How To Release Your Music Online

You have three different choices for charging for your music: free, pay-what-you-want, and a set price. Each has their own advantages and different services that work better. Knowing that, let's break down the best places to upload your music based on how much you want for it.

 If you're releasing your first set of songs, you might want to start by giving your Music away for free. This helps people find it and share it. It also gives you a chance to get feedback from friends and family. You have a few good options to choose from here: Soundcloud: Soundcloud is the easiest to use free music upload service. It takes just a couple clicks to upload a song and once you do, you can embed your music everywhere from Facebook to your Tumblr account. You can allow people to download it, stream it, and if you choose you can even allow people to remix it. It's also a free way to connect with other musicians, follow artists you like, and create a small community around your songs. But the biggest appeal? You can allow people to comment anywhere in the song. This means you'll get personalized feedback on each section of your song. It's hard to get used to all the criticism, but it will help you improve in the long run.
Reverb Nation: If there's an equivalent to Myspace out there right now, it's Reverb Nation. Part social network and part personalized website, Reverb Nation allows you to put tracks online for streaming, share them on Facebook, and showcase your bio and upcoming shows. It's a bit clunky to look at, but it's free and gets the job done.
Upload to the streaming services: If you're interested in the streaming services,Spotmeup is a free tool to submit your songs to Spotify and Pandora allows independent artists to submit songs, but has to approve them first. Other streaming services likeRhapsody and Rdio require you to go through a distribution service (we'll get to how to do this below).
RPM Challenge: February 1 marks the start of the RPM Challenge, a contest where you're tasked with writing, recording, and releasing an album within the month of February (similar to how NaNoWriMo works for novels). If you're up to it, it's a great place to upload your new songs and get feedback from others taking part in the contest.

You Should Have Been There

This past Sunday, accomplished hip-hop artist and producer DJ Quik performed at Sokol Hall. I saw posters for the show in various places, it was mentioned in publications here in town, and there was even a You Tube video promoting this show. Less than 200 people attended the performance, and I am not sure the reason for the low attendance. What I do know is that this was one of the best hip-hop shows that I have seen, and the actions and performances on stage would serve as a lesson to many other artists.

DJ Quik has gold and platinum records under his name. He has also produced tracks for 2Pac, Snoop Dogg, Will Smith, the Gap Band, Jay-Z, Nate Dogg and many more. Sokol Hall on Sunday looked empty, and in my experience many artists with a similar resume and length of time in the business would have either phoned in a show or complained about the turn-out the entire time. A lot of lesser-known bands, and even local artists have done the same many times when they felt a turnout was less than they deserve. The low turnout was never mentioned on stage at all by the local acts or the nationals. Instead, Omaha hip-hop artists Shannon Marie and ASO along with nationals Killer Mike, Big Pooh, and DJ Quik performed as if they were playing to a sellout crowd.

Quik, looking 15 years younger than his current age of 41, was all over the stage, down front with the audience, and eventually rapping in the middle of the auditorium on the floor with the crowd circled around him dancing. He performed many songs off of 1991’s “Quik Is The Name.” his most widely known work. At one point he stopped and asked the audience, “What was yesterday?” Quik’s DJ then switched the music to Michael Jackson’s “Billie Jean” and Quik danced in honor of the second anniversary of Jackson’s death.

Quik spent a good amount of time behind the turntables towards the end of the set, and at this point it felt like a house party. He then paid tribute to the vocalist Nate Dogg, who passed away earlier this past year. He started the tribute by singing along to Warren G and Nate Dogg’s “Regulate” before doing a full-on cover of Snoop Dogg’s  “Ain’t No Fun,” which originally featured Nate Dogg on vocals. The only downside to the show was that he didn’t perform much material off his past two albums: 2010’s “Book Of David” and 2009’s collaborative effort with Karupt entitled “BlaQKout.” These two albums are amongst the best of his career and Quik is arguably putting out better material now than at his height of popularity. Those albums are not full of party anthems, though, and the crowd that did show up at Sokol was definitely there for a fun time and DJ Quik delivered just that

The final main stage act for the MAHA Festival has been announced. Des Moines-based, Envy Corps, will round of the main stage line up. I have written many times here that they are one of my favorite regional acts, so it’s no surprise that I am excited that they are on the line up. The band draws well at its club shows, but hopefully this will expose them to a whole new audience here in Omaha. The MAHA Festival has not announced a new location for this year’s festival at this time.

MarQ Manner has been involved with music in Omaha his entire adult life – from managing and booking bands to a 15-year run as manager at Homer’s Records to writing a local music column for the past 10 years. Currently, Marq is the Music Nominating Chair for the Omaha Arts & Entertainment Awards.