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I’ve been getting a lot of questions about my plans for my first ever digital music compilation that I’ll be releasing this fall.  Since most of the questions have been more or less the same, I thought the easiest thing to do would be to address them all in a blog post.

Here goes…

Why are you doing this compilation?  What’s the point?  
Well, the simplest answer is that I want to help promote some of the amazing music that is out there that isn’t being heard.  As a part of my “job”, I have the great fortune of listening to a lot of indie music, and there is an enormous amount of really great music out there that isn’t really being heard.  I want to do my part to help promote some of the great artists out there that deserve recognition but aren’t really getting it.

What styles of music are you looking for?
I envision this first release as being fairly eclectic, with a wide range of styles.  I’m really open to anything as long as it’s great and well done.  With that said, I’m leaning towards songs with a modern and fresh sound with vocals.  However, if the right instrumental track or track comes my way, I’m open to including that as well.  The main thing I’m looking for is great music, regardless of the genre.

Is there a deadline for submitting?
There’s not a specific deadline per se.  I’m going to keep accepting submissions until I find a collection of tracks that I feel strongly about.  With that said, my plan is to release the compilation in the Fall, so I’m hoping to wrap things up in a month or so.

Are you doing this to make money?
I hope this project makes money, but I’m not doing it primarily with that motivation.  I’m well aware of the challenges of monetizing recorded music, so I’m going into this with eyes wide open.  With that said, I want to be as transparent as possible at the outset of this project and let everyone know that any money that is potentially made will be split equally with everyone who contributes to the project.  If there ends up being ten people involved (including me), the money will be split ten ways.  It’s as simple as that.  

I have some really unique ideas in terms of how to promote the project that I’ll be sharing with everyone a little further down the road.  For now, just realize, this project is free to participate in and everyone involved will get an equal share of any money made.

Will I keep the rights to my music? 
Yes, 100 percent.  By participating in this release you won’t be giving up any of your rights to your music.  You’ll still own your tracks and can continue to license them, sell them and give them away elsewhere as you see fit.  This won’t be like a traditional record deal/record label where you give up the master/publishing to your music.  Our deal will be completely non-exclusive and you can work with other people and companies concurrently if you choose to do so.

Where will the release be distributed? 
Spotify, Itunes, Amazon, Youtube, etc.  Wherever digital music is bought and sold.

When is the release date? 
I don’t have an exact date. It depends on how long the process of screening, selecting and compiling music takes.  I plan to release it, tentatively, sometime in early Fall 2017.

When will you notify the artists you’re interested in working with?
I’m going to start contacting artists that I’m interested in later this week.  My plan is to Skype with everyone I'm interested in initially to go over details of the project and to make sure we're on the same page about my vision for the release. If we are, then I’ll send a short contract that outlines the details of our arrangement (see above).

What about your licensing courses?  Will you still offer those?
I’ve been running How To License Your Music.com for nine years now and have put together an extensive collection of courses and products related to the music licensing niche.  I’ll be continuing to offer my courses on my website and will continue to offer training programs with coaching, like the 90 and 180 Day Music Licensing Challenge, as my schedule permits.

If you’d like to submit your music for consideration, you can do that here.

Let me know if you have any more questions or comments, in the comments!

This summer I’m going to be launching a brand new project, unlike anything I've ever done before.

I’m looking for great songs that I’m going to release as a part of a compilation that will be distributed far and wide on platforms like Itunes, Spotify, Youtube, My podcast and much, much more.

If your music is selected, being included on this release will cost you nothing.
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In fact, there’s a really good chance that this release will make money.  That’s the goal.  If that happens, and I'm confident it will, I’ll share it with everyone who’s involved equally.

I can’t share the exact details of the release yet, but if your music is accepted as a part of the release, I’ll give you all the details as well as a short and sweet, 100% non -exclusive contract.

What I can say, is that this is going to be a very innovative release and a unique project unlike anything you’ve ever heard of.  If all goes as planned, we’ll all be getting major press and attention for this project.  Seriously.

Sound interesting?

Apply below and if I think you’re a good fit, I’ll give you all the details. Please fill out as many of the fields below as possible, as they will all factor into your being accepted or not.

It’s good to have goals.  As musicians, having goals gives us something to aim for in our lives and careers.  The right goal can motivate us to grow and push us towards new heights as musicians that we would most likely fail to reach if we had no goals at all.  Having goals give us a direction to orient ourselves towards.  It gives us something to do and strive for every day when we get up.

Without goals, it’s all too easy to wander aimlessly, with no real direction or purpose at all as it relates to our music and life in general.  One day maybe we dabble in jazz, the next day we try to write a fugue, the next day we go to the beach because we’re not feeling it and so on.  Of course, having a freedom and playfulness to our lives can be liberating at times, but without any goals at all, we zig and zag a lot, often times not really getting anywhere.

The problem with goals though, is when we’re so attached to a specific outcome, that we neglect the process and journey of getting there.  Or, we get discouraged when we don’t hit the milestones we set for ourselves and stop trying or even give up.  This could because we’re not setting the right goals, or we’re simply not motivated enough to do what it takes to make our goals a reality.

Having really big goals gives us something to dream about and work towards.  I think they’re mainly positive.  Goals become a negative when we set such big goals for ourselves that we become discouraged and depressed if we don’t reach them.  Or even worse, maybe we do reach them, but they fail to satisfy us the way we imagined they would.   Or we find we’re not quite ready psychologically to deal with the sort of attention and pressure that success brings.  (I’ve known people personally who have experienced both of these scenarios).

I made a video recently where I talk about setting goals as musicians, and how to set goals that serve to motivate and inspire us, and how to avoid setting goals that cause us to end up feeling more discouraged and disillusioned than we did before our goals.
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Check it out here: