On the performance and recording side of Bach, I've been playing his cello suites and violin partitas for 60+ years on my clarinet, and during Covid decided to record. I've posted a few renditions on my Youtube playlist, always trying something a bit new and engineering with the background as film sound designer and engineer. Enjoy! https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLhajxP9SFAloYPBeLjJO1NwTF-SsrDL2a
This has to be one of those projects where we are greatly relieved to learn that you are doing it so we don't have to. We thank you for your service and commitment to the cause!
Great idea and an even better execution 💪 Have you considered sharing Spotify / Apple Music links alongside Youtube? I personally find them very useful in music-based substacks.
Yeah — this is a good idea but it’s more labor intensive than I’d like. YouTube is easiest as everyone can click on it — searching for classical work on Spotify and Apple Music is a challenge in itself. Apple is trying to rectify it in its new app but that’s only on iOS.
My husband Peco and I are leading a "Communal Digital Fast" on School of the Unconformed. We are inviting our readers to fast from "the virtual" and feast on "the real" during the upcoming Lenten period (everyone is welcome to join!) We have had a tremendous response and have just posted a piece on practical preparations and a visual guide to "Random Acts of Anachronism". Would love to have you join us (or simply come and gather inspiration)!
I’m writing my 62th book, a YA called 48 hours. It will be in Dutch, so hardly anyone here will be able to read it. But luckily I have my own audience over here.
Oh. I love White Buffalo Woman's chapter in the Sophia Code. Two men of the Soux see a beautiful woman. One recognizes her as a holy woman. The other sees a lost maiden and wants to have them both rape her. She prays with mercy for the sick man's soul, commanding him to return to Wakan Tanka (God) - he voluntarily gives up his spirit and she turns his body to ash. The other man asks for mercy and is given a message for his people, who receive great Medicine Bundles of Wisdom and Prophecy.
Audio books are the greatest, especially for those who are visually impaired and rely on them for inspiration, information and entertainment. Well done you!
Thank you! I am always happy to give promo codes for a free listen to anybody who is visually impaired and indeed, anybody that would leave an honest rating 🤎
That's great. I visited your Substack to see what kind of books you like and was pleased to be able to hear your speaking voice. You have a lovely accent. I've subscribed and look forward to following your posts, and perhaps taking you up on your offer of a free code in exchange for a review.
Thank you so much! I am just learning the ropes here so I can use it as a hub for my other platforms. Please feel free to drop me an email at ink.readsalot@gmail.com any time you would like an audiobook as I am alwats happy to share and reviews help us a lot. Have a lovely day and thank you again!
I have a similar goal but are a little behind your pace. After several decades as an instrumental performer and composer, I am now working to determine the best way to self publish my work. This means taking a portion of my old brain away from creating content and learning to produce a product. In an effort to keep the number of people involved to a minimum (think “1”). At present I am challenging myself to learn to use a DAW for recording/mixing and to determine the best way of reaching the right audience and delivering the finished product - whether that is a recording or a piece of “sheet music” that can be read and performed by others. I’m curious about you decision to use Substack and how you think it’s working for you.
That sounds exciting! I love it here on Substack. I started releasing my music in 2020 and would hang out on Twitter and Instagram but that got stressful real quick. It’s been slow going here but the connections are wonderful and are what makes it worth it.
My husband is the ambient music composer, and I have been telling him he should do exactly this! I'm more of a folk composer. I did manage to release a new song in video format with a bit of writing about it once a month all last year on every full moon. It was a lot of work and I had to learn Canva, but it was also really fun and great to have the deadline looming large outside my window. I do recommend releasing music with a video if possible, more people seem to check them out than audios. Best of luck! Now I'll check out your music...!
I find I’m learning the technology but trying to be both artist and technician makes me appreciate the great recording engineers I took too much for granted in an earlier life. Even referring to them as technicians is understating just what the right person can do to make something pretty good sound brilliant. In my own development, I think I’m at the point of taking something pretty good and making it sound pretty good, but different - a step up from transforming pretty good into God-awful.
I hear you, and I admire you working on it. I'm lucky to have an in-house brilliant recording engineer so I haven't had to learn to actually do it myself, though I have picked up some stuff. It's so complex, and there are so many aspects to shaping sound, so many different ways to do it, and endless tools. You are right, it is an art form itself, not just "technical" skills. Because even though all the software tools are now affordable and accessible in a way they did not used to be and anyone can be a sound engineer: you still gotta have the ears to hear what is great (and God-awful)!! So it sounds like you are ahead of the curve there and just need to keep playing and experimenting, trusting your own deep sense of taste. One thing we both have learned over the years is that quality matters in both software and hardware. Research, try to buy the best. He has also learned so much from watching videos and taking courses from top-notch engineers, some of which he had to pay for.
I was super daunted for a long time but I finally just learned. Canva is fun and easy once you get past the initial learning curve, even for a non-technical old gal like me. Visuals with music are just so powerful. Even being the composer, I find the images deepen my relationship with the music. f you get the Pro version, you have access to better images and video. Which may or may not work for your music (which sounds great by the way!). In some videos I use our own live footage, or I get images from Wikimedia too. One song I used all these beautiful pre-Raphaelite paintings I got off of Wikimedia because it's kind of a fairy tale story. Another song/vid is a cover of the folk song Loch Lomond, and I used beautifully filmed nature footage in Scotland, provided by Canva Pro. That video has gone all over the world, has over 50,000 views. I know nothing about promoting on Youtube, no idea how that happened. For ambient music, you could learn to play with a graphics program to make abstract or psychedelic images that unfold during the song, and that might be a super simple way to illustrate your music since there aren't lyrics. Good luck!
I got all the footage from Canva for these, which both feature a lot of nature shots. I've also used clips of actors for narrative videos. Here is one of those:
Sometimes I use my own footage or photos or sometimes I use Wikimedia, but Canva has gorgeous, professional film clips. I love nature shots and they have many from around the world. I don't know if that would work for you artistically, but they also have abstract images and are beginning to offer AI designed footage if you want abstract images to go with the music.
There is a learning curve and I have far from mastered the possibilities--but I am SO not a technical person OR a young person and I figured it out. There are plenty of videos about how to use Canva. That way of learning doesn't work for me, but might for you. Hope these examples help, best of luck!
Yeah those nature shots are beautiful.. I’ll also check their AI designed footage for some of my songs that would definitely need some of those abstract images based on the inspiration behind them thanks for sharing all those tips I truly appreciate it
Hey, I love ambient music and have been dipping my toes into the genre myself! Will definitely subscribe, and feel free to check out my stuff. Let's be in touch :-)
Listening to the track cavern cool ethereal companion while reading a Jules Verne book 😉 I think I read Journey to the center of the earth way back in the day
Sounds cool I have a dozen instrumental tracks that I am at the moment getting it sorted into an album at the moment.. how does one release an album here on substack ?
I'm just posting one song every month until the album is complete. Then I'll release it out into the world. So until then it's only available here on Substack. It's nothing official.
We are building Lissen (https://www.lissen.live/), the interactive music platform combining streaming and artist-to-fan experiences.
Our complementary approach aligns incentives between artists and fans, resulting in a music experience way more engaging, in a more sustainable ecosystem.
These features can only be built upon the unique and open fan-centric music license we created.
Similar to what Substack/Ghost brought to journalism and news in a sense.
The 2022 YT video with Ted and Rick Beato was amazing and is really close to our thesis for where we think the music world should go to.
We are building in public so if you have any question please don't hesitate!
Ok this is really cool and I hope I'm not getting ahead of myself but it sounds like smaller artists will be able to create a kind of regional fan base who they reward constantly with all kind of goodies (discounted tickets, +1s, merch raffles etc).
Not everyone needs to be on top of the tops but like this you'd have a lot more people going to events to see their local favorites, more smaller and middle sized venues being filled and definitely more bands that are going to make it. You can seriously contribute to growing the overall entertainment industry and that's really awesome!
Indeed interactivity will enable us to bridge IRL and online worlds way better.
And a lot of artists won't have to constantly be offering perks, as their music will speak for itself (same thing when you can get Ed Sheeran tickets if you call your local radio station, it doesn't need to happen all the time, except now it's totally controlled by the music makers!)
so you are moving away from the pro-rata system with your fan-centric approach (similar to user-centric I guess)? Can you share an example of a feature Lissen has but that we can’t have now on Spotify?
that's what we are doing indeed! Fan-centric is an evolution of the user-centric model to cover some inherent "hacking" weaknesses user-centric has.
As for the feature, it's important to know that in the fan-centric model, what matters is the quality of the attention you get, not the quantity.
Example with a fan with a $10 monthly subscription, a day is worth circa $0.33.
If this fan only streamed my music today, the whole $0.33 is going to the artist, it's a proportion of your attention, and as you just got 100%, it makes sense you get it directly.
Now, with artists knowing quality matters more, they will want interactive feature to be sure they incentivise their fans to get their attention.
One of these feature is called Challenge to help organic discovery: "if you stream my new single today, you enter a raffle to get a free concert ticket"
-> the artists knows s/he will make a part of the $0.33 pot, the fan knows s/he will discover new music and could get a perk. Multiply this by a few 100 fans and you start seeing some real result directly from your audience which creates a healthy cycle (as artists have a lot of perks they don't use right now)
yes Challenges are for Discovery, then for example we have Gifts for Community: stay in touch with your fan base and reward them in the way you want (ie. grant an AMA session to your top 10 fans over the last 3 months)
I mean that Lissen will enable you and your artists to interact in a lot of different ways (ie. chat, games, perks...). They can now see you and value you. And it goes both ways!
The aim is to act more like a medium than a platform ;)
That sounds like a great medium to bridge the gap between the artist and fans or potential listeners to the music.. how does it go as far as getting my music set up ?
Sounds like a great idea, but I'm curious who would use this. Is the plan to have "all" music like the major streaming platforms? A twitter account with 200 followers makes me think this isn't mainstream. Or is this for smaller artists to cultivate fans? If so, what's the appeal to fans over platforms like Patreon and Kickstarter (where I love supporting all sorts of music).
Hi Trevor, regarding the Twitter account size, it's because we just started communicating on socials so mainstream is definitely not there yet :)
The plan is to release the app in the UK in Q2 2024 with as many DIY and indies as possible to show our product market fit -> indeed I think interactivity is what is missing with online music platforms, and it can't be achieved on pro-rata platforms (thus our fan-centric royalty allocation model)
The first audience we are targeting is people like you, already supporting creativity via Patreon/Kickstarter/Bandcamp. The added value we bring is reducing friction (everything under the same platform, no need to create several accounts across siloed apps) and dedicated features for musicians (ie. currently, you can't correlate your music usage from Spotify to Patreon -> on Lissen yes)
My band Timothy Bailey & the Humans is working towards the release of our second album in May. The record is called “New Love Stories.” We’ve decided to eschew all streaming services and are only releasing physical formats via Bandcamp.
There will be a 12” LP and a poster for sale. Both will include digital downloads. We’re primarily trying to build a connection with our unique microculture via our newsletter, “Greater Humanity” here on Substack.
Will this approach work better than the one most bands are using these days? I have no idea. But I do have the middle aged superpower of realistic expectations. Also, I’m collecting data throughout the process in the hope that my findings may be helpful to others in my musical community (Richmond, Virginia) and beyond.
I hope you’ll have a look at our newsletter via my profile. Thanks for this opportunity, Ted.
Well, I’m a retired television producer living in a little village in the Green Mountains of Vermont. Since I have been up here I have been playing in a local band, whose playlist is made up of originals, old country and rockabilly and about 25% classic golden oldies of the baby boomers. I also play a solo act about once a month at a little roadside restaurant up the highway. And the really dramatic difference I notice between making television shows (my largest audience ever was 25 million people, according to the ratings) and playing live music in a tavern, is that the people in the tavern listen to you and smile and clap and the people in the television audience just watch for an hour and change the channel over to Shark Week or something whatever. They don't call you up to let you know what they thought of your show. Once I was playing to an empty room by myself in the little local restaurant, when an older local lady, missing a front tooth, walked in carrying a can of Pabst Blue Ribbon beer and sat down in front of me. “Do you know any Conway Twitty?’ She asked. “No” I said “but I can do George Jones.” And so I did a few numbers and she smiled all the way through it. And I tell you what, that little exchange, was more satisfying than the great majority of work I ever did on television.
This may interest Stephen Sondheim aficionados and indie musicians. I'm just back from the GRAMMY Awards, where my album "To Steve With Love: Liz Callaway Celebrates Sondheim" was nominated for Best Traditional Pop Vocal Album. To be nominated in this mainstream category for a live album that I self-produced at the age of 62 was a huge surprise. Here is a link to where you can listen to the album, as well as a PDF of the 16-page booklet:
I also started a Substack newsletter called "Between Flights"- it's a work in progress, but I'm keen to use my Substack as a way of sharing songs and behind-the-scenes of my work in a way that social media algorithms don't allow. You can check it out here:
Thanks for the open mic day, Ted- I've learned a lot from you about the music business and Substack- that knowledge is invaluable as I plan what my next album may be.
Hi! We fact-check and curate commentary from liberal and conservative media on one topic a day: https://www.theflipside.io/ Social media shows us the worst of both sides; we show you the best!
My newsletter is for music fans that remember when music discovery was personal, and mixtapes were an artform.
I know there are a lot of jazz fans here, so if I may, I'd like to link to a really cool project being being built by a guy named Greg Layton. He is putting liner notes online in one spot--many of which would other wise be lost to the ages. Well worth your time to check out!
Thank you for doing this for all of us. I was born in 1979, slightly after the great jazz albums had been released, so for me it's a real gift to discover a lot of wonderful music.
Love the thought of this. I still have (20+ year old) mix tapes made by friends back when painstakingly recording from a CD player was how you turned your friends onto what spark you feel.
Funny how I felt that streaming made me miss the concept of liner notes. While kvetching about this very thing to my high school aged nephew, he pointed out that artists now write extensive interpretations of their lyrics for genius.com, give copious interviews to innumerable youtube channels, and put everything out there. And he was right! And it felt like way too much. Like intense navel gazing.
So maybe I just miss the days of reading about Metallica's "Crew Fuckers 88/89" and painting a picture in my mind about how cool that must be. And, you know, you can't go back. Or maybe we've gone from a tantalizing drip of information to a deluge and the mystery is gone.
Currently, I'm making the changes requested by my publisher for my biography of Cootie Williams. Hopefully, it will be published at the end of the year. Next month, the companion 4-CD set is being released with liner notes by yours truly. (It's already available in the UK.) The Duke Ellington Society of Sweden published a very nice write up on the set - https://ellingtongalaxy.org/2024/01/28/cootie-williams-selected-recordings-1928-1962/
Firstly, I'm writing a very Ted-influenced Jewish musicology newsletter on Substack -- mattausterklein.substack.com.
Secondly, I'm thinking of starting a national archive for cantorial manuscripts. This is handwritten stuff from the 19th/20th century that Jewish cantors composed or wrote out for their own services, and which have been passed for generations between cantorial families or from master to student. If no one finds a home for these now (like Aaron Lansky did for Yiddish Books), they will end up in the garbage and a huge part of our music heritage will be lost.
I helped start a digital archive for a few major collections, but there's a ton more out there and still no physical home for these precious works of Jewish expressive culture. Who's with me?
That’s wonderful but I know how enormously hard it is. Don’t want to be too snarky, but I think summer camp tunes should stay where they belong, and (don’t hate on me) real music should have its place Fridays and Saturdays.
Thanks! I like congregational singing (philosophically and practically) but I don’t like it when the words are just secondary to the camp ethos. And I’m classically trained so the spirituality of musical complexity is in my bones. (You’re in Germany, so there’s a lot of that around, no?)
I look forward to checking out your Substack and following your efforts. I have a love-hate relationship with cantorial music. Much of it is beautiful and it is of course an important part of our tradition, but it can also be stultifying for congregations. For me personally, it's more enjoyable in concert settings than in shul.
Thanks, Jordan! I think a lot of the problem with “cantorial”/specialized synagogue music has to do with trust and psychology. Do I trust/believe in what the leader is doing? Is space also being made for my own voice? I tend to combine hazzanut with niggunim in order to have both expression and engagement. Thanks for following my substack and I welcome your comments.
It’s meaningful but there’s not a ton of funding lying around for this kinda stuff (Unless the right person reads this Substack!). I love the repertoire and the stories behind it.
Putting the finishing touches on Now You're One of Us, the story of the band Redd Kross — which I'm writing with band co-founders Jeff and Steven McDonald. Should be out this fall via Omnibus Press!
Self promo time, baby! Doing whatever I feel like creatively, but basically a song a month and an occasional episode of TV, all on Substack: miter.substack.com
This year, I'm listening to every piece by J.S. Bach and reflecting on it here:
https://yearofbach.substack.com/
Here's the intro post, 'A year (of all) of Bach':
https://yearofbach.substack.com/p/a-year-of-all-of-bach-a-2024-project
No premium tier, come along and listen.
Love the idea behind your project, Evan. Just subscribed!
I also write about classical music, and introduced my subscribers to the final movement of the Mass in B Minor in December:
https://open.substack.com/pub/michaelwriteswords/p/js-bach-dona-nobis-pacem-mass-b-minor?r=6d8h3&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
Thanks Michael - will check out your writing on the Mass!
On the performance and recording side of Bach, I've been playing his cello suites and violin partitas for 60+ years on my clarinet, and during Covid decided to record. I've posted a few renditions on my Youtube playlist, always trying something a bit new and engineering with the background as film sound designer and engineer. Enjoy! https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLhajxP9SFAloYPBeLjJO1NwTF-SsrDL2a
Amazing. Can't wait to listen to these!
This has to be one of those projects where we are greatly relieved to learn that you are doing it so we don't have to. We thank you for your service and commitment to the cause!
Thanks, Tom. I hope it inspires you to go and check out some deep cuts.
If you’re near Carmel, CA you can catch their annual Bach Festival in July.
One of the nicest towns in the USA.
Love this!
Great idea and an even better execution 💪 Have you considered sharing Spotify / Apple Music links alongside Youtube? I personally find them very useful in music-based substacks.
Yeah — this is a good idea but it’s more labor intensive than I’d like. YouTube is easiest as everyone can click on it — searching for classical work on Spotify and Apple Music is a challenge in itself. Apple is trying to rectify it in its new app but that’s only on iOS.
You are right, and that app also has geographic limitations which is a bummer. Anyways, I wish you great luck in your substack.
Thanks Omur. If you have any favorite recordings of obscure pieces, please let me know.
This is great, thank you!
That's an epic project. Subscribed!
Thanks, Dan... it's a beast, but I'm enjoying it so far.
Subscribed and looking forward to reading!
Thanks Robert - my favorite posts so far are the most recent, on the Goldbergs and Martha Argerich:
https://yearofbach.substack.com/p/february-9-the-goldberg-variations
https://yearofbach.substack.com/p/february-6-piano-works-toccata-bwv
My husband Peco and I are leading a "Communal Digital Fast" on School of the Unconformed. We are inviting our readers to fast from "the virtual" and feast on "the real" during the upcoming Lenten period (everyone is welcome to join!) We have had a tremendous response and have just posted a piece on practical preparations and a visual guide to "Random Acts of Anachronism". Would love to have you join us (or simply come and gather inspiration)!
https://schooloftheunconformed.substack.com/p/fasting-from-the-virtual-feasting
The Baha'i fast is coming up as well - maybe I will take some inspiration from this!
I'm very interested in doing this. Subscribed,
Great to have you along Robert :)
too funny! I follow you over there already and recognized your name/substack. Good minds and all that ;)
gosh, a month sounds a lot but it is an enticing idea...
Not to make it even more daunting...Lent is actually just over six weeks long :) But, why not join for an amount of time you feel is manageable?
I’m writing my 62th book, a YA called 48 hours. It will be in Dutch, so hardly anyone here will be able to read it. But luckily I have my own audience over here.
You might be surprised.
Fair 😅
Please pardon me saying this. It seems an overly grim storyline for a YA novel. Granted, many YA are also grim as is life at times, but still...
It’s definitely grim. Which means the young adults love it (the first book is a huge hit over here) and some adults thinks it’s a bit too much.
Wow, you are prolific!
Thank you! It’s my job and I love it!
62—WOW—congratulations, Marcel!
Thank you so much ☺️
What is it about?
It’s basically The Hunt and it’s a sequel to my book “24 uur” (24 hours) which is about two guys who chase a girl with a gun for a day for fun.
Oh. I love White Buffalo Woman's chapter in the Sophia Code. Two men of the Soux see a beautiful woman. One recognizes her as a holy woman. The other sees a lost maiden and wants to have them both rape her. She prays with mercy for the sick man's soul, commanding him to return to Wakan Tanka (God) - he voluntarily gives up his spirit and she turns his body to ash. The other man asks for mercy and is given a message for his people, who receive great Medicine Bundles of Wisdom and Prophecy.
I am doing book reviews to support indie authors 🤎📚 and later I am narrating my 42nd audiobook for audible. Have a great day all! 🤎✨️
Audio books are the greatest, especially for those who are visually impaired and rely on them for inspiration, information and entertainment. Well done you!
Thank you! I am always happy to give promo codes for a free listen to anybody who is visually impaired and indeed, anybody that would leave an honest rating 🤎
That's great. I visited your Substack to see what kind of books you like and was pleased to be able to hear your speaking voice. You have a lovely accent. I've subscribed and look forward to following your posts, and perhaps taking you up on your offer of a free code in exchange for a review.
Thank you so much! I am just learning the ropes here so I can use it as a hub for my other platforms. Please feel free to drop me an email at ink.readsalot@gmail.com any time you would like an audiobook as I am alwats happy to share and reviews help us a lot. Have a lovely day and thank you again!
Right on!
🙌🙌🙌
Thanks for the open mic! One of my goals this year is to release an ambient album here on Substack. I’ll be posting one song a month with a little bit written about each song. I wrote the first one at the end of January. https://open.substack.com/pub/minorfossil/p/cavern?r=19bxnh&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true
I have a similar goal but are a little behind your pace. After several decades as an instrumental performer and composer, I am now working to determine the best way to self publish my work. This means taking a portion of my old brain away from creating content and learning to produce a product. In an effort to keep the number of people involved to a minimum (think “1”). At present I am challenging myself to learn to use a DAW for recording/mixing and to determine the best way of reaching the right audience and delivering the finished product - whether that is a recording or a piece of “sheet music” that can be read and performed by others. I’m curious about you decision to use Substack and how you think it’s working for you.
That sounds exciting! I love it here on Substack. I started releasing my music in 2020 and would hang out on Twitter and Instagram but that got stressful real quick. It’s been slow going here but the connections are wonderful and are what makes it worth it.
My husband is the ambient music composer, and I have been telling him he should do exactly this! I'm more of a folk composer. I did manage to release a new song in video format with a bit of writing about it once a month all last year on every full moon. It was a lot of work and I had to learn Canva, but it was also really fun and great to have the deadline looming large outside my window. I do recommend releasing music with a video if possible, more people seem to check them out than audios. Best of luck! Now I'll check out your music...!
I find I’m learning the technology but trying to be both artist and technician makes me appreciate the great recording engineers I took too much for granted in an earlier life. Even referring to them as technicians is understating just what the right person can do to make something pretty good sound brilliant. In my own development, I think I’m at the point of taking something pretty good and making it sound pretty good, but different - a step up from transforming pretty good into God-awful.
I hear you, and I admire you working on it. I'm lucky to have an in-house brilliant recording engineer so I haven't had to learn to actually do it myself, though I have picked up some stuff. It's so complex, and there are so many aspects to shaping sound, so many different ways to do it, and endless tools. You are right, it is an art form itself, not just "technical" skills. Because even though all the software tools are now affordable and accessible in a way they did not used to be and anyone can be a sound engineer: you still gotta have the ears to hear what is great (and God-awful)!! So it sounds like you are ahead of the curve there and just need to keep playing and experimenting, trusting your own deep sense of taste. One thing we both have learned over the years is that quality matters in both software and hardware. Research, try to buy the best. He has also learned so much from watching videos and taking courses from top-notch engineers, some of which he had to pay for.
Oh nice! I like the idea of publishing on the full moon. Yea, I guess video might be a next step for me, but it seems really daunting right now.
I was super daunted for a long time but I finally just learned. Canva is fun and easy once you get past the initial learning curve, even for a non-technical old gal like me. Visuals with music are just so powerful. Even being the composer, I find the images deepen my relationship with the music. f you get the Pro version, you have access to better images and video. Which may or may not work for your music (which sounds great by the way!). In some videos I use our own live footage, or I get images from Wikimedia too. One song I used all these beautiful pre-Raphaelite paintings I got off of Wikimedia because it's kind of a fairy tale story. Another song/vid is a cover of the folk song Loch Lomond, and I used beautifully filmed nature footage in Scotland, provided by Canva Pro. That video has gone all over the world, has over 50,000 views. I know nothing about promoting on Youtube, no idea how that happened. For ambient music, you could learn to play with a graphics program to make abstract or psychedelic images that unfold during the song, and that might be a super simple way to illustrate your music since there aren't lyrics. Good luck!
Can you please give an example of the graphic program that you think would be useful in creating videos for my instrumental music
I use Canva Pro (not the free version). Here is one I just created for a lyric video to go with one of my songs:
https://youtu.be/DCqNOOKrgzo?si=UT4PcIA45PMJ_1AB
Here is another earlier one that somehow got 56,000 views, a cover of Loch Lomond:
https://youtu.be/mQ5FjagydJw?si=6AlTGhT1T6CjMrKp
I got all the footage from Canva for these, which both feature a lot of nature shots. I've also used clips of actors for narrative videos. Here is one of those:
https://youtu.be/HsUuDOivzrI?si=UwojY7iCQ3W2dTFV
Sometimes I use my own footage or photos or sometimes I use Wikimedia, but Canva has gorgeous, professional film clips. I love nature shots and they have many from around the world. I don't know if that would work for you artistically, but they also have abstract images and are beginning to offer AI designed footage if you want abstract images to go with the music.
There is a learning curve and I have far from mastered the possibilities--but I am SO not a technical person OR a young person and I figured it out. There are plenty of videos about how to use Canva. That way of learning doesn't work for me, but might for you. Hope these examples help, best of luck!
Thanks will definitely check it out more as well as your videos 👍👍once I get a video done I’ll share it on here
Yeah those nature shots are beautiful.. I’ll also check their AI designed footage for some of my songs that would definitely need some of those abstract images based on the inspiration behind them thanks for sharing all those tips I truly appreciate it
Hey, I love ambient music and have been dipping my toes into the genre myself! Will definitely subscribe, and feel free to check out my stuff. Let's be in touch :-)
https://linktr.ee/vigilancebrandon
Hey thank you! Yea ambient is pretty awesome. Your Fogarea Ep was great, I enjoyed listening
Listening to the track cavern cool ethereal companion while reading a Jules Verne book 😉 I think I read Journey to the center of the earth way back in the day
Thanks, yea I think it was the first one I read by him a long time ago.
Sounds cool I have a dozen instrumental tracks that I am at the moment getting it sorted into an album at the moment.. how does one release an album here on substack ?
I'm just posting one song every month until the album is complete. Then I'll release it out into the world. So until then it's only available here on Substack. It's nothing official.
Check out my podcast Herizon Music for interviews with two ambient album GRAMMY nominees. Carla Patullo (who won last week!) and Cheryl B. Engelhardt.
Interesting I’ll definitely give it a listen!
We are building Lissen (https://www.lissen.live/), the interactive music platform combining streaming and artist-to-fan experiences.
Our complementary approach aligns incentives between artists and fans, resulting in a music experience way more engaging, in a more sustainable ecosystem.
These features can only be built upon the unique and open fan-centric music license we created.
Similar to what Substack/Ghost brought to journalism and news in a sense.
The 2022 YT video with Ted and Rick Beato was amazing and is really close to our thesis for where we think the music world should go to.
We are building in public so if you have any question please don't hesitate!
Ok this is really cool and I hope I'm not getting ahead of myself but it sounds like smaller artists will be able to create a kind of regional fan base who they reward constantly with all kind of goodies (discounted tickets, +1s, merch raffles etc).
Not everyone needs to be on top of the tops but like this you'd have a lot more people going to events to see their local favorites, more smaller and middle sized venues being filled and definitely more bands that are going to make it. You can seriously contribute to growing the overall entertainment industry and that's really awesome!
Cheers :)
Indeed interactivity will enable us to bridge IRL and online worlds way better.
And a lot of artists won't have to constantly be offering perks, as their music will speak for itself (same thing when you can get Ed Sheeran tickets if you call your local radio station, it doesn't need to happen all the time, except now it's totally controlled by the music makers!)
so you are moving away from the pro-rata system with your fan-centric approach (similar to user-centric I guess)? Can you share an example of a feature Lissen has but that we can’t have now on Spotify?
that's what we are doing indeed! Fan-centric is an evolution of the user-centric model to cover some inherent "hacking" weaknesses user-centric has.
As for the feature, it's important to know that in the fan-centric model, what matters is the quality of the attention you get, not the quantity.
Example with a fan with a $10 monthly subscription, a day is worth circa $0.33.
If this fan only streamed my music today, the whole $0.33 is going to the artist, it's a proportion of your attention, and as you just got 100%, it makes sense you get it directly.
Now, with artists knowing quality matters more, they will want interactive feature to be sure they incentivise their fans to get their attention.
One of these feature is called Challenge to help organic discovery: "if you stream my new single today, you enter a raffle to get a free concert ticket"
-> the artists knows s/he will make a part of the $0.33 pot, the fan knows s/he will discover new music and could get a perk. Multiply this by a few 100 fans and you start seeing some real result directly from your audience which creates a healthy cycle (as artists have a lot of perks they don't use right now)
Will check it out!
thanks Thea! By leaving your email on our website you will receive our monthly newsletter.
Otherwise you can find me on most socials where I post about our progress :)
ok so it’s like gamified discovery with incentives on both sides, do you have another feature example?
yes Challenges are for Discovery, then for example we have Gifts for Community: stay in touch with your fan base and reward them in the way you want (ie. grant an AMA session to your top 10 fans over the last 3 months)
What do you mean by interactive? Like when I think a music platform, i just think of streaming or downloading music.
I mean that Lissen will enable you and your artists to interact in a lot of different ways (ie. chat, games, perks...). They can now see you and value you. And it goes both ways!
The aim is to act more like a medium than a platform ;)
Oh got you, thanks for replying
That sounds like a great medium to bridge the gap between the artist and fans or potential listeners to the music.. how does it go as far as getting my music set up ?
You will be able to get your music on Lissen just like on any other DSP, via distributors, labels or even yourself :)
Sounds like a great idea, but I'm curious who would use this. Is the plan to have "all" music like the major streaming platforms? A twitter account with 200 followers makes me think this isn't mainstream. Or is this for smaller artists to cultivate fans? If so, what's the appeal to fans over platforms like Patreon and Kickstarter (where I love supporting all sorts of music).
Hi Trevor, regarding the Twitter account size, it's because we just started communicating on socials so mainstream is definitely not there yet :)
The plan is to release the app in the UK in Q2 2024 with as many DIY and indies as possible to show our product market fit -> indeed I think interactivity is what is missing with online music platforms, and it can't be achieved on pro-rata platforms (thus our fan-centric royalty allocation model)
The first audience we are targeting is people like you, already supporting creativity via Patreon/Kickstarter/Bandcamp. The added value we bring is reducing friction (everything under the same platform, no need to create several accounts across siloed apps) and dedicated features for musicians (ie. currently, you can't correlate your music usage from Spotify to Patreon -> on Lissen yes)
Does that make sense?
My band Timothy Bailey & the Humans is working towards the release of our second album in May. The record is called “New Love Stories.” We’ve decided to eschew all streaming services and are only releasing physical formats via Bandcamp.
There will be a 12” LP and a poster for sale. Both will include digital downloads. We’re primarily trying to build a connection with our unique microculture via our newsletter, “Greater Humanity” here on Substack.
Will this approach work better than the one most bands are using these days? I have no idea. But I do have the middle aged superpower of realistic expectations. Also, I’m collecting data throughout the process in the hope that my findings may be helpful to others in my musical community (Richmond, Virginia) and beyond.
I hope you’ll have a look at our newsletter via my profile. Thanks for this opportunity, Ted.
Well, I’m a retired television producer living in a little village in the Green Mountains of Vermont. Since I have been up here I have been playing in a local band, whose playlist is made up of originals, old country and rockabilly and about 25% classic golden oldies of the baby boomers. I also play a solo act about once a month at a little roadside restaurant up the highway. And the really dramatic difference I notice between making television shows (my largest audience ever was 25 million people, according to the ratings) and playing live music in a tavern, is that the people in the tavern listen to you and smile and clap and the people in the television audience just watch for an hour and change the channel over to Shark Week or something whatever. They don't call you up to let you know what they thought of your show. Once I was playing to an empty room by myself in the little local restaurant, when an older local lady, missing a front tooth, walked in carrying a can of Pabst Blue Ribbon beer and sat down in front of me. “Do you know any Conway Twitty?’ She asked. “No” I said “but I can do George Jones.” And so I did a few numbers and she smiled all the way through it. And I tell you what, that little exchange, was more satisfying than the great majority of work I ever did on television.
Love that story.
I love that, Robert.
Do you have any of your bands music online Robert? Would love to hear.
Awesome story.
i hear ya 100% we are persons, meant to be personable. Thanks for sharing <3
This may interest Stephen Sondheim aficionados and indie musicians. I'm just back from the GRAMMY Awards, where my album "To Steve With Love: Liz Callaway Celebrates Sondheim" was nominated for Best Traditional Pop Vocal Album. To be nominated in this mainstream category for a live album that I self-produced at the age of 62 was a huge surprise. Here is a link to where you can listen to the album, as well as a PDF of the 16-page booklet:
www.lizcallaway.com/grammy-fyc
I also started a Substack newsletter called "Between Flights"- it's a work in progress, but I'm keen to use my Substack as a way of sharing songs and behind-the-scenes of my work in a way that social media algorithms don't allow. You can check it out here:
https://lizcallaway.substack.com/
Thanks for the open mic day, Ted- I've learned a lot from you about the music business and Substack- that knowledge is invaluable as I plan what my next album may be.
wow Liz! I am impressed, good for you. Life starts at 60.
That’s amazing
Congrats Liz ...fabulous outfits by the way!
Hi! We fact-check and curate commentary from liberal and conservative media on one topic a day: https://www.theflipside.io/ Social media shows us the worst of both sides; we show you the best!
I'm in!
That’s brilliant. Would love to have this in The Netherlands
"No clickbait. No trolls." I love it.
Thanks for doing this, Ted!
My newsletter is for music fans that remember when music discovery was personal, and mixtapes were an artform.
I know there are a lot of jazz fans here, so if I may, I'd like to link to a really cool project being being built by a guy named Greg Layton. He is putting liner notes online in one spot--many of which would other wise be lost to the ages. Well worth your time to check out!
https://thejazztome.info/
That sounds great - have you come across writing about Cassette tapes in places like Egypt? I have a book in my research backlog to read
This isn't the book but it's that direction: https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2023/8/30/sixty-years-of-sound-the-cassettes-past-present-and-future-in-egypt
I haven’t, but thank you for the link!
Thank you for doing this for all of us. I was born in 1979, slightly after the great jazz albums had been released, so for me it's a real gift to discover a lot of wonderful music.
Love the thought of this. I still have (20+ year old) mix tapes made by friends back when painstakingly recording from a CD player was how you turned your friends onto what spark you feel.
Funny how I felt that streaming made me miss the concept of liner notes. While kvetching about this very thing to my high school aged nephew, he pointed out that artists now write extensive interpretations of their lyrics for genius.com, give copious interviews to innumerable youtube channels, and put everything out there. And he was right! And it felt like way too much. Like intense navel gazing.
So maybe I just miss the days of reading about Metallica's "Crew Fuckers 88/89" and painting a picture in my mind about how cool that must be. And, you know, you can't go back. Or maybe we've gone from a tantalizing drip of information to a deluge and the mystery is gone.
Currently, I'm making the changes requested by my publisher for my biography of Cootie Williams. Hopefully, it will be published at the end of the year. Next month, the companion 4-CD set is being released with liner notes by yours truly. (It's already available in the UK.) The Duke Ellington Society of Sweden published a very nice write up on the set - https://ellingtongalaxy.org/2024/01/28/cootie-williams-selected-recordings-1928-1962/
Firstly, I'm writing a very Ted-influenced Jewish musicology newsletter on Substack -- mattausterklein.substack.com.
Secondly, I'm thinking of starting a national archive for cantorial manuscripts. This is handwritten stuff from the 19th/20th century that Jewish cantors composed or wrote out for their own services, and which have been passed for generations between cantorial families or from master to student. If no one finds a home for these now (like Aaron Lansky did for Yiddish Books), they will end up in the garbage and a huge part of our music heritage will be lost.
I helped start a digital archive for a few major collections, but there's a ton more out there and still no physical home for these precious works of Jewish expressive culture. Who's with me?
Here's a long form of my pitch on Substack: https://open.substack.com/pub/mattausterklein/p/a-legacy-of-trust?r=9bb6s&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true
I clicked over to your substack. Top post is relating James Brown to the High Holydays? Insta-subscribe.
That’s wonderful but I know how enormously hard it is. Don’t want to be too snarky, but I think summer camp tunes should stay where they belong, and (don’t hate on me) real music should have its place Fridays and Saturdays.
Just subscribed to you 😎
Thanks! I like congregational singing (philosophically and practically) but I don’t like it when the words are just secondary to the camp ethos. And I’m classically trained so the spirituality of musical complexity is in my bones. (You’re in Germany, so there’s a lot of that around, no?)
I look forward to checking out your Substack and following your efforts. I have a love-hate relationship with cantorial music. Much of it is beautiful and it is of course an important part of our tradition, but it can also be stultifying for congregations. For me personally, it's more enjoyable in concert settings than in shul.
Thanks, Jordan! I think a lot of the problem with “cantorial”/specialized synagogue music has to do with trust and psychology. Do I trust/believe in what the leader is doing? Is space also being made for my own voice? I tend to combine hazzanut with niggunim in order to have both expression and engagement. Thanks for following my substack and I welcome your comments.
Thanks!
Cantorial music is so beautiful. Glad that you are doing this.
It’s meaningful but there’s not a ton of funding lying around for this kinda stuff (Unless the right person reads this Substack!). I love the repertoire and the stories behind it.
Thanks! I agree! I used to be more of a populist but now I go for the old stuff. This is the archive I helped start btw: archive.cantors.org
Putting the finishing touches on Now You're One of Us, the story of the band Redd Kross — which I'm writing with band co-founders Jeff and Steven McDonald. Should be out this fall via Omnibus Press!
This is extremely cool, I can’t wait to read this.
Self promo time, baby! Doing whatever I feel like creatively, but basically a song a month and an occasional episode of TV, all on Substack: miter.substack.com
https://miter.substack.com/p/salon-du-monde-fremont-003
I’m helping my best friend with her project helping Americans and other internationals who move to Denmark. www.howtoliveindenmark.com
Thank you for sharing this! I just checked out Kay's website and would love to feature her on my podcast. I'll reach out to her.