Getting the Most from Tags & Descriptions

It’s a well established fact that seach engine optimization, or SEO, is an important tool for building an online presence and attracting more traffic to your website. To learn more about SEO, see Dave Hahn’s Search Engine Optimization for Musicians. As he mentions, musicians needn’t be overly concerned with SEO on their own website if it’s for mostly promotional and informational purposes. This is very true, and the last thing a working musician needs is one more distraction from their instrument. However, the concepts are important to understand as you expand your internet presence because better optimization helps more people find your music. In this article, we’ll apply these concepts outside the musician’s website and into other online communities.

Most social networks have their own internal search functions or methods of organizing user profiles. Twitter is an excellent example of a site whose search engine helps not only connects people with common interests, but also allows virtual chat rooms to be created on the fly if every user tweets a common word (usually preceded by a # symbol). YouTube relies heavily on searches to help visitors dig through all the content, so precise, well thought out titles, descriptions and tags on your videos increase the chances of the right people discovering your videos. Both sites are destinations with built in communities, the perfect places for musicians to build awareness.

A Band of One

On the 4th of July weekend I set up for my steady afternoon gig in the lobby of a local resort hotel.  I play the hammered dulcimer for 2 hours…

Motivating Musicians as a Bandleader

I’m a music director for theatre companies, which means that I spend a lot of time as a bandleader. I landed my first national tour when I was 25-years-old and, to be frank, largely inexperienced in management and motivating people. Before I left for tour I scoured the score, took extra conducting lessons, researched the history of the show, worried about how best to indicate cut-offs, and packed my bags for a 9-month bus-and-truck.

By the time we had our first break, though, I realized that it was management, and not music, that was the most difficult part of a gig like that. I went to the library as soon as I was home and checked out books on management, team leading, working with different personality types, and anything else I could that would give me a crash course in being the boss.

The truth is that being a conductor, or a band leader, is just as much about dealing with people as it is dealing with the material. You must have an expert understanding of the material, yes, but that alone won’t net you the results you need. You also need to know how to motivate musicians to do their best.