Music, in any form, whether vocal or instrumental, classical or modern is the perfect form of entertainment as well as relaxing. Locating a person in this whole expansive world, who has been untouched by the effect and magic of music is al most next to impossible. All multimedia gizmos have the provision of playing music. But quite frequently, what’s music for one person, may be noise for his neighbour. In such a situation, surround sound headphones are the perfect way to find pleasure in your music fully in the absence of disturb ing those around you.
Surround sound headphones are diverse from other headphones because they give a realistic feel to the music and bring the effect of live music. This three dimensional effect is achieved by separating the front, rear and central speakers. It expands the quality, and shuts out all disturb ances while you are enjoying the music. The perfect advantage of these headphones is that you may listen to and find pleasure in your music even with the volume turned up to the maximum, in the absence of disturb ing your family members and neighbours.
The effect of the surround sound headphones is as good as listening to music using speakers. Surround sound headphones cover the entire outer ear area and the curve of the ear, and this feature makes it much better than ordinary headphones. One may use these headphones with any music system, computer and even the television. The person gets all the perks of hearing everything in the absence of any external noise or disturb ance.
These headphones may also be used to watch movies in private and even while playing games on your games console. Surround sound headphones are based on the sound decoding technology. This is responsible for giving tremendous clarity in what you hear. User who have used these headphones have said that listening to music using these is as good as listening to a live orchestra with all the artists standing beside you.
Dennis Jaylon is a renowned business writer who has years of experience in writing technical reviews, product descriptions and product feature analysis of technical gizmos. He has won appreciation especially for enlightening individuals about the latest communication gizmos…the headphones
We spent months preparing for the Gemini Soul tour, booking performances in Phoenix, Hollywood, Fresno, Santa Cruz and Orange County. all of us covered it all: a publicist, advertising, free ticket give-aways, flyers, posters, performance listings, postcards. all of us tried holding a charity benefit. all of us tried having an opening band. all of us tried free promotional performances at colleges. all of us tried passing out free admission cards on the street. And still only a scattering of individuals came to each show.
The individuals who did attend always raved about the music, as did the doormen, the bartenders, the venue managers. ” You are the perfect band I have ever seen performance here, and I have heard a lot of bands,” has been a typical response. So where has been everyone?
Live music in the America is dying. Several decades ago, a band may count on regular venue dates. Unknown jazz performers may “do the circuit” and make at least some resources. Not anymore. I talked to the manager of a two-thousand seat theater. She said everyone in the industry is talking about how difficult it has become to fill Club s, and speculated that individuals have a lot of entertainment choices at home — the Internet, iPods, cable television, Netflix — that there is less incentive to go out on the town. Fewer individuals are willing to take a opening on unknown music. As a consequence, a lot of Clubs can’t afford to pay performers and expect you to performance for ideas — which is fine to get a career going, but how may you sustain that?
Live music as viable entertainment hangs on in some ways. Me’Shell Ndegeocello, thank goodness, may draw a large crowd on a Monday night to San Francisco’s The Independent. Festivals and cruises still feature performers (although they are increasingly interested in artists with national reputations – which begs the question, how does one get a national reputation?). But if skill ed guitarists like Mick Fleetwood (co-founder of one of the most successful performers of all time, Fleetwood Mac) may fill only half of that two-thousand seat Club, and if Yoshi’s resorts to giving away free tickets to Lee Ritenour’s second show, where does that leave us?
Have all of us become too accustomed to music at the press of a button, day and night, and worse yet, a lot of of us now expect it for free? Radiohead released their latest CD On-line and asked buyers to select how much to pay. Only 38 percent of those who downloaded the CD paid anything. The rest — an unbelievable 62 percent — felt they should get the album for free! [Forbes.com] Because of the band’s stature, they still made a considerable amount of resources on the sales, but at those percentages, a four-person band selling only 10,000 CDs at an average of $8 apiece would make just $30,400. That amounts to less than $8,000 per person, not including any deduction for production costs.
I recently located a dozen inter-connected English-language websites based in Russia selling my music as well as music by big-name artist s, unauthorized, for download for less than $1 per CD. If most artists can’t make resources performing and can’t even make resources from CD sales On-line, how will our culture be able to nurture and sustain the next wave of artist s? like climate vary, all of us will glibly go about thinking little is wrong (or at least a lot of of us will) until it is too late. all of us will have chopped down the tree that nurtured our music and gave it life.
Setting time boundaries is an important tool for an artist to learn to use.
Paula Eder of ” Locating Time Tips and E-zine” states, “If you can’t say no, may be you don’t know where your boundaries are”.
Community service and donations are frequently requested from artists. Paula suggest in her action step to “List each area you say “yes” to where you wish you’d said “no”. These are your 1st boundaries”. Boundary artists have learned to stop saying “yes” and wishing they had said “no”. Creating more respect for their artist time. Careful planning…saying “yes” to things all of us really want to do, frees time for activities all of us really want to participate in.
When your day in the studio is finished, take time to prepare a priority list for the next day. session ting boundaries with your list gets chores out of the way fast. Leaving time for work in the studio or community service. Most of all it leaves time for enjoying being an artist.
Being involved with family members frequently consumes much of an performer’s time. Communication in this area is exceedingly important. You know your family members is rushed, frazzled and work hard to make a living and, you want to help. But, your artist time needs consideration also. Discuss these needs, come to an agreement that leaves each person with time to help each other. The boundary artist is able to return to the studio feeling good about time spent with family members and time to create.
Prepare a sign that’s posted at the entrance of your work space that undeniable ly indicates you are working. When the sign is removed it signals that you are free to talk and interact with others.
How do you session boundaries? Do family members and companies need to learn your artist boundaries? Talk to me about the way you handle these situations and still make time to create your art.
To most artists, the enduring image of an artist manager is a caricature of a heavy-set, unkempt slob of a man, stuffed into a 2-sizes-too-small, off-the-rack department seller suit, chomping on a cheap smelly cigar while sliding a gr easy hand unceremoniously into the back pocket of a starving artist. Doubtlessly, somewhere in the vast landscape of the music universe, such malice exists. The vast majority of artist managers, however, are a motley collection of well-meaning, hardworking, selfless individuals struggling to make the dreams of an individual they believe in come true.
For the legion of dedicated unbelievers out there, this is an article that attempts to shed light on the true worth of an artist manager. Following are 8 reasons why a band or artist needs a good manager:
1. Career Guidance – It’s frequently extremely difficult for artists to step back from the day-to-day activities and see the large picture (you know – the old ‘forest-for-the-trees’ thing). A knowledgeable manager may see how everything in the large picture fits together, and may help the artist navigate through the frequently -confusing maze of activities that seem unrelated yet are all part of a massive jigsaw puzzle. The manager offers career guidance and helps to session the overall game plan for the artist and the artist s’ team to follow.
2. Cheerleading – Even though listeners are the main cheerleaders for an artist, an individual has to communicate the same enthusiasm to the music business community. An artist manager will trumpet the artist’s message to record labels, booking agents, promoters, media person nel, venue bookers, independent retail accounts, etc., in order to keep them all engaged and enthusiastic.
3. Prestige – According to most record industry professionals, there is something to be said about an artist that has a manager. The logic is that if an artist is good enough to attract management, there must be something of worth present. In fact, most major labels refuse to sign an artist unless they have solid team (manager, attorney and publicist) in place. An artist in the absence of management is just too much drama! Labels would rather deal with an individual who knows how the music business works and may make decisions on a non-emotional basis.
4. Buffer – A manager may act as an effective screening buffer amidst the artist and individuals that want to do business with the artist. This buffer tends to attract legitimate industry players while at the same time scaring away scam artist s. There are no scarier words to a scam artist than “please talk to my manager”.
5. Time management – There simply isn’t enough time in the day to do everything that needs to be done in order to further the career of an artist. In amidst writing songs, conducting interviews, designing artwork for CD ’s and merchandise, managing a mailing list, filling out copyright paperwork, rehearsing with the band, hiring and firing artist s, updating band websites and MySpace.com profiles, getting pictures taken, shooting and editing DVD’s and YouTube videos, sending out packages and/or updating EPK’s, researching, repairing and buying equipment, etc., there isn’t time to also craft a master game plan, solicit potential sponsorship partners, handle licensing requests, reach out to industry gatekeepers, attend industry networking get togethers, harass labels for tour support, and so on. Some tasks may be delegated to the band while others may be handled by the manager.
6. Accountability – Part of a manager’s job is to hold individuals accountable. What happens when the financial tour support that has been promised by the label fails to materialize? Or the check from the booking agent bounces? Or the FOH engineer at the show is MIA? Or the licensee fails to sign and return the contract but is using the artist’s songs anyway? Or the beer in the tour van vanishes? Somebody has to keep individuals honest, and that’s most appropriately the manager’s job.
7. Good Cop / Bad Cop – Need to fire the bass player but don’t want to create an enemy? Let the manager performance bad cop and do the firing. Need to re-negotiate your contract and request more of a promotion budget? Let the manager performance good cop and keep a positive spin on the proceedings. There are plenty of opening s when the artist and manager may trade off playing good cop / bad cop.
8. Sounding board – A manager, even though basic ally an “honorary member of the band”, is frequently on the outside looking in. Managers frequently see things diverse ly than the artist, and may frequently offer diverse perspectives, insights and determinations to problems the artist is encountering. Running ideas by a knowledgeable manager prior to making decisions frequently allows for good ideas to become better and bad ideas to be removed altogether from the to-do list.
So, there you’ve it! 8 good reasons why an artist needs a manager. Having said all this, however, it is important to note that having a bad manager is worse than having no manager at all. a lot of wannabe managers think they may just “wing-it” with an artist, and continue to operate with the “lets-record-a-3-song-demo-and-shop-it-for-a-record-deal” mentality, even though the music industry continues to undergo meaningful vary s. New business models are emerging, and only those managers that stay at the leading edge of the learning curve will create successful strategies and offer meaningful counsel to their clients.
To most artist s, the enduring image of an artist manager is a caricature of a heavy-set, unkempt slob of a man, stuffed into a 2-sizes-too-small, off-the-rack department seller suit, chomping on a cheap smelly cigar while sliding a gr easy hand unceremoniously into the back pocket of a starving artist. Doubtlessly, somewhere in the vast landscape of the music universe, such malice exists. The vast majority of artist managers, however, are a motley collection of well-meaning, hardworking, selfless individuals struggling to make the dreams of an individual they believe in come true.
For the legion of dedicated unbelievers out there, this is an article that attempts to shed light on the true worth of an artist manager. Following are 8 reasons why a band or artist needs a good manager:
1. Career Guidance – It’s frequently extremely difficult for artists to step back from the day-to-day activities and see the large picture (you know – the old ‘forest-for-the-trees’ thing). A knowledgeable manager may see how everything in the large picture fits together, and may help the artist navigate through the frequently -confusing maze of activities that seem unrelated yet are all part of a massive jigsaw puzzle. The manager offers career guidance and helps to session the overall game plan for the artist and the artist s’ team to follow.
2. Cheerleading – Even though listeners are the main cheerleaders for an artist, an individual has to communicate the same enthusiasm to the music business community. An artist manager will trumpet the artist’s message to record labels, booking agents, promoters, media person nel, venue bookers, independent retail accounts, etc., in order to keep them all engaged and enthusiastic.
3. Prestige – According to most record industry professionals, there is something to be said about an artist that has a manager. The logic is that if an artist is good enough to attract management, there must be something of worth present. In fact, most major labels refuse to sign an artist unless they have solid team (manager, attorney and publicist) in place. An artist in the absence of management is just too much drama! Labels would rather deal with an individual who knows how the music business works and may make decisions on a non-emotional basis.
4. Buffer – A manager may act as an effective screening buffer amidst the artist and individuals that want to do business with the artist. This buffer tends to attract legitimate industry players while at the same time scaring away scam artist s. There are no scarier words to a scam artist than “please talk to my manager”.
5. Time management – There simply isn’t enough time in the day to do everything that needs to be done in order to further the career of an artist. In amidst writing songs, conducting interviews, designing artwork for CD ’s and merchandise, managing a mailing list, filling out copyright paperwork, rehearsing with the band, hiring and firing artist s, updating band websites and MySpace.com profiles, getting pictures taken, shooting and editing DVD’s and YouTube videos, sending out packages and/or updating EPK’s, researching, repairing and buying equipment, etc., there isn’t time to also craft a master game plan, solicit potential sponsorship partners, handle licensing requests, reach out to industry gatekeepers, attend industry networking get togethers, harass labels for tour support, and so on. Some tasks may be delegated to the band while others may be handled by the manager.
6. Accountability – Part of a manager’s job is to hold individuals accountable. What happens when the financial tour support that has been promised by the label fails to materialize? Or the check from the booking agent bounces? Or the FOH engineer at the show is MIA? Or the licensee fails to sign and return the contract but is using the artist’s songs anyway? Or the beer in the tour van vanishes? Somebody has to keep individuals honest, and that’s most appropriately the manager’s job.
7. Good Cop / Bad Cop – Need to fire the bass player but don’t want to create an enemy? Let the manager performance bad cop and do the firing. Need to re-negotiate your contract and request more of a promotion budget? Let the manager performance good cop and keep a positive spin on the proceedings. There are plenty of opening s when the artist and manager may trade off playing good cop / bad cop.
8. Sounding board – A manager, even though basic ally an “honorary member of the band”, is frequently on the outside looking in. Managers frequently see things diverse ly than the artist, and may frequently offer diverse perspectives, insights and determinations to problems the artist is encountering. Running ideas by a knowledgeable manager prior to making decisions frequently allows for good ideas to become better and bad ideas to be removed altogether from the to-do list.
So, there you’ve it! 8 good reasons why an artist needs a manager. Having said all this, however, it is important to note that having a bad manager is worse than having no manager at all. a lot of wannabe managers think they may just “wing-it” with an artist, and continue to operate with the “lets-record-a-3-song-demo-and-shop-it-for-a-record-deal” mentality, even though the music industry continues to undergo meaningful vary s. New business models are emerging, and only those managers that stay at the leading edge of the learning curve will create successful strategies and offer meaningful counsel to their clients.
