Well, there is not much going on right now because there is no money to get the CD made. Smooth Jazz Classics is on hold for a minute. So what do I do in the meantime??

The whole Ben Vail - heart attack thing was very lame and pretty revealing too. Perspectives always changes when life trips from the daily grind to the big freak out or disaster times. We have all experienced this. You are living in a bubble and it's all about you, then LIFE happens and you realize that all that stuff is really nothing in the big picture.

Funny thing is, eventually, we all get back to the trivial and seem to quickly repress that perspective, until the next serious life issue requires our attention. For some strange reason, it has been harder to get back to the selfish and not very important this time.

Maybe it's just my age and different awareness, but it seems, each line item has been questioned and has been sent out for approval before it looks too important and blindsides the whole LIFE thing again.


What I'm trying to say is, I'm thinking a lot these days. Thinking about everything. Take bills for instance. I was totally freaked out about staying on top of them. I didn't care at all for a few days if I even saw the mail. Now, where is the balance? Obviously, somewhere between, but where. See what I'm trying to say. Don't really think like that very often and now it seems I am thinking about every little thing.

So, Ben is fine. Vanessa and I are doing great too. That's the important stuff! I have this CD done that I really want to release soon, but feel much less pressure now than I did 2 months ago to get it out. I really want to get it out and love the music, but there is a little more balance right now, and I'm not sure the business appreciates any balance at all.

So, I looked at the situation. CDs done. Don't have the money to get it out this week. And I decided to think about how this extra time might be spent. Obviously, I  now have time I didn't expect to have, so, what am I supposed to be doing with it?

Well,

I have been doing more research and reading about Music Business. I am in the Music Business, took classes a hundred years ago in Music Business, have maintained online, in real time, gathering of information from any source I could find, and things have been moving forward.

But wait! I find out music schools have started teaching specific Music Business classes and Marketing Music. Made me think, I've been online but pretty unattached to whatever the "educated" are thinking and teaching. What books are they using??

So, I went researching and found a handful of new books with late 07, or 08 dates, that cover Music Business and online marketing and have gone back to school in my head.



This is not the first time I have done this.

You have heard me talk web stuff and most reading this post know I have spent years developing my website and then lots more websites to be useful to sax, gospel, and jazz searches, and to be number 1 for these searches. Don't know if many know the story but, one day I was frustrated at website traffic and the time it was taking to get changes from my web girl and I went to the book store and bought $300 worth of books.

I started a little fun site with my, then 11 year-old son Ben, and started learning how to design websites and optimize them for search engines. Ben is 18, almost 19, so it shows 7-8 years of study and top 10 sites all over the world in every search engine imagined. People who search sax, gospel or jazz topics will tell you, "Greg Vail is all over the net!" I hear it all the time. It even became a side job with people asking me to help them get better rank on Search Engines.



So, back to school on the Music Business. I feel like the web stuff is going great. Now I need to better understand of what the "SMART" people are saying about the issues at hand.

1. The death of the Major Label
2. the rebirth on the Independent Labels
3. the growing number of Artist Labels
4. the impact and projection of digital media in music
5. are traditional stores gone forever
6. marketing in the new market - viral marketing
7. what these changes mean to small labels (like me) and artist
8. Digital media trends and predictions

MP3 - Rip and Burn - Copyright - RIAA - WWW - P2P - Artist/Musician - Marketing Music

What am I reading this week??
Dirty Little Secrets of the Record Business - Why So Much Music You Hear SUCKS
by Hank Bordowitz
Chicago Review Press (C) 2007

Any Other suggestions of more current books/information??

So far, I am really enjoying this book. The sales figures and breakdowns for Majors and Indie's is really interesting stuff.

Share it all here boys and girls!

One other resource you all know about already - CDBaby.com Indie artists with a good forum and articles on Music Business, Promotion and Marketing. I regularly check CD Baby for online marketing resources.

Greg Vail signing off