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The Art Of The Singer Songwriter 
"To Be Free Or Not To Be Free" That Is The Question
Posted 19-Dec-09As ever I always feel a bit reflective as a year comes to a close. It's been abusy one what with a new baby of 5 months now Clarisse and my first littlegirl Alicia (3) going through a brain scan and thank god she's gonna be ok.Love t.l.c and physio will get us through, enough said.Somehow I'm surviving the credit crunch and continue to work my backsideoff as a carpenter, a.v technician and playground installer. At times thepressure to support my family and hold the music together feels it could makeme crack.This thing of giving my music away is really bugging me, I network with lots of people in this new music industry and there are two arguments/views. To givemusic away that costs money and a lot of effort, sweat and tears to makedevalues my art, talent, gift whatever you wanna call it and stops me frombeing taken seriously, yet others say you have to give something to gain loyalfans/supporters of my music.The main thing is the music, these songs are precious to me yet they deserveto be shared. I've been told on previous blogs (I'm all over the web like afriendly rash) that I inspire and that is wonderful. As you can see I'm callingthis stage a "cyber busk" and their is a choice and I'm trying to achievea compromise between the two arguments.To do everything that a label, publisher or publicist would do is a mammothtask. I'm a musician and not a business man but I trust myself and I know theeffort is going in, I was looking into paying for PR (£1000 a month)I'd be a foolto do this whilst giving my music away and where the hell do I get the sparegrand from, I could give some tracks away I hear you say but there is a choiceof download for free or use i-Tunes and the like.Watching the payment figures can be at times like a perpetualdangling carrot, yes I have to monitor the distributors efforts as well. Not likeme to be negative and of course I'm delighted that more and more people aresigning up to my site and downloading and yes some actually pay.I've been approaching publishers and small labels with regard to getting someother people on board. This would be at a price of course. Who doessomething for nothing, also you have to watch out for the sharks that arecreaming pounds/dollars of artists like myself for ridiculous services likereviewing music, submissions to career furthering angels, ironic that theyare taking money from people that don't have any money whilst deluding themthat they will.
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AlGoodwin

Laurel, are you receiving. For you and the world. Love,music and a splendid chrimbo and new year. Al.

reply12 / 19 / 2009
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