14 Ways Musicians Can Increase Their Tips
I was listening to NPR the other day when they did a report on tipping in the restaurant industry. One they had a list of tips on how wait staff can increase their tips.
That got me brainstorming and surfing the net for other ideas to boost tips. That combined with lots of performances at Renaissance Festivals helped me to develop my own list of ways musicians can improve their tips.
1. Introduce yourself by name
Too often musicians forget to introduce themselves on stage. Make sure you tell the audience your band name, but to really boost your tips, you should also introduce yourselves individually. Let people know who you are as an individual and you’ll see greater tips.
2. Go out into the audience with a tip jar
You really can’t be passive when it comes to getting tips. You have to walk out into the audience with some visual reference that says Tip Me!, and they will tip you.
3. Meet your audience at their level
Take the time to talk to your audience members at their level. Holding a discussion from a stage puts a wall between you and them. So instead, go out into the audience and talk to them face to face. Kneel if they’re at a table, so you’re at eye level. And if you have ayour tip jar with you, you will you will not only gain a fan, but you will also improve your tips.
4. Make your appearance personal
We wear kilts to most of our gigs. A kilt adds a very personal touch It links us to a certain culture and makes people take notice. Course you don’t have to go that route, instead find some piece of clothing that reflects your personality and you will boost your tips.
5. Recommend your favorite CD
If you have multiple CDs, your audience will always ask for your favorite. Tell them what it is. If you only have one, you can do the same by recommending other artists that you like. That adds a two-fold advantage of helping your audience find music they like and helping your fellow musicians.
6. Smile
A bright, confident smile will bring fans back again and again with lots o’big tips.
7. Involve your audience in the music with a joke or game
Next time you’re up on stage, see what happens when you joke around with the audience. Your personality will glow all the more and so will your tips.
8. Chat with fans by name
Music fans love nothing more than to be recognized by the bands they love. So do your best to remember their names. They will feel that much more attached to your music and feel like your friend. And these friends will tip you better for the courtesy.
9. Touch your audience
When you’re out socializing with your audience, touch them (in a non-sexual way). Whether you shake their hand, pat them on the shoulder or back, or just brush against them, wait staff find that that even that will boost their tips 50%. And it will yours too.
10. Use tip jars with the VISA/Mastercard Logo
According to studies done in restaurants, just seeing those logos is enough to encourage customers to tip more. I know it sounds crazy, but give it a try. You may be pleasantly surprised with the results.
11. Give your audience something in return for their tip
People love feeling like they’re getting their money’s worth. And many people don’t realize you should tip bands. So give something in return. It could be something as big as a sticker or magnet, or as simple as a business card that might include a $1 off your CDs. Or hey what about feeding their sweet tooth with a piece of candy. Whatever the case, that little gift will mean big tipping results.
12. Draw a picture
On a similar note, if you give them a business card, draw or make a comment on it. That piece will be more valuable to them and will result in bigger tips.
13. Make tipping a part of the show
Why wait until the end of the set to ask for tips. Sing a song about tipping, or get your audience involved in the tipping process by shouting something. Or offer a prize to the first tipper. But integrate it into your show and it won’t seem like you’re just begging for money, rather you’re making it fun to tip.
14. Thank your audience
No gig would be complete without an audience. So thank them for taking the time to watch you perform. They will feel the personal touch and respond when you ask for money.
15. Bonus Tipping Suggestion:
If the change is five dollars, never return a five-dollar bill. Always give back five ones. This allows the customer to tip you with some of the dollar bills you returned. You will rarely get a $5 tip and returning a $5 bill will turn off tippers. In general, it’s good to return all ones if the change is less than $8. You want the customer to have at least two ones so they can give it back as the tip.
Bard Marc Gunn of the Brobdingnagian Bards has helped 1000’s of musicians make money with their musical groups through the Bards Crier Music Marketing and Promotion Ezine and the Texas Musicians’ Texas Music Biz Tips. Now you can get personal advice by visiting http://www.bardscrier.com for FREE how-to music marketing assistance.
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10 Tips For Succesful Production Of Dance Music
1. Get the right monitoring.
For dance, bigger monitors = better monitors. Bigger recording room = better room. Remember that dj in club will play your track on big loudspeakers. If you mix your track on a small monitors or headphones, it may happen that your track won’t be good for club and dj will not play it.
2. Make adaptation of your recording room.
Your producing/listening room has to be well damped, otherwise you will hear a lot of reverberation and sound coloration when mixing. It is very important. If you don’t have a lot of funds (expecially for large room), don’t worry. It doesn’t have to look great, more important is to do the job.
3. Do not use noisy sound cards.
Try to avoid using cheap soundcards below $100. They have very poor quality and they are good for games rather not for producing music. If you have enough funds, consider buying card staring from $300 with low latency. Some cards offer also internal crossing which also might be useful.
4. Use good sound synth sources.
There are already some plugins that sound great, however if you can afford, invest in a best synth hardware. Hardware in 90% of cases sounds better than software. There are also many different samples on the internet. A lot of samples like sf2, wav, reason refills, midi, vocal samples and acapellas, you may find on Vipzone Samples website - also a lot of free samples.
5. Use good reverbs.
For your instruments and vocals try to use good reverb units / plugins. Good sounding reverb placed on some instruments in the mix can bring your track to life. If you can’t afford top outboard units, you may use one of impulse-based plugins available on the market. They should work well for your DAW.
6. Use rhythmic delays on your instruments in the mix.
Remember that dance, trance, and techno music is based on rhythm. Don’t forget to use rhythmic delays on leads, vocals, arpeggios or trance basslines and other synths. This will help a lot. Don’t forget also to quantize your midi tracks (if you use midi).
7. Sometimes less bass = more bass.
Don’t overdo with bass on a bass drum or bass line. Kick drum should have a short click at the start and be enough pumpy for dance. You can easy find a lot of free good sounding kicks on the internet. Remember, bass should also have some mid-frequencies audible near the 1-3 kHz - not only the lowest bass. Compare your bass to the bass used in a good sounding tracks.
8. Less instruments = cleaner mix.
Instead of making many sound layers, try to use not much instruments. Make sure to choose punchy and selective sounding instruments with not too wide spectrum. Work on each instrument with equalizers, effects - like delays, reverbs, phasers etc. depending on the sound type. Use eq, to make each instrument staying in its frequency, not overlay with other instruments frequencies.
9. Set kick and drum section louder than other instruments.
It will significantly helps during the mastering. If you will set them louder, you (or mastering engineer) will be easy able to make good, pumping master on a good compressor. With drums sounding quiet in dance track, proper mastering can’t be done and noone will play your track in the club.
10. Send your track to the mastering engineer.
Try to not master your track by yourself and use good mastering engineer instead. He has fresh ear since you worked on your track probably a lot of time already. Mastering engineer will tells you the truth about your track, and what you should fix in the mix. You may find a lot of online mastering studios / houses.
Bio
I was interested in music practicaly since I was born. When I was 4 years old, I was very excited with my father’s old Abba-tapes. I listened to Abba all through my childhood. My next fascination was Italo Disco and later Depeche Mode. When I was 16 years old I started to play the guitar. This was the beginning of my next musical fascination - I started to listen to the rock music and groups like Deep Purple, Dire Straits or even later The Cure. My first tracks was recorded on a 4-track tape machine and these was rather some rock-guitar tracks, not dance. Me and my friends founded some rock groups, one of them called Muzyka Wiatru (The Music of the Wind) released album on MC. Unfortunately there was a time for pop in Poland and nobody was really interested in promoting new rock band. After 6 years I left guitar…more on http://www.janardana.net.
Interesting samples for producers you can find on my website http://www.vipzone-samples.com More useful mixing and mastering tips on http://www.master-your-track.com.
(Don’t) Play By The Rules
I was walking on campus today back from our weekly gig at the University of Texas’ South Mall, when I heard a member of the Young Conservatives of Texas speak. March 2nd is Texas Independence Day and so this fellow was preaching that if you work hard and play by the rules you too can lead a good life.
Maybe it’s the skeptic in me, but it made me think, What a bunch of crock! Most people, including most musicians, work hard and play by the rules, but did you know that Americans carry, on average, $5,800 in credit card debt from month to month. Well I ask you, what kind of life is that when a huge majority of country is in unprofitable debt?
But I’ve been reading books like Rich Dad, Poor Dad recently, in an attempt to learn music business and finance skills from people who make millions. Do they follow the rules? Yes…sorta.
The questions that came to me as I walked by the Young Conservatives were, Who makes the rules? and Are we following the Right rules?
That’s really the key that many successful business people learn. It’s not a matter of are you following the rules. It’s are you following the Right rules?
You see, our community is filled with rules on what you can’t do, but there are also tons of rules that say what you can do, but most people don’t know what they are.
Taxes are a great example. The average musician might not deduct things like car travel to and from gigs, or the cost of their picks, because they may not know that they can.
The same goes with promotion. Just because you’re on MP3.com and get a dozen emails from other musicians in a form letter saying, play my song, does not mean that you should put together your own form letter and spam thousands of musicians.
Or just because most musicians do their best to attract the attention of a Major label A&R or even the President, does not mean you shouldn’t schmooze with the secretary.
The point is know the rules, but then look beyond them. The rules are a guide. They are not etched in stone. Break the rules. Do what others are NOT doing and you will do a better of job standing out in the crowd.
Bard Marc Gunn of the Brobdingnagian Bards has helped 1000’s of musicians make money with their musical groups through the Bards Crier Music Marketing and Promotion Ezine and the Texas Musicians’ Texas Music Biz Tips. Now you can get personal advice by visiting http://www.bardscrier.com for FREE how-to music marketing assistance.
No time to visit the site? Subscribe to the BardsCrier.com distributed weekly for Free. Just email subscribe@bardscrier.com
Your CD Cover To Advertise Your Music Another Opinion
One of the Brobdingnagian Bards’ early CDs, Songs of the Muse is going into it’s second pressing. When I saw Christopher Knab’s article Your CD Cover is Your Best Ad For Your Music, I decided this was the perfect inspiration I needed to update the CD graphics.
I’ve been a fan of Christopher Knab for about as long as I’ve been a fan of Bob Baker. He is without a doubt one of the top Top 10 music marketers in my book.
Well, whenever I create graphics, I find too often that I forget a bunch of stuff. So this article serves as a great checklist. But when I read Seth Godin’s Best-Selling book, Free Prize Inside, I realized that it was NOT a complete list!
In fact, the music industry in general has greatly missed out on an amazing opportunity to better sell CDs.
The idea I got came from the backs of books. Go grab a best-seller and turn it over. On the back, you will find the secret…
What did you find? You might’ve seen testimonials, a brief description of the book, or maybe even an exerpt.
You see, one of the problems I found with Songs of the Muse is that since we call our music Celtic music. It wasn’t till much later that I realized that in the Celtic music tradition, songs have lyrics and tunes are instrumentals. This album is all instrumental. So it was poorly named for the Celtic music world.
But if we use the back cover correctly, it doesn’t matter!
The new back cover now lists songs titles along with a brief description of the ideal person who will enjoy this CD. It includes testimonials. And anyone who reads it will have all doubt removed as to if this is a vocal or instrumental CD.
Use Christopher Knab’s checklist for a better CD graphics. Then think outside the box. What can you add to the cover that will make this CD sell better than ever?
Bard Marc Gunn of the Brobdingnagian Bards has helped 1000’s of musicians make money with their musical groups through the Bards Crier Music Marketing and Promotion Ezine and the Texas Musicians’ Texas Music Biz Tips. Now you can get personal advice by visiting http://www.bardscrier.com for FREE how-to music marketing assistance.
No time to visit the site? Subscribe to the BardsCrier.com distributed weekly for Free. Just email subscribe@bardscrier.com
Your New Best Friend The Mailing List
For startup musicians, email is a gift of God. When I first started managing bands a number of years ago, I spent hours licking stamps and sending out postcards for upcoming gigs, spending over $100 on people that never showed up to my bands’ gigs. We didn’t even make that much at the gig, and we were blowing money left and right.
Don’t get me wrong. For a band that sticks around, $100 for one fan is worth it, in my opinion, because that fan will be tell friends, buy CDs, and more, but there is a cheaper alternative. Start your own band ezine.
If you don’t already have one, I strongly urge you to head over to eGroups.com and setup your own newsletter. If you haven’t already, start collecting addresses today. Don’t use this as an excuse not to pick up snail mail, mind you. In the next few weeks we’ll talk about how to get the most out of your email and snail mail addresses.
GETTING YOUR LIST STARTED
1. Send Invites to all of your friends, ASK them if they want would like to get your fan news.
2. Specify how often you intend to mail out your ezine (weekly, twice monthly, monthly).
3. Provide info your fans would consider interesting (tidbits about the band, bands you like, favorite recipes).
4. Provide an easy way automatically unsubscribe.
5. Add a Subscribe to My Newsletter link on your homepage.
VERY IMPORTANT DON’TS
DON’T auto-subscribe people from other mailing lists, even if they May like you. (This includes the Media)
BETTER: E-mail them. Include their name in the message, and ASK if they would be interested in subscribing.
DON’T send out an email before Every gig. Especially if you start getting a lot, you will only end up allienating fans. Stick to the schedule.
DON’T make your newsletter filled to the brim in formality.It’s got to breathe. People want newsletters that are personal, so talk to ‘em.
Bard Marc Gunn of the Brobdingnagian Bards has helped 1000’s of musicians make money with their musical groups through the Bards Crier Music Marketing and Promotion Ezine and the Texas Musicians’ Texas Music Biz Tips. Now you can get personal advice by visiting http://www.bardscrier.com for FREE how-to music marketing assistance.
No time to visit the site? Subscribe to the BardsCrier.com distributed weekly for Free. Just email subscribe@bardscrier.com