Welcome to another issue of Technolite

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News

1. Newsletter Change

2. Promotion and websites

3. Theory and Piano playing mega cool offer

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1. Strangely enough the last email that was sent out (regarding the cool offer) wasn't received that well, people unsubscribed, which is very strange since I am actually trying to save people money, but oh well. So that got me thinking, what actually do people want?

I set up a link at the bottom of these emails some time ago to make the newsletters more informative and relevent. I hate to have stuff come through my inbox that I don't want. So this is going to be the last regular email. Remember, regular. I will send an email out when I believe there is something to know about- whether that be sequencers, free music, software, or books :) etc.

However...

For the past 2-3 months I have been working on a situation where it could be beneficial to your interests. I plan to go interactive, you ask questions I try to get answers. You having trouble with something and we can all chip into the subject. The various pages on the site have been well received that deal with your interaction and so I plan for Technolite to be the same, but better. A forum pimped.

So hopefully the next email will be announcing its arrival and its release- only to subscribers.

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2.

I have had many emails that have asked about promotion and about site design. I realise that this is more marketing than music making, however in a way we make a tune to market, so marketing has to be close to the start of our music making.

Site design is all about what music we make. If you are making atmospheric tracks your site will be different to a dance artist. So if we don't know where to start in making music how can we build a site?

For example, if people like your tunes because they sounded like a top DJ, now you wouldn't stop making those type of tunes, no, you would continue churning them out, with your musical twist/ style so that you sound similar but never the same.

You would then build pages that have something to do with the top DJ and somewhere on that page you would have a link to your tracks.

You would never say this though:

"Click through to my tracks here:"

Why?

Why should I? There is no incentive for me to do so. However if I wrote "Click here to listen to kickin Tiesto style tunes for free" wouldn't that have a better impact? I think it would.

Also, if you do have any links on your site, have them open in a new window. This can easily be done with a short bit of HTML (Internet) code:

A HREF="http://www.yoursitename.com/page.html" target="_blank" > the new page

In front of the A in A HREF put in < . Because this email goes out in HTML, you won't be able to see the code :) "the new page" is the text that people see on the page. Make sure that this has reference to the page that you are linking to.

We open up in a new window because we don't want people to forget us. If they don't see us, they will forget us- fact. Because you are still on their computer screen when they close the window.

What alot of musicians tend to forget are these:

You are not the only musician out there in Internet land. Being similar to someone is not going to cut it anymore. Having the same sound but a different twist of that style is.

A good example of this is The Gangster films. The Godfather is a great film, and more of the same is rubbish- do you know any other Godfather type films? No, not to the same fame as The Godfathers. However one film had a great reception- GoodFellas. It was a Mafia film so people who like those type of films loved it and they were happy. It was in the same theme as the Godfather- a rise to fame, but it also charted the underdog- the foot soldier (the ones that were cannon fodder in Godfather) and showed a completely different prospective to the mafia genre. (Scarface is just too cliche but a great film.) Donnie Brasco did the same again, later, but we went through the process of foot soldier recruitment- a slightly different angle again.

If you like Tiesto then that is fine, but don't make Tiesto tracks because they will be inferior. Have his style, have his track structures and then add your own twist. If you like Hardcore/ Rave then add a smell of that style into the dance of Tiesto. So in theory you should be attracting people who like Tiesto, and also the slightly faster Rave scene.

This is exactly how DJs get on in the first place. If you sound like another DJ the DJ who is better out of the two of you will be chosen. If you have something that gets you remembered then promoters see that as audience generation. People are coming to see you for a quirk that you do, a great style that you represent with a twist.

Music making to a point is not really about music making. It is about standing out from the crowd and being noticed. That is all. You could make Hardfloor TB303 style music for ever and you will have a small following but you won't be unusual, you won't have the following you deserve. You will be boring. It has been done, let it go and do a major twist on it.

In my opinion Hardfloor Rave would be cool. I don't like the 250 mph kick drums with distortion type of rave, I think it is an easy option and it gets unlistenable. However Hardfloor never really gets going. They build up tracks that sound really good with shuffle dance beats but if they layerd beats and applied some of the old school rave elements fans would go wild as they would be driven upto a frenzy. That would be cool.

So how do we find out what people like? This is easy. Find out a music chart site, go to your subject, then see who is number 1-5 and listen to the tracks. This is what you must do- my nine points of why:

- Do you recognise anything in the track, are their influences taking over the track

- Does it sound good- be impartial

- Does the artist have a site- any other tunes

- How do they start, end, middle- any hooks

- Why do people like it- if you are toe tapping then they have done their job

- Are there any other artists that sound better and why

- Do you get the urge to turn off the song- anything bad about it

- Would you buy it, if yes why, if no why

- Would you spread it?

The last two are really important. If you won't pass the tune on or buy it, who will?

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3.