Mixbridge Blog

Music – Lavalier

Robert — Thu, 17 May 2012 15:37:16 +0000

Photography

Robert — Thu, 10 May 2012 13:57:22 +0000

As a musician its important to find inspiration outside of music. At the same time one of the best ways to get through the muck of creative life is to see how people from other worlds solve their own problems. Here are some finds from around the interweb to help get you on your way.

Magnum Photos is an international cooperative of some of the top professional photographers in the world. In a post from their blog (several years ago) they captured some amazing advice from their members. You can read the full post and download a PDF of all 35 interviews here.

Here are some highlights:

David Hurn

When did you first get excited about photography?
I first got excited by photography the first day I picked up a camera. However this was not until I was 20 years of age. I suddenly realized that I had an excuse to be anywhere and gaze in wonderment; the camera gave me something to hide my shyness behind. The act of pointing a camera at another human being is daunting – however clarifying what is unfolding in front of one can give one immense pleasure. I have had a blissful life.

What advice would you give young photographers?
Don’t become a photographer unless its what you ‘have’ to do. It can’t be the easy option. If you become a photographer you will do a lot of walking so buy good shoes.

Olivia Arthur

When did you first get excited about photography?
I first became excited about photography when I started working for my student newspaper. Though I was just excited by taking my own pictures and seeing them in print. It was quite a while before I made the jump to thinking about photography in the bigger picture and started looking at other photographers work.

What advice would you give young photographers?
My main piece of advice for young photographers who have just come out of college is to get away from the ‘hubs’ of photography like London and New York. There are so many photographers touting their portfolios round in places like this that people end up fighting to do jobs that are not what they really want, just to make ends meet. It’s the kind of environment that doesn’t fuel anyone’s creativity (well mostly anyway…). My advice: go out and do the things they really want to before getting tied in…if they don’t take the risk at the beginning they’ll find it much harder to come back and take it later on.

Jonas Bendiksen

When did you first get excited about photography?
I first started in photography when I was about 14 or 15. I borrowed by father’s SLR camera and very quickly I was taken by the process. Together with my father, I built a rudimentary BW darkroom in the bathroom at home. Over the years in high school, I ended up spending more and more time in there, photographing everything around me, developing the film, printing it, and back out photographing. By the time I finished high school I had to ask, Ok what do I do now? Find something else, or keep doing this, and give it a shot?

What advice would you give young photographers?‘
Throw yourself off a cliff. Figuratively speaking, I mean. Photography is a language. Think about what you want to use it to talk about. What are you interested in? What questions do you want to ask? Then, go for it, and throw yourself into talking about that topic, using photography. Make a body of work about that.

Lise Sarfati

When did you first get excited about photography?
I was thirteen. My sister Annie-Lou was taking pictures of me all the time while my father was doing films while my other sister Mona was painted me naked while my mother was writing all day long in her bed. I decided to steal the camera of Annie-lou and to go in apartments of very old ladies around 90 years old and make portraits of them and photograph their empty bedrooms…

What advice would you give young photographers?
Read a lot and create your own universe. Learn how to construct and create a series. Do not be impressed by other works. Try to innovate or simply to be yourself.

Cooking – Ferran Adriá

Robert — Tue, 08 May 2012 20:38:10 +0000

Do you make music like Ferran Adriá cooks?

Climbing – Heather Robinson

Robert — Tue, 08 May 2012 20:13:21 +0000

Solving problems on a rock. Brought to you by a veterinarian / climber.

Grow Music Project

Robert — Thu, 03 May 2012 18:40:28 +0000

The Grow Music Project is the brainchild of songwriter, composer, and producer Christopher Tyng. In an effort to pay forward the help that they got when they were starting their careers, Christopher and his staff are giving 25 musicians the opportunity to use their studio, equipment, and expertise to produce one song. The catch? Well, there isn’t one. As long as you can make it out to Santa Barbara, CA and you’ve got the kind of music they want to work with, you’ll get the run of the place with no strings attached.

Sound too good to be true? Yeah, that’s what we thought but after speaking with Christopher we’re convinced that it’s a great opportunity. Don’t take our word for it though. Check out the interview and judge for yourself.

Make It And Survive – Radio Promotion

Robert — Thu, 19 Apr 2012 16:39:50 +0000

So you want to build your career as a professional musician but can’t afford to quit your day job? While it may not feel like it, this is a common scenario, even for artists that seem like they’ve already reached the promised land. When you recognize that it may not be possible to focus all of your time and attention on your music, the questions arise: How can you maximize your limited time and resources to promote yourself? What are the most efficient ways to get the word out? How can you make it and survive?

Today we begin to answer this question with the topic of radio promotion. This might be a curious place to start considering all of the folks out there who think that focusing on radio promotion is a waste of time for independent artists. However while it may take a little more work than reaching out to bloggers, establishing relationships with DJs, Program Directors and Station Managers, has the potential to get a lot more ears on your music in a more substantial way than any blog post possibly could.

One reason is because radio has a captive audience. Your average blog reader is probably skimming multiple posts across multiple sites at any point in time. When your free track gets published, it’s one of several and can often get lost in a sea of constant updates and news about more established artists. If the reader actually downloads or streams your track, you’ve got ten or twenty seconds to grab their attention away from everything else they’re doing. Compare this to someone sitting in a car or at work. They’re a captive audience and your music is suddenly the soundtrack to their life at that moment.

However, it’s not all about getting spins. In fact, radio station staff can often be even more helpful off the air. Whether they’re sponsoring live events, spinning at a club, or moonlighting as an A&R rep, the folks at radio stations are in a great position to get you exposure in ways you might not consider.

So why are there so many people out there telling you to avoid radio? Well, it’s true that radio promotion on a national level is expensive and time consuming. Between the cost of printing and shipping your music and navigating the call times of hundreds of station managers around the country, a national campaign is definitely a full time job that you probably don’t have the resources to do properly on your own.

However, this isn’t a reason to avoid radio altogether. While you may not have the time and money to hit up every station in the country you probably have a few hours each week to hit up your local stations. Moreover, as a listener of your local radio shows, you’re probably in a better position to make something happen because you already know what kind of music they like and can speak to them as a local.

Radio can often seem like an unattainable thing for independent musicians but it doesn’t have to be. Just like everything else, it’s about building relationships with people who are interested in what you’re doing. DJs and Program Directors are music fans just like the rest of us and love discovering new talent. Don’t miss out on an opportunity to be the one they discover.

To help get you started, here’s a list of stations you might consider contacting (courtesy of Barsuk Records):

Kevin Devine

Robert — Mon, 09 Apr 2012 17:01:08 +0000

In this interview we speak with Kevin Devine about his first performances in high school and how the lessons he learned back then have informed his career today.

Pinterest For Musicians

Robert — Fri, 06 Apr 2012 15:23:44 +0000

When I told my brother that I’d created a Pinterest account for Mixbridge he was dubious, “Why? That’s just for moms and girls who are getting married.”

Indeed, the demographics are heavily female (68.2%) with half of all users pushing strollers, paying for day care, and carting teams to and from soccer practice…but so what? I’d been seeing articles touting this as the next big social network and even though my last trip down this road was frustrating, I thought it was my duty as the founder of a web startup to give it a shot.

So here I am about two months into my life as a Pinner (you heard it here first) and my impression so far is positive. Moreover, I think there are a lot of ways that musicians might be able to get creative and take advantage of this new platform to promote themselves.

First a note to my brother and similar naysayers: Guess what? Mom’s buy music too. With most of your peers trying desperately to impress Pitchfork writers and track down Vincent Moon for a Blogotheque shoot, it might make sense to reach out to a different demographic. This and let’s not forget the other 50% who aren’t someone’s parents. With 1.36 million visitors a day, 50% isn’t such a bad thing.

Now on to some ways that musicians could use Pinterest:

Promote a crowdfunding campaign: The more eyes on your campaign the better, right? Create a board specifically designed to get people excited about contributing to your crowdfunding campaign. Post screenshots of your progress or images of the things people will get in return for helping you out.
Grab fans of other music: Create a board entitled, “If You Like This, You’ll Like Us” and post YouTube videos of bands that influence you with their sound. Fans of those bands will come for the post and maybe discover you in the process. This is how I discovered Gotye.
Find people that already like you and connect: This one was surprising. I did a random search for two bands that I love and didn’t think tons of others would know about. Both had a surprising number of people who had already posted something about them. These are your true fans people! They’re already promoting you and you may not even know it.

This list is just a beginning. I’d love to see someone serialize their pins to build up to something like an album release or connect with other Pinterest users to create a massive online scavenger hunt. The point is that this is a new and relatively unique way to connect with existing and potential fans of your music. As we learned from Marni, the best social media strategy is no social media strategy. Your best bet it to find the platforms that are fun and easy for you to use and use them regularly. At this point, I’m kind of addicted to Pinterest so I’m just gonna roll with it and see what happens.

Stay Tuned…

Robert — Mon, 02 Apr 2012 16:21:34 +0000

Randy Lee

Robert — Mon, 02 Apr 2012 16:11:16 +0000

Randy Lee is an emmy award winning composer and songwriter and the owner of Limebeat, a New York-based company that specializes in sonic branding and audio post production for film, television, radio, gaming, and other emerging media