recording | Solveig Whittle

5 Reasons Other Musicians Will Play On Your Album

October 27, 2015 5 Comments

You are a solo artist looking to record your next single, or album, but you need other musicians to perform on your tracks. You could be a songwriter who doesn’t sing, recording a demo in need of a vocalist. Or maybe you are a front man or woman who wants to showcase your original material, and you are searching for other likeminded, talented musicians to be your bandmates.

I know I want to work with the best musicians I can find on my projects. Preferably, they are even better musicians than me and will add a whole new creative dimension to my music. But we all have limited budgets, the other day I visited SoundMoz site and I was able to get one of the best speakers.

How do we get other musicians to sign up to learn our music and lay down a track in the studio, or show up regularly and spend time practicing and putting together a set to perform out – preferably for free or little cost?

The other day I was chatting with a fellow musician at the Seattle AFM (Musicians Union) Chapter 76-493 before a meeting. He was talking about how he has a goal this year to release six albums (!) of original music. Now, he has the songs all written, but he has found it difficult to get other musicians to perform his songs in the studio for free. In particular, there was a musician whom he had approached because he was a much better guitarist. Somehow, my friend just couldn’t seem to get the other guy to lay down the guitar tracks to my friend’s songs. For free.

It became clear to me that my friend’s expectations were perhaps misaligned with reality.

I figured it’s time to share the obvious. Or maybe not so obvious.

I haven’t been at this music thing for that long (I’ve got friends who have been musicians for 40+ years, after all), but I’ve picked up on some pretty important basic etiquette of musical collaboration.

I’ve written another article about the mechanics of long distance musical collaboration, but this post is really about the business, the monetary – and the non-monetary – exchange involved in collaborating musically.

Interviews, Marketing, Music, Social Media

Case Study: Mary Bue And The Studio Run Kickstarter

June 4, 2014 No Comments

I was recently introduced to singer-songwriter Mary Bue from Minnesota. We got along like a house on fire from the start – she’s smart, funny, spunky, and resourceful (and a great songwriter and musician.) In the process of getting to know her, Mary mentioned this “Bands Banding Together” Kickstarter project she was involved in over the past few months with a recording studio called Welcome to 1979.

The campaign started with a contest in which the studio sought bands willing to travel to the Welcome to 1979 studio in Nashville to record an album live direct to lathe (vinyl). This is actually a very old recording technique which has recently experienced a trendy comeback, including a direct to vinyl live performance by Neil Young and recorded by Jack White on Jimmy Fallon’s The Tonight Show.

Beths Cafe With The GoGirls — Me, Jean Mann, Julie Wisckstrom, Alex Winters, Chris “Seth” Jackson and Mary Bue (Photo by Kelly McWain)

Once the bands were selected by the studio, they committed to help promote the Kickstarter campaign (which was set up and run by the studio) to their fan networks, and also to provide merchandise for some of the premiums. The campaign had a fundraising goal of $25,000, which would enable Welcome to 1979 to record the five bands live in the studio, one at a time, and then release five vinyl records. Each band would also get some vinyl records of their recording to take home out of the deal.

An Interesting Crowd Funding Model

I think this is such an interesting model for crowd funding a record. It makes a lot of sense in many ways: the studio is incented to make the campaign successful, because they are paying themselves, and the combined fan groups for both the studio and the artists involved would theoretically make for a wider audience for the campaign. However, there are also a lot of potential pitfalls in this model.

I did some research, and couldn’t find other examples of studios doing crowd funding campaigns on behalf of musicians except for one, Groove Box Studios for Nathan Kalish, but it was a much smaller amount. [Thanks to Ian Anderson at Launch and Release for finding that one for me].

Let me be clear: no one was ripped off, and I don’t think anything shady went on here. I think everyone just felt disappointed that the project didn’t succeed, and some fan goodwill was expended. Perhaps we can all learn from this.

[Tweet “This campaign was pitched as being about the process of recording live to vinyl.”]

I think the much bigger takeaways are about the planning and coordination needed to implement a joint Kickstarter between 5 bands and a studio.

Music, News, Thoughts

Walking The Dog Episode 2: Gear

April 4, 2014 2 Comments

Most every morning I walk my dog. That’s where I do a lot of my thinking about my own music and social media, about music marketing and about what’s happening with music and technology in general. I thought you all might want to come along and hear what was on my mind this Friday morning.

The subject of today’s podcast is gear. What is the role of gear in your music career? Have you recently purchased some new gear and has it made a big difference in your recording or live performance?

In this 5 minute episode I talk about my own experience and also my observations from watching Stevie produce local bands. I didn’t admit it in the podcast, but I’m not immune to the siren song of gear. I’m like a kid in a candy shop at Guitar Center. In fact, I purchased the JamMan Looper/Sampler pictured above in October of last year. I haven’t yet figured out how to use it.

It often seems that musicians are more willing to purchase expensive musical gear than to spend the same amount of money on music lessons, professional performance coaching, song critiques, marketing, or legal services. In my mind, expensive gear is a social signal – but what it signals to others is not necessarily what I think many musicians believe it signals.

[Tweet ““Give me a guitar, give me a piano, give me a broom and string, I wouldn’t get bored” ― Keith Richards”]

I’d love to hear your experience and your opinion on this issue in the comments section below. I’d also love your feedback on this format!

Live, Marketing, Music

Did I Move You? How To Throw A CD Release Party

May 1, 2013 5 Comments

I did something important this weekend. It was important because I’m dying. Not anytime soon, mind you, but someday I won’t be here. So, because I could – because it mattered to me – this weekend I did a few things I enjoyed doing a lot. Things on my bucket list. These were all things I’ve never done before, and I did them with people I love and respect. I

entertained 50 people (pictures here),
performed original music I had created with my life partner, Stevie,
opened for Amanda Palmer (@amandapalmer, yes that Amanda Palmer), and
kicked off the launch of the first ever Solveig & Stevie CD, Superwoman (available soon via iTune and all your favorite channels and services).

Oh, and I moved people. That is really the most important part of what I did this weekend. I made something beautiful and magical for people I love and for complete strangers alike. How do I know this? Because people haven’t stopped telling me since last Saturday. That is why I make music: to move people. I don’t need to be a star. I don’t need to be famous. I’m old (relatively), and I have three kids. I think regularly about how best to live the rest of my life, and what kind of meaningful memories I want to leave behind when I am gone. I’ve done my time in corporate meeting rooms. I want to make people feel. I want to touch people and make them think about their own creativity. If I did that for even a few people last weekend, that makes me happy.

Yes indeed. What a night! Could the long term good vibes of the church be blessing our communion ! I’m not the least bit religious but last night was the best feeling I’ve had in a group of strangers since the sixties. – Tim Rounds