New Music Seminar NYC: The Are No More Excuses

"The cream is clearly not rising to the top. The New Music Seminar has been resurrected to help correct this problem and to discuss and share the many new initiatives that will empower developing artists with new music tools."

– New Music Seminar co-founder and Tommy Boy Record's owner/founder, Tom Silverman

(UPDATED) It was probably a lighter crowd than hoped for at New York University's Skirball Center for the
relaunch of The New Music Seminar.  But the audience in the half full
theater was evenly split between artists and indie entrepreneurs and
all came ready to learn.

During the keynote Q &A, MySpace Music President Cortney Holt
shared that analytical tools for indie musicians to better understand
their activity on MySpace are right around the corner. Beginning before
the end of the summer, we should see the start of a roll-out of
analytics followed by other marketing and sales tools.  After seeing
Cortney in action several times now, I'm increasingly convinced that he
sincerely wants make MySpace Music a better experience for both fans
and musicians.  Whether or not his Viacom and major label bosses will
let him, is a story for another day…

Throughout
the day, panel after panel explored the expanding world of the musician
without major label support. The message that it can be done outside of the label system  wasalso
clearly matched with the reality that it can't be done alone.  Fortunately,a growing number of companies and services are offering sophisticated
technological help and marketing expertise for an artist or small label
to compete in the modern music marketplace.

Other important takeaways:

• "If the music is bad, none of this shit matters". – Vin Rock of Naughty by Nature

• Use social networking and all the free tools to build an audience, but only be in as many places as you can be in well.
• Control all of your rights (publishing, recording, etc.) so you can turn on a dime to get things done like give music away or license to a TV show.
• "Giving away music should not be thought of as a a loss leader, it's called marketing in an attention economy." -  Mark Ghuneim of Wiredset and Trendrr
• "Stop being self conscious about being an artist."  – Pandora's Tim Westergren. He also hinted that his service will beging offering artist analytics soon.
• "It's time to start a revolution." – Tom Siverman

The next New Music Seminar will take place in Chicago on October 6th.