Kashy Keegan - A musical Inspiration

Kashy Keegan is a 26 year old piano singer/songwriter from the UK. He taught himself to play keys and writes and produces all of his own material.

His songs characteristically contain strong melodies with meaningful and powerful messages. He takes inspiration from all of life, the good, the bad, the rise and the fall for he sees it all as having reason and purpose.

Kashy is a true reflection of his music. He puts every ounce of his heart and soul into his writing. He has a sensitivity for emotion that is authentically expressed throughout his many compositions.

"My mission has always been to try and write songs that can provide some form of comfort, healing or positive inspiration for people."

His songs have achieved high ranking in many songwriting competitions, including the National UK Songwriting Competition and Songwriter Universe's Best Vocalist and Best Song Of The Month competition. He also enjoyed chart success with his song 'This Is My Dream' reaching the number one position on both the Track4 Euro and Pop charts in Germany.

So should you find yourself feeling low or depressed, play some of Kashy’s music and walk to the light, don’t hide, just be yourself and let your inner light shine!

You can find Kashy's music on Reverbnation, Myspace and Facebook. Join him there.

Sell Yourself to Sell Your Music and expand your Fan Base!

In today's musicians world there is a unique opportunity to succeed where others have failed! Why would you need or even want a Label? After all, the world is your Oyster.
An unfledged artist today has a variety of tools and opportunities for global distribution, unlimited promotional opportunities and so many new methods of getting their music in front of people from all over the world. So stop worrying about the music industry and just focus on what you do best, your music. Then keep in touch with your fledgling fan base. It will grow even if you just spread news about your new music or gigs. Just don't keep updating your profile every five minutes with the same message.

Social Media - the best route to expand your fan base!

Every musician is a creative being and you can find all the tools you need to make yourself successful. Let's prove it, just search for 'Fred' in Google. Follow the link and turn down the sound. Seriously, turn down the sound! I'm not going to comment on the content, but he plainly does NOT have any musical talent. But the point here is to just look at the figures. His Youtube channel has been running since October 2005, it now has over 2 million subscribers, over 110 million channel views and over 700 million upload views. That is an average of over 30,000 views or plays per day over six years. There's a lot you can learn from 'Fred'. For instance, he's started merchandising as well, you can do the maths, simple sales average of 1% based on his daily viewers.

With figures like that and if he had a few ounces of musical talent, there's no doubt that he would have been signed by a Label. Now tell me, what aspiring musician would not want to have numbers like that? In fact, that's probably a higher number of plays than some of the top names in the industry have achieved over the same period.
These figures are only taken from Youtube, when you look at the number of sites available to musicians, you can then begin to grasp the power of the tools that are out there and available for you to use.

Whatever style of music is your scene, there is a market for you. But be aware, that there are also millions of similar singer/songwriters out there too. What makes you stand out from the crowd? What is your unique selling point (USP)? Discover that and you will be hitting some serious numbers too!

Working with Justin Langston

Justin is a talented, dedicated and young Musician / Singer / Songwriter / Recording Artist from Midland, Texas. He began playing guitar at the tender age of 11 and recollects his dad showing him a few chords, but he distinctly remembers more what he said at the time, "It starts from the heart and if you ever become great it is a gift from GOD".

Playing and creating music from the heart is the main ingredient of Justin’s music and he has learned to play a vast array of instruments including lead and bass guitar, drums, keyboards and many other instruments. In 2010, he recorded his debut album at the age of 16, ‘Love in the making / Gone wrong’ and he is very proud of his first masterpiece. This self-published album taught Justin a lot about music projects in general and more are sure to follow!

The show, ‘America’s Got Talent’ has been holding recent auditions and Justin has sailed through the first two pre-auditions. He is now awaiting the result of the third before they move onto the next stage in the process. This is coming up in mid March, so we should hear the results shortly.

Not only is music running through his veins, but the desire to help others is an important aspect of Justin’s character. He has recently got involved in a campaign that AT&T is promoting, called "Don't Text and Drive" and he will be going into schools to perform and help kids become aware of this growing danger. Hopefully, the teachers will learn something too!

One thing we will say, if his energy and determination remain as focused as they are now, you will certainly be hearing a lot more from this dedicated young singer in the future.

Justin has now published his Official website, http://www.justinlangston.com/ and you can also find him on Facebook, Youtube, Myspace and Reverbnation.

How do people find new music?

We conducted an experiment with Solar-Isis, one of our bands, to set up profiles on Last.fm, Ourstage and Soundcloud, to find out if any new activity was generated on a passive profile over the course of a full calendar month, beginning the week before the Christmas holidays. The short answer is nothing! Which we sort of expected.

So if you think any of these sites are going to allow a passive artist to upload their music and wait for loads of plays. Think again! There is no option but to work these profiles fully before you gain anything from them. But watch out for hidden costs!

To get involved with last.fm you have to download their ‘scrobbler’ and start listening to music. It gets you involved, but now you are wasting time listening to other music instead of promoting your own. The common concensus in their reviews (www.Alexa.com) was that after it sold out to CBS, it has not been as effective for musicians unless they buy in and pay for plays.

Lower down the internet traffic rankings is Ourstage which hosts a variety of contests for musicians. However, there are some sour comments about discrimination and some bands being unfairly blocked from the site, but in the main the feedback is positive and the site is free. We didn’t discover an unwanted upsell after we established our profile. But unless you are working the site the chance of anything happening here is still very slim.

Soundcloud charge a premium rate for artists, which is really a waste of time unless you are looking to collaborate with other musicians and refine your sounds. You will meet a lot of other musicians, which appears to be the major opportunity on this site and as for it being another outlet for your music to be discovered by the general public, forget it.

As most online musicians know, if you don’t work a profile then nothing will happen. But to be honest, we are working with Reverbnation and Facebook and have no time to work additional profiles. On Myspace, we are receiving so many messages that profiles have been deleted and the frustratingly slow speed when trying to use it, just make it impossible to be utilised as an effective promotional medium.

So our conclusion is that Facebook is the best option at the moment to virally promote your music with the co-operation of a genuine fanbase. It’s free to use and its traffic rank has been in the top 5 globally for the past few years!

This concludes the first stage of Gateway Music’s investigations into ‘How do people find new music’.

Musicians are mugged over and over again!

Many years ago a famous singer was signing with a major label when he pointed at the date and said, “Jeez, do we owe you $1,969 already?” This is a true recollection from the sixties when artists were ‘mugged’ by Labels and Managers on a regular basis.

Its quite amazing to think that the same conditions still apply for many upcoming singers and bands fifty years later! However, the path to fame and fortune may be more hazardous now with the internet revolution and these ‘Make you a Star’ overnight systems.

Some sites match your music, with clever algorithms; to what music professionals are looking for. There is a wider market now with film scores, computer games, television and radio shows, etc. so the chance of your music getting ‘out there’ is greater than ever before! Give them $20 and they will make you famous!

Then you have the musician sites, where you register for free and they host your uploads. This will then be followed by the ‘upsell’ where you have to pay for larger storage space, more fan email systems and other similar ‘must have’ tools.

Additionally, you can get your music played on ‘radio’, where you set up your profile (yet again) and to actually feature on a playlist, another little ‘upsell’ comes along.

You may have noticed these little ‘upsell’s, keep appearing. Well, to put it bluntly this is where they mug you. Many sites will charge a simple $20, some others that prefer to get their hands deeper into your pockets will charge a monthly fee. If you’re chasing the fame and fortune route to success, well, I won’t even begin to mention the big labels at this stage. But, lets say you join a few of these sites at a cost of $20 here, another $20 there, before you know it you will have spent out $100-200 for no return. Now work out what income you have received from your music, are you in a plus or minus situation. The chances are that you will have a big, bold and red bottom line!

Consider a radio playlist opportunity, where for as little as $20 they will play your song on their little online radio station. Possibly twenty listeners on a good day, which works out at $1 YOU are paying somebody to listen to your music. Yes, they can play it more than once, but that’s not the point. It will be far better on your pocket to stop and think.

Go out and do a gig, where you’re playing or singing in front of fifty people for and getting paid $200. That works out at $4 YOU RECEIVE per listener. You’re a musician who gets a kick out of making and performing music. So the moral of this story is, ‘Don’t get mugged! Get out there and Play!”

"You never achieve success unless you like what you are doing." - Dale Carnegie

Elena Vogt - 'Our' girl in New York!

We are very pleased to welcome Elena Vogt to our artist roster on Reverbnation. Elena is a talented singer/songwriter whose method of song writing has been compared to the same thought process of Michael Jackson in creating his music, during a recent radio interview. Like Michael, Elena does not play an instrument and relies upon imagining the finished song in her head as she creates it. Which is an amazing gift in itself. Add to this her bubbly personality, stunning good looks and incredible voice, she has the ability and talent to take her to the very top!

A 'first' for our roster is that Elena is based in New York while we are located in Dartford, Kent, England. It was only the online friendship between Elena and Sandra who works with Solar-Isis, that we sought contact to establish a working arrangement in the first place. In Sandra’s words, ‘Take off your blinkers and realise that with the internet you can virtually work together anyway.’

We are the first to admit, that it’s a good feeling to remove our blinkers and we are hoping that Elena achieves great things in the future as she is already widely regarded as a global star in waiting. We wish her the best and will do our part to help her flourish and achieve her ambitions.

You can find Elena, her videos and music at her main website, on Reverbnation, her latest news is on  Facebook, Myspace, Youtube and Twitter.

Jo Jackson - Brilliant Acoustic sets from the Guitar Girl!

Jo Jackson is the latest addition to our artist roster on Reverbnation. Based in Rochester, Kent, she is keen to work on more live entertainment with vocals and acoustic guitar in local pubs. Jo sings covers for a wide variety of songs from good old 60's to up to date chart music, which are all broken down into an acoustic guitar set in her own inimitable style. With her quick wit and confident delivery, we are positive Jo will achieve what she sets out to do.

Jo is working on more songs for her online profiles at Reverbnation, Facebook and Myspace. Visit her there soon!