If a lemon and smokes breakfast yields songs like hers, I'm in.

Happy New Year!  I’ve been in Colombia hearing some remarkable music that I’ll be writing about soon.  I mention it now as an excuse for the delay in mentioning a favorite album of 2010, Sharon Van Etten’s, “Epic.”

The singer/songwriter genre is particularly tricky one.   The lyrically gifted ones can detail a personal struggle for insight from  anguish that summons us to reflect on our own lives .   Those less talented confuse earnestness with relevance or self-absorption with awareness.   On “Epic”, Sharon Van Etten hits an artistic grand slam.  Listen and learn, kids.

On each track of Epic, Von Etten’s vocals are front and center, her evocative lyrical tales supplanted occasionally by echo-laden ambient vocal sounds and a smattering of drums, reed sounds, pedal steel, and bass.  Every element frames the songs beautifully. The entire album is testament to the powerful reach of sonic simplicity and outstanding songwriting.

Can’t wait to hear her music live when she plays Lincoln Hall in Chicago.

Check out:   Sister Don’t Mind

Record label:  Badabing Records

Interview:  Sharon Van Etten Village Voice

Sharon Van Etten Tour Dates (courtesy of Brooklyn Vegan)

1.  Be open to fortuitous error. More often than not, the really big meeting that may have instigated your convention attendance won’t even be where your future lies.  It will be the person you bump into by the escalator or who strikes up a conversation after spilling beer on your shoes at a gig that can change your life and help your career.  You are surrounded by talented people with shared interests, don’t presume anything about anyone and be OPEN.

2.  Have a business card. It may seem old school, but after a good conversation, being able to hand a simple, tangible artifact representing yourself is helpful to people.  Make sure it looks good and that you like it.

3.  Don’t eat alone. You are surrounded by so many people with common interests and goals.   The time for quiet reflection is  when you get home.  Right now, dive into the stream of humanity.  Make yourself known (nicely), and learn about people.

4.  Pace yourself (especially drinking.)  ‘Nuff said.

5.  Don’t be shy. Insecure?  So is everyone else in music.  Fuhgeddaboutit.  This is your opportunity to make an impression.  When you meet someone, find something that interests you about them, ask questions ,and learn about what they do.   You’d be surprised how often their pursuits might benefit from your talents or vice versa (see Point 1.)    You don’t want to miss out.

6.  Follow-up. Within a week after the convention, when  you have had a good conversation with someone and exchanged information, follow up with a short e-mail reminding them of where you met (remember, like yourself, they have probably met more people than they can specifically remember and things start to blur.)  Let them know you enjoyed meeting them and ask them to keep you in mind if they need assistance with anything.   Put your contact info by your signature so they can easily cut and paste it into their own contact list.

7.  Learning one ‘big idea’ per day is a very successful convention. If you are in a meeting where you are learning something important to you, stay until you’re satisfied.   You seldom get anywhere by rushing around and cramming too many meetings into an hour.  You won’t absorb it all.

8.  You never learn by talking. Listen.

9.  That said, talk when you have something to say and then allow the other person to respond.  If you find yourself talking for more than 30 seconds at a stretch, you aren’t talking, you’re pitching/self-promoting.  The pitch can come at a later date.   Right now, engage and enjoy.

10.  Make sure your digital identifier website/myspace/blog is functioning well before the convention. When you meet people and give them your card assume they will check out your site to learn more about you and your work.  Remember, your site is representing you.   Is it readily understandable for the user?  Do all your song links work?  Make sure you have tested everything.

11.  Hit the Salt Lick.    Great barbecue and vibe about 30 miles outside Austin.  Yum.

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Metal giant Motorhead’s singer/bass player/road warrior was once asked about his kind offstage demeanor by a surprised journalist.   He responded that while growing up,  his mother often told him, “Good manners are free.  Everyone should have them.”

You will run across all different kinds of people in a variety of potentially stressful situations throughout your career.  There is no shortage of attitudes in the music business.  Being a decent person to deal with will help you on your way up and build lifelong fans along the way.  Much of this is common sense, for example, by being nice to the person helping you during your soundcheck you are far more likely to get an attentive, better mix.  Treat them poorly and you may suddenly lose a monitor.

In the unstable world of pop culture, good relationships can cushion career falls on the way down too.

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When considering any choice you make during the recording process, you can avoid missing the big picture and simplify things by asking yourself, “Does making this change in the recording improve the song?”   If the answer is no, obviously leave it out.  Importantly,  if you truly can’t decide whether it improves it or not, then the answer still is leave it out. Every sound on your recording, every arrangement decision, every vocal, every mix technique should propel the song forward.  Flourishes that are pleasant but not helpful only drag down the impact of the important elements of your song.

Tom Petty believes his pop anthem “Free Fallin’” was greatly improved when producer Jeff Lynne simply suggested he remove some pleasant but non-integral chords from the song.  The advice was valuable enough that Tom gave Jeff a co-writing credit.

Often the adage is true that less is more.

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Know yourself and be honest about what you want. Nick Hornby, British novelist and author of High Fidelity, a must-have novel for the obsessive music junkie, recently recounted to Rolling Stone’s Jonathan Ringen (RS October 29, 2009 p 17) his conversation with Bruce Springsteen about stagecraft. “Bruce said one incredibly simple thing: ‘It just helps to remember that every part of the show is a show.’”

Hornby went on to point out that regarding would-be novelists, “Anyone who says they’re writing for themselves is full of shit. That’s something you hear writers say a lot. I always wonder why their drafts happen to be 90,000 words long, because that’s a really strange, random length for a book, but it happens to be the length of most books…the act of writing a novel already knows and demands a readership. To forget about your readers is a mistake.”

By changing a few words, like ‘writer’ to ‘musician’, ‘book’ to ‘album’, ‘90,000 words’ to ‘45 minutes’, and ‘readers’ to ‘listeners’, you have excellent advice for your music career. You do want your music to be heard. And you should. Being honest about your desire to reach people with your music can help you deal with the public in an authentic way. It invites a real relationship with your fans, and that communication will, in turn, help you determine how to best present your music.

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludwig_Mies_van_der_Rohe

Mies is widely credited with the saying, “God is in the Details.”  This notion is as applicable to your music as it is to architecture.  Paying attention to every detail can move a listener from “Hey, that song is pretty good” to “This music is incredible”— so compelling, in fact, that they are willing to spend their hard-earned cash to have your music as a part of their life.

Remember, like it or not, your music exists in a competitive environment. There are plenty of messages competing for your potential audiences’ time, attention, and money, whether it’s music from other bands, video games, movies, phone apps, etc.

So when you release your music into the world, make sure you are satisfied with every detail:  The arrangement, the recording, the mix, the mastering, the packaging, the artwork, the typeface on the artwork, the band photo, the words on your press release.  It all matters.

Eight million bands are currently on on www.myspace.com.  Last year, 105,000 full- length recordings were released in the US alone!  By ensuring that every aspect of your music and presentation is great—not merely good—you improve your chances of moving up the mountain of sound, getting your music noticed, and building a career.

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