Curt Siffert

It's been quite a crazy experience trying to understand the pop and singer/songwriter scene as it applies to piano.

Here's the situation. You have a piano, some piano skills, and you can sing a little. You write some songs for the piano. In any batch of songs, you're going to have some songs that absolutely require a band, some songs that absolutely require a real piano, and other songs that are still just fine for a random electric keyboard with no backing musicians.

When you're starting out, you're basically limited to the third type of song. All your band songs (for me that would be Damn My Eyes and Not Today) can't really even be performed. Other songs that really should be played on a grand (for me that would be She Believes and Old Friend) sound more like a pale imitation of themselves when you play them on a keyboard pumped through an small sound system.

And so for piano songwriters, it becomes a sort of permanent treasure hunt to find where and how to play. Every once in a while you think you find a possibility and then you get a curveball. Here are some of the recents.

• Jo Federigo's in Eugene - I traveled down there with Debbie, after hearing Lisa Forkish rave about playing on their piano and for their audience - their website said they were still open, but their telephone had a mysterious voice mail message explaining they were closed until further notice.
• Martin's off Madison in Seattle - I heard there was an open mic night here with a real grand piano and was very excited to attend. Took Debbie and loved the atmosphere and the food, and they had a great pianist there. Soon it dawned on me, however, that all the piano music was loungy jazz standards, heavy on Bacharach and music theater, and that Debbie was the only woman in the entire place. And I confirmed with the waitstaff that "open mic" basically meant singing karaoke while the pianist backs you up. Not that there's anything wrong with that, of course, but disappointing to find a cool piano bar only to find that it doesn't cater to your style of music.
• 88 keys in Seattle - there is a monthly songwriting event here at a dueling piano bar. I attended tonight - it was pretty funny because the pianos aren't even real - they're digital keyboards in grand piano shells. It actually wasn't bad, because the stage and sound were quite good, but the event is on a Tuesday night when the area is completely dead - it's tough as a songwriter to sign up for a 30-minute showcase slot and have no one in the audience other than the other songwriters that have showed up. It's not a good way to build an audience.

I had a great meeting with Jake Oken-Berg recently and we talked about other venues in town that are good for various levels of local songwriters. There's a good piano at Wilf's Restaurant, but it is more for jazz musicians that can fill up a three-hour set - I'm not sure they are amenable for a shared bill where each person might have forty-five minutes. There are venues like Jimmy Mak's with a great piano, if you can guarantee that you'll fill the room pretty well. There's a nice-looking smaller venue in Seattle named Egan's in Ballard that might have possibilities for if you can't guarantee a big crowd. The entire question is how to get started and put on enough of a good show with the puny songs and the electric keyboard and the small sound systems, to gather up enough fans to be able to justify the nicer venues. Tough road.

What seems like a possibility is the house party circuit - finding a collection of folks with grand pianos in their homes and putting on small concerts. I've got some brainstorms in the works for that, as I get closer to having a good hour of original material.

I have some rehearsal recordings posted - I'm letting some of my mailing list subscribers hear them because more ears are always better! If you're interested in hearing them and sharing what you think, come on over and join the mailing list. Here are some former rehearsal recordings that I've worked up and deemed good enough to release publicly: http://www.reverbnation.com/tunepak/1378735.

I recently signed up for "pay-to-play" promotions for Last.fm and Jango.

Last.fm and Jango are both systems that will recommend your music to others based off of similar tastes. Users of the sites listen to music through their online players, and they get a mix of artists that are their favorites, and new artists the system believes they will like based off of analyses of "similar artists".

The question for independent artists is how to break into that and get your music recommended to new ears. On the one hand, the whole point is for listeners to find new artists - that's you! On the other hand, the system needs to know about you, which requires many listens from many people. It's a catch-22.

So the way around that is to buy plays from these services. There are of course a variety of opinions on whether a good artist should even need to do this, but listeners need to hear about music somehow.

I decided to test Last.fm against Jango. I used two of my songs, She Believes and Damn My Eyes, and I picked the smallest play package for each. Here are the results:

• First, I signed my last.fm copy of Damn My Eyes up for a promotion of 100 plays for $20. I chose similar artists of Ben Folds, Jamie Cullum, Harry Connick, Jr., Randy Newman, and Marc Cohn.
  • Full Listens: 71
  • Skips: 27
  • Loves: 3
  • Bans: 1

  In addition, another last.fm user recommended it to a friend of theirs.

• Then, I signed my last.fm copy of She Believes up for the same promotion - 100 plays for $20. I chose similar artists of Billy Joel, Ben Folds, Jamie Cullum, and Harry Connick, Jr.
  • Full Listens: 75
  • Skips: 23
  • Loves: 0
  • Bans: 0

  In addition, two people outside of the campaign "loved" the track during this time.

• Then, I signed myself up for Jango - on my artist page you can see the rough results. I ran two separate promotions. The first one was for Damn My Eyes. The minimum was $30 for 1000 plays. You need 50 "likes" for a song to get into general rotation. After 1000 plays, I had somewhere around 200 likes, and 10-12 fans.
• After that, I signed up again for She Believes, for another 1000 plays. I got another 150 likes and another 6-8 fans I believe. It's hard to tell which stats are for which songs because their stats page doesn't list a complete history, but that seems to be the rough breakdown.

To judge these results you can go listen to my songs to get a relative sense compared to other music you like. But when judged against each other, my rough conclusions are that Damn My Eyes is slightly more likeable (in a broad sense) than She Believes - however I find that She Believes tends to make a stronger impression on the people that like it.

But regarding the services themselves, while it was fun getting the extra listens, I'm still not sure of the benefit of either of these services, for a variety of reasons.

1. Last.fm does not give you a sense of where that critical mass point is. How many listens does it take for them to start recommending you after a paid promotion? After the conclusion of my promotion, I haven't noticed any additional plays of my tunes through last.fm. Having no sense of how many listens it takes, I don't find it worth the money to pay for additional promotions.
2. It's too early to tell with Jango since my promotion just ended, but I think I am getting at least a couple of plays a day out of Jango now, after the conclusion of the promotions. That's not a lot. I'll report back here if that jumps up at all.
3. Response rate sucks. I tried writing my last.fm listeners to say thank you, and I got some new last.fm "friends" out of it, but out of more than 100 messages that I sent, only two wrote back, and I only got one new signup to my mailing list. I am sure this is because many of the plays had to have been to passive listeners.
4. It's the same with Jango. I've tried writing all of my 18 fans independently and I got one signup - a guy that joined my facebook group. This is better than last.fm, but Jango is still confusing here - I can see on my page who has "liked" me and who has signed up as a "fan". In terms of functionality, there is absolutely no difference. I can't write all my fans at once.

My whole strategy at this phase of my career is to build my mailing list and write songs. I don't yet have a cd or a product to sell, so I use my music to build my mailing list so I have as many likely buyers as possible when I eventually do have something to sell. So from my perspective anyway - and factor in your own opinions of my music quality - it doesn't look like these services are worth the results. I basically paid $50 per lead. (Update: Jango response rate is getting better - their listeners might be more active.)

Now, there are several things that could moderate these conclusions:

1. Continued future plays could yield more mailing list signups, which could make the services feel "worth it". I'm noticing Jango plays, but not Last.fm plays.
2. Since my two tracks are well-mixed but one-off rehearsal takes, better produced studio versions of the same songs might yield better results
3. Flat-out better music might yield better results, but that would always be true even if you're Mozart.
4. I'm sure I could design a website that would better designed for increasing mailing list signups.

But overall I think it's important to note that both of these services appear geared to the listeners, not the musicians. It does a good job of introducing new music to listeners, but neither do anything towards encouraging the listeners to become active supporters of the musicians behind the music. There is a lot of music out there, and you're really just sort of being anonymously presented to people. This creates a low likelihood of building an actual relationship.

Update: I'm informed that Jango is only a few weeks old. My impressions of Jango overall are positive, and it's clear they're actively working on functionality. After getting another 3-4 mailing list signups I'm more optimistic that Jango's promotions might be worth it.

You might notice some small changes around here. I've cleaned up the right sidebar and the tabs up top.

One of the things that is interesting about slowly adopting and growing into the self-definition of a songwriter is watching old expectations and theories fall away as they get replaced with new ones. They can be as minor as believing it's essential to have all my social links on the right sidebar. I guess I've switched to thinking that cleanliness is more organized and more attractive to whoever might come and blaze through the site. In the future I'll probably rework my bio (it's already a bit dated) and maybe the site design itself.

Each time I post a new song to my site, I'm hoping for another microscopic (or macroscopic) boost to find new fans. But creating the music isn't enough, I have to find new ways to get the word out - and that's where you can help.

The number one best method is for you to use your own creativity - if you think there are professional opportunities for any of my songs, then go ahead and follow up and see what happens - it couldn't hurt! But beyond that, here are some simple ideas:

1. If you're on facebook, join my facebook group. Facebook is a highly connected place and it's very possible to recommend music to friends and start pushing things in a viral direction.
2. Check out my player on the right sidebar - there are ways to share it and republish it on your own web page or blog.
3. Go through the links on my right sidebar and if you have any memberships to any of the relevant sites, "add" me, "like" me, do whatever seems appropriate to boost my numbers - most of these sites react to additional popularity by increasing the likelihood a song will be recommended to new people.
4. Simply recommend the site or the songs to friends you know - the more people on my mailing list, the better.
5. Send me suggestions! I'm always curious about other effective ways to get the word out.

In the meantime, I'm continuing to work on writing new songs and coming up with enough repertoire to be able to gig in a variety of circumstances. In addition to the songs on the Songs tab, beyond Damn My Eyes, I have two more songs completed, one other mostly completed, and three others in workshop mode. They'll all exist soon enough.

I dug up one of my old songs from my back catalog. This song isn't particularly representative of my current direction (for one thing, there are no instruments), but I'm fond of the memory. College a cappella goodness, and much more difficult a song than those guys had any business being subjected to. Kudos to them for getting through it. Vagabond Blues.

So one of the cultural realities of being an online musician is the whole routine of trying to find fans. There's all this advice out there about how to not approach finding fans. You're supposed to not talk about yourself, but also sell yourself, but only ask others about themselves, but find support, but not look for them, but make it easy for them to sign up, but don't look too available, and... urf, this reminds me of my dating life. It's ridiculous.

So, this all plays out over in facebook too. About a year ago I created a facebook "fan" page, because it seemed like that was what you were supposed to do. Then I wrote my facebook friends and asked them to become a fan, but you know, only if they were interested! And then I watched the fans roll in... well, not. Because at the time I only had fifty or sixty friends, which translated to about twelve fans.

It's amazing how your first impression of something - a price, any number, whatever - can set your economic expectations. Twelve fans! You immediately make that data point somehow line up to being roughly proportional to your amount of output. So maybe writing another song would mean two more fans. I completely accepted my twelve fans and took that to mean I only had about twelve people on facebook that were interested in hearing more. I'd dreamily fantasize about the days of reaching 20. (I have 19 right now.)

Well a couple of weeks ago one of my college-age buddies got all ridiculous with facebook and created an event for himself and managed to invite 900 people to it. Which led me to look more into facebook's different viral marketing approaches. Here's what I found.

1. Fan pages suck. They're really only for entities that have a large devoted following already. They're not viral. They get indexed by google which is cool and all, but it's not the way to build your fan base. If you want to write your fans, it doesn't even go to their inbox.
2. Group pages are great. They don't do as much as fan pages, but you can email all group members, and group members can easily invite others to join the group.
3. Events are nifty because you can invite every one of your friends to the event, and you can even email the entire guest list - even if they haven't rsvp'd yet

So I figured, to heck with it. My facebook friends are already my friends. They're not going to hate me. (Please don't hate me!) They won't mind getting a firm invitation from me to join a group - it's not like I'm pestering their inboxes all the time with gigs or anything.

And by now I have about 215 friends on facebook anyway - too many to email 20 at a time. So, I created a group, the Curt Siffert Music Fan Club. And I invited everyone to a group, even though that won't show up in their facebook inbox.

And then I created an event giving instructions on how to join the group, and I invited everyone to the event - and then emailed them all with similar instructions. The event is also three weeks long, so it will be in their sidebar for a while until they RSVP.

You can see - I basically decided, to hell with the blasé approach. I said, "I promise I will make you happy!" and "I need your ears to make my fingers work!" To hell with shame, right? And depending on how people have their facebook configured, they're getting pounded with three notification emails (sorry, Kira) in addition to the facebook inbox message.

Response rate is vastly different. Most people are joining the group. More than 3/4 still have yet to respond, and 40 have already joined. Plus, they can invite their friends if they want. So now I have an outlet to send out my next new song, and ask them to add it to their profile or invite their friends if they like it. And I'm looking back at the 12 fans I have on my fan page and scratching my head at the whole thing. Sometimes it really is just about how you ask.

A few years ago I did some freelance work for Derek Sivers.

For those who don't know, Derek Sivers is the founder of CDBaby. He's moved on from the company, and appears to mostly be doing brain work as some sort of musical buddha. I've kept up on his personal site off and on since programming for cdbaby.

His site is like crack, he's got a big font and short paragraphs - it's highly addictive to independent musicians that are looking to find some sort of toehold or advice on how to get ahead. Derek's obviously got a ton of perspective on what works and what doesn't work for independent musicians, and enjoys sharing what he's learned. I enjoy it a lot.

Today he has an interview with Amber Rubarth. This one was interesting to me because she tells her story about how she got to where she is now (a full-time living touring and selling cds), from a period of time five years ago before she knew how to play music.

This isn't really Amber or Derek's fault - some of it is just the undeniable appetite of musicians who "haven't made it yet" to see those who "have made it" as being the source of some sort of wisdom. But sometimes I read these stories and they come across to me as a how-to, as in "what worked for me should therefore work for you!".

And that's clearly ridiculous. Creative success is actually a very funny formula - it's not just luck and talent and work, there's also an element of blissful ignorance, the selfish interests of others, just a lot of things that are out of our direct control.

We all as people have built-in structural advantages, as well - gifts we're born with that don't require work and development, but just jump in to help us during all those small key moments in life. The success we get from these advantages shouldn't be ascribed to work or talent, either.

Of course, it's impossible to know where the dividing points are. If I've reached a measure of success and my belief in plaid unicorns has never been challenged, then I might conclude that my devotion to plaid unicorns has been essential to my success. But I might also believe that about practicing at least an hour a day, and maybe that would be correct.

But since we never really know... I think that means it's our responsibility as artists to never let go of that humility. I think there's danger in concluding that any external measure of success is something that we caused and created and that others can learn from. It's just too elusive of a concept, too random and quicksilver. There are some great pointers and suggestions in the interview, but as always, your mileage may vary.

So I had my first real gig tonight, or second if you count when I performed two songs at a songwriting competition last month.

After my gig last month, I was checking out myspace pages of the various other musicians who performed and saw that one linked to the PDX Songwriter Showcase. I've been curious about these songwriter showcases so I wrote them to ask if they accepted piano-based songwriters.

I only intended to ask for future reference but the guy wrote me back and said he heard my stuff off of my myspace page and enjoyed it, wanted to give me a twenty-five minute slot for 1/6. I hemmed and hawed a bit and accepted.

This last week I felt I was in danger of coming down with a cold and almost canceled but then I took a turn for the better. Plus I knew I'd like if I went through with it. I've got to get over these humps where it feels stressful to gig, it needs to become old hat.

The gig went pretty well. I like The Thirsty Lion - I've walked by on Friday and Saturday nights and it always seems packed. I knew Tuesday night would be different, but was still looking forward to checking out the venue.

There were four musicians total tonight, plus the host - there was one cancellation, but another guy stepped in to replace him. I was third on the list. The other three guys were solo acoustic guitarists. Unfortunately, the sound inside seemed more suited for big acts; it was a bit of a challenge to understand the lyrics on many of the songs.

It reminded me that it can be a bit soul-crushing to go through this process of playing out, at least if you aren't prepared for it. There were about 15-20 people total in the audience, mostly people who came along with the other performers. As for me, I had heard that some of the folks on my mailing list might show up but I didn't spy any of them in the audience. Tuesday night after New Years is a bit of a tough time in the schedule.

The gig went well - I played five songs, I didn't keep my eyes closed the entire time like I did last month, and talked a bit between songs. It seemed the strongest ovations were for I Have A Cold (which still mystifies me), Damn My Eyes, and She Believes, which I closed with. My Favorite Clown was really fun to play with the upright bass, supplied by Chris Gustafson, who also played with me last month. Balancing Above The Air went well too, but it wasn't really the right fit for the venue, I need more of a captive audience for that one. I have a rough sense that Damn My Eyes, Clown, and She Believes are the ones that have the inside track for "moving ahead to the next round" for me.

I listened to the recording I made of it later, and was surprised to find that I played all of the songs at a faster tempo than I usually practice them at. Chris mentioned they seemed faster, too. I'm not sure how much of that is because of nerves, and how much of that is because of me being used to playing on my grand piano, where there's a huger body of sound. With the keyboard it's all attack and then nothing so it might have made me rush a bit so things didn't feel empty to me.

I was also pleasantly surprised at how my voice sounded live, especially since I actually did start coming down with that cold tonight. I no longer think my voice is my weak point - now it's just my songwriting - I gotta come up with some more material now.

Got a couple of unsolicited compliments afterward. Good experience overall. I'm looking forward to playing for larger audiences later, we'll have to see how that goes.

Time to take stock. Like many, I'm looking both backwards and forwards tonight, and there is a lot to consider.

Some of what I've done musically this year is journaled on this site. At the beginning of the year, I had managed to form a jazz trio for myself. This was more a practice trio rather than a performance trio, and it went well for a while, but it eventually disappeared due to conflicting schedules and other priorities - specifically, my bass player got way too busy and had to focus on things that had regular performance opportunities. That happens with bass players, I've learned!

I've also been rehearsing semi-regularly with another trio - trippy progressive improvisation - and we're continuing. We're still figuring out our goals, not sure if we're good enough at the straight improvising to justify playing live, still gathering up recordings good enough for a cd, and still figuring out how and whether we can turn the material into actual arrangements we can play from in the future.

I had a couple of mixed-media things fall into my lap, from a soundtrack to some Australian Community Television, to some additional Art Musings paintings (I actually still have more to post), to a soundtrack to a video someone shot of an Art Installation.

I posted a few more Piano Musings, too. I actually have several more to post from more than a year ago, but I guess this eventually fell out of my practice routine as I started focusing more on jazz and songwriting. The piano musings were always intended to serve the purpose of getting me more comfortable with both jazz and songwriting, so maybe they worked. But that doesn't mean I won't do more in the future.

I dabbled with some video of myself (get a haircut!). That's really fun, I hope to do more of that in the future.

Mostly, though, this year was dominated by struggling with and then completing two songs - Not Today and She Believes. I think She Believes is by far my favorite song, and Not Today is my most commercial. It's a little disappointing to me that the two songs took so much effort, but I'm trying to reinforce to myself that it's just because of some combination of inexperience and high standards.

In the latter part of the year, I think things started to rev up a bit - I started attending songwriting workshops more, and I also managed to write a couple of more songs, including Damn My Eyes and I Don't Mind. Damn My Eyes is commercial, I Don't Mind is not.

And this basically culminated in my first gig, a two-song presentation at a songwriting contest. I got good feedback and got some networking in, too - this networking indirectly led to my second gig, which is coming soon.

That's not really the whole story, though. There was a lot that I did musically that wasn't journaled on this site. For one thing, I had a ton of rehearsals and a ton of recordings. According to iTunes, for the year of 2008, I have 357 recordings, for one full day's worth of recorded music - multiple takes of my originals, of jazz standards, etc. That doesn't include one more rehearsal from November that I still have to process, and several additional takes of originals that I've rehearsed on my own. I've culled through all those recordings to create a "Best Of 2008" cd that I've given to my family; that was a lot of fun.

I found some new players and some new skills. I also got some new hardware that will really help with having high quality recordings in the future. And, with my buddy Steve's help, I've started working towards some actual multi-tracked versions of my songs with the goal of releasing an EP or cd of my stuff. So a lot of things have shifted.

But the biggest shift, I think, is in my psyche. It's really, really hard to adopt the identity of a musician, then a songwriter, then a performer. I've been a musician off and on for many years - owning a degree in music helps reinforce that feeling. But to call myself a songwriter, that's especially difficult early on when all you have is the faith in songs that don't exist yet. It's easy to feel like a fraud, or worse, delusional. I cringe along with everyone else when I watch American Idol and see the awful talents that are so sure they are good, except with me it's always with the nagging doubt, Oh my god... am I one of those?

It creates a feeling of desperation, of almost wanting to apologize for the output you've produced so far, but to tell those around you, but just wait... hold on... the stuff I have coming up is so much better...

I think the biggest shift in my psyche is that I've managed to mostly get beyond that. A buddy of mine and I call it Back Pocket Thinking. To always have that secret weapon in our back pocket, so we don't have to face the thought of our public side being a complete representation of who we are.

So it's really only been over the last couple of months that I've gotten more comfortable with seeing myself as a songwriter that is merely represented by what I've written so far.

And I'm okay with it. Depending on how you count, I have six, nine, or twelve songs, and they collectively paint me as a songwriter that writes sometimes sweet, sometimes innovative, sometimes whacked songs. I've been experimenting, but so far I haven't written a song that makes everyone wince.

I have several ideas for future songs, but on top of that, I for the first time have the glimmering of an idea of a direction - a "sound" that I have a very abstract sense of, that I think might fuel the creation of several songs.

But, I'm not putting that in my back pocket or anything. It's just something I've suspected. Doesn't mean it actually exists.

And so what of the upcoming year? Well, I'm still shaking out priorities, but here are the main principles and opportunities.

Songwriting Community - This entails being a more consistent presence out in public, mainly among other songwriters. There's a lot to learn locally, and I might be able to both get and give a lot of help. Right now this involves making it a priority to attend local songwriting workshops and contests, either as a spectator or a participant.

Produce Those Songs - This is probably first priority, actually. I've got three songs multi-tracked and in progress, and another two on the way. There's a lot of work to do, a lot of unknowns, specifically how to find an engineer that is willing to work within Logic Pro using the arrangements I've already put together. But I'm going to do it until I feel like I have a set of songs that feel cohesive and done, and then create the album.

Gigging - I intend to gig my originals more than once this year. :-)

Jazz Solo - I do have opportunity to play out solo as a jazz pianist/singer. Abstractly, I think this would be very good for me. I'm not an A-List pianist in town, but there aren't many that sing and play at the same time. It's a matter of if I can string together enough compelling material to justify a full gig, but I've got ways to get there. The main thing here is time.

Jazz Combo - This is more fun, and easier to do - the playing isn't as hard, and the sound is naturally more compelling. So far I'm lucky to have players that are interested in doing this with me.

Marketing - This is the thing I know least about. Granted, it's hard to do this before there's much to market! One thing I think I'll do, however, is write more on this site, despite the sneaking suspicion that I'm oftentimes the only one that reads it. :-)

If I were to make actual goals (aaaaugh! Goals!) they would probably be along the lines of... having a well-mixed/mastered recording out that I can give away (for marketing) and sell (at gigs and online). Have a few new songs. (I know my goal should be to write a TON of new songs, but... sheesh, maybe after I get a manager to handle the rest of this stuff.) Be gigging, and hopefully get some more supporters that aren't existing family and friends. You know, lowering the old Hack Quotient. And, in general, success. Always a good goal to have in this economy.

So that's it! Despite it seeming like a lousy year out in the real world, it was a good year here. And I'm feeling positioned to have an ever better on in 2009. As always, I'll be journaling it here. Thanks to all who have come along so far.