For those of you following along, I’ve been working steadily through ArielPR’s Music Success in Nine Weeks (MSi9W) to establish a foundation for my career as a singer-songwriter.  Week 5 of MSi9W focuses on the epic topic of blogging; bloggers and their content constitute a major pillar of the contemporary music community, so it’s really imperative that artists learn how to engage bloggers properly and get involved in their community. 

This week was definitely the biggest challenge for me.  In the past, I never really delved past the big-time music blog-y sites like Pitchfork, Stereogum, and NPR.  Discovering the vast indie, DIY-minded music blogging community was both awe-inspiring and overwhelming; where was I to start?

I set up a Google Reader (which is the most amazing piece of work, btw) and started the long search for music blogs that I liked and thought might be interested in covering my work in the future.  Given that my brand of music is “fearless folk for the wandering soul,” I started to search for blogs that were covering like-minded singer-songwriters.  Slowcoustic was a great find, especially for its blog roll.  Things slowly came together from there; thankfully, Sharon Van Etten, an amazing singer-songwriter who I identify with stylistically, came out with a new release this past week, Epic, which made it easy to find even more relevant blogs through the Hype Machine.

After I finished adding 50ish blogs to the ol’ Google Reader, I took note of 10 blogs I especially liked and thought would be compatible with my music and began getting used to commenting on them.  It’s still kinda weird for me; for the past few years, I took the I’m-above-it-all approach to social media, so the idea of sharing content and opinions is pretty new to me, as sad as that sounds.  But it is pretty cool to get in the habit of telling others positive things about their work, even if it is like “thanks for the link” or “i really like that song ya”. 

Having a smartphone really helps with all of this; if you have an iPhone, there’s a Reeder app that handles Google Reader RSS feeds really well, and an application called Seesmic can follow Twitter, Facebook, Ping.fm, etc. from one hub.  

On the creation side of things, I’ve been keeping up with my own Tumblr blog, clipping time’s wings.  It’s been updated at a steady pace with my travels and, of course, my music.  As I’ve mentioned before, I started a songwriting project at the same time I began MSiNW called Year of Song, in which I write and release a new song for free each week to my mailing list as well as the blog.   I’m in week 5 of the project now, and it’s been really great hearing others’ responses over email and whatnot.  I guess the challenge for me at this point is to figure out how to get my blog out there in the Tumblr world — I’d like for my songwriting project to reach more ears, so if you have any ideas, I’d love to hear em :)

Alrighty, that should do it.  Thanks for reading along, and stay tuned for Week 6’s update!

-Andrew

Year of Song, Week 5:  “Who’s Your God?”

Disclaimer:  This song is part of a songwriting project called Year of Song, in which I release one new song for free each week.  To get first dibs on the songs as they come out, sign up for my mailing list at andrewplan.com.  Thanks for listening!

This week’s song was inspired by a conversation I had with a good friend near the end of senior year.  We were discussing religion and the challenges posed by dating outside one’s religion.  At one point I was trying to justify that it was possible for a religious person to date an nonreligious person successfully — I had cited another good friend of mine, a Catholic who is happily in love with an atheist.  But in response, my friend responded that that person was putting her love for the atheist above her love for God; how could she love God fully when her partner can never understand that part of her?  To my friend, her love for him became her God.

I couldn’t shake that sentiment for the longest time.  A lot of self-destructive relationships I’ve seen (and been in) center around being extremely beholden to something, whether it be a person, idea, experience…when people hold on at all costs to that love, that feeling, whatever, it hurts not only that person but their loved ones as well.

Lyrics:

here we are again, losing fights all the time, and i am overcome, i am seeing you grow old, tide is turning red, and i am feeling what you said, every cry and plea holds you back from something more

his heavy memory, with a dose of novocaine, you say it’s what you wanted, but have you checked the score?
i visit every day, i’m afraid you’ll fall asleep, you search my face for answers, no i won’t make the leap

who’s your God? no, he could never be your reason why
who’s your God? who’s gonna save you from yourself

yes, this is the end of all that we can feel,
you ask is it over, but i don’t know what you mean
but i just sit and smile , no i can’t help myself

doctor says you’ll move again, it was lady luck this time, but don’t you test her hand, there’s no stopping this decline
it’s quiet on the 101, as i walk you to your door, another night yeah, we made it, how many more of them in store?

who’s your God? no, he could never be your reason why
who’s your God? who’s gonna save you from yourself

who’s gonna save you from yourself?
who knows…

-Andrew

Oh man, is social media overwhelming—

ahhhh, no.  Gotta stay positive :P

This week’s chapter of ArielPR’s Music Success in Nine Weeks (HIGHLY RECOMMENDED for all working musicians) is dedicated to helping musicians navigate the constant flux that is Web 2.0.  Web 2.0 refers to the rising of interactive social media platforms like YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, etc. that have turned the web into a very interactive and social place. 

And a very messy one too.  Even though I’ve managed to dip my toes into the waters of several of these platforms during my college years, it can be really hard to keep track of all of them.  The connection options are welcome but a bit of a double-edged sword — if you aren’t strategic about how you wire platforms, your Twitter feed might cause your Facebook to burst with redundant content. 

But thanks to the good people at ArielPR forums, I found out about ping.fm, which is a service that allows one to simultaneously post to several social media platforms at once. Before, I was trying to draw out a connections diagram to figure out how I wanted to wire the different networks together, depending on what I wanted to send out (song, blog, pics, etc.):

Ping.fm is much simpler.

Haha.  But if you’re a visual person like me, I still recommend drawing out a delivery diagram for each of the types of things you want to share over social media — it was really helpful in clearing up the different ways I wanted to share content as an artist.

Another cool social media tool I found was RootMusic, which creates pretty slick Facebook tabs that you can integrate into your Facebook Artist page.  It’s got all the doohickeys most musicians will need for their Facebook page (music player, feeds customizable for blogs and twitter, videos, photos, etc.).  I prefer the aesthetics of RootMusic’s pages to ReverbNation’s MyBand pages, so if you’re not already deep into using ReverbNation, RootMusic is definitely worth a look.

This week has admittedly been mostly setting up all these things, and I’m just now starting to interact through Web 2.0.  I totally understand now when Ariel says that maintaining Web 2.0 presence is like cultivating a garden — it really requires a certain degree of consistent contribution.  Too bad I was never that great at gardening :P

Whenever you have an overwhelming task, you break it down.  So it’s time to break this garden down into, um, plants.  I figure I’m going to focus only on one community at a time, getting used to interacting in each one before moving onto the next.  Right now I’m gonna spend more time on Tumblr, since that’s where I post all of my song story blogs as part of my Year of Song project.  Once I get my footing there, I’ll move on to Twitter, then YouTube, etc. 

Also, an aside:  there are some really cool, smaller communities of music lovers out there like thesixtyone.com and last.fm (found at tightmixblog.com). I just signed up on them, hopefully I won’t forget about them haha.

So where are all my plants in the bountiful Web 2.0 garden?  Well…

• andrewplan.com (Sign up on my mailing list and get free music!)
• Facebook artist page
• Twitter
• Myspace
• YouTube
• Last.fm
• thesixtyone.com
• Flickr
• OurStage

That’s all for me!  Till week 5…

-Andrew

Aha, so I know this is two weeks late.  But the way I see it, I’ve been working on weeks 3, 4, and 5 concurrently so I’ll be caught up by the end of the week.

But yes, this blog is about week 3 of Music Success in Nine Weeks, which talks about  optimizing the music artist’s website.  Let’s get on with it then…

For the past year or so I’ve been running a site at andrewplan.com through Hostbaby, which is a really user-friendly web hosting and website creation service for musicians and artists in general.  The real challenge for this week was maintaining a consistent look and feel across all the platforms I’m maintaining.  Besides andrewplan.com, I’ve got:

• Facebook/Rootmusic
• Myspace
• YouTube
• Twitter
• OurStage
• Eventful

Needless to say, I was pretty overwhelmed; I’m a to-do list kind of guy, so I made me one of them lists:

Week 3 MSI9W To-Do

andrewplan.com webpage

• fix bio
• update influences, soundslike
• fix homepage buttons
• create announcement for year of song
• announcements for new show dates
• create page explaining year of song
• upload Jerusalem Syndrome with ID3 tags
• modify listbaby notification when signing up

Facebook

• update influences, soundslike
• add songs from Year of Song

MySpace

• update information to reflect website
• add songs from Year of Song

Twitter

• edit bio to reflect website

YouTube

• change color scheme
• edit information to reflect website

OurStage

• edit information to reflect website

Eventful

• edit information to reflect website

I wasn’t able to get to YouTube, OurStage or Eventful, but I can do that in the next few days easy. 

But man, I feel a lot better about the website…it’s quick to load, the pitch is right at the top of the page, and i took the time to make sure that the other social media sites are conveying the same information as the main website.  Syncing up appearances was a bit harder — I managed to do it for my Tumblr blog and my MySpace profile, but I can’t customize my Facebook page using the service I have, and I need to, um, twitter around more with Twitter.

On the bright side, I cleaned up the email list to be a lean, mean, free-music-giving machine!  If you sign up for my mailing list at andrewplan.com, you’ll receive exclusive access to a FREE song!  As a subscriber to the mailing list, you’ll also receive notifications whenever I post a new song as part of my new project, Year of Song, in which I write, record and release a new song every week for FREE until August 2011. 

***end gratuitous plug***

Phew, ok, that was intense.  Expect week 4’s blog soon!

-Andrew

Year of Song #4:  Family Is King

“Family Is King” was inspired by good ol’ family drama.  When I was back in Manila a few weeks ago I talked to my grandma about her life.  Up to this point I really haven’t had much interaction with her; she spent most of my waking life in the Philippines, so this was one of the first substantial conversations I had with her.  But to hear her open up about her life and the secret pains behind our family made me angry for what she’s gone through.  So this song came out, saying what I was feeling at the time — this blind and misguided allegiance to the family was forcing her to suffer in silence.  Don’t get me wrong, I strongly believe in the goodness of family.  But even within the family, people can be pretty cruel to each other…

i think i know how we’re gonna break, quartered by virtue, thrown to a silent storm
we tell ourselves that we’ll make it through, but we’re drifting away on an endless, endless sea; an endless, endless sea

even though we tried, yeah we both lost faith
just say you’ll remember me, say you’ll remember when you wanted this,
you used to want this life
but even though we tried, yeah we still said goodbye
no I can’t stay here anymore, or even call this home
there’s nothing here i own
forgive and forget, for the family is king
no matter how we break it’s the family that’s king

we’re running changes under the weight of a loaded gun, you and i just watched as we slowly frayed apart
how can you stand it, you were all i had, but you just had to have her, left me shackled to your reign

i could’ve loved you if you ever let me in, you never let me in
(but you always knew) i could’ve loved you if you ever let me in, can’t you   let me in?

so forgive and forget, for the family is king
no matter how we break it’s the family that’s king
you see what we made, in all we forsake, for the family is king

Year of Song #3:  “Wherever love roams”

Here’s a product of my recent globetrotting.  Came up with the idea in Vietnam, finished it up at uncle’s house in Manila.  It’s a bit more romantic-y and supportive than usual…these past two weeks some of my good friends have had really tough times, so the sentiment of this song came from that, just the want to be there for them in way I could.  So I wrote this song, and hopefully it brings you some comfort as well.

This is the third in my weekly song series, Year of Song, in which I’ll be recording and posting one song a week till August 2011.  Sign up for my mailing list at andrewplan.com and you’ll be notified as soon as the week’s song is up, along with a link to the direct download of the song.

Till next week…

if ever you get to the river and manage to outswim the fire
just know as we lie on the cool cool grass, i’ll follow you wherever love roams

if ever your heart starts to falter, and your body too weakened to care
just know that time will let your mind go, i’ll follow you wherever love roams

no i don’t know what awaits us, or if this field will grow
just keep this inside and don’t let it die, i’ll follow you wherever love roams
i’ll be there, wherever love roams

rain hits the back of your best dress, the letter left you unprepared
i’m holding your hand but you don’t understand, these words will remain undeclared

no i don’t know what to tell you, or what kind of seeds to sow
just keep this inside and don’t let it die, i’ll follow you wherever love roams
i’ll be there, wherever love roams

and i feel your light inside, it’s bursting forth through newborn air
and i wish you all the best, but i don’t want you to believe in me
no, i need you to believe in you

whenever you wait by your window, to catch one more glimpse of the dream
i soar through the trees and the air that you breathe, i’m your shelter, wherever you go

no i don’t know what awaits us, or what kind of seeds to grow
just keep this inside and don’t let it die, i’ll follow you wherever love roams
i’ll be there, wherever love roams