Business

Every song you play is a sentence. The set is the paragraph — and most performers never think about the grammar. Sequencing is one of those craft elements that lives…

There is a version of this conversation that begins with algorithms, playlist curators, and the unfairness of streaming economics. That version is not wrong, exactly — those things are real…

The first gig where nobody claps between songs — not because they didn’t like it, but because there’s nobody there — will teach you more about performing than a year…

Spotify has 600 million users and can remove your music, bury your profile, or change its entire recommendation system on any given Tuesday — and you’ll receive no warning and…

Every piece of marketing advice aimed at musicians assumes you already have something to market to. Post consistently. Engage your audience. Build community. The advice isn’t wrong, exactly — it’s…

The moment you finish writing a song — even if it exists only as a voice memo on your phone — you own it. No form to fill in, no…

The Gap Between Finishing and Releasing Most artists treat the moment they export a final mix as the finish line. It isn’t. It’s the starting gun for a different kind…

The number that breaks most musicians’ hearts is somewhere between $0.003 and $0.005. That’s the per-stream rate they’ve heard quoted online, usually accompanied by justified frustration. But that number is…

Kevin Kelly published “1000 True Fans” in 2008, and it should have changed everything. In some ways it did — Patreon exists partly because of it, and a generation of…

A music supervisor at a mid-tier TV production is sitting with a browser open, a deadline in four hours, and a scene that needs something sparse, melancholic, instrumental — something…