Top Tips for New Artists

It isn't easy as a new artist to find your feet, so here's our top tips for new artists.

Brand identity are the key to your artist. By building your brand, you are able to present people with a finished product. To do so, answer these series of questions to get you started and build a rough plan for yourself:

• What is your Artist name?

Tip: keep this name consistent through all social medias, to maintain a more established brand.

• What is your genre?

Tip: advertise this as it will help you be more detectable to a fan base and give your music a seat in a community. Compare yourself to already established artists, this is as much for you as it is for others. People like labels and categories so they can easily figure you out. This is a good way to brand as by looking at those who inspire you, you already have before you a structured and established artist who has worked.

• Who is your target market?

Always ask yourself: who is my target market? This is a good way to find a community where you will sell. At the end of the day you are sharing your talent, for structure in your career you have to treat yourself like a product as it is no longer enough to just have a good voice, you have to cater to the needs of your audience. You need them to want what you have to offer. So figure out what they want and market yourself to their as well as your own needs.

• What is your unique selling point?

Tip: ask yourself: why should people care? The truth is that you have to make people care, confidence in yourself is key, with a good artist plan and marketing strategy you can make yourself very appealing as well as give yourself a well structured plan to follow. Highlight your unique selling point, whether its specific to your voice or your image. Ensure you are well rounded as to make it in the industry you now have to expand your talents, it's no longer enough to just have a good voice, you have to have a clear brand and show character as well as other talents e.g. dancing, makeup, drawing etc, in order to keep people engaged. Identity is very important, in order do well you must be sure of yourself as well as confident.

• What do you wish to achieve through your music?

This is a crucial point where you should establish an artist plan and begin to set goals. To create goals always make sure they are realistic. To keep organised and on task set a time frame for these goals. When making artist plans with people, we work together to establish their strengths and weaknesses, merging this with things they wish to achieve. Here is an example of an artist plan:

By March I wish to achieve:

• 3 fully finished songs

• Perform at least twice

• Increase social media following

• Have a planned music video

Before you can even begin to think about fans and present yourself as an artist, you have to have material. For some, this comes easily. For others not so much, this is not a problem, it just changes how you should plan your production process.

The internet will be your greatest tool. Take advantage of the wide range of materials. YouTube specifically will be a great aid to you. I recommend for singers to utilise the vocal training exercises and warm up techniques videos. Even if you have a strong voice, these are a great way to improve breathing as well as vocal range.

In terms of production, YouTube has many free beats, so use them! Even if you aren’t going to use that specific beat for the finished song, use them to help inspire you to write and as a practise for song creation. Practice writing to these to get material, but also to improve your confidence and songwriting skills.

There are many studios available, instead of looking at big brand studios, look for specific studios who have your interest at heart, ones like TekTricks, as to be recorded you shouldn’t have to pay thousands of pounds. Find a studio and a team that matches your work ethic, production rate and mind set. The music industry isn't easy to navigate and it is important you surround yourself with the right people and those who are genuine and wish to see you succeed.

As important as you as the artist is, remember, you are only as good as your producer! The mixing, mastering and recording quality, will be crucial to the quality of your finished song, so make sure you have someone who knows how to bring the best out of the beats you are using as well as laying your vocals properly into the track.

This is important as your fans will define how far you will go in your career, this is your target market as an artist.

Putting yourself out there is the beginning to growing your fan base! Here are some suggestions on how to do that:

• Get on social medias- Instagram, twitter, Facebook, SnapChat! [For tips on social media, visit my other blog post!] plus IGTV is a new great way to promote videos!

• Go to open mics

• Try busking

• Find new talent showcases

• Join Star Now, Backstage and other opportunity providing platforms.

• Get in studio!

• Visit local or Uni radios!

• Post for your fans e.g. Q&A, music reviews, live stream.

The key is to keep people engaged, in order to build a fan base.

Start streaming

-put tracks on Sound Cloud to start off with, once you have developed and refined yourself push to platforms such as Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon Music and Deezer.

- A good way to get out there also is to use the cover photo for the song and make it into a video for YouTube or IGTV.