I am very excited about the possibilities with social media networks and my music and talking about the finacnial crisis. It’s all starting to feel a bit like the early 90′s again: recession (following a middle East conflict with heavy funding.. “coincidentally”) and I seem to remember then that time developed into a great period for popular music. I do believe that “hard times” are a time of opportunity for us musicians because people are looking for inspiration or cheering up, even if they don’t realise it.

Now it’s 2008 we have even more possibilities seeing as we don’t have to rely on a record deal to get our music heard.

Now’s the time to get busy networking that music!
Thanks for the post

this is something i feel pretty strongly about – it’s such a facile view of web 2.0 to see it as intrinsically connected with silicon valley start-ups. on the contrary, i think it’s at its strongest when it behaves in the way that you describe, enabling us to bypass centralized, crudely commercial points of origin, and to share content and ideas – our actual and intellectual wares – with each other, in a delightfully personal, nuanced way.

My hope is that the imminent and potentially long-lasting recession may prove to be lead in the pencil of web 2.0, causing us to reassess how we can use these tools to drive towards a new form of local economy, powered by creativity, endeavour and reciprocal self-sufficiency (if that isn’t a complete oxymoron).

that’s a fantastic question, and slightly pre-empts one of the main points in Pt 2 – you have to find your own level.

Part of the reason why I say “there’s no one way to do it” is as much about the artist’s own personality as it is about musical genre, audience size and gig:recording ratio…

But there’s also a key word in your question – ‘want’ – one of the hardest things to get past in all this is that it’s a job (assuming you want to be full time) – it’s not a ‘reward’ or a ‘prize’. It’s a job that requires a commitment to do what’s necessary if you’re going to make it work. And part of that commitment is to better time management. I don’t know of many musicians who are working full time hours on their music… Those that are, I’d recommend they find a way to incorporate some kind of social media interaction into their leisure time.

I still play bass, write, pratice, gig, record etc. I just fit this stuff around it.

Part of this post series will be about mobile tools – things that enable you to find pockets of time when traveling or out and about in which to maximise your engagement, as well as to ‘produce content’… All in good time

thanks a lot for your question – please post more questions/comments if anything I say isn’t clear, or you disagree, or just want to say that it’s all a lot easier to understand now :p

Thanks for a great post, makes a lot of sense.
I’d be interested to know how many musicians want to spend lots of time talking/ communicating about themselves rather than making music or communicating about other subjects of interest. Certainly these concerns sum up my experience as a musician. However I do appreciate that promotion is necessary to get music heard/ make connections (eg with the people formerly known as the audience).

I also wonder whether web2.0 means that music need necessarily lose some of its mystery: sometimes the music that has most moved me to listen to I have known almost nothing about its creators, and I wouldn’t have had it any other way. Are those days gone now, do you think?

Can’t wait to see the next post!