Copyright Law

If you are a working musician you need a demo, and in most cases you need many demos.

You need demos for booking gigs. Your demos should match the type of performance you are trying to book, so if you work with both a band and solo, you need demos showing each style. If you book gigs of mostly covers, you need a demo of covers. Booking personnel want to hear a demo that sounds like the thing they are trying to book, so unless you only perform one kind of show, you should have a variety of demos to choose from.

You need demos if you are selling music. For each song you'd like to sell, you need to demo it. The demo need not be elaborate, but it should be musically sound, with vocals that stay on pitch, and with high enough sound quality that the listener does not need to strain to hear it.

You may also need demos if you are looking for an agent, a label, a manager, or a producer.

If you review your demo collection and determine that you don't have all you need or that you need to upgrade your quality, make a plan. Will you buy home recording equipment (these days, even low end equipment and an operator who understands how to record can produce fairly high quality recordings)? Will you book studio time? Do you need to take a class on using equipment you already have? Do you need to find more/better musicians for your recordings? Do you need to bring in an experienced engineer or producer?

Full post as published by After Writing on January 15, 2007 (boomark / email).