Episode 1

Intros and Hook

Welcome to the show that explores the methods and strategies on lock in the financial side of your music business with over 40 years combined experience. Here are your host, Chris Webb and Dave Tamkin.

When we talk about musicians and money, we wanna take the mystery out of how a musician can make money beyond performing every night of their life, this show will explore the methods and strategies on creating assets in your music business, and how it is not a magic trick when musicians get steady cash flow from their talents, I'm your host, Chris Webb, joined by my co-host Dave Tamkin.

These are tough times to be a musician, everything is shut down, scaled back or postponed, we are faced with the reality that if we wanna continue making a living with our art, we will have to branch out of our usual gigging life and embrace this new reality. Today, we wanna get to know each other a bit, show there is nothing up our sleeves, and hopefully give you some ideas and motivation to find financial support with the gear and talents that you already possess, it's critical not to slip from your bigger long-term goals in reaction to these current challenges.

0:01:23.5 S1: So don't disappear, we'll be right back after this.

0:01:27.9 S2: University of Colorado, Denver announces a free and unique learning opportunity for local musicians, it's called the Community Music leadership program, it's an eight-week free online course, sessions will focus on career planning, advocacy, activism, social justice issues as a community building and more participants will be introduced to local music organizations and key stakeholders within the Denver and Colorado music economies, they've also been provided with information helpful to advancing their artistic careers and given opportunities to cultivate their professional networks. Deadline to apply for this free eight-week online class is February 21st.

0:02:56.5 S2: Seeing the talents of local musicians, Sound Bridge Music connects artists with opportunities to bring music to those in need of the unique comfort, empowerment, healing and sense of belonging that only music can provide. Much like this podcast, Chris. Excellent.

0:03:13.5 S1: We got some quotes of the week too. The first one: “The world always seems brighter when you've just made something that wasn't there before.”

Also, we have a quote from John F. Kennedy, If art is to nourish the roots of our culture, society must set the artist free to follow his vision wherever it takes him.”

Each week, we're gonna try to break down the topic into three categories, so we can kind of keep it as simple as possible. This week, we're gonna talk about why we're doing this podcast, who we are, and ways to generate quick funds. So let's get started with this.

Why are we doing this podcast... This is a podcast about musicians and money, it was born out of a pandemic, watching friends really struggle with no plan, no savings, and a lot of them were the only one or two sources of income. When you started to realize that there's a space that needs to be filled, some place where we can create a message and a resource that provides hope and motivation and answers to the tough questions of what musicians need to know, we will have guest experts to answer the toughest and most detailed questions about money in the music business, there is an ever-growing world of ways for an independent musician to not only make money online, but create long-lasting assets, passive income.

0:04:44.2 S1: So you might ask yourself, who are these two that are speaking so close to my ears

0:04:58.7 S1: That's true. It'll be like they're standing in between a conversation... We are not here to be the know it all experts, but understand, we hope to be that thread that connects the community from experts to novice and everybody in between. Certainly, we both have been around the music industry long enough to know that as soon as you think you know, you don't know, we are here to help with the financial side of being a successful independent musician. Dave, why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself?

0:05:29.7 S2: Well, thanks for making me go first, Chris, 'cause anything I say now, you're going to edit more stuff on your end, and it won't be as cool. I graduated from the Paul University with a business marketing degree after three years in the music program with the focus on classical guitar, and I was taking a lot of contract law classes. I enjoyed the business side, and I wasn't spending enough time in the rehearsal room as I should have, and there were way better musicians than me that influenced me to focus on being a song writer, so when I graduated with that business degree, I went on the road for almost 10 years, and toured all over the country as a singer-songwriter, and when I moved to Boulder, Colorado, I started www.headabovemusic.com in 2008.

0:06:48.2 S2: And since then, I've been helping people all over the globe with lead generation on their e-commerce sites and helping musicians find a niche to make money, not only performing, but to utilize their online presence and branding to make an income. And hopefully, I can take that experience and get it to our listeners.

0:07:12.3 S1: Yeah, and my name is Chris web. I'm a singer-songwriter, guitar player, recording artist, producer and educator. I have dedicated my life to being a professional musician, artist teacher. Currently, I'm at the University of Colorado in Denver. I mostly teach in the singer songwriter program, a couple of classes there on electronic music, and I coach a lot of kids. They're not kids, I'm sorry. I coach a lot. You know you have 26 years in the music experience, when you start calling people kids. I teach a lot of singer-song writers about songwriting, form, business, mixing, everything down the whole line with that, I know you have plenty of students that ask you questions all the time about law contracts that they're in... Can't get out of... So hopefully, you could bring a lot of that to the table, and if we don't have the answers, we could find people that do... Absolutely, we will be that connection. The past two decades in my career, in particular, I have grown a passion for business and finance, I have helped countless artists and bands create effective plans to thrive at this point, and I believe in giving your all, being willing to fail and keeping your efforts focused on your goals.

0:08:55.8 S2: Hopefully in Episode 2, I can come up with a better intro and hopefully Chris gives me that opportunity, 'cause I'm going to have nine sentences.

0:09:48.5 S1: The first three episodes, we're gonna dedicate two ways to generate quick funds, quick income to keep you going on your long-term goals, what the pandemic has done to our landscape with our venues and gatherings and events has pretty much changed the way we all approach being a performer. It is important to remember that as much as things close off and die in this new reality, great things also will emerge. Next week, we'll be talking about the intro and basics of livestream concerts.

0:10:26.0 S2: I look forward to discussing that with you because in March, everyone started live streaming as soon as all the shows shut down, I lost many dates in April off the West Coast, and I was nervous, and it was fun to find different ways to present yourself to an audience, especially when you can hit everyone all over the globe, it wasn't just in a venue, so... where did I go? First Facebook than Instagram, and now even Facebook has come along with ticketing, so you can contend block your show, so you can make some extra money doing that. At first, we just started saying, give us a donation to PayPal, help us out. The following week, we'll talk about busking, selling and writing.

0:12:01.4 S1: Yeah, it's an overlooked opportunity when we think there's only online options now or getting a gig at an actual location, it's easy as professionals to forget that we can just go out on the street and do it like we did in the beginning of our careers.

Writing is the third part of that second episode, and that will be specifically to how we can be creative and contribute our abilities to create music and sell it directly to platforms. The third of these three will be about teaching online and how you can do that to anybody in the world, and at any time, it's something that we can show you how to grow a quick list of clients and have them stick around weekly for a long time.

0:13:28.8 S2: So if someone wants to reach out and put some tips into a jar or reach out to us with suggestions. What's the best way to do that? You can reach us at our email musicianstipjar@gmail.com. . Or check out our website at musicianstipjar.com

0:13:56.7 S1: We are all in this together as artists, as creatives, this is a time when we will need to lean on each other for support, ideas and resources, the only time we fail is when we give up. So thank you for being here. Let's find success together, and remember that there's always enough for everyone, you just need to know how to get it...

Until next time, on behalf of Dave Tamkin and myself, stay healthy. Take care of each other. This is a musician’s tip jar.

Intro Music Donated by: The Magi www.themagimusic.com

Intro Read by: David Lee of The Magi

https://soundcloud.com/rockababyrock