Kevin Breuner

What are your thoughts?  Please leave your comments below.

It’s pretty common for artists and musicians to have big dreams of making music their full time career. The problem is that in most cases, there is no definition of what “making it” will truly look like for them. Without clear goals and a picture of success, it’s easy to spend a lot of time and energy that results in little forward progress towards a full time music career. This leads to frustration, burnout, and ultimately failure. If you don’t know where you’re trying to go, the Cheshire cat says,”Then it really doesn’t matter which way you go.”

QR Codes (Quick Response Codes) have been around for a while, but in 2011 we’ll see their explosions into the mainstream consciousness. Just in case you have no idea what I’m talking about, a QR Code is the little black & white checker-box images that are popping up on posters, kiosks, signs and just about everywhere else information is displayed.  You’ve probably already seen them in use and just didn’t know what they were. All you need is a smart phone and a scanning app to enjoy the hidden treasures that wait for you when these codes are discovered and scanned out in the real world. There are a number of cool music promotion ideas around QR Codes. Check out the video below to see how my band Hello Morning used the code to promote our album release show.

For more information on how that was done (including links to make a QR code), check out the QR Code article on the DIY Musician blog HERE.

Those who get creative with QR Codes could score big! Check out this video of how someone used a QR code to make the ultimate resume. I’m sure he has plenty of job offers now! See it here – http://vimeo.com/21228618

Last week at SXSW, I took part in a panel on the topic of crowdfunding. The panel was moderated by Brian Meece, one of the founders of the crowdfunding website RocketHub.com. As much as the topic seems old hat to some in the music community, there are still many musicians that are just hearing about the opportunities with crowdfunding for the first time. The panel was a great discussion with a lot of excellent questions from the audience. A reporter from CNN was on hand and interviewed me about my crowdfunding experience with Hello Morning.

You can read my CNN interview HERE.

Apparently today is the 1st Annual Quit MySpace Day where musicians are being encouraged to dump their MySpace accounts. Yes, MySpace is a clunky, annoying, spammed filled experience, but for any serious artist/band, I think deleting your MySpace account is a serious mistake (for now). There are two reasons.

1. MySpace returns great search results on Google with some search results featuring an audio player ready to stream popular songs by that artist.

2. Press and music venues still find MySpace useful. I’m not sure why, but just about every venue and news outlet still tend to grab a band’s MySpace link over using their official website. My guess is that they know it’s a direct link to streaming audio of the artist’s music plus all the other band essentials.

I find using MySpace just as frustrating as anyone else, but it takes zero effort to let my account sit there just in case. Until it’s officially dead or there is an obvious new replacement, I’ll keep my account open. I suggest other artists do the same.

My band, Hello Morning, is in the home stretch of our fan funding campaign to help raise the needed funds to finish off our new album (Just a couple days left). It’s been quite a learning experience that I will sum up in a later blog post once the campaign has officially concluded. At this point though, we still have a lot of ground to cover before we reach our goal of $1,500. Your participation would be greatly appreciated by myself and the rest of the guys in the band, plus, you’ll get some great Hello Morning rewards in return. You can view our campaign here on the fan funding site RocketHub. Just a reminder, only receive the funding if we make our goal, so anything helps!

We titled our fan funding campaign “It Takes a Village to Make an Album” partly to be funny, but partly because it’s true. For me personally, the support I’ve received from family, friends, and members of the music community has served as great encouragement and kept me in pursuit of my musical passions. I truly do not take it for granted!

For more details, click here!

Last week, the music business blog Hypebot, posted a 2 part interview with yours truly. Most of the questions centered around the how the web fits into the career of a musician in this new business climate, and I have to admit, my soap box came out a bit. I said a lot of things that I don’t think get mentioned enough. It wasn’t anything revolutionary, but just thoughts that I think many in the artists community who have talents deserving of a fan base are thinking these days. Another popular blog, called Mashable, took a few quotes from my interview and used them in an article about Weezer!

Interview Part 1: Artist Are Still Afraid of New Technology

Interview Part 2: The Mystery Is Gone

The Weezer article from Mashable

You’ve probably noticed that it’s been a while since my last post. It’s not that I’ve stopped thinking and strategizing about the music industry, but with family (daughter #2 came) work and music, I had been stretched beyond my limitations and something had to take a back seat. The good news is that over the past year, instead of sitting at home dreaming about what other bands and musicians should do with their music careers, I’ve actually been out trying to put some of those lofty ideas into practice with my new band Hello Morning. I can tell you, it’s not as easy as all the gurus make it out to be. And I have to admit, there are some things I liked about the old school music business. Anyway, I plan to continue the dialogue as there is always something to about the topsy turvy world of the music business.

You can hear Hello Morning here – http://hellomorningband.com

And of course I’m always podcasting at http://cdbabypodcast.com

I’m in a new band called Hello Morning that is just emerging from the studio and finally ready to get serious about promoting and moving our music forward. Our situation is very similar to the average indie artist, in that we all have jobs, families, and other responsibilities, so when it comes to our music career, the time and money we put in needs to count for something. Several of us in the band have had success connecting with individuals through our personal social networking, but to be honest, when it came to the band’s social media efforts, we seemed to be floundering a bit with little sense of purpose. Since part of my job is spent giving other artists advice, I figured it was time to put my money where my mouth was and come up with a plan to put our band’s Twitter account to work. What Hello Morning has started to implement (with excellent results seemingly overnight) I will pass along to you in the following 5 steps.

1. Clean your feed – A good cleansing is in order! If you’re like the average artist, you’re following way to many people for all the wrong reasons and it’s time to un-follow most of them. You’ve got to clear out the junk and noise so you can make your Twitter feed useful and manageable. Don’t follow people just because they follow you!

2. Follow with a purpose – Stop following everyone at random (Even in your local music scene). Follow bands, clubs, and club bookers that you’d like to work with, and who in return, might want to work with you. Keep this list as small as possible.

3. Focus Locally – Give your Twitter feed the local touch so it reflects the pulse of the music scene in your town for your genre. Keep it as focused as possible. Don’t follow people across the country, or around the globe just because you can.

4. Interact – Now that you have your targeted follow list, it’s time to interact, and the more interaction the better! Social media is an excellent way to push out content, but it is far more effective if that content is coupled with sincere interaction. This step is key!

5. Take the relationships into the real world – Once you’ve started to dialogue with folks, ask to meet up in person. You’d be surprised at how many people are more than happy to grab a cup of coffee and share their insights and experiences. They’ll also be more likely think of you when they’re looking for an artist or band like you. Note: Whenever meeting people from the internet, don’t be stupid. Use good judgement and carry a big can of pepper spray!

OK, I said my band started to see results overnight, so what were they? First off, there was an immediate sense of purpose for the time we put into maintaining our Twitter account. That purpose being, to connect to our local scene, NOT necessarily build fans. This purpose will evolve as the band gains exposure, but it’s perfect for where we are now. Like I said, we’re brand new, so connecting to the local scene and getting gigs is step one. Building the fan base will easily follow once those things are in place and we are performing on a regular basis. Secondly, with the new streamlined Twitter feed, we’ve been able to hone in on useful information that was most likely being missed before. One post that we spotted was a local club booker needing to fill an opening slot for a national act that was coming through town in 2 weeks. With no album, no one sheet or EPK, no band website (Just a nice myspace page with less than 200 friends), no long history of playing in Portland and drawing a crowd, we got the gig. The club booker was in a pinch, and simply by responding to her post, she immediately gave our music a listen, and offered us the gig. We’re also making it a point to meet up with folks in the local scene (Like club bookers) that we’ve introduced ourselves to via Twitter. So far, the response has been extremely positive, and we’ve only been doing this for two weeks!

The important thing to remember, is that your social network focus will evolve as your music career evolves. Don’t assume that the first step (Or the only step), is to try to cultivate a fan base. Define your goals, focus in and target, and you’ll see far better results. Oh yeah, if you want to hear the music in progress with Hello Morning, you can find us here – http://hellomorningband.com