The musician as promoter in social media

For audiences, social media provides different ways of discovering new artists. For musicians, they become cheap and accessible channels of promotion. Online video platforms like Youtube allow musicians to post music or performance videos and create an image to share with their fans. In 2006 MySpace was the main website where musicians were sharing music; there, artists like Owl City or Arctic Monkeys built online communities and went on to be discovered and signed by major labels. Some of the popular music sharing websites today are Soundcloud, ReverbNation, or Bandcamp (the latter of which allows artists to sell their music on a pay-what-you-wish basis); they all provide sharing buttons, allowing sharing through social media websites, such as Facebook, Twitter or Tumblr; these websites provide a basis for grass-root marketing, as they facilitate the music and videos to be shared and spread via the online ‘word-of-mouth’.

Social media not only allows the sharing of one’s music, but the construction of an online brand and persona and the illusion of ‘fake intimacy’ built through online interactions with the fans. According to Baym (2012, p. 288), social media, such as Twitter, create a new expectation of intimacy. For musicians, since music is so easily shared online, this expectation to maintain ongoing connections and affiliations with their fans is even stronger. Marwick and Boyd (2011, p. 140) describe micro-celebrity as ‘a mindset and set of practices in which audience is viewed as a fan base; popularity is maintained through ongoing fan management; and self-presentation is carefully constructed to be consumed by others.’ 

The fan/artist relationship is essentially a customer/retailer relationship. As many musicians nowadays sell their music online, they need to build a relationship of trust with their customers. McCourt (quoted in Styven, 2007, p.60) points out that online services try to compensate for their lack of materiality by offering features such as personalisation and community functions. According to Koernig (quoted in Styven, 2007, p. 61) strategies for making the intangible more tangible often include the use of pictures, physical symbols, or facts and information. For an indie musician this translates into working towards building a personal brand and using social media to create an online presence; building a community around this online persona through the mindset of a ‘micro celebrity’ is an essential part in the process of self-promotion. 

Although social media is a valuable tool for reaching audiences and for receiving immediate feedback, maintaining an online persona and an ongoing interaction with the fans can prove very time-consuming and even difficult for some artists, who feel uncomfortable being social with strangers on the internet, as Baym’s study (2012) shows.

Re-arranging, re-mixing and re-mastering and older track: Lotus Flower

As part of my new EP, I am including and older track (published last year on Youtube), which received good feedback from my online followers and was not included on any other release.
The track is called 'Lotus Flower' and its theme is social inequity - it explores the relationship between the less fortunate and the ordinary people, the main idea being the fact that usually we all pretend to care while at the same we are happy that we are not the miserable ones.

This is the track in its original version:

In this version, the track has quite an unusual structure for a song; I believe it is the longest song I have written, going over six minutes. 

What is specific to this song is that instead of the traditional alternation between verse and chorus, there is a constant switch between vocals and violin, the two leads having balanced importance. The timbre of the real violin adds a lot to the overall vibe and to the quality of the mix, providing an interesting contrast to the synths and drum sounds in Logic that form the rest of the backing. 

The intro is extended to about a minute and a half and it starts with a violin solo in 4/4; I wrote this part in the high register of the instrument to make it sound more wailing and emotional.  When the beat comes in, the drums and bass are in 5/4, while the violin and the piano are still in 4/4. There is also an arpeggiated synth/pad with a 6/8 pattern, which is present almost all throughout the song. 

The bass line constructs a melody in 5/4, while following the drumbeat in a way that makes the irregular rhythm feel almost natural.

                                 sample bassline:

The first verse is followed by a beautiful violin solo section, which leads into the second verse. An 8-bar interlude bar that allows a house beat to creep in, with a fade in; the house beat stays until the end of the section. The reversed piano that was introduced before, as a prefiguration of the second section, makes a second appearance and links between the two big sections of the song. The violin takes the piano line from the very intro and plays it, then dubs it up a third; this becomes the main motif around which the whole second half of the song is built. The rhythm changes to 12/8, matching the same piano pattern.  

                                           this piano motif:

is quantized in triplets and becomes this, in 12/8:

Maintaining the dialogue, the vocals imitate the violin, by singing these same notes and then dubbing the melody a major third up. To provide symmetry to the track, the drums add an extra 'beat' of 3/8, turning the rhythm into 15/8, an equivalent for the 5/4 we encountered at the beginning of the song.  There is symmetry in terms of melody as well; first we come back to the melody of the first verse, basically finishing the song with a third 'verse' which is followed by the violin playing the exact same melody that was played in the intro, with the same accompaniment and background. 

         Structure diagram of 'Lotus Flower' - original version:

The main influences for this track come from my past experience of listening Cafe del Mar and 'Absolute Relax' albums, the sort of chilled tracks with a solo violin playing the melody. I was particularly thinking of the Enigma - Secret Garden track and replicating that sort of sound, which I did by adding lots of reverb, also by boosting mids and lows on the EQ, because my raw sound was very screechy and thin. The piano responses to the violin in the second violin section solo were inspired by Moby's Porcelain and they are played in the same free manner, humanized in Logic around the beat. However, my track is not that 'chilled'; the vocals are in a pop-rock style, other influences come from acid house tracks and the shuffle beat is an influence from rock bands (song like Muse's 'Uprising' or Kasabian's 'Fire' come to mind).

                                             EQ on violin:

To make the track fit with the rest of the EP, I decided to re-arrange it; the mix could also be improved and, of course, if I was changing these things, I had to master it again.

I decided that the initial length was too much so I immediately decided to get rid of the long intro. In order to make the track more easy-listening, I got rid of all the unusual time signatures and transformed them all in 4/4 in the first half and 6/8, in the second half of the song. 

Because the mix was too cluttered, I got rid of some of the layers (particularly pads) and turned others down, keeping them in just to add texture. I turned the drums up and spent some time working on the drum sound with compression and EQ. I also worked on the vocal sound and added some pitch correction where needed.

For the mastering, I used a combination of Waves Multi Maximizer and FabFilter ProL (Limiter), which is a new plugin that I'm trying out. I found Pro-L very useful, as it has different templates which can work for different things - for example limiting or adding simulated tape saturation to the audio.

My mastering project for 'Lotus Flower':

I am very satisfied with my work of the last few days (and especially yesterday) because there is a massive difference between the two mixes. I have also managed to make the latest master as loud as some other commercial releases, which I couldn't in the past without making it sound over-compressed.

And this is the final result:

Introduction

This blog will document my progress while working on a portfolio of songs to submit for my MSc Music and Sound Technology (Audio Engineering) final project.

My intention is to produce a studio EP or album containing from 5 to 10 tracks. The tracks will all be my original songs and I will aim to deliver them to a standard matching commercial releases in my niche, and eventually distribute them via online retailers and on physical CD via Bandcamp.

The style of music that I identify with at the moment is a combination or art pop, new age and electronic, so the arrangements will be varied, but still homogenous as a release. For example, one track contains orchestral strings and brass (recorded) arranged in a somewhat classical manner, but on top of an electronic beat. Most of the material is piano driven; some tracks will have electronic drums, but most will have real drums. Other instruments featured will be flute, oboe, violin, cello, percussion, etc.

There will be a great deal of recording involved, so there will opportunity to explore different recording techniques. Some of the parts though, such as bass and some guitars, will be recorded by musicians in their home studio and sent back to me.

My main focus will be on the production part, from arrangement and writing of parts, to working with the musicians to achieve the desired sound and, of course, mixing and mastering. A lot of the recording and sequencing work has already been done throughout the year, so in the following couple of months I will be mainly recording a few parts that haven’t been tracked yet, record all the vocals, mix, master and, of course, write the report.

At the end of the project, I will deliver the finished tracks ready to be released. 

As a singer-songwriter and producer, I am already aware of the business context of my work. I have already released two EPs via online retailers and I am monetising my Youtube account. The tracks resulted from this project will be part of my debut album ‘City of My Mind’. Some of the tracks will be published on my Youtube channel (which at the moment is only 1000 views away from half million), but I’m also intending to start a Kickstarter campaign for the album (even though it will be already recorded), to make sure I sell the number of copies that will come on physical CD (so for multiplication purposes), also to fund a music video.  I might also considering using some of the Kickstarter money to send the tracks for mastering to Abbey Road later on, but of course, for the final project version I will do my own mastering. I will probably also invest into some Facebook promotion which, hopefully will turn into more fans and come back as more sales. I already have a rough idea of my market audience, but am planning into exploring this more in depth.

Essentially, I will build upon my already existing online presence and create a product at the quality standard of a commercial release, suitable for my audience.

https://www.facebook.com/MissJewelia/

www.youtube.com/jewelia1

https://missjewelia.bandcamp.com/

www.jewelia-music.com

www.soundcloud.com/missjewelia