Below is information on some of the most common items on musicians’
websites. You may not need or want all of these, but they are worth considering.
Blogs: are easy and free to create, and can be used as a website or as a feature of a website. They are very customizable, and blogging platforms provide design “themes” and it’s simple to add handy widgets for adding audio and video clips. See Wordpress, Blogger, Typepad, Movabletype.
Blogs are for story telling: when effective, they draw the reader in to the writer’s world and perspective. Blogs are enlivened with photos, videos, quotes, and, of course, the writer’s commentary on these. Of course you want to promote your upcoming performances and recordings, but a blog should really be about cultivating a relationship with your fans. There needs to be more than marketing messages in your blog posts. Postings should be concise, newsworthy, and entertaining because most people have limited time and patience for online reading. Find good tips on writing blog posts at http://www.copyblogger.com.
On the eighthblackbird ensemble’s blog, I read one of the group’s “favor-ite posts.” The topic was fl utist Tim Munro’s comedic backstage accident ti-tled “Anatomy of a Head Injury.” And another posting transcribed the after-concert “twitterings,” as the six members tried to decide who was going out for beer. These postings give the reader a real sense of the humor and personalities of the group. Readers feel invited to and included in the party.
When I fi rst visited conductor Edwin Outwater’s website and blog, he had up a YouTube clip of a great vintage comedy skit with Sid Ceasar and Nanette Fabray “doing” the fi rst movement of Beethoven’s 5th as a couple’s argument. Below that he had posted a description of his most recent perfor-mance, an orchestra/electronica concert with Mason Bates. Outwater had a link to an article about his orchestra’s education program and then two You-Tube clips from the latest political campaign, and his commentary on these was simply the question, “Isn’t it about time artists got MORE political?”
This all creates a strong positive impression of the conductor’s humor, his music, and the way he thinks. I was won over and interested to hear his re-cordings and performances because of his blog posts. (See http://www.ed-winoutwater.com.)
If you’re not yet performing enough to keep a tour diary, then consider using your blog for opinion pieces and commentary on topics about which you are passionate. The idea is to enable a communal online discussion, and to start an interesting dialogue thread. You need to have a topic that you
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care about and know enough about to jumpstart a series of conversations.
One musician writes about food and bread baking, another friend writes on the topic and idea of community. Greg Sandow writes on the future of clas-sical music (http://www.artsjournal.com/greg). Your topics may include politics, religion, and other incendiary topics. Just remember, once you post anything, you have published it for anyone and everyone to read: all your friends, family, and colleagues, as well as current and potential employers.
Be clear about what to keep personal and private.
Many musicians start blogs and then fi nd it diffi cult to keep up with ideas for new postings every week or so. Therefore, it can be helpful to invite guests to post on your blog, perhaps an interesting collaborator, mentor, or student of yours. You can also keep an idea fi le for future postings in case you run out of ideas. Interesting blog posts can focus on your favorite his-torical sites, recipes, pop culture, favorite books, and movies.
Bio: The version of your bio for your website should be brief and engag-ing, fi t easily on one screen with plenty of margin, and have room for a photo. But it can be great to provide options, a concise one-paragraph opener bio and a link to the rest, or else menu buttons for the short and long bio versions. If the website is for an ensemble, have both a group bio and links to individual member bios.
Performance Calendar: listings should include when, where, and what you’ll be performing, ticket info, a hyperlink to the venue’s website, and travel directions with a link to mapquest or another mapping website. De-pending on the music you perform, you may want to include brief, well-written program notes on the composers and the pieces (well-written for a non-specialist audience). You may fi nd a skilled friend or fan willing to help write these.
Sounds: Having examples of your music is essential! You can include downloadable sound fi les or MP3 clips that showcase your music. A popular platform, as of this writing, is SoundCloud, on which you can upload your music with no fi le size limit and then embed the link on your site. There’s also Bandcamp and Divshare. The sound clips you provide free can be “teas-ers” to prompt listeners to purchase tracks or entire albums, and come to your live shows. Your music page should include links to the:
Purchase page: Provides links to the online retail sites where your al-bums and tracks are available, such as CDBaby, iTunes, Bandcamp, Amie
Street, Magnatune, TuneCore, Nimbit, and Amazon’s CreateSpace. In gen-eral, these companies take a portion of the profi t in exchange for handling the digital distribution and sales. For manufacturing and selling other mer-chandise (T-shirts and such), many musicians use CafePress, Zazzle, as well as Nimbit.
Photos/Videos: Embedding YouTube clips from your performances can be a terrifi c way to engage your readers. Years ago I stumbled onto a fl utist’s website with an embedded YouTube video clip. It was a video of a commu-nity education performance he had presented for a museum audience. In the video the fl utist performed a solo work standing in a gallery near a painting, with his listeners standing and gathered around him to hear the music and view the artwork. The video was especially effective because of the camera position: the video was shot from behind the performer’s right shoulder, so that the viewer saw his audience’s response, his movement, and the great lo-cation. The clip was very effective because the emphasis was on the audi-ence’s positive response.
Make sure you use a variety of photos throughout your site. And still shots can be “animated” as slide shows (with Flickr, Photobucket, and oth-ers). It is great to have less formal shots on pages that focus on teaching, edu-cation concerts, and audience engagement. If your site is for an ensemble, use group shots on most pages, but have individual shots to accompany the individual bios.
Press or testimonial page: If you quote your reviews, make sure you in-clude the newspaper name, city, and state. If the critic is well known, inin-clude his or her name. If you do not yet have reviews, you can use quotes from mentors, concert presenters, or club managers, as long as you have obtained their permission. In other words, if someone has written something positive about you and your music in an e-mail or recommendation, simply ask,
“Would it be OK to use your quote on my website?”
Electronic Press Kit (EPK): This can be a specialized portion of your website offering versions of your promo materials geared towards booking and media purposes. Here you can provide several lengths of your formal full bio as well as programming materials in ready-to-print downloadable PDFs. Include a series of high-resolution JPEGS for downloading use by pre-senters and the media. And many musicians use the site Sonicbids to post their EPK, giving club managers and presenters one more place to easily fi nd them and access sound samples.
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Links page: You want to have fun, interesting, and relevant links to other websites. Think what your visitors might be interested in, such as links to other ensembles you collaborate with, resource sites for musicians and music enthusiasts, plus non-music sites you fi nd interesting. You may want to list links in topic categories, keeping the number of links per category to seven or fewer. You can update or rotate these links as you fi nd new ones.
FAQ page: Many websites have a Frequently Asked Questions page. For musicians and ensembles, this can be a fun page with quirky personal infor-mation interspersed with factual, interesting tidbits about your group, rep-ertoire, and upcoming projects.
Contact info: Make it easy for people to connect with you.
Mailing List Sign-up: stay in touch with your fans. Offer them an incen-tive for signing up, such as a free download of your music. When you ask people to sign up for your mailing list, consider asking for their zip code.
There are performing groups who plan their tours based on where their fans are. You can offer a free download of a performance in exchange for signing up and leaving a zip code. It’s very easy to set up a mailing list signup. Popu-lar services include Constant Contact and MailChimp.
Interactive elements: The most successful and popular web pages are those that are interactive. Include a music trivia quiz, questionnaire, or a raffl e for free CDs or tickets. To connect even more with your visitors and supporters, think of ways to involve them in your music. Radius Ensemble reserves the last concert of their home season as an audience choice pro-gram. People vote on the group’s website for the repertoire for the fi nal con-cert, choosing encore performances from the pieces performed at the earlier concerts that season. There are a number of sites that provide free interac-tive tools you can use on your site:
http://www.bravenet.com http://www.misterpoll.com http://www.widgetbox.com http://www.sparklit.com http://www.surveymonkey.com
Educational pages: If you teach, you may want to have a portion of your website devoted to your teaching. And if you play a somewhat unusual in-strument, consider including a page on the history, construction, or
me-chanics of the instrument. Marimbist Nancy Zeltsman’s site (http://www .nancyzeltsman.com) is terrifi c and includes a basic technical introduction to the marimba and a memo to composers on writing for the instrument.
Nancy has premiered many new works and has had many commissions; this information is not only helpful for her future composer collaborators, but for the future of the art form.
Trombonist Mark K. has a brass quintet and a teaching studio. On the front page of his website, visitors click on the area of fi rst interest, the quin-tet or the teaching. This simplifi es what might have been a confusing menu if the two areas were combined. The quintet does lots of gigs, weddings, and corporate events. Its pages include an ensemble bio and separate bios for each performer, a repertoire list, sample programs, descriptions of work-shops and booking information.
More remarkable is the teaching studio portion of the site. Its menu has separate areas for kids, for advanced students, and for parents. Mark in-cludes (for parents) his teaching philosophy statement, his teaching creden-tials, a short bio about his teaching experience, and his studio policy. There are resource and method books listed, as well as advice on how to encourage children to practice. For students, there are recommended CDs, an “expec-tations” section, audio fi les, fi ngering charts, and music theory worksheets.
In addition, there’s a student news section, featuring the accomplishments and photos of his students and a special set of links just for kids. The teach-ing portion of the site is thorough, engagteach-ing, and impressive. It’s helpful for both students and parents.
The Internet has made this the age of the entrepreneurial musician. Tech-nology has made it easy and inexpensive for musicians to enter the profes-sional market place, build their fan base, promote performances, and sell recordings. Just keep in mind that the particulars on your site should be tai-lored to your career, projects, and goals. Take time to think carefully about who you are, what story you want to tell, and whom you want to reach. Then just get started: it can be as easy as uploading a version of your one-sheet with a few clips of your music, a calendar, bio, your email, and some photos!
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Career Forward
Writing down your responses to these questions will help you create an effec-tive online presence.
1. What is it you want from having an online presence? What is it you want your website and social networking to do for you?
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2. Which musician websites do you visit regularly? Why? Which musician blogs do you read? Why?
3. What is it you want your site to convey about you as a musician, person, and citizen? What image do you want to communicate?
4. What could make your website distinctive? What projects could you feature on your site? What hobbies and interests would you want to include?
5. What do you want visitors to do on your site?
6. What incentives could you provide to encourage visitors to sign up for your mailing list?
7. How will you drive traffi c to your website?
8. If you do not have a website, or have one that needs improving, what is preventing you from moving forward with the project?
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