Making The Page

You can set up a ‘free’ page at MP3.com without much knowledge of web page design, HTML, etc. You can join the site by following a few simple links located at the bottom of their main page.

Once you have ‘registered’ as a member, you will be taken to your own private administrative area where the actual building of your page occurs. It is pretty much follow the steps, upload your pictures, upload any original music you have encoded as .mp3 files, and fill out any bio information you wish visitors to know about you. In order for your page to be ‘activated’ you have to upload at least one song. Everything else is optional to upload.

For a sample of what can be done with your page you can visit mine at this URL: www.mp3.com/4jazz; and upon visiting, you will see what can be done there with limited knowledge of web design. Help sections there are pretty extensive as well, so if you get stuck somewhere, there is usually an answer to be found relatively quickly.

Typical Promotion Process

Phase One - so you have this really cool media page and you decide to let your friends and family know too. You send emails out for about 2 days to everyone you know on earth. As a result, your statistics show a steady group of listeners because of this. So, you do it again.

You are naturally happy and excited that your music is “up on the web” and people are “actually getting to hear it”. What independent jazz musician would not be?

However, after about 6 emails to your family, friends, colleagues, and even to that kid who sat behind you in geometry during your sophomore year of high school; none of the people whom you remotely know will want to hear about your music anymore. They’re back to using email and the Internet for its primary purpose of “jokes” and “chain letters”.

“Hey, I have already listened to your music once ­ so, stop bugging me with your music emails already” - is what they are actually telling you when they stop replying with “congrats” messages!

Phase Two - while you’re at it you start buzzing around the main site and discover the Artist Community Bulletin Boards and begin meeting other artist members online.

You begin to learn the dynamics of how to invite listeners to your page based upon many of the methods used by other artists on the site.

Some shared ideas from other artists do seem to work for a while, and some don’t work at all.

You begin to visit the pages of those artists who seem to have had consistent success based upon the steady streams of listeners who come to their pages each day ­ like clockwork. Most of these artists do not share any tips related to their success. You are, indeed, the competition in a sense. Why should they dilute their earnings by cluing you in on what is apparently effective online music promotion techniques.

Interacting with some of the members within the artist community is a cool aspect about the experience. Some of them even become supporters of your work and you of theirs. However, it is still not effective in the long term to rely upon other artists to keep listening to your music ‘over and over’, ‘day in and day out’.

Phase Three ­ you ‘get real’ and develop an actual strategy to find your own fans. Once the fact sets in that you will always need a daily stream of legitimate listeners in order to realize any earnings potential at the site, you finally learn that you have to basically build your own success one fan and one listener at a time. Just like you do offline.

Finding Qualified Listeners

I’m still working on establishing this type of network for my page at MP3.com because up until now, I have been looking for ‘qualified listeners’ in most all of the ‘wrong places online’.

Here’s how I have learned to qualify jazz listeners online:

• Not necessarily a fellow musician, because the competition factor is usually instinctively too great within most musicians for others to be consistent supporters. There are exceptions though.
• Not necessarily members of musicians groups or lists, because of the same reason above and many of the active members who post to such groups don’t like listening to music online.
• Even though you will actually get some consistent and loyal fans for your music from the fellow online artist community, musician groups, and musician lists ­ these are not the type of fans who will take your music to that ‘next level’ online.

Jazz Fans Who Listen Online

There are millions of Internet users who listen to music online. There are probably a few hundred thousand among them who are jazz fans. Among these are those people who would willingly listen to my free online music. Most all would probably willingly visit my media page on a regular basis, and even gladly help spread the word by telling all of their friends about it too.

These are the Jazz Fans and people I am seeking to connect with on a continuous and regular basis. I want to establish musical friendships with them online, and I know that they are out there somewhere.

The listeners I am seeking for my “Online Music Listeners Network” are just into digging the music. They don’t care that I get paid a half-cent USD for every listen, they don’t care about the music charts, and certainly they are not put off or threatened if my music sounds ‘too good’. They may or may not buy my CDs ­ which is no big deal, in this type of distribution scheme! I know that they are somewhere online just waiting to be told where they can find and hear my music online for free!

The next series of articles will follow the course of several independent jazz artists throughout the year. Hopefully, you will get to know their music, backgrounds, and career aspirations as well. You find some very valid work among them and also have opportunity to gain exposure to some of the other jazz music being made today outside of major and large independent labels. Until then, give an independent jazz artist a listen sometime. There are many of us out here with music worth hearing too.

Cb has also made many musical friends online and would love to hear from you too. Stop by for a free tour, listen to some Cb tunes, and say hello at http://www.burnettmusic.com.