Jody Whitesides

Author: Jody Whitesides

How To Call Attention To Your Music

The age old dilemma for musicians going it alone without a record label often wonder how they can call attention to their music. Musicians working on surviving in today’s music business are attempting to figure out where things are going. The biggest issue is often what happens after they get the music written, recorded, and are ready to release.

If there is someone who had a more direct line on what did and didn’t work for musicians forging a path without a record label, I don’t know who it would be. The best source for such information is Derek Sivers. He created CD Baby. He helped to usher in the paradigm of the music industry with allow non-signed artists a platform for selling CDs away from their shows.

Derek ushered in another change when he gave CD Baby artists an avenue to get their music onto iTunes (albeit, he had a little coaxing from me as well). Which is still one of the better platforms to use for most non-signed artists to get their music onto iTunes, Amazon, Spotify, etc.

Derek wrote a book called “How To Call Attention To Your Music” and put it up on his website sivers.org as a free publication for any interested musicians. I recently decided to take a look at it and realized this book is in PDF format. Great format for a wide range of portability. However, many of us are now using more modern devices like iPhones, iPads, Kindles, Kindle readers, eReaders, etc. Thus I took a few minutes out of my day today to convert the book into EPUB format. That way, everyone who is interested in Derek’s sage advice can now read it in iBooks, Kindle, Nook, etc. Like it was a real book that can be paged through on an electronic device.

Grab “How To Call Attention To Your Music” EPUB format.

As per Derek’s page for getting the book, I’m making it available for others to have as well. I would really appreciate it if you would sign up on my email list (http://hearjody.com) if you grab this copy of the book in EPUB format. Mostly because it’s a cool thing to do for someone that took the conversion step out of making it easy to read on your favorite eBook reader.

Now go forth and rise above!

p.s. – welcome to May!

2014-05-01
All The Things Lyric Video

One of my first successful co-writes was All The Things with Greg Watton. It happens to be the subject of today’s post. Mostly because I thought it prudent to make a lyric video for it in an acoustic environment. The bonus is that you get to see and hear what I’m singing and how I played the acoustic guitar part in the song. It was written just before I had gone to a songwriter’s conference and it was one of several songs that A&R people from the major labels were interested. That’s always a shot in the arm to boost one’s confidence in what they’re doing. Greg and I have written a few other songs – but none have made to the airwaves yet.

All The Things Lyric Video

http://wp.me/P20RW6-35g

Lyrics & song by Jody Whitesides, Greg Watton

Ever since I was a kid Everyone picked on me
Growing up was the hardest thing For a boy with no self esteem
So I found a little place In the backyard of my mind
Disappeared without a trace Didn’t want them to find me

For every year that passed me by
There was less of me to recognize
I wish I made more room to grow
Instead I hid I didn’t know

All The Things that people say
All The Things that people do
Will bring you down When you let it get to you
All The Things that you don’t know
All The Things that make you fall
Doesn’t really matter When you rise above it all

Now that I’ve become a man You were there to walk me through
Facing each memory Of those who harmed me
Now that I’m trusting you I’ve started exploring everything
Emotions that may drown me Like a river pouring out-

(Chorus)

Finished with the words that hurt
Finished with feeling like dirt
No use living in regret
Instead its best to forget

(Chorus)

Enjoy yourself!

2014-04-29
Dean Markley Blue Steel Acoustics

Today I’m finally getting around to changing the strings on my Taylor 615ce with a set of Dean Markley Blue Steel acoustics. After several live performances and a couple of recordings, including a cover of “Not A Bad Thing” by Justin Timberlake, it’s time I sit down and get my first impression of a new line of strings.

Sit with me as I take off some old flat strings that got played to death. Then watch me do things I don’t recommend doing with your strings.

Get tuned up. Stretched out. Ready to play.

Finally top it off with what my initial reaction is to hearing how Dean Markley Blue Steel acoustic strings make me feel. Rather what I think they sound like on my favorite acoustic guitar.

First Impression Dean Markley Blue Steel Acoustics

Transcript:

Sometimes your strings are flat and you need to change ’em.

First things first. Sexy, minimalistic packaging going on. Some kind of sticky thing. Inside we have a package. Sealed strings. Let’s open ’em up. Let’s find out what they’re like.

They come in two winds. They look like they’re kind of color coded. Better read the packaging. High E, is black. The B string is blue. G string is black. D string blue. A string black and low E string, blue. Alternating color scheme. I’m using medium acoustics. Thirteen through fifty-six, my favorite kind. De-tune strings. Get ’em off. Here we go.

Low E string if I remember correctly that is going to be black. The B string. Agh. I can tell you right now that they don’t taste very good. String G. Cryogenically activated strings have a very very odd taste. Don’t eat your strings.

Fly and be free.

Black for the A. The lower strings, they don’t taste any better than the upper strings. Ah, what a symphony of sound that is.

Stretch ’em out just a little bit. Blue steel’s generally don’t require a whole lot of stretching on the electric side. So hopefully they won’t require a whole lot of stretching on the acoustic side.

Handy dandy PolyTune by T.C. Electronics. Awesome app for getting your guitar in tune.

Ok. We’ve got it tuned up. Let’s clip the strings off. Once you’ve clipped the strings it’s a good idea to tune once again. Just incase there’s any slippage.

That’s interesting… No slippage whatsoever, it’s still in tune.

As far as sound goes.

They have a good solid tone to them. Not overly bright but nice and solid at least with the fingertips.

They have a real nice solid tone to them. I really dig it. Don’t sound overly buzzy. They sound nice and big and full. That’s actually a really good thing. I like that.

Dean Markley I think you’ve hit an A+ out of the park home run with these strings.

2014-04-22

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