10 Books to Mastering the Music Industry

The best place to start for any inspiring musician is the book shelf. I have personally learned more from reading books of all varieties than I have learned in my years in school. Today I am going to give you the best ten books to read that will be more than helpful in your music careers.

1) All You Need To Know About The Music Industry: This book is the best book about the industry I have ever come across. It is my personal favorite and will do so much good for anyone involved in the industry, whether you are a producer, manager, or agent it will be more than helpful.

2) The Mental Game of Electronic Music Production: Aside from the talent it takes to produce music, there is a lot of stress and outside factors that play into the game as well. This book will walk you through the steps of handling the unknown factors that will be thrown at you throughout your career. It is crucial to keep your ultimate goal in mind and never let anything conflict that.

3) Mixing Secrets in the Small Studio: For every young producer starting out money is always an issue. This book points out key secrets on how to get the best sound quality out of any studio, yes including your make shift studio in your bedroom.

4) Audio Engineering 101: This book is one of the best for beginners who do not know much about making music. It is very basic in terms of knowledge, so if you fall into the category of 'clueless' this is your starting point.

5) Unlocking Creativity: Here is a book that spans farther than the common genres. It will push you to be your own producer, creating whatever music you want. This is where the genre defying production comes from and most importantly it will help you find your true sound.

6) The Art of Music Production: This is also another guide on how to produce music for beginners. It shares success stories and practices of successful producers that will guide down the right path for breaking out in the industry.

7) Rhythmic Genius: This is not so much a producing manual but more of how to create a melody and rhythm that people enjoy listening to. This can be applied to anyone in the industry that needs a solid base of production.

8) Plain and Simple Guide to Music Publishing: This book will teach you everything you need to know about publishing your music. It provides knowledge on how to properly go about copyrights and other legalities when it comes to making music and more importantly, profits.

9) How Music Got Free: This is less of a teaching novel in music producing but more of a warning on how the world and industry's change. You need to adapt to the changing times to stay relevant. It is about the downfall of CDs and paying for music. We live in a time where music streaming is the new way of listening.

10) Artist Management for the Music Business: This one is for all those who have an interest in managing talent. It provides a lot of the same content as the first book on this list but goes further in depth on how to properly manage artists with out running into problems.

All of these books will provide you with an ample amount of information on the industry. Whether you are new to the game or have been around for a while, these are staple books that everyone in the industry should read. Remember knowledge is power.

Hayley Kiyoko - Cliffs Edge (k?d remix)

Watch out future base world there is a new k?d in town! There’s not much that is known about this young producer but one thing is for sure, he has some mad talent. Today were featuring his latest remix of LA based artist Hayley Kiyoko’s ‘Cliffs Edge’. Hayley herself has some mind blowing vocals and now that k?d has put his own melodic future bass/trap influence on it, it is nothing short of incredible. This is k?d’s fourth remix he has put out which has pushed his following to over 8k on Sound Cloud. I have had the song on repeat for the past couple of days but his other work is just as good if not better. This new kind of future bass sound is really turning into a popular genre, k?d manages to put his own unique spin on the track to stand out from the rest. I would definitely throw this youngster a follow and watch out for some more incredible music to come because he is only going up from here. I wouldn’t be surprised if this is the track that really creates some buzz for him and starts pushing him to the top. After all, it only takes one track for these artists to blow up – this might be it. I have included a couple of my personal favorites below for you guys to check out but definitely throw him a follow to stay up to date, it wont be the last time you’ll see k?d on RisingMusicTalent.

Artist Watch List: Big Wild

Now that we are getting back into the swing of things here at RisingMusicTalent, we have the next artist on the watch list: Big Wild. Big Wild is a young musician out of Venice, California who has been making some noise as of recently. He has developed a sound that is different from most but pretty comparable to likes of Odesza. As a result, Odesza has taken in Big Wild and released a couple of his tracks of their label, Foreign Family Collective. The most recent is his track ‘Aftergold’ featuring Tove Styrke (see below), which is just short of incredible. Big Wild also joined Odesza on their tour, opening up for the duo in select states. He has just recently announced a Spring Tour for 2016 (see dates below) that hits a bunch of the major cities. Big Wild announced his tour along with a new Spring Mix, which is the reasoning behind this write up today. His mix includes his newest track ‘Aftergold’ along with a number of his classics and some unreleased tunes. I have had the mix on repeat for a week now and cannot stop listening – this kid has it figured out. If you have the chance to see Big Wild in the near future I highly suggest doing so. This kid is going to be on all the major festival lineups in the coming year, hop on the train now. In the mean time check him out on Sound Cloud and give the Spring Mix a listening, you won’t be disappointed!

Lollapalooza Celebrates 25th Birthday with a 4 Day's of Music

Chicago’s largest music festival is celebrating their 25^th anniversary July 28^th through the 31^st. This is the first year the festival will be four days long and with four days of music I would expect some big, big names to joining in on the celebration. Lollapalooza has personally been my favorite festival for years, if you have not been to the festival yet I would say this is your year to head to Chicago. Tickets for the festival went on sale today and sold out in probably record time. You will still be able to grab single day tickets at a later date for $120 a piece, but all the 4-day general admission tickets are gone. VIP tickets are still available as well. It is very impressive for a festival to sell out GA section before even releasing the lineup, which will drop tomorrow morning. Obviously with the buzz around Lolla for their 25^th birthday, many big names have been rumored to be performing this year. Some of the names that I have heard repeatedly, which means there’s a good chance of them being confirmed, are of the likes of Red Hot Chili Peppers, LCD Soundsystem, Lana Del Rey, and J. Cole. While these are some very impressive names, I have a very good feeling the undercard names are going to make this festival one for the books. A lot of the summer festival line-ups have had a common theme of very similar acts, very good acts, but the acts have been very consistent from festival to festival. With the influence that Lollapalooza has, I would expect this lineup to be at the top of the summer festivals. Look out for the lineup dropping tomorrow and get your hands on some tickets for one of the greatest festivals ever put together!