New acoustic music from the UK

KevinMin

Hey Folks

Just looking for a small tiny tiny favour.

Recently I released my debut album which I completed independently without any record label or manager etc.

I play a Lowden F35c Cocobolo / Spruce
I hired 14 musicians, recorded at Brighton Electric by a local mercury-nominated producer.

I am extremely proud of this work, it took me around 2 years, from the songwriting, to recording to releasing.

The favour I am asking is for you to simply take a listen on YouTube, or Spotify it's all free isn't it. 

bit.ly/2eLW97I

Thank you, 
Kev

danishbacon

A link would help? Welcome to the forum!

KevinMin

Wooops!  Apologies

Here's the link.  

bit.ly/2eLW97I

Thank  you, 
Kev

sweepy

I’ll give it a good listen when I get home and can put it through some decent monitors, well done for completing your work though, many people fizzle out and never get things finalised. 

KevinMin

Thanks Sweepy, yes its a long a tough process.  Ill look forward to your thoughts  

darcym

do you actually want feedback or are you just trawling for views, it reads to me (personally) like you're just spamming your links, it looks like you've joined up on this forum just to post your music links to get views/listens as this request for listens is your first post. Fully accept I may be a harsh view to take, hence why I'm asking are you actually looking for feedback / discussion. 

KevinMin

I am looking for others ways to get my music out there.  Currently touring and posting on socials lots.  As a DIY artist, I am trying to be creative with my promotion.   I am (honestly)  looking for feedback also, so it is both, apologies if title was a bit mis-leading, sounds like a poor answer to your question but I was in a bit of a rush and should of titled it better.  
Edit : have changed the title. 

darcym

appreciate the response but just posting on guitar forums asking for listens isn't really promotion to me, it's just spam, more so when you've just signed up just for the reason of posting it. 

I respect people doing their own thing, I've been trying longer than you and failing to finish my work, so I admire that you've done it, but this just feels poor to sign up to spam your music.

VimFuego

I'll differ from darcym (though clearly he is entitled to his opinion) I have no issue with someone joining a music based forum then posting links to their music, it's the new way artists get their stuff out there, it's not like he's going into random threads and posting links.
Listening to Dark Stars right now, quite like it, good arrangement with the stings and all. Will have a proper listen later.

darcym

VimFuego said:

I'll differ from darcym (though clearly he is entitled to his opinion) I have no issue with someone joining a music based forum then posting links to their music, it's the new way artists get their stuff out there, it's not like he's going into random threads and posting links.
Listening to Dark Stars right now, quite like it, good arrangement with the stings and all. Will have a proper listen later.

totally fair, as I said, I think my stance on this is quite harsh and I see it all over forums, facebook groups everything "hey could I ask a favour could you just listen to my music" this isn't marketing to me, this is just spam (as I've mentioned).

I think "favours" are normally taken from people you have at least a basic relationship with, eg: been on the forum, talking about guitars, talking about the recording process, being a contributed and then asking a "favour" joining a forum and the first post is "help me get listens" is where I feel the spam comes in. 

This is more common in facebook groups "buy and sell amp group" for example "I know this is offtopic but...." - then don't ask.

KevinMin

Thank you Vimfuego. 

Darcym, i do understand your point, and i could of worded this better,  but I just want you to see where I am coming from. 

After working extremely hard to finish my album and being a DIY artist it's so easy for music to be lost in the world of Spotify, Youtube etc.   Major labels still run the show, and its difficult for independents to get some notice.  
Therefore I am trying a lot of different ways to get my music heard.   I am just about to go on a 2 week Germany tour, driving from Brighton to Berlin and around and back.
All artist (including major label artist) have to use social media, forums and anything creatively to get music heard.   The majority of artist won't have a marketing budget.   
My 'favour' is just for people to take a listen (for free) and I then just hope people like the music. 

TheBigDipper

Welcome to the forum, Kevin.

Just so you know, there's a section called 'Plug My Stuff' where you can post this sort of thing. That's where I'd expect to go if I wanted to listen to new offerings from other members. That's why putting it in Music might feel a bit like spamming to some of us. You're not (yet) an artist we've heard of, so, for some, using this category might seem a bit inappropriate. 

Now you're here, do make sure you stick around and contribute! In return, I'll take a listen later on. 

darcym

I totally get how hard it is, I'm struggling to even finish my work, let alone make it available to people, however joining forums and groups and posting "please listen to my music" doesn't strike me personally as different, unique or thoughtful, it just strikes me as spam, the same as every other single person is doing, and my point about asking for a favour is normally because it's because there is "something" there to ask for a favour from, eg: if you'd been on this forum while you'd been writing and recording this, talking about how hard it had been, the recording techniques, how you found the gear you wanted to use, the problems with the gear, I think I'd be more happy about this post, but just joining to spam "please listen" for me doesn't inspire me to respond to the favour, and to be honest there is no wording (for me) that would have made this better, because you've just joined to ask for people to listen to your music, I'm not sure how wording would have changed that for me.

I agree that with limited/no budget you have to be creative, but honestly, what do you think is creative about just signing up to as many forums as possible and asking for links, this is what everyone is doing, being creative would have been to get people involved in the story of the writing and recording so that the payoff is listening to the finished item that people have seen you work on, that to me would be more creative than basically doing manually what you could do with a spam bot. Entering one of the challenges on the forum around "riff of the week" style and using your music to show where more of that sort of riff could be found would be creative, but that requires work, effort and thought, this feels like fire and forget then move onto the next forum and repeat, it's lazy and what everyone is doing, I don't personally see much creativity in it.

I must stress this is just my view, not the others on the forum.

horse

For what it's worth, my initial thought was the same as @darcym but I couldn't be arsed to say it. Most online communities are more receptive to those who at least try to contribute something before 'making use of the marketing potential'

KevinMin

Hey Big Dipper I sure will.  I am a guitar tutor by trade also, so happy to contribute.   Noted on the 'plug my stuff' section.  

Teetonetal

Had a quick listen to the you tube video. Mixed opinion:

Not keen on the vocal, it's just quite a dull, "nothing" voice, but I don't think the mix is helping, or perhaps youtube compression, there was something in there that I found really off-putting. I didn't enjoy listening to it.

Music and guitar playing are really nice. Can't fault that aspect at all.

Stuckfast

Well I listened to 'Dark Stars'.

It's pleasant but there is an awful lot of music in the same vein around, and I can't quite see that it has what it takes to stand out from the crowd.

I agree the mix isn't helping. It sounds kind of pinched and nasal, as though someone accidentally boosted 800Hz on the EQ.

More fundamentally though I think that if you go round asking complete strangers to listen to your music as a favour, they're not going to come to it expecting to like it, so even if they do go and listen to it, you won't get much benefit from that.

ToneControl

Just imagine if you'd been on the forum for a year and then posted a link to your new album.
Imagine the support and enthusiasm of people, listening to the work of "one of their own"

hat's off to seeking new listeners, but by joining then posting your music as the first post, not that surprising that not everyone is very enthusiastic 

Clashman

I will give you a link to my latest album on here next year
if I forget please remind me.

Teetonetal

What's the difference between turning up to a new venue and playing in front of strangers, hoping they like you vs joining a music forum, sharing your music and asking people to listen?

In both cases, you are assuming that the audience are at least going to be vaguely interested in hearing new music.