Momentum by Jeff Allen Myers on The Pipeline at IndieMusicPeople

Momentum
What is it? How do we get it? If someone pushes you off a cliff, you have momentum...Of course the ending might not be too special :) Anyway, I digress..My point of this Blog is to ask...how does one get momentum here on IAC??, Traction...as it were???. I have tried to let myself be known with some of the great station owners here...some have graciously picked up my songs.(THANKS!!!!!) I have tried to be a part of this Front page pipeline....I try to space out my comments so I don't wear out whatever welcome I may have :) I feel if you don't do these things, no one will know you are here. I Love the thrill of seeing a song being picked up, but overall I don't see any momentum :) So how does one get it here? How does one get on the IAC Top 50?I don't make a dent on many of the Charts. I have a Page of songs, as many do. I see a lot of familiar station owners on the "Updated" station list. (Bless all of ya) Anyway, I digress...but I already said that :) Digression, Transgression, remission, Transition.... :) WHAT? Ok Blog is done. Your friend, Jeff

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7/25/2007 7:52:55 AM

Momentum for an indie is, I think, an internal thing. It's hard to depend on some kind of reaction especially in the dog days of summer when few seem to care about anything except how to stay cool. :)

The best advice I could give you about keeping your momentum would be to indulge in making music if you're up to it. If you can't stay excited about your own world, your own work, change your patterns. Try writing a song a different way, let moodswings take you whereever they want to go. As far as spacing out your comments here, as far as I'm concerned, the more involvement everyone has, the better it is for everybody. Look at all the rockin' stuff JAWZ does, she never stops, goes from one idea to the next, some of them people jump on, some of them they don't so much but art and being indie isn't about how the world reacts as much as it is about generating your own vibrations, flowing and glowing and I can tell you as a fact, when you're most focused on yourself and not watching what others are thinking, that seems to be when people start to notice you the most. It's kind of like love, it comes around when you're not looking. If you get too deep into how you're going over, how much progress your music career is making, you can become an automaton hooked on feedback or you could even fizzle out forgetting why you got started with music in the first place.

So I guess what I'm saying is, try to understand there is this ebb and flo going on, times when you're sure you're not advancing in your ultimate goals. Then you need to ride any wave you're feeling at the time and see where it takes you, step in the direction of something that you find exciting and soon enough there will be some path that looks appealing enough to walk on. Nobody ever said life as an artist is simple or easy but the times when you're sort of floating in the wind are part of the fun. I hope that helps.. it helped me, writing it. haha

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Jeff Allen Myers

7/25/2007 10:32:25 AM

I think I am flowing when I should be ebbing :) Thanks for the Input Father T! :)

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KENYON

7/25/2007 12:31:19 PM

Hey Jeff

I think I may be able to help you flow. I had this idea at my bands show last weekend. We always play music during our set breaks and I asked the band if at least 1 or 2 sets I can play a cd of IACmusic.com artists. They said cool! So I will purchase some music from you on Friday and try to get a CD done for this weekends show on Saturday. I will have a nice CD for Saturday as I have purchased music here already.
We are pretty booked through October and of coarse we are going to advertise the fact that the music eveyone hears during our breaks comes from IACmusic.com
So I am hoping to point more people IAC's way.
Hope that helps the 'Flow' of all of us and I am sure it will.
Kenyon

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Jeff Allen Myers

7/25/2007 12:51:59 PM

Hey Kenyon, that is very cool!!! Thanks, no need to purchase them you can have whatever songs you want...just let me know :) I appreciate the exposure! Thats great you get to play out, I have not done that since my days in a cover band. I have thought about trying a run at the coffee house circuit with just an acoustic...Playing Live is such a great thing for us to do as Artists. Kenyon, I will make all my songs downloadable for free the next few days, let me know if you have any problem getting them. Thanks again. Jeff

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KENYON

7/25/2007 1:02:14 PM

Jeff,
You don't have to make them all downloadable. Why don't you tell me which ones you would like on the CD. I am limiting 2 for this first weekend so I can play a fair amount of IAC artists. I do my own solo music which is different then the band which mostly is a cover band with some originals. We both have our pages up here on IACmusic.com.
They are not computer people but they like the music from IAC that I have let them listen to .
So give me 2 songs and I will get you out there. We always play music during our set breaks.
Kenyon

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7/27/2007 2:27:46 AM

Jeff,

I feel like I didn't communicate too well on my last post to you. I guess what I was trying to say was that momentum is something that we all have to rassle with. I do every day of my life, seems like every minute at times. If you block out what you think is expected of you and what you expect of yourself though, I think you'll find that things go in cycles, if you got the mojo in the first place it will come back around to you sooner than you might guess when you're feelin' like you're hittin' a wall.

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The Man With No Band

7/27/2007 2:30:44 PM

Hey Jeff... Great subject matter... Momentum
I am no definitely no expert on the subject but I'll throw in my 2 cents...
I think you can kind of compare success with momentum, it's all in your own standards and beliefs...
Remember the Hare had all the speed and took the fast track, yet the tortoise just plodded along inch by inch and in the end came out on top.
You see this a lot in the music industry today ... A lot of 20 year olds hit the top so fast that momentum is actually a stopper and the spiral down is just as fast and really hard to take...
I am guilty myself at times at losing focus on what I want to do and the things I want to create.. and I think it makes me my own biggest momentum killer...
I started very slow on this site and like you said, "I still get thrilled when someone picks up one of my tunes or leaves a nice comment on my page" .. hey it's only human nature.. right ?
To a certain degree I think luck plays a part in where we land up in life and at what pace we get there.. sort of a destiny thing.. but at the same time I am very much a believer in ... we are masters of our own fate ... so I wonder sometimes if either is right or whether there is any middle ground.
For me it all comes back to having fun.. that's when momentum seems to release itself the most... when I start pushing I find I'm usually loosing ground.
I will say that since I have joined IAC that realistically, even though I don't get thousands of plays every month, or I never had a top 10 song in any genre, and at times everything seems pretty stagnate, I get that surprise station add or a day with 50 plays... All that adds up to a momentum that I never really thought possible... Which in turn keeps me chugging along...

Hey isn't that the Hare's Ass I see up ahead ... :)

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Jeff Allen Myers

7/27/2007 3:25:10 PM

Tortoise and the Hare...what a great life lesson! Plus the tortoise gets to stop and smell the roses from time to time! :) Thanks to all the pitched in on this thread. Overall, I am very happy with my lot in life...Personally, professionally and musically. Just a short time ago, we did not have an outlet such as IAC. Hard to believe the Internet in its present form is very new! I remember racking up $200.00 in fees to AOL in 1996. This was only for a few days! They did not have an unlimited plan back then, and there was no such thing as High speed. In those terms, what we have as musicians and Artists today is moving at light speed! A few years ago only a few family and friends had the opportunity to hear my music. Lets not get started on Digital Multitracks and Programs like Protools! Yes I guess I do have momentum, and lucky to be living in this age! Beam me up Scotty! :) Jeff
.....

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SILVERWOODSTUDIO

7/27/2007 7:06:11 PM

I have read this thread a few times and tried to hold back----------------but here goes !
momentum for me in my first 2 months here was 2--------6 plays a day for my two songs, and I was hitting on all the top stations and asking for plays--------once I went prime and had 30 songs up I got up to 30 plays a day but I layed off asking other people, and set up niche stations that covered my own areas of interest and put some Silverwood music on them along with other music that appealed----------this seemed to give a bit of leverage--------and I found that if I added someone , I may get an add in response--------a bit like trading!
The key to IAC in my opinion is to get to know who the "players" are, and get inside their heads and music and build relationships!
I won't mention names but there are obvious key players here who have helped me soooo much, and I am able to give airtime back to them!

When "the Nobody" took off and started getting lots of hits, I just plugged that one song as hard as I could and consequently it was relegated down 250 places so I wouldn;t follow that recipe!?

As soon as I had my name off the front page, my number of hits per day dropped down--------------so I always try to have some presence there.
The charts are mostly picked by "the committee" so you can't really have input into whether you are chosen, It always pays to be friendly to those with the power though---------------------

Lastly, what is a good ammount of momentum?

When I was really pimping hard we got up to 128 hits in a day-----------------now a good average is 40------60 hits, but I know that will quickly drop back if I skip a few days!
Effort in + luck or providence = momentum!

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7/27/2007 7:28:53 PM

Silverwood Studio,

I just wanted to add some clarity to some of your comments there. First off, you sort of make it sound like a trading game but the locals here who are heavily involved in stations, from what I've seen, they only add songs they truly like. If that's not the case, they really aren't doing the right thing. Also I believe if an artist gets to the point that they are equating momentum with how they do on the charts, they are going down a bad road. I have heard stories of numerous individuals who got caught up in the chart addiction to the point where they lose all recognition of the love for music that brought them to the online indie world.

If your song seems to be getting more plays but is dropping down on the genre charts, chances are it's suffering from a low stream completion percentage, which means people aren't listening to it the whole way through. Or, you must keep in mind that unique listens count more than the same person listening a bunch of times. When a song makes a sudden drop, there's a fair chance that the stats have moved into a different charting period where some day or 3 day stretch that you received a lot of plays is no longer within the time period. The programming committee has nothing to do with the genre charts, only the feature areas.

Yes, the charts and following them can be fun. One of the IAC founders had more number one songs than any rock act in the history of mp3.com and he tells me that when he starting banging his head against the wall about how one of his songs was doing, he knew it was time to write another good song. :D

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Jeff Allen Myers

7/27/2007 8:00:50 PM

Hey Toby...Don't get me wrong, its not about the charts for me, its about getting my songs out there and hoping they get heard, by as many as possible :). The Charts are just a visible means that show that they are indeed being heard. I still have not figured the statistics, although I know they have been explained. If I click the daily play log I may see "Three" Plays, but when I click "Monthly" I see hundreds of plays?? No need to explain it, it will still confuse me.
The problem with stations here is that they don't remain visible on the site unless you add a song they are hard to find. If they are high on the "Station Charts" , you may listen to them. Anyway, the point of this thread was to elicit responses how an artist gains plays and station adds here, how they remain visible, and how to garner and maintain interest. I do agree the scratch each others back scenario does not benefit anyone. Songs should be added to stations because they are liked and appreciated. I understand some marketing has to be involved, if you sit at the back of the class and don't speak up no one will know you are here. Yes I understand good and great speak for themselves, but they can't speak if no one is there to listen....Anyway, this is just a Blog :) Cheers... Jeff

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SILVERWOODSTUDIO

7/27/2007 8:36:00 PM

-------did I say I added songs I don't like?

assumptions are funny things and take folk down the wrong path-----------if I don;t like a song there is no way I would put it up-------but I also prefer to be honest, and what I said is what I think!

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Jeff Allen Myers

7/27/2007 9:05:23 PM

No assumption on my part :) Not speaking of you in general Silver, but I have seen a fair amount of back scratchin in my time. Not on this site as I am just getting to know everyone...but on others I have been on. Each site is different with varying degrees of politics and mechanics. I try not to assume anything as it might make an "Ass" out of "u" and "me" :)

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SILVERWOODSTUDIO

7/28/2007 6:54:11 PM

sorry Mate-------I should explain better!

I agree with Father T re writing and performing music------------

------, but I think recorded music is in a different category---------------I promote other singer/songwriters within our silverwood label and although our recorded sound is very similar to a live sound, the way we get that, is very different and often not fun----------sometimes frustrating, things don't always work as easily, and the headspace is different too------------!

Now the question was "how do I get Momentum" it didn't specify any moral issues, and my reply was related to getting plays with no judgement on moral issues!

When you have recorded something -------you do so for an audience, if there is none you have wasted your time-------------------In real life the same rules apply ----------my neighbour gives me a fish for tea , a few weeks later we give him some veges, nothing inherently evil there?

I didn't invent this type of interaction, merely observed it over time, and now talked about it! To me as a promoter of music, I will use what works!

To make moral judgements about what goes on is actually a seperate issue in my mind---------------those who know me here, know I put far more new Artists (who I don't know) on my stations, than ones who are scratching my back, but I will use every means to get my Artists played.

I do not mean to sound angry--------you are all good people who I NEED! heh

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Jeff Allen Myers

7/28/2007 7:13:52 PM

It's all good :) You keep this site moving as you are very active, and I always appreciate that! Cheers! Jeff

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