Tag Archive for: metadata

Music Industry Jobs of the Future

Music Industry Jobs of the Future

Billboard recently posted an article about the music industry jobs of the future and it is fascinating and brilliant! The music industry jobs of the future are all about Storytelling, Playlisting, Content Development, Brand Management, Social Interaction, Live Entertainment, Merchandising and more. VERY INTERESTING!

Jobs like Data Jockey, Spin Tracker, Counselor, Crossover Marketer, Royalty Miner, Stage Visionary, Chatbot Creator, Video VR and Gaming Wizards, Metadata, and Wearables Designer.

“The CD-peddling, gatekeeper-guarded record industry is dead. But the meme-crafting, data-mining, spon-con-placing, royalty-chasing, wearable-designing, Chipotle-playlist-making industry is thriving, and to get a piece of the action, you’ll need a very particular set of skills — and some clue where to start. That’s what you’ll find below: dozens of dream jobs in five categories, with the people who scored them explaining how they got there (and just what it is they do all day).”

Read all about it here:

48 Music Biz Jobs of Tomorrow — And How to Get Them

For more about the future of music and how to navigate the waters as an indie musician, please checkout New Artist Model.

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How to Edit Metadata

Photo credit: http://bit.ly/1qqoLm3

Photo credit: http://bit.ly/1qqoLm3

Metadata is an extremely important thing to understand as a musician, especially if you’re just starting out and don’t have anyone else to deal with it for you. It’s also one of those things that a lot of musicians either don’t fully understand or keep putting off learning about. To help you out, we’ve brought you this metadata guide from Musician and Marketing Consultant Solveig Whittle(@shadesofsolveig). 

This is just an excerpt, but you can check out the full article over on Hypebot.

Metadata, also referred to as ID3 tag for mp3 files, is the identifying information associated with your song, such as the:

  • composers
  • performers
  • song title
  • title of the album on which it was released
  • year released
  • and so much more

Metadata is important for the following reasons:

  1. You want your name to show up in the key music databases, Rovi/Allmusic and CDDB/Gracenote as associated with that track. This is important because any music professional will use those databases to check you out and verify your claim to authorship or performance credit.
  2. If you plan to license your music for use in film or TV, it’s important that the use of your song(s) can be tracked for royalties, and metadata is how that is done. Your metadata must be entered properly in the publisher’s database in order for your royalties to be paid to them and to you. You probably will be giving the publisher a wav file at some point, but mp3s are often used for pitching your song.
  3. If you submit yourmusic to a reviewer or to a terrestrial or internet radio station. Whether you are working with a PR agency or going direct, your electronic press kit should contain mp3s of your songs that have the correct metadata, including album artwork.

Once your mp3 song file is properly tagged, the song can be uploaded to either the Allmusic or CDDB music databases and will link you by name directly to those music files. I wrote a post about uploading your music metadata to the CDDB database, which is pretty easy. Uploading to Rovi/Allmusic is a bit more complicated and involves sending in a physical CD.

Using Windows Explorer, iTunes Or GooglePlay To Edit Your Metadata

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8 Ways to Improve your Youtube Presence

So you have a YouTube channel and are uploading regular videos. You’re getting some followers and views, but you want to improve and grow your viewer base. Lucky for you the folks at Cyber PR came out with this great 8-step guide for improving your YouTube presence. Even if you’re just starting out on YouTube this guide will help you get going.

1. Your TITLE is important!

Believe it or not, your title can make or break your video– when people are searching for things to watch, you want your video to come up for them to view!

Keep it focused! Try this format (as applicable):
[Song Title] [Short Description] [Original Artist Name] [Your Band Name]

For example, if you have done a cover song of “We Are Never Getting Back Together”, a great title would be:

We Are Never Getting Back Together Taylor Swift Cover by Corie

Think of what people might ask when searching for something. Questions begin with Who, What, When, Where and Why – so when applicable, answer these questions right in the title!

On August 28th, when I YouTubed We Are Never Getting Back Together in the search bar this is what I saw:

Screen-Shot-2013-09-04-at-2.37.20-PM

First you see Taylor Swift’s official video, followed by two other videos before her official lyric video!

FUN FACT: There are times when official artist videos are not licensed to view in other countries. Where the official video is not available for viewing, yours may be the first (or only) option for a fan in that area to listen to the song!

2. Write a description to your video with RELEVANT INFORMATION!

You want your description to have keywords that improve your ability to show up in fan (and potential fan) searches and it should be thorough– but you don’t need to include the entire kitchen sink! Make a description that describes the video and who you are.

FUN FACT: There’s a tool that helps you come up with relevant keywords; available straigh from the source! CLICK HERE TO USE YOUTUBE’S KEYWORD SUGGESTION TOOL

Only a portion of the description shows to your audience before requiring them to use the drop down to continue reading so keep the important items at the top, like your website url, for example.

3. Tag and Categorize your video!

Choose a category that best fits your video for most of you. I’d imagine this will end up being Music, but MAYBE you have a niche-focused video that fits into a different category like Comedy, just make sure whatever you choose what BEST fits the videos content.

Tags further support your search rank and are a part of the equation to better visibility. Use short phrases and descriptive keywords here– YouTube will auto-generate some from the way you titled your video. Add and remove as you feel necessary. Make sure your brand or artist name is a tag, also.

How Did YOU Optimize The First Video on Your New Youtube Channel?

Let us know what worked (or didn’t work!) for you in the  comment section below!

To see the other five tips visit the Cyber PR Blog.

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Let’s Add Better Metadata to Our Digital Files

Why are artist, writer, producer, engineer and other credits almost always missing from iTunes, Pandora, Spotify, Amazon, Rdio, and almost every other music service, with little exception? That’s the basis for a metadata movement being spearheaded by producer, mixer and engineer Count (aka Mikael Eldridge), whose ‘credits’ include artists like DJ Shadow, Radiohead, The Rolling Stones, Frank Sinatra, New Order, No Doubt, Galactic, Zoe Keating, and Tycho.

“If Led Zeppelin had only sold albums digitally when they started, it’s very unlikely that many people would know who Jimmy Page or Robert Plant are because the digital music files you purchase for download or streaming can’t show you who played on them.”

If you think performers, producers, and engineers should be credited on interactive music services like iTunes, Pandora, and Spotify, click here to ‘like’ this campaign.

Over the last few years we’ve seen an explosion in interactive music services. iTunes, Pandora, Spotify, Soundcloud, and dozens of other platforms are touted as groundbreaking services, but if you really think about it, it’s all on the backs of the people who actually created the music; the performers, producers, and engineers. These services are nothing without music creators and at the very least they need to finally give music creators credit on screen.

There is no excuse. Its the right thing to do, it would create a much richer user experience, and it would improve these music services by turning people on to new music. That’s why myself and a crew of dedicated folks at the Grammys are tackling this issue once and for all. But we need your help to show there is real demand.

“It’s absolutely unbelievable that I can go online and instantly have access to Roger Federer’s obscure tennis stats but I can’t even see who is singing a song on iTunes or Pandora.”

There are many obvious reasons why credit must be given to music creators including:

(1) Better credits make better user experiences.

(2) This is Marketing 101.

(3) Hollywood does it, so why don’t we?

(4) This is not about egos. It’s about survival.

(5) It’s an easy fix.

Read the whole post from Count and Paul Resnikoff at Digital Music News.

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When you have data you have power

Ian Rogers and his team at Topspin are on in.  Listen to what he has to say in this brief interview from Wired and think how it can apply to your situation.

The more you know, the better decisions you can make and the further you can go.  Simple as that. Topspin is generating data, as are Nimbit, Reverbnation and others.

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