I have been blogging over in myspace about blogging here.... gosh....blogs within blogs within blogs : ) I set up my Garden Blog yesterday too.... it's called Lush Garden... Needs more work..Here is my myspace blog about this Blog Challenge "Music Success in 9 Weeks" and what it means to me to be an artist. Me thinks it is the beginning of my round up for the challenge too....
Myspace Blog

WIDGETS

Hmmmmm i have been cutting and pasting codes and getting lost in my web world today. Finally a widget with an inbuilt Mp3 gift : ) Kinda bigger than I wanted but.... hmmmmmmmm



It is working on my myspace now : )

I also have a Reverb Nation profile and account : ) So a productive day of cutting and pasting code around the web : )

Expanding email lists and Real Live Networking

ok - so I am a little behind this week- oops- I just finished my term of teaching drum circles in schools and now.... school hoooliiidaays : ))))) One of my kid groups performed for end of term, so its been crazy! I now have 3 to 4 days to catch up with lots of admin before I leave for Canberrra and Melbourne for 10 days of dance workshops with internationally acclaimed dance artist Suraya Hilal. I am drumming for some of the training and then will dance the rest of the time! With this on the horizon I have also been working hard on a piano piece with my collaborator Sarah Hamilton as we will do some development work on it with Suraya Hilal next week. Its exciting as ever. This will be the 5th year I have done the workshop.

Ok so- hmmmmmmmm some of the things I am yet to address in Music Success in 9 Weeks ...... Expanding my mailing list....well.... I think I have been more successful over the past few years expanding my web site in person than on line. I have decided I need to design a mailing list form and buy a few clip boards so I can hand them around at performances more easily.

I still have not quite got to adding more email list/ free mp3 things around my sites. It is working here but hmmmmmmm after some research it seems like reverb nation still have the simplest version of this. Gotta look at this more today........

This week I also had a gig for a 50th birthday. I played drums for some of my favorite dancers, Tribal Jewels. It reminded me that this kind of work is fun, makes people really happy and pays well. It is also a chance to network and promote all my activities- From drum and dance classes and performances as well as singer songwriter albums and performances. We made some great new friends who were really happy to further promote our work. It made me realize I need to revamp my cards perhaps even a 3 sided card which has my drum/dance activities - singer songwriter and composition for film/media arts projects.

Part of me thinks it's overkill to promote everything at the same time but ....... I think perhaps people should not be underestimated in terms of their attention spans and their interest in fairly diverse areas of the arts. As Ariel says in Week 7- you never quite know who you are speaking with and how you might be able to help each other out with performances/ venues/marketing..... LIFE : ) Drum/Dance gigs can make new fans for my singer songwriter material and last week I sold a singer songwriter CD to a woman who had seen me drum and dance. So hmmmmmm it's all related and I think people are intrigued by artists who work across a number of fronts. I also have maybe found a new studio to teach from by doing a gig and chatting with people.

Another example of the worth of chatting online and off is I recently scored free tickets to a percussion concert featuring one of the most well known and respected percussionists River P Guergerian. From a post on a google group conversation I ended up with free tickets and then I introduced myself at the concert and thanked him, we had a great chat and talked about meeting up next time he comes out for a play and so now I have a lovely contact with a wonderfully inspiring artist : )

so yes...... approaching people as potential friends is made so much easier through the web but the in person contacts are really important too : )

This week I also decided to start a blog for my organic /permaculture garden. Partly for fun, partly because I like the idea of inspiring people to grow their own food and partly cause its refreshing to write about something other than ME : )



Ok I am going to stop blabbering on and do some work on email lists. I have also started mapping out ideas for products and merchandise and how to create the funnel for week 8's exercise..... more soon ......

Communication for so many of us has become based around screens within screens within screens..... Fun though, to create global networks. To share ideas with people on the other side of the planet. To build communities based around shared information. Ways of being and sharing with folk who otherwise would be out of reach- people who are in a similar head space despite their geographic distance. This week I have been collating my blog contacts. Week 4 of Ariel Hyat's book Music Success in 9 weeks suggests making a list of 50 blog sites that you want to send stuff to. It has been good to start putting all the information in one place. I have made contact with a number of bloggers since the album came out in March with some success. It was good today to put all the contact information in one place with notes on whether I have sent them anything and whether they have published anything. Bloggers and podcasters are GREAT! Once you find people who like your work they are so supportive. Its a win win for both of you. If you make music they like and you have concise information on what you do and who you are and some decent press shots, and the music in a format they can easily access then it's easy for them and you get some promotion and feedback from it. I am still working on the list and will post at least some of it when I am done.

I have also been gradually revamping my sites. Making sure the blurbs, pitches are consistent and all the links are working etc...It is time consuming work as I currently have lots of sites. Including facebook, twitter, sonic bids, unearthed, myspace, last FM, You Tube, Flikr, this blog... a drumming blog, a general blog and www.mahriautumn.com... hmmmm that's a kinda crazy amount going on. Some of them are working better than others. My You Tube site is the one that has really taken off. I have almost 250,000 hits on my drumming video. It's near the top of my priority list to harness this interest. I need to make more clips and funnel the hits into some kind of sale able items...... also looking in to using advertising maybe.

Week 5 of the book is about Mailing Lists and thinking about your "fan" base and thinking through what the options are for engaging with them. Hmmmmmmm my mailing list is VERY small. Much work to be done here. Still have not succesfully sorted the opt in email thing. I have different strategies working on different sites. Need to consolidate it. Need some help with this. Getting there though.

Meanwhile I am looking at an option of doing some life coaching/career guidance sessions with one of my favorite artists to help focus my creative activities. I will keep you posted on that. Meanwhile 2, i have been training in dance, walking up the mountain as I have 10 days of drumming and dance workshops coming up in a few weeks : ) Meanwhile 3, I have been working on my new piano piece. Meanwhile 4, I have been in communication with Brian Siskind who helped make my album ri-solv about how we might approach the next project. Meanwhile 4, working hard with my drumming schools project. Meanwhile 4, enjoying spring in my garden. Meanwhile 5, checking out some of my friends theatre shows in the Sydney Fringe Festival : ) all good : ) Must sleeeeeep ..........

Blogs, social media, facebook, twitter, myspace, flikr, You Tube, Ariel Hyat, Derek Sivers

Just discovered my main link to my web site from here was not working : ( Fixed now. Ok so I have a confession. I have been following cyber PR queen Ariel Hyat's work for a while now. It was only week one of the blog challenge that I actually bought the whole Music Success in 9 weeks- but i have been reading as much as I can of the bits she releases and also checking out her YouTube clips etc for atleast a year: ) So I have a little head start on some of these things.

My first lessons with creating a cyber web world was with myspace. I joined back in 2007. I was in the process of working on my first album and it was very exciting to begin to release things to the world in such an easy way. Great to be able to publish things as they were progressing and start getting some feedback without actually having "published" it yet. I began to realise how much easier it was to get feedback from people a little further removed. I started making some wonderful contacts with industry people, other musicians, people who were really inspiring me on so many levels. Myspace is where I met Brian Siskind who I ended up making my first album -ri-solv- with.

I also have made lasting contacts with radio people, bloggers and other musicians. There is so much for me to share on this subject. So much of Ariel's writing rings true with me. Using web 2 technology to find people you genuinely have something in common with, who you are genuinely interested in, who inspire you and who want to support your work is a wonderful journey. One of the first blogs I started to follow was of Ariel's friend and colleague Derek Sivers. (founder of CD Baby) His blog is always interesting and always inspiring. It ranges from tips on being a musician, being an entrepreneur, web 2 marketing to more general ideas and stories about how to be a better human being : ) I signed up for his RSS news feed and after watching and reading for a while I began leaving the occasional reply. After leaving maybe 3 replies on random threads, topics I was genuinely interested in I received an email from Derek Sivers! At first I thought... hmmmmm must be an automated response when someone leaves more than 3 messages. I thought... ahh well I shall respond anyway and see what happens... What happened was we got into an extended email exchange - I sent him copies of my music and links to my web sites and he gave me invaluable encouragement, advice and inspiration. He is a wonderfully positive and inspiring human being and his encouragement came at a time that I really needed it. My favorite line of his was to tell me he thought I was " totally super awesome" . Not just awesome or super but "totally super awesome" : ) There have been many more of these stories of connecting with amazing people through social networks and blogging. It allows you to connect and speak with people it would otherwise be almost impossible to ever meet. I shall relate some more of these stories over the coming weeks. Time to rest up for my big day. Teaching drum circles with children, catch up with a friend then dance training and then a rehearsal.

Oh and also today I applied for an Artist in Residency program in Sydney for a few months next year. I would get access to a living space and rehearsal/performance/gallery space for a few months next year. It would be a great opportunity to promote my work in Sydney and really foster some creative collaborations next year: )

Ariel Hyat's- Music Success in 9 weeks cont...Reviews, widgets and more

Week 4 ish of Ariel Hyat's Blog Challenge: Music Success in 9 Weeks.
Today I got bogged down in researching widgets. I am looking for something which will do the email in exchange for a free download idea. I have this happening on my website www.audionarcissist.com but need to find an easy way of doing it for every page on my website and on my numerous blogs and social media sites. I have been exploring reverb nation and fizzkicks.com. Neither of them seem like completely straight forward options. Both involve setting up yet another profile. Meanwhile, I have been on the topspin green room google group list for some time now. So I have been watching closely how different music marketing folks are operating. It's a great network which I have learnt HEAPS from : ) I also made some great connections through it including getting blog coverage and reviews through making contact with Justin Wayne of the Justin Wayne Show. He is one of those fantastic bloggers who genuinely loves and is passionate about supporting independent musicians. He not only promoted my work on his show but also sent off links to my work to a number of his associates all over the world : )

Anyway- hmmmmmm still lots of work to do on that one. And decisions to be made in terms of who to go with for widgets. There are lots of options. The somewhat cynical side of me wonders if there is more money to be made in making musicians 'think' they can make money than in actually making any money for musicians. Yes, a little dark thought ; ) But really there are so, so, so many folk trying to work out how to crack the web 2 music making code and it's completely baffling some days. A constantly changing landscape. On a good day it's exciting and feels like i am part of a cultural revolution. Where 'people' can decide for themselves what music they like and which artists they want to support rather than it being decided for them by industry fat cats. On a not so good day I wonder if most people are always going to need someone else to tell them what music is good. The truth is probably somewhere in between : )

The upside of today was I collated and edited the best of the reviews I have got from my first album- ri-solv- and posted them to my website http://mahriautumn.com/news and also to my myspace

I also got a lovely message from a radio presenter in Sydney who had heard my album and thinks "it's great" and is offering to help promote it in Sydney for me. So heartwarming the way people reach out to you. It means so much right now : )