HELLO AGAIN… to all my songwriting friends and hopefully SOON-TO-BE friends, as well as my terrific (and talented!) consulting clients.  It has been awhile, hasn’t it?  Our kind web-mistress Jodi gave me a couple of years for ‘time off’ to complete a move (back to a city I love!), take care of some precious family –- which is ongoing -- and to re-charge. 

Part of my saga is that a few years ago, my husband and I had a big life-change when we decided to buy and move to a GORGEOUS ranch in Texas and become a part of the ranching industry, which we loved!  Managing the ranch was a big job that required both our focus. (What does it say about me that it was reeeally hard to focus on running the marketing of a cattle ranch AND at the same time on writing/co-writing/pitching/consulting with clients/writing columns/speaking at songwriter meetings? Whatever it says…it is what it is! ) So…we decided to make ANOTHER big change and move back to the city (she says with a definite touch of longing for the country in her voice) …to focus on getting back into the swing of things.

Now to re-start this songwriting conversation…

WOW! Speaking of how things are swinging/have swung:  Has the music industry changed or WHAT over the last ten years!?  Technology of course has made all the difference.   What fascinated us in the beginning 10 - 12 years ago about the internet, with all the heretofore UNHEARD-OF opportunities for marketing ourselves -- proved to be a big catalyst for the merging/downsizing of the big, high-falutin’ (high-falutin’ – a carryover from my ranch/cowboy days), untouchable, old-school music industry. Not to mention it provided EVERYONE on the planet with the tools to download/ burn/steal the work of millions of hard-working songwriters and artists. 

And yet, re: those opportunities I mentioned, all the while this technology began to provide us with AMAZING tools to use to pitch our songs, our projects, our gigs, and ourselves!  (Aka, Facebook, Twitter, Digstation, CDBaby, Oasis, MusesMuse, and so much more.)

So here’s the deal:  there is basically NO EXCUSE ON THE PLANET anymore for people NOT to know who you are, what you write, HOW you write,  who’s cut your songs; or if you’re an artist - how you sound, what’s your style,  where you’ll be playing next. Just no excuses AT ALL.  Well…that is, unless you don’t have access to technology.  But then if you didn’t, you wouldn’t be reading this, so it’s a moot point. Back to what I was saying: NO EXCUSES.

So…first off, if you haven’t already, go out there and find yourself some software/a website that allows you to either download or purchase software to build your own website (I highly recommend this over the pay-someone-else-to-do-it; you can update it much more often if you do it yourself)… and let’s get cracking!

Then…get yourself on Facebook / My Space, Twitter, and the like.

I’m guessing most of you have already done this…if not, well time’s a-wasting. 

And if you haven’t already, as you look around the landscape of the music industry and the MANY forms it takes now – independent artists now known all over the world, artists with old-school ‘big-time’ record deals, independent / self-published songwriters succeeding and getting cuts, songwriters WITH publishing deals… as you see ALL forms that success can now take…now is the best time EVER to ask yourself, as I did years ago:

WHY NOT ME???   

Tune in soon for MORE encouragement…and while you’re on the site, be sure to take a look BACK at my previous columns. 

It’s great to be back in the SWING OF THINGS!