‘Marketing your music through podcasting’

While we are busy with online tools for musicians – here is a very informative post on podcasting – from the Magnatune blog.

 

Fair Trade Music – an interview with Brad Powell, President and Creative Director of Calabash Music

Calabashmusic.com is an online music shop – which artists can use directly to sell their music. We visit the site every week and the Calabash blog is also on our blogroll.Artists definitely must know about sites like Calabashmusic.com – since the music industry is changing – selling your music in mp3 and other audio formats are becoming very popular – using the Internet to connect with music fans, market and sell music is becoming the way to go.

The open content / open source community is involved in a big way in this – if you are clever enough you can actually do it all yourself – lots of freely available open source tools are available for musicians to record, remix, publish, market and sell their work. Click here to read an article on this.

If you are a musician and would like to find out more about the process of signing up and selling your music through calabashmusic.com – click here to read all the info you need.

Calabashmusic.com is just one of the many sites that use online tools to sell and promote music in a new much more exciting ways – contact us if you have a specific question on this topic – or listen to this interview at Here On Earth radio with Brad Powell, President and Creative Director of Calabash Music.

 

No hawkers allowed – an article on street trade

I met Netanya in 2003 – and ArtMarketOnline started.

This art project evolved naturally from me wanting to get to know the diverse cultures of the land while teaching artists web design – and it all started with sitting down with Netanya and teaching her basic web design skills. She is definitely one of the most interesting South Africans I have ever met. Her creativity, determination and bravery is just simply unbelievable. You need to be brave to become a street trader. This is what she writes on her experiences:

At a point in my life, a street trader sold peanuts and raisons for me. He informed me of trading licenses and where to get them. I went to the Traffic Department Offices here, and asked whether or not I needed a trading license to set up a street stand. A woman there told me that I did not need one, because I was selling jewellery and not food. The only catch was that I could not sit in front of shops selling similar items, I could sit anywhere. Amen to free enterprise – or so I thought.

Click here to visit her site and read the rest of the article.

 

Ikageng Arts and Crafts – website launch

We have set up the website for our Ikageng Arts and Crafts group – click here to visit the site.

 

Take part in the SAfro-Brazilian remix

ccMixter has announced a new remix contest – click here for more info!

 

The world’s most important 6-sec drum loop

Click here to see a fascinating 20 minute video by Nate Harrison about the history of the Amen break – a 6 second drum loop that was first recorded in 1969.This short drum loop has been used many times in various compositions over the years – and is a great example of how creativity works and how we always build on the work of those before us.
If you like the video and the idea of using loops from other artists for your own songs – visit ccMixter to download freely available loops and you can also add your own for others to use.

 

Ngoma Vuma website

The site ready – and Okeno & Nthabi has also finished their basic computer skills course.The first months with Ngoma Vuma Afrika have been great – working with these musicians has been really rewarding – they are really hard working – never short of new ideas and projects to do. They already have plans that will make up the next phase of their training.

We have exciting plans with them for the next few months. Since Aardklop is Software Freedom Day is coming up – we will be working on a special Aardklop program with them and we are also planning an African music workshop and performance as part of the celebrations during Software Freedom Day.

 

Ikageng Arts & Crafts

We have started training two members of Ikageng arts & crafts – which is a small organization busy with various arts and crafts projects including paintings, fabric paintings, wire work, bead work, sewing, leather shoes and leather bags amongst others.Sam and Ethel from the group are busy with their basic computer skills training and we have also started to collect material we can use for their art site.

 

Ngoma Vuma Afrika

A warm welcome to the members of Ngoma Vuma Afrika.

They are a 15 member percussion group playing songs from different parts of Africa.

The band leader, Peter Okeno is from Kenya – all other members are students of the local School of music majoring in different musical instruments.

The team has already launched their first CD – click here to read more about the event and the band itself .

The team’s program at ArtMarketOnline includes basic computer skills training, we will also be setting up a website as well and teach some of the band members how to maintain their new website.

Those nominated to maintain the team’s website will be coming weekly to do regular website updates.

This is quite an interesting project for us at the OpenCafe – we normally work with individuals so this will be the first time we get busy with a team of musicians.

 

“Help, I am being spontaneous!”

….said Jim Carrey – in the Truman show and started driving around in a circle. After 30 years of living a typical middle class 9 to 5 life – he decided to get out of it.

When one travels one sees various different structures, rules that everyone in that community sticks to – and if they are lucky – they are good rules. I have travelled around a bit and tried to make sure that I learn from everything I see and use that knowledge to better my life.

At the OpenCafe we try to do things according to the above realization and encourage everyone to step outside the box and reexamine things.

One very important rule is – Get Creative. Do something. For yourself – or for others. Make a necklace. Play a song. Set up an OpenCafe.:-) It’s all up to you. Come up with an idea and we will try to support you – provide you with basic computer skills, computer and Internet access, webspace to host and maintain your project sites, and more.

When it comes to music – the cafe is a place for free basic music lessons. Mainly for those interested in playing the violin or guitar. We have some acoustic and an electric guitar and all you have to do is – design a “music program” for yourself – we discuss it – and as long as you keep to your program – you can carry on using the facilities – although you have to drive your own training – we’ll continuously support you to learn the basics of tuning the guitar and playing basic chords and strumming patterns.

We play music every day at the cafe , click here to have a look at photos of our OpenDay which turned out to be a music workshop.