Luke Di Somma, a friend of mine, has been accepted into the Tisch School of the Arts Graduate Musical Theatre Writing Program at New York University. He is based in Christchurch and is a fantastic composer and musical director and has many shows to his credit. You can check out his bio at his site, but my point is, for him to get to New York he needs $200,000. Yes, that’s correct. How is he going to get it? That is a very good question.

www.getluketonewyork.co.nz

Go check out his site and read up on all the awesome stuff he has been up to. If you happen to have a spare $200,000 sitting around then make sure you get in touch with him. If you don’t, he would still love to hear your support.

Bye for now, Ryan

Well NZ Music Month starts today!! Hope everyone gets out there and makes the most of it!! Click on the picture below and there is a BIG list of whats on, and links, and info, and … just go check it out!!

Hey guys, I’m now on Twitter … “what are you doing?”!

Check me out:

Ryan

Hey everyone,

Thought I’d just let you all know what I’ve been reading up on lately and have got very interested in. … Online music marketing and promotion, specifically relating to indie artists. I’ve subscribed to two podcasts and read a few books all which I thoroughly recommend. Before I mention the podcasts, note that you can subscribe through going to the site or just find it through iTunes.

The first podcast is Online Music Marketing with Jay Moonah. He is based in Toronto and has so many great ideas, tips and guests which make his podcasts fantastic. Examples include search engine optimization for artist websites, financing and fan incentives, using flash and videos, through to using MySpace and last.fm, through to owning your own (web) destiny.

The second is Artist Empowerment Radio brought to you by Bob Baker. He is absolutely full of knowledge on many areas and is “dedicated to helping creative people of all kinds get exposure, connect with fans and increase their incomes through their artistic passions.” I’ll get to his books soon, but his podcast covers similar topics to Online Music Marketing, but also leans towards Artist Empowerment, such as feeling good about your music, taking action, growing your career etc.

I’ve also been reading some books that I’ve found very interesting and full of great stuff. Three by Bob Baker (all books and much more available here: www.bob-baker.com):

And one by David Nevue (lots of resources and book available here: www.musicbizacademy.com):

“How to Successfully Promote Your Music on the Internet”

I won’t go into the books too much cause the titles kind of explain it all, but they are all definitely worth a read. There definitely was alot of information in them that I already knew (as most people would find who have an established MySpace account … for example), but there were always many more exciting things to discover. Both their websites are full of articles and resources also, so definitely worth checking out.

Hey everyone, another NZ events page is eventfinder.co.nz. It stacks up against NZLive really well for browsing through. But the catch is that to list events, or to monitor events, you have to pay. There is a free option but you can only list OR monitor ONE event at a time. NZLive seems to do everything it can plus a bit more and it’s free. Eventfinder have been around since the beginning of the year, so it will be interesting to see if/what they introduce to have that something different against NZLive. Anyway it IS a great site and definitely worth a look if you’re on the hunt for events.

If you’ve been to one or either site, let me know what you think.

Check it out www.eventfinder.co.nz.

Flipping heck! MySpace is amazing. I’ve always heard about it, and maybe about a year ago I signed up for the normal MySpace, but didn’t do anything to it. Then maybe a month or so ago I changed to MySpace Music and started getting friends, and put bio up, and just doing everything you do. And lol, its wicked. I’m hooked. Have been getting emails from all sorts of exciting people. Anyway soon I’ll get some music up and things will continue to grow which is awesome.

SO VISIT www.myspace.com/ryanyouens AND BECOME A FRIEND.

AWESOME!! NZLive is the new online home of everything cultural in New Zealand. It is fantastic. It has only just gone live but is already buzzing with hundreds of events and organisations. It is so comprehensive that I suggest you register to My NZLive, which lets you customise the site.

Hey everyone, for all of you who use the Sibelius software, this is an OUTSTANDING resources page with great fonts, plug-ins and resouces. I only just found it but it has been WOW SO USEFUL. Check it out…

www.rpmseattle.com/sibelius/