The Different Ways Of Music Promotion
Monday, January 30th, 2012Just as it's easier to write a book than to sell it, it's the same with music. You compose a beautiful song, or melody, which you are sure will become popular the world over, but when you try to find someone willing to promote it, you can't. In the end, you will find that nothing is easy, that music promotion takes a lot of time and effort.
Any occupation, however, must lead to an income. After all, man cannot live by bread alone. So the product of the composer's labor, be it a symphony, a piano duet, or a popular song, must be marketed to people who are willing to pay to play or hear it. This is not an easy task for the unknown composer, especially when there is plenty of free music available on the internet.
In the old days promotion was simpler. It was just a question of finding a publisher to publish your song for you. This, of course, involved a great deal of time and trouble, as most publishers are inundated with demonstration material. It might take them months to work through the list before coming to your song.
This is where contacts come in. If you know someone in the business who can put in a good word for you, then this will help getting your foot in the door. If you know no one, have no contacts, then progress is likely to be very, very slow. However, the important thing for any would-be professional composer or songwriter is to keep writing. Most of them will have at least a dozen songs making the rounds of the publishers at any one time.
Some publishers may like your song, but tell you they cannot use it. These are not actual publishers, but rather song- matchers, people who are looking for a certain piece of music or a certain song to fill an enquiry they have from television and movie producers. Others are people who promote song catalogs. Your song will go into the catalog, and hopefully, some producer will select it.
Others, who don't want the delays associated with publishers, put their material up on websites where it can be listened to free of charge by anybody. Their objective in doing this is to get publicity, especially for new bands and singers, and the hope that they will get noticed by producers, publishers, top singers, or record labels. Also, this procedure has speed in its favor.
Those who don't like the idea of making their compositions available for free can put them up for sale on their own websites. In this way they can set their own prices and get paid directly without having to surrender any portion of the price to anybody else. Or alternatively, they can make use of radio stations which are willing to pay a fee every time a song is played.
So it can be seen that currently there are many different ways of music promotion. If a song is good, catchy, fits the trend of the moment, then it might turn into a top hit. Any top hit will provide large sums of money to the composer, but only for a limited time. What every composer should strive for is the writing of an evergreen, a song or piece of music that never goes out of favor, and brings in a regular income for generations. However, the composer should accept that any success will likely involve a great deal of time and effort.
There are many ways to promote your music online. Using music distribution companies can help get your music on iTunes or many other music broadcasters.
