Are you a musician / artist?

I’m wondering if you can spend a minute to help me help artists like you.
I am trying to gather some anonymous research data from artists on what is an affordable amount of money per month for them to spend to obtain assistance towards a successful music career.

I have been in the process of trying to restructure my company, Pro Soul to be able to assist artists. We are exploring various monthly subscription based packages that will provide artists with consulting, services, and resources they need to develop a strong healthy career and fan base depending on what they need and can afford.

All you have to do to assist and state your opinion is fill out 2 short polls:

WWW.jarome.com/poll/

Pro Soul’s new mission is twofold: To provide music fans with great music by diverse International artists and to affordably assist artists in developing their career in a changing music industry to build a strong, long lasting audience they have a close relationship with that will create financial rewards that far surpass those possible with simple CD sales.

The new music industry is drastically changing, moving away from major record corporations and back to independent artists, moving away from physical product to digital media. Economics will bring in $4.8 billion in revenue from digital downloads in the US alone in 2012.
I blogged about the changes in the music industry more here:
the-end-of-the-music-industry-as-we-know-it

In this receding tide, Pro Soul’s aim is to assist artists to clear the path of discovery and purchase of music by enabling artists to more easily connect with their fans, and enable fans to purchase and access music more easily than they ever have before.

Pro Soul will consult artists with information provided by the worlds most knowledgeable experts in the future of the music industry, and provide virtually every aspect of what an artist will need in their career, performing those duties the artist does not want to take on themselves. We will provide the latest innovative techniques and services that have been proven to work to bring paying, dedicated fans to artists.

Key individual behind Pro Soul will be myself founder, music producer, audio engineer, and composer for over 17 years, Jarome Matthew. I achieved early acclaim with gold dance tracks on top 40 radio and a number of major label compilations in the early 1990’s and now produce and consults artists internationally and teach these things at a local college.

Although expenses and financial goals will be important in the first year, focus will be on assisting clients to become successful in generating enough new fans for them to see the signs of a successful long term career in the industry.

Right now all of this is just an idea developing. Based on the results of the poll and other research and consulting I am doing, and financial analysis, hopefully this will all be a great asset to artists and help me finally achieve my dream of really being able to help them.

Visit again to keep updated on how it’s going.

Last year I blogged about how the music industry is changing along with a lot of others…
Recently, A very detailed 18 page report has been published by renowned technology and market research company, Forrester. I don’t have access to the entire article, as that would be expensive, but here is the essence of it:

• Half of all music sold in the US will be digital in 2011 and sales of digitally downloaded music will surpass physical CD sales in 2012, reaching $4.8 billion in revenue by 2012, but in 2012, CD sales will be reduced to just $3.8 billion.
• “Media executives eager to stay afloat in this receding tide must clear the path of discovery and purchase, but only hardware and software providers can ultimately make listening to music as easy as turning on the radio.”
• The average MP3 player is only 57 percent full, suggesting that the devices are underutilized (correct in my case)
• DRM(digital rights management copy protection)-free music enables every profile page on MySpace.com or Facebook to immediately become a music store where friends sell friends their favorite tracks
• Cable TV style subscription music services will show modest growth, reaching just $459 million in revenue in 2012, while experiments in ad-supported downloads will be silenced by the powerful combination of DRM-free music and on-demand music streaming on sites like imeem.com
• It is now very clear: Digital Ownership IS The Music Model For The Future
• Forester’s recommendation to the ailing music industry: Solve The ‘Discovery Of New Music’ Problem Consumers Have First, Then Get Out Of The Consumer’s Way!

And the MOST important finding of this whole article in my opinion is:
“The industry has to redefine what its product is,” said analyst McQuivey. “Music executives have spent years tracking CD sales. But the ARTIST is the product — not just the source of it.
New forms of revenue will come from unexpected sources. For example, the industry has failed to capitalize on the growing popularity of video games such as Guitar Hero and Rock Band. In a market where musicians are happy to sell a million copies of a CD, a video game market where titles can sell five million copies is enough to motivate even the most depressed music executive.”
The Forrester report is based in part on a survey of more than 5,000 consumers in the US and Canada.

I found it particularly interesting that way back in 2001, Forester did a study that the industry essentially ignored that proved digital music sales to be the future of music.

More here: www.news.com/8301-10784_3-9874319-7.html
Forester document: www.forrester.com/go?docid=43759