That Jazz - Monkey Max Music and File Download

282
Part IV: I Like the Way You Play: The Jazz Musician
� Most every band has a Web site now, and if you’re the leader, it’s your
job to put one up or get someone to do it for you. It’s not expensive to
register a domain name like dirksdirtyband.com, and it’s also affordable
to get space on a server where you can park your site. Designing a basic
site is fairly simple. You don’t have to learn programming code; the Web
software available writes the code for you. All you have to do is design.
If you don’t have the time or interest, I guarantee there’s a 16-year-old
in your neighborhood who can create something simple in exchange
for a few CDs, a few bucks, or a credit and e-mail address as your Web
designer that helps him land more of his own Web designing gigs.
There are many ways to publicize your Web site:
• Ask writers to include the address at the bottom of articles about
your band.
• Put the address on bumper stickers, business cards, CDs, fliers,
and T-shirts.
• Put your band on Web sites such as www.craigslist.com and
include your Web address.
• Ask friends and fellow musicians to include links to your Web site
on their Web sites or myspace.com pages (myspace.com is a huge
online community where musicians can put their music out to a
mass audience for free).
Smiling for the camera
A good publicity shot is priceless in terms of the visibility it earns your
group. Many musicians don’t have photos at all, others have bad ones. For
general purposes you want a simple, clear black-and-white shot. A photo of
one musician with an instrument is preferable to a shot of an entire group; a
tight shot of band members together is better than a distant shot that shows
the band and a stage in front of an audience. Many publications run your
photo very small, and the more distant the shot, the smaller you and your
group look in a tiny reproduction of the photo. Don’t use one that’s too silly,
or cluttered with stuff like furniture, buildings, or cars. At the size many
photos are reproduced, a simple image looks much more dramatic.
With modern technology and more and more affordable digital cameras,
it’s fast and easy to take reasonably good publicity shots on your own. Have
someone in your band take the picture or turn to a friend, an amateur photographer,
or a photography student at the local college who can take some
pictures as a favor, for the experience, or for a nominal fee.