

I chose a song (“These boots are made for walking”) which I new would be fairly simple to record.

Every week we programmed a bit of the song in my studio. Starting with the kick drum, then adding snare, hi-hat and tambourine. Then the bass intro, followed by the rest of the bass line bar by bar.

I made sure my nephew played everything in himself. We did it over and over until he got it right. (I did quantise the tracks, but since he played them so many times until he got them right, they didn’t require much correction).

I taught him how to copy and paste, so bits that were repeated didn't have to be played in again.

The only part played by me was the guitar part. But he operated the computer when I played the guitar: He armed a track and pushed record and stop. Then I got him to cut the guitar part where I’d made a mistake so that I could drop in and fix it.

His homework every week was to listen to the CD and prepare for the next lesson.

The last thing we recorded was vocals. He learned the lyrics so well that we managed to lay down vocals for whole song in about 30 minutes!

 

The song took a total of six, one hour sessions to complete.

I've added a bit of compression and some reverb to the vocals, and this is what the end product sounds like:

My nephew’s recording of “These Boots”

Next week we’ll start on another song. If all goes well I’ll post the second song here, once it is complete.

 

I'm also teaching him reading. We start every lesson with 15 minutes of clapping rhythms. I'm only concentrating on quarter note rhythms for the time being. As we progress I'll add smaller note values and eventually start working with pitch too.

If you'd like to hear the music I compose for kids, please visit: www.africantreehouse.com

Week 2 (music success in 9 weeks)

The Pitch

We’re into week two of Music Success in 9 Weeks (you can read the intro here, and about week 1 here)

This week is all about building the perfect pitch.

This task has been rather difficult, but at the same time quite a valuable exercise. In Music Success in 9 Weeks Ariel Hyatt mentions that writing a good pitch is not unlike writing a song. And like so after much tweaking and many rewrites we ended up with something suitable. I use the phrase “ended up with” rather loosely as we may decide to make further adjustments later!
We needed something that describes our music, concept and outlook in a short, yet enticing way.
Some points that we wanted to convey:

1. Our music is decidedly African. It’s earthy and authentic.
2. Its music for kids but…
3. We try to write music for kids that isn’t condescending
4. We use good (no make that great!) musicians on the albums.
5. We try to make kids music that adults will tolerate (and hopefully enjoy) after repeated listens
6. We are passionate about these albums and put a lot of heart and soul into them.
7. The music is educational, it has a sense of humour and it grooves!

After much hammering, chiselling, breaking and gluing bits together, we finally came up with:

Real world music for real kids, made with love, from Africa.

No purple dinosaurs were used in the making of this album.

Disclaimer: Adults are not immune to the contagious rhythms

If you'd like to listen to our music please visit: http://www.africantreehouse.com

What are your thoughts?

Week 1 (music success in 9 weeks)

Week one is about getting mentally prepared and setting goals.
(If you don’t know what this is all about, please read my intro here)

But first a bit about me: I’m one half of a songwriting/production partnership called “African Treehouse”. My songwriting partner (Erika Strydom) and I have just released our 3rd kids CD “African Numbers” and we’re using the book “Music Success in 9 Weeks” to help us spread the word. If all goes well, you can read about our progress here for the next 9 weeks.

Making an album is an enormous task. It’s sometimes frustrating, sometimes challenging. It can be extremely rewarding. It consumes your life (both in a good way and  in a bad way). It’s a journey, a destination & whole bunch of other adjectives and clichés. But it’s an absolute doddle when compared to actually selling the thing! So with all that out the way, here goes week one.

Goals

Setting out these goals has been a great learning experience already. We kind-of-sort-of knew where we wanted to go with our series of albums, but writing them down has put everything in perspective.

Short-term

One week, to one month. (Some are ongoing.)

• Write a press release, create a solid pitch and unique selling point.
• Put together 2 press packs (1 for South African market, the other international), consisting of a press release, CD cover artwork, photos, fan comments etc
• Update website, Facebook with news of new release, links to purchase & links to listen
• Alert existing customers of the new CD
• Contact new customers
• Post lyrics on website

 Notes: Press release & press packs have been created. Relevant web sites have been updated. We have started contacting old customers – CDs are now available from Look & Listen, Kalahari.net and we have found 2 new retail outlets for our CDs (Afro in Norwood, & African Queen in the Parks). Here’s the Press Release

Medium Term

One month to six months

• Send press packs to (or preferably meet with in person) relevant journalists and bloggers.
• Contact radio/TV to get interviews
• Put idea for a contest into action
• Begin work on CD number 4 (Stories from the Alphabet Tree II)
• Work on a teacher’s pack to put on the website (with actions & activities for each song)

 Notes: We have started sending out press packs. 2 reviews so far: http://www.harassedmom.co.za/?p=4327 & TimesLive. We have begun work on the teacher’s packs and we’ve also started writing stories for the next album.

Long Term

A year or more

• Contact ad agencies/brand managers to explore the possibility of linking the CD to a product or brand
• Step up international P.R. to drive download sales
• If contest was successful, look into doing another
• Begin work on the next music CD in the series
• Take a vacation!!!
• Design point-of-sale counter display stands

Very Long Term

• Explore turning the CDs into a TV series and/or a stage show
• Begin manufacturing merchandise (T-shirts, stickers, posters, books etc)

Any comments or advice would be welcome…we’re learning as we go along!
Tune in next week for more “Music Success in 9 Weeks”!

Music Success In Nine Weeks

I’ve just launched a new CD (African Numbers) and my partner and I are about to start marketing it. We know we need better strategies than we had for previous CDs. We did our best with the first two albums following roughly this course of action:

1. Buy any magazines/newspapers that look suitable for our CD
2. Write a press release
3. Contact the publications and send out the press release
4. Punt the albums on Twitter & Facebook
5. Write and rehearse a show to promote the CDs at schools, in stores, shopping malls etc
6. Contact radio stations

We had some success with these methods, but our campaign was managed rather haphazardly (by us of course!) in fits-and-starts.
Lets face it: We’re first and foremost musicians, and the idea of promoting ourselves is rather daunting. We learned a lot. Some methods worked better than others. But it was difficult to keep momentum and follow up on leads while trying to distribute the CDs and at the same time earn a living from gigs & studio work.
So with the new album we decided to find a way to plan & structure our marketing campaign. This is where “Music Success in Nine Weeks” enters the picture. The book is by Ariel Hyatt, who runs a successful music P.R. company www.arielpublicity.com
Is the book any good? Watch this space… On the 11th of October begins the 3rd Music Success in 9 Weeks Blogging Challenge. If you’ve purchased the book you’re invited to enter the challenge (free of charge). You need to write a weekly blog detailing your progress working through the book. On completion, the blogs are judged, and the artist who has performed the best wins a 3 month campaign (among other things) from www.arielpublicity.com
So if you’d like to follow our progress, please subscribe to the blog, or check in once a week. And comments/suggestions are welcome, we need all the help we can get!
Note: I’m not affiliated with or endorsed by any of the sites/books/people listed above.

African Numbers

A little bit of shameless self-promotion!

The new CD “African Numbers” is finally here. This has been one of our toughest CDs to complete for a variety of reasons, but I feel it was all worth it in the end. We’re thrilled with the way the CD has turned out, thanks to wonderful performances by some great musicians. The album once again features Relebogile “Lebo” Mabotja on lead vocals, and Kelly Petlane on sax, flute and pennywhistle, as well as the Redhill School kids. This time around we were fortunate enough to record one of South Africa’s top bass players, Concord Nkabinde, who not only played some cooking basslines, but also did a great job as a backing vocalist.

I played all the guitars on the album, and Erika Strydom did the female backing vocals. All songs were composed, recorded, programmed and mixed by Erika & me.

We’ve did our best to make the album as “adult friendly” as possible, and have styled the songs on a variety of African grooves, even making use of some odd-meters (Check out the song “The Big 5”).

Listen to some clips over here: http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/AfricanTreehouse1

Our website: www.africantreehouse.com

Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/AfricanTreehouse

And look out for the album in a store near you, as well as iTunes, Kalahari.net etc.

 

Photos from sessions…