My Road.

          Many moons ago when I was playing in a band the internet wasn’t considered as a serious option for promotion, with the possible exception of sending bulk emails to prospective vehicles of promotion, let alone promoting your music to the entire world with comparative ease.

          These days, for any musician who is serious about their craft, it’s nothing short of a must. Had someone told me 15 years ago that I could complete a song, ‘distribute’ it, then recieve feedback from a large listening audience within 15 minutes I would have laughed. This has happened to me as I’m sure it has happened to countless musicians worldwide.

          My experience is perhaps somewhat different from a vast majority of musicians in several ways. Firstly, when I returned to the music industry in a recording capacity in April 2007, I had very limited computer knowledge. This was matched by my ignorance of the speed, reach & ease of spreading ones’ music.

          Once I had a basic grasp of these, at the time, overwhelming concepts, I jumped in head-first. I put my music on every free site that I could find & joined every artists fan club that I was invited to join. The novelty of this very rapidly wore off as I found myself spending more time at the computer than in the studio, where I wanted to be. My personal music site also added to this dilemma.

          This led me to make the decision of ‘centralising’ my music, as much as I thought appropriate, to legitimate sites that gave me the greatest chance of reaching the audience that I wanted to.

          My music is now centralised at ReverbNation which not only provides excellent statistical data and promotional tools but, for me, is an ideal ‘testing ground’ for material that I consider for commercial release. I have also recently registered with Fanbridge who offer an excellent and ergonomic service in managing my mailing list requirements. I have also set up a “Bob Findlay Music Page” on Facebook. From here there is a direct link to my iLike page where music for commercial release is located. Music that already has been released and will, at some point, be released is located here as it directly links to my music which can be purchased on iTunes, Rhapsody & Amazon, three of the major players in digital musical distribution.

          As you have no-doubt gleaned from this dialogue, a considerable amount of trial & error went into getting me to where I currently am today, The songs are of the same calibre but the visibility of both them & myself have skyrocketed.

          I was fortunate enough to have 14 months to undertake this trial & error exercise but for artists with a sound working knowledge I imagine my exploits would seem very time-consuming to them. I have reached the point where this is no longer the case for me but am ever-conscious that the rapid advancements in the world of computer technology & the internet will see similar advancements in the music industry.

          My only questions at this point were; how much faster can it get & how much music can the world take onboard? Being on somewhat of a roll which even at this early stage I felt that I had nothing to lose by pushing the envelope further; but how? Musical inspiration & output wasn’t an issue. Visibility was.

          My next undertaking was to delve into an area that I have never been fond of. Promotion. From prior experience I was more than familiar with the pitfalls and fakery of this area of the music industry. I did, however, taking into account that my experience was pre-internet in a state of Australia with just over 600,000 people. I believe this background and insight a considerable amount of time & frustration.

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