Musician’s Library: The 4-Hour Work-Week, part 1 (Elimination)

Here at Music Is My Day Job, we’re always looking for new ways to help you make music your full-time gig, thus our “Musician’s Library” feature, where we look at books, articles and ideas that you should be adding to your reading list. Today, we are focusing on The 4-Hour Work Week by Timothy Ferris and, more specifically, Ferris’ concept of “Elimination”…

Hypebot’s Massive Tuesday News Update

We were going to publish a list of some of our favorite music-industry articles today, but Hypebot beat us to it with their massive list of music-industry related articles, press releases and more.  Click through for comments on “free” from Seth Godin, info on Sirius XM & Touchtunes and more…When you can’t beat ‘em, pat [...]

The Key to Success

Several weeks back, the New York Times published an article titled, “Is This the Time to Chase a Career Dream?” As you can probably determine from the title, it is one of the seemingly-endless economic crisis articles that basically says that the lemonade to be made from this (large) financial lemon comes in the form of being able to pursue dreams that one could not previously pursue while holding down a full-time job.

Like many of you, my eyes tend to glaze over whenever another one of these articles appear, but this particular piece has stayed with me for two particular reasons…

5 Characteristics of Digitally Engaged Music Seekers

Tom Ewing (on his always-enjoyable Freaky Trigger blog) has listed five shared characteristics of a group he has dubbed “Digitally Engaged Music Seekers” (DEMS for short).  The list was based on a simple twitter question: What’s your favourite current song and how did you first hear it?  Check out the full article here.

Musicians Library: Highlights from Around the Web (5 May 09)

In our Musician’s Library features, we highlight books, articles and essays that can help musicians as they strive to earn a living from their music. Today, we feature some of our favorite articles from around the web that you should consider adding to your library (virtual as that library may be). Today we look at Josh Freese’s unique packages, more tips from MusicianWages.com, thoughts on the Creative Economy and more…

Chuck D: Get Yourself Out of the 90s

I finally sat down and spent some time going through the Red Bull Music Academy interview with Public Enemy’s Chuck D from October of 2008, and while it is long (more than 120 minutes!), it’s worth spending some time with. Besides providing insight into the early days of hip-hop and the history of P.E., as this was the Red Bull Music Academy, he also delves into what it means to be a modern musician and how to become a successful independent artist…

To EP or not to EP…

Brian Hazard over at the Music Think Tank just posted an excellent article on the benefits of releasing a follow-up EP a short time after releasing your full-length album. Among other reasons, he reminds us that it rewards your most loyal fans with additional music and can actually help maintain interest in your full-length. Read [...]

Have you hugged your talent today?

Here is a disturbing article from Mark McGuinness (from his Lateral Action blog) on following your instincts to find your true calling and talent.  Read this now before your own “Thought Fox” comes after you…

Musicians Library: Highlights from Around the Web (21 April 09)

…we feature some of our favorite articles from around the web that you should consider adding to your library (virtual as that library may be), including highlights from KnowTheMusicBiz.com and FutureofMusicBook.com…

Trent Reznor: “hone your craft…then present it in a way that exploits it the best”

…Digg finally posted their much-anticipated interview with the forward-thinking Trent Reznor. The questions were all written and voted-on by Digg users, and (happily, for us) the bulk of the discussion revolves around new music business models and includes very detailed advice on how music artists can use technology to connect with both fans and potential fans…