The latest redesign of ihatemornings.com incorporated some fundamental changes under the hood, most obviously a switch from “Textpattern”:http://www.textpattern.com (a trusted friend) to “WordPress”:http://www.wordpress.com (the popular kid in the class). WordPress is fast becoming the standard blogging platform for music types (and many others), so the switch had to be made. I have built a dozen sites on Textpattern over the last 5 years and it’s a beautifully versatile piece of software (once you get to know it), so it’s with a heavy heart that I let it go.

You might be wondering why I want to adopt the same technology everyone else is using. Doesn’t that make me a sheep? Where’s my character, my backbone? Don’t worry. As I’ll explain, I am infusing this blog design with just as much hand-drawn character as the old, brown Playschool version. But I want to lead by example. I want to build the ultimate musician’s blog. I want to figure out how to integrate social media widgets, music players, links, archives and videos in the best possible way. And I reckon that once I’ve managed that it will be something that musicians can copy. The copies won’t look the same because part of the ultimate musician’s blog is a very personal surface design. It doesn’t matter if the structure is similar to somebody else’s blog. Blogs are all the same anyway…

h3. The redesign that never ends

I see this as the beginning of a research process that may well last a year or so. I am getting involved with new services (“ReverbNation”:http://www.reverbnation.com/benwalker, “Last.fm”:http://last.fm/music/JB+Walker) that take a while to build up. I also plan to build an audience from almost scratch. So this is no overnight success scheme. That’s the point. I want to show how best to build an online presence as a musician over time and with plenty of hard work. A one-click template isn’t going to do you any good.

Along the way I’m going to use and evaluate all sorts of advice from “blogging”:http://www.problogger.com “gurus”:http://www.skelliewag.org, “music”:http://www.stevelawson.net “gurus”:http://www.soulofsongwriting.com/, “web”:http://www.happycog.com/ “gurus”:http://webtypography.net/ and any other “gurus”:http://www.netblogsrocknroll.com I can get my hands on. I’m also going to harness as much of the power of Social Media as is possible without spending 24 hours a day with a webcam strapped to my head talking in hyperlinks while playing the guitar.

h3. What am I doing right now?

WordPress. Importing all my old articles and comments from Textpattern was super-simple, and I’m up and running on my new favourite blogging platform.

Template. My old site template was built from scratch, and it showed. I’m no designer… For this one, I’ve kept the style (hand-drawn doodles), but used the popular Grid Focus template to make the content much more attractive and readable.

ReverbNation. The old site used embedded Flash MP3 players to play each song. They were great, but didn’t do anything but play. The ReverbNation player is just a small part of a huge web backend that encompasses mailing lists, community, reporting, tactical marketing and all sorts of fun stuff. So far I’ve used none of it, so this will be a big learning curve for me. If it works out, I will end up using ReverbNation to host and play (and maybe even sell ;o) all of my tracks.

Twitter. It was on the old site and it’s here too, with a sexier plugin. I use Twitter a lot, and it’s central to my conversations with the Social Media crowd (and lately more musicians).

RSS. It’s amazing, and I love it. But very few people I know use it. I’m going to create a perfect RSS feed, with exactly the right amount of functionality, then I’m going to convert everyone on my mailing list to news feeds. It may take some time…

Integration. I’m going to try, as far as possible, to integrate my blog, Myspace, Facebook, Reverbnation, Twitter, Last.fm and the rest so I don’t have to spend my life updating 16 profiles and uploading every new song to 4 different servers. I want to streamline all of that so I can spend my time creating and communicating.

Interaction. I want people to be able to interact with me through my website. The comments on the new WordPress install are vastly easier and sexier than the old ones, so that should encourage some more conversation. Twitter should help. I’m also working on a “Suggest a song title” feature to give me some good ideas for the 50/90 Challenge.

Content. I’m going to carry on with the “Ben Walker updates” style of content, and commenting on relevant blog posts. I’m also going to post a couple of article series on songwriting technique as I write the chapters for my songwriting eBook. And my medium-term plan is to guest post on some good blogs, both songwriting-specific and more general lifestyle sites.

Songs. I’ll be writing pretty much one a day until October for the 50/90 Challenge, so I needn’t worry about pumping out the material! I’m keeping the 50/90 songs separate from the rest for the moment. When it’s over I’ll pick out the favourites and rewrite them until they are ready to join the canon of JB Walker classics. ;o)

Gigs. The old site pulled a gig feed from Eventful, which was quite handy. It didn’t help with updating listings on Reverbnation, Facebook, Myspace etc. I’ll hopefully figure out the simplest way of keeping the gigs lists up to date by the time I start playing some more gigs…

So have a look around, enjoy the new design and why not “leave me a comment”:http://www.ihatemornings.com/2008/08/10/the-ultimate-musicians-blog/#respond to get us started? ;o)

Good question. Not anyone you’ve heard of, that’s for sure. In fact, although I fully intend to get my songs covered by big names, to cowrite with rising stars and to make a fortune in royalties from random Japanese TV ads, for the moment I’m writing for me.

h3. Who am I?

Andrea Stolpe “wrote about”:http://andreastolpe.berkleemusicblogs.com/2008/08/04/write-what-you-know/ authenticity of songwriting this week, and it hit a nerve:

bq. Back then it was Nashville, and so I my plan was to dive right into the types of songs that were making it as singles and basically write my version of them. This was always a frustrating endeavor. Just when I’d think I’d get the groove down, acceptable lyric material, and some good melodic ideas, I’d realize I’d be writing too close to the original. Even if I managed to draw a clear line between my tune and the one that inspired it, I was left with something that was an excellent caricature rather than an innovative trend-setter.

The only way I’m going to end up with a catalogue of great songs is to write for myself. Not for myself as an artist – I’m not planning to get famous that way – but for myself as a songwriter. Of course, this leads to some tricky decisions, and some serious self-assessment. If I’m writing for myself, how am I going to get the songs out there? And how am I going to build the reputation I will need to get them covered?

One way is to network and schmooze my way to the top. Although I’m not great at this I’m getting better and networking is absolutely necessary to get anywhere. But… there’s not much point networking if you can’t back it up with at least one success story. I will get my name known, which is a start. And it’s always fun to learn the new-media-speak lingo…

The second way is to sing my songs to people, either live or recorded. It seems like a weird way to do it because the songs are supposed to be for other people. But I can’t afford to produce top quality demos with session singers and producers. I know that I can deliver my songs the way they were conceived and with the right kind of attitude. The songs will need to stand on their own at some point and if they can impress through my strumming and wailing, they can go a long way without me.

h3. Brand awareness

So I need to build a solid brand around “Ben Walker, Songwriter”. Which is what I’m starting to do. I have started a good songwriting “blog”:http://www.ihatemornings.com which is starting to get noticed, I have introduced myself to hundreds of people as a songwriter, and I am writing songs (almost) full time. The blog, my business card and “all”:http://facebook.com/profile.php?id=529602587 my “online”:http://twitter.com/ihatemornings “profiles”:http://www.last.fm/music/JB+Walker are tied together by the “I Hate Mornings” “cartoon dude”:http://www.ihatemornings.com/images/2.png and I’m working on a redesign of ihatemornings.com to clean it up and highlight the good stuff without losing the cute, hand-drawn feel that people always seem to like.

But what about the songs? The production rate of songs for the “50/90 Challenge”:http://5090.fawm.org/writers.php?id=1747 is forcing me to write in a very natural style – I don’t have time to pastiche or pretend or rework. The process is starting to reveal my “true” style, which is (rather unsurprisingly ;o) sort of folky-country-pop with quirky and/or funny lyrics. It’s not everyone’s bag, but it’s what I do best. And if I can be known for writing great quirky pop, I’ll be a happy man.

h3. Going forward…

By the end of the summer (and the end of the 50-song challenge), I’m going to have a couple of healthy heaps of quirky folk/pop classics on my hands. October will be the month of rewrites and rehearsals, then I’m going to get back into the gigs as Ben Walker, Songwriter (hopefully with the “Legendary Swordsmen”:http://www.legendaryswordsmen.com rhythm section). I’m not going to waste my precious evenings playing no-hope support slots in Oxford pubs. I will organise decent gigs, roughly once a month, with other songwriters, and I’ll put on a good show. ‘Cos if I don’t do it myself, nobody will.

Of the last ten songs I’ve written, recorded, blogged, YouTubed and/or played to people, the “Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall song”:http://5090.fawm.org/songs.php?id=556 has had the biggest response. About ten times the response of any other song. Why? I’ll give you a clue. It’s not because I’ve written and produced a masterpiece that will live on to inspire future generations. It’s because it has a story. It’s about Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall (whom everybody either acknowledges as a living legend or pretends to ignore ;o), and everybody can relate to that without actually having to listen to the song. The fact that I made a “video”:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zGIeSQ_PkBs means that another large slice of the audience pie were motivated to check it out.

This isn’t news. But it is interesting. And it’s not just me who thinks so. Nick Gill talked about it in a “review of the Bon Iver album”:http://www.themonroetransfer.co.uk/wordpress/?p=60 earlier in the week:

bq.. …the lesson for people like me is that people like stories; not just in their music & lyrics, but as related to the artist him/herself. Marketing people have known this for years, and have been extending and stretching the truth to sell more ever since they realised (see yesterday’s little rant about Lily Allen, Sandi Thom et al. for all the associated horseshit that that record-buying public was fed). People like us, making music unsolicited and undemanded, need to have actual, real stories behind our records.

And, importantly- stories are all in the telling. The story of How I Recorded My Album isn’t going to rival Ulysses but, told well enough, it might be enough to persuade people to listen to your creation. It worked for Bon Iver, it can work for us.

p. And Steve Lawson just wrote a post on “Telling Stories…”:http://www.creative-choices.co.uk/server.php?show=ConBlogEntry.147 at the Creative Choices blog yesterday:

bq.. What’s important to realise is that there’s always a story told – if you don’t tell it, someone else will. I had this conversation recently with some band-mates about a forthcoming album, explaining to them that they could frame the release of the album with their own story of how they got involved with the project, how the music came together, what it meant for them to be playing this kind of music (it’s an album of freely-improvised music that still sounds like well crafted songs…). The response from one of my fellow musos was that he wants to let the music speak for itself.

The problem here is that it never does get to speak for itself – there’s almost always a descriptive context in which people first hear music, or decide to watch a film, or visit a website – whether it be a review or a recommendation from a friend. For music especially, it can be a random encounter via radio or film, which provides a framework that may well be misleading, depending on what the DJ says about it on the radio, or the kind of images your music accompanies!

p. Wise words indeed. Check out both articles for more info and insight into the need for narrative.

This is a copy of an email that went out today to my mailing list. It might be of interest to creative types trying to deal with the money problem ;o)

I create music all the time. Mostly I create it in my head, but often I write it down (sometimes lyrics, sometimes chord symbols, occasionally real musical notes on little shakily-drawn staves). I really enjoy doing this, so it creates value for me. Unfortunately, nobody else could care less whether I’m scribbling inspired melodies or not.

h3. I create value for other people too!

So I use my music to create value for other people, and more often than not they give me something in return. Sometimes it’s beer, sometimes it’s cake, and occasionally it’s cash. Now that I’m a full-time musician (and don’t drink anywhere near as much beer as I used to!), I’m more concerned with the cake and the cash.

Now, I have a seemingly infinite source of creative energy and earth-shatteringly cool musical skills. All I need now is a heap of opportunities to create value for people. And that’s where I need your help.

h3. (Everything I do) I do it for you

In case you don’t follow these things, let me summarise the state of music in 2008:

• The record industry has no idea what’s going on
• People still love music but are getting more and more confused by marketing messages, and have no idea what’s going on
• Musicians, songwriters, bands and producers (almost all) have no idea what’s going on
• People discover more music through their networks (friends, family, office, online social networks) and less through broadcast media
• You can sell 16,000 singles, have a number one hit and make no money whatsoever.

It’s not good for the record companies, but it’s quite exciting for the rest of us. When you’re drowning in the musical equivalent of a sea of baked beans, what’s better than having your own musician, who can write music you like, play in your lounge and even listen to your problems (perhaps interpreting them in song, thus completing the cycle of happiness ;o)?

h3. Let’s be more specific.

I need cake and cash to survive. So I need opportunities to create value for other people. I create value:

• when I create music in a particular situation (live gigs)
• when I create music to fill a specific need (commissions and cowrites)
• when my musical creations are broadcast (royalties)

Royalties happen when you’re commercially successful, so we can safely ignore those for now. ;o) Gigs are often the only way to get cake and cash quickly. Commissions and cowrites are where we start to see the real value. Writing songs (and/or other music) for people and with people helps to build a reputation, get referrals and recommendations, more cake, etc. Teach a man to fish, and so on.

h3. I need your help.

I’m not asking for the moon on a stick. In fact by reading this far, I would hope you’ve internalised enough of the message to subconsciously help me somehow, some day. But some-day-cake isn’t quite the same as now-cake, so keep reading…

This list may seem huge, but most of it won’t apply to you. Skim it, and pick one thing that seems easy. That’s probably the one for you. But feel free to work your way through the entire list if you like. It’s all good:

h4. Discover me

• listen to some of my songs on “benwalkersongwriter.com”:http://www.benwalkersongwriter.com/songs
• listen to “I Hate Mornings Vol. 1“:http://www.last.fm/music/JB+Walker/I+Hate+Mornings+Vol.+1 on Last.fm
• watch the “Ten video”:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ovT0nEZipt0 on YouTube
• be amazed by the “experimental dance video”:http://www.benwalkersongwriter.com/film I soundtracked

h4. Recommend me

• in person: tell somebody who might be interested about what I do
• by email: forward this email to someone who doesn’t know about me
• on the web: ** subscribe to my “RSS feed”:feed://www.ihatemornings.com/rss/. ** share me with your network (“Facebook”:http://www.facebook.com/share.php?u=http://www.ihatemornings.com, “Myspace”:http://www.myspace.com/benwalkercapedcrusader, “Fuzz”:http://BenWalker.fuzz.com/, “Twitter”:http://twitter.com/ihatemornings) ** mention me on your blog, status, Twitter, Christmas email… ** bookmark me in your browser, or on “Delicious”:http://del.icio.us/post?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ihatemornings.com&title=I%20Hate%20Mornings%3A%20Ben%20Walker%27s%20songwriting%20blog ** listen to my music on “Last.fm”:http://www.last.fm/music/JB+Walker, “Fuzz”:http://BenWalker.fuzz.com/, and let people know your favourites ** watch “my videos”:http://www.youtube.com/user/ihatemorningsdotcom on YouTube, and give ‘em some stars

h4. Book me to do something for you

• I write songs for people (pop songs, children’s songs, rock songs, folk songs)
• I write songs with people (cowriting with artists, producers, musicians, poets)
• I teach songwriting, musicianship, performance, music theory
• I play piano at parties, fêtes, dinners, funerals, bars, pubs
• I play my own songs at gigs, parties, campfires
• I play Sixties songs with “The Legendary Swordsmen”:http://www.legendaryswordsmen.com at weddings, birthdays and garden parties

h4. Give me feedback

• leave a comment on my website
• email me (ben [at] wallpaper jazz [dot] com)
• “Facebook me”:http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=529602587
• text me (07812 204396)
• comment on one of my “YouTube videos”:http://www.youtube.com/user/ihatemorningsdotcom
• “Twitter”:http://twitter.com/ihatemornings me

h3. What’s in it for you?

Everything and nothing. It depends how you look at it. Maybe you’re more than happy to be filling the world with beautiful music. Maybe you’re looking for something more tangible in return. Well, what is it? Let me know and I’ll see what I can do. My cash and cake resources are limited, but I’m sure I can tap my seemingly infinite source of creative energy for some good ideas…

I’ve been mentioned on two Australian blogs in one week. I can now safely say I’m big in Australia. About time too!

h3. Kate loves me big

Kate Mason (of “Love You Big”:http://love-you-big.blogspot.com/) featured me on her “Talented Friends Tuesday”:http://love-you-big.blogspot.com/2008/06/talented-friends-tuesday-ii.html series, which is wildly generous and very cool. Apparently I’m “irritatingly clever”, “endearingly humble” and an “all-round lovely bloke”. I would say that’s a fair appraisal, but my endearing humility leaves me no choice but to say “Oh, don’t be silly. It’s nothing special, really.” while furtively analysing my feet.

h3. Mr Thinking thinks I’m OK

I posted a new song “last week”:blog/new-song-ten called Ten, which was inspired by a book I read from the School Of Thinking in Melbourne. Ever quick off the mark, “Michael Hewitt-Gleeson”:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Hewitt-Gleeson, head honcho at the Thinking School featured my song on “the SOT(School of Thinking) blog”:http://www.schoolofthinking.org/2008/you-times-me-by-10/, thus potentially catapulting me into the celebrity stratosphere of Melbourne’s alternative think-rock scene. Thank you, Michael.

h3. There’s always a sneaky way

While most bands are still trying to attack the celebrity dragon head-on, I’m being featured on beautifully obscure (and obscurely beautiful) blogs on the other side of the planet. Nobody will ever expect that!

But seriously, I have it on the “highest”:http://www.netblogsrocknroll.com/ “authority”:http://newmusicstrategies.com/ that niche blogs and tiny tribes are the future of music distribution in the digital age. It’s all about connecting, man… And I’m on a mission to connect.

As Wayne Campbell said so insightfully back in “’92″:http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0105793/quotes, “Get the net!”