NHT Blog

It’s never-ending when you’re a DIY musician.  Between writing and recording original music, rehearsals, trying to book live shows, keeping up your online presence, learning new songs, doing the financial part of the business, well, the list goes on.  It gets worrisome when you start feeling like you’re forgetting something too.

We’ve all heard the expression, “It’s a small world.”  Living in Tampa, I’ve always taken it one step farther and said, “It’s a small world, after all, as they say just an hour east of me over at Disney World.”  I know, it sounds like a ‘dad joke.’

The fact is, the longer that you’re in the music business the more you’ll find that it honestly is a small world.

On social media apps like Instagram, we often see users put up a whole bunch of photos accompanied by a caption of “Photo dump,” sometimes adding “from this weekend” or “from my vacation in (destination).”  For me, this week’s blog is a notebook dump, as there have been a lot of observations accumulating that I’m ready to share with you, in no particular order.

Last summer I was in Nashville in July and August.  This week I’m back, writing this blog from my hotel room in Music City.  I’ve only been here for 24 hours and already I’m reminded why so many music creators leave the only city they’ve ever called home to chase their dream here.

Independently produced music has always struggled to stand up alongside major labels. But the rise of modern digital technology has changed all that. Today, both sides of the industry operate on a level playing field –– or at least something closer to one. This has been especially apparent throughout the pandemic.

I know, it’s exciting.  The world is back open for business and live music is happening anywhere and everywhere.  Independent artists have returned to the places they’ve loved performing and are on the prowl again for new sites that will book them to play.

It’s time to get paid, a colleague of mine always liked to say.

As the world has opened back up, in-person events are back in full swing although there are still some great offerings being made available online.  The fact remains that professional development has to continue to be offered whether that’s face-to-face or via video conferencing or a hybrid model that combines the two.  There’s no shortage of continuing education if you look for it.

Let’s start this off by looking at the definition of guerilla marketing.  Its meaning is said to be, “innovative, unconventional, and low-cost marketing techniques aimed at obtaining maximum exposure for a product.”  In looking online for descriptions of it, I also saw the word ‘surprise’ used, as well as “advertisement strategy” and “a type of publicity.”

Back when Spotify announced that they were bringing Joe Rogan exclusively to their platform, it was a celebratory moment for the parties involved.  But fast forward to the recent events between the two and the honeymoon clearly is over.

It’s ironic that just five weeks after writing a blog cautioning readers to be careful with issuing No as their response I end up with this week’s topic.  Of course, like so much else that I post here every Monday, it’s because of something that I have experienced firsthand recently.