Berliner Musiker Treff

Der Berliner Musiker Treff ist ein offener Stammtisch für Musiker*innen. Wir treffen uns jeden zweiten Dienstag im Monat in OMAS's Café auf dem Holzmarkt-Gelände und tauschen uns in entspannter Atmosphäre bei einem Bier zu wechselnden Themen im Musikbusiness aus. Unser Ziel ist es, Berliner Musiker*innen damit eine Networking-Plattform zu bieten. Im Vordergrund der Treffen stehen vorher festgelegte Themen rund um Musikmarketing und die eigene Musikkarriere, zu denen jeweils ein*e eingeladene*r Experte*in einen kurzen Impuls gibt. Eine Voranmeldung ist nicht notwendig - kommt einfach vorbei und bringt eure Freunde mit! www.digimedial.de/impressum

[digimedial]

Who's driving now? - DigiMediaL wrap up & consultation tips /  13th of December 2018

As the DigiMediaL_musik project is coming to an end by new years eve after nearly more than 10 years, this last Berliner Musiker*innen Treff offered a ceremonial project completion as well as a place for further consultation tips regarding the Berlin music scene.

We invited alumni, lecturers and cooperative partners from the past three years and also all interested people who would like to find their way around the consulting jungle in Berlin to come together.

Sandra Flachmann was guiding through a well organized variety of consulting opportunities in Berlin, (digital) networks and platforms, funding opportunities in music, information on workshops and lectures on music-related issues. So this time there was almost a two-hours program to  be enjoyed. 

First the OMA’s café was presented as it is still one of the last uncommercial spaces so close to Mitte and hosted us very friendly for the last couple of months. Also they are open to alternative uses of the space itself. The presentation and wrap up of the DigiMediaL-musik project and a brief introduction of cooperation partners and guests followed.

The talk opened up when alumni of the OnStage certificate course were joining the round, Lisa-Miriam Übel (OnStage IV) and Chrissy Möllers (OnStage II) sat down next to Sandra. For Chrissy it was most important, that OnStage opened the door to a variety of networks like Ramschakl or Tal der Verwirrung. As a result of these connections she created her own regular event series and doing bookings at the venue Klunkerkranich. She really liked the group work itself and the group dynamics and even though it was exhausting sometimes, it showed her how much potential a group can develope. Most problems she remembered of the processcame from dealing with their main event location as at that time the owners of the location were in the process of just forming their own group also. Reflecting the self inside a group was the biggest learning for her. Lisa told that she found it very interesting how the development was from the first meeting until the main event, as many creative heads ‘have strong personalities’ and they all didn’t know each other before. To manage this and combining very different tastes while fulfilling the tasks that needed to be done to get the event going was a challenge and at the same time showed her how much is possible in such a short time. Also for her own it was a push to really finally prepare a live set. Developing new friendships and collaborations, she said she took a lot of values from the OnStage course with her.

The first pitch was made by Maureen Noé of Musicboard Berlin. This is one of the biggest or maybe the central funding organization for pop music in Berlin. It covers nearly any genre, just no straightforward jazz or classical music. The Music Board tries to be very approachable and do consultings in English and German. They distribute financial support towards artists directly and to projects, organizers and festivals (in Berlin). ‘Karrieresprungbrett’ for example is a program to establish newcomers and ‘Pop im Kiez’ is raising awareness for the acceptance of live music in neighbourhoods. Most deadlines to apply for scholarships are around February (only for newcomers registered in Berlin, roughly 5000-10000 €). Above all you apply with music, next to a small project plan, CV of your artistic career and a small finance overview for the jury to decide. They are active in supporting more female*, non binary and trans artists.

Giuditta Panzieri of Music Pool Berlin followed. The non-profit organization exists since 2014 and offers a mix of think tank, consulting, education and networking. The aim is helping musicians to take a step forward and to be able to navigate inside the Berlin music industry. They offer 4h-workshops once a week (15€) on topics like e.g. marketing, branding, music licencing, DIY booking and similar to support independent artists. There are two types of consultation (all available in German and English): One for free and one that that offers you a ‘personal expertise’ (20€=1h). Once a month there is an event called ‘Community evening’, an easy going conference offering different topics and experts with changing locations every time. The other event of the Music Pool is the artist meetup, where artists are free to sign up for a slot and then do a pitch to show what they are doing at the moment as well as to ask for feedback and ressources.

The Berlin Music Commission was represented by Tim Joppien who first stated that this network and cooperative consists of 120 members with a background in labelwork, management, radio stations and booking agencies. They also do consultations but workshops and thinktank formats as well. Tim called the Music Commission a ‘music industry network’ which targets companies, but also more and more ‘individuals’. They were part of the ‘Most wanted: Music convention Berlin’ and do a monthly event called ‘Backstage’ which for example tries to bring together people who create music and other industries like the film industry. Their ‘Sprechstunde Musikwirtschaft’ is a consultation for basic music industry knowledge and there is a program for internationalisation called ‘Music Ambassador’. Via their platform ‘listen to berlin’ they are including compilations of newcomers and the applications usually open up around April.

After a short break Mona Katawi of the transnational counseling center ‘Landesmusikrat Berlin’ explained her offer, which she does in four different languages (German, Arabic, English, Turkish).  She manages the program ‘Information about the music market’, making information available for people who just came to Berlin, especially for musicians in exile who just fled their country. It is mostly a very general consultation, like for example regarding “what is the KSK and how to I get in”. They also work together with Kulturförderpunkt and ver.di, accompanying people who mostly need translations and emotional support with bureaucratic appointments in Germany. Also they made a map visible on landesmusikrat-berlin.de/projekte/musikarbeitsmarkt which shows various institutions and locations regarding music. The program is funded by the ‘Senatsverwaltung für Kultur und Europa’.  

Sebastian Hoffmann who is working inside the ‘touring artists’-advisory package of SMartDe Netzwerk für Kreative e.V. explained that they are open to all sectors of music and the music industry. They give advices regarding VISA, residential questions, transports, taxes, insurances and similar issues. Except German and English they offer some information in Polish, French, Dutch and some Italian. As they are funded from the federal government they offer free consultation via phone, in universities and through workshops. Mainly they focus on two ways of consultation: for people who just arrived to Germany and for people who want to travel outside Germany. The next workshop will be on January 15th in the afternoon from 2-6pm at Music Pool; an overall crashcourse on all topics shown on the website. Costs 15€.

Following this, Matthias Krebs of DigiMediaL_musik introduced the free online platform SKILLFRIED which is focussing on music projects and is all about connecting professional musicians as well as freelancers and creative heads. This is especially interesting for people who are already experienced in music-related projects and are searching for new partners or collaborateurs.

Last but not least the current initiative savemauerpark.de was given the space to make the situation visible by a delegate of busking.co; musician and (street) artists Laura Hoo. Not only being linked to other busking projects all over Europe, she is involved into founding the Verein related to streetmusicberlin.de, trying to help out street musicians in a time when more and more places are getting problematic and finally shut down. As the rules for busking are not really clear and visible in Berlin, buskers are threatened about losing their instrument through confiscation. Since summer weekly demonstrations in Mauerpark took place, as the situation got out of hand during summer with a lot of neighbour -and police troubles. To support the cause and buskers in their work, it’s about getting involved and spreading the word and awareness or simply get in contact to join the weekly meetings. At the moment, the initiative tries to do lobby work in Pankow/for Mauerpark but probably has to go for a berlinwide movement. Everybody signing the petition to create pressure on the authorities helps the cause!

Closing wrap up, Sandra mentioned some more institutions to find consultation and networks:   -female:pressure -culture container -ALEX Offener Kanal Berlin  -musicBwoman.de

Like always there was time for questions and networking and the evening was rounded off by a cosy talkative session from an audience that clearly appreciated the Berliner Musiker*innen Treff. Thanks & Good-bye! :-)

[digimedial]

Teamwork in music and culture / 20th of November

Sandra shortly introduced the location OMAs Café - one of the last uncommercial places in Mitte - as well as the DigiMediaL project including the now officially launched SKILLFRIED platform and some ideas about how it could go on in 2019 if the project gets another funding.

Larissa Krause and Stefan Schneider were the guests for this evening and it already promised to be an interesting mix of having Larissa with a ‚hands on‘ perspective and Stefan who gave input from a more theoretical point of view. Larissa Krause is part of „Bucht der Träumer*-Festival“, cofounder of the collective „Reclaim Club Culture!“ involved into the initiative „Schön, dass ihr da seid!“ and since 2016 also occupying herself with the association ‚Karma Kultur‘, a community garden project. Stefan Schneider was actually working in Business Administration being a project manager for NGOs, but now focussing a lot on Leadership hoch 3 e.V. which is helping individuals and organizations towards collective leadership and self-responsibility.

Elementaries

The talk did open with the question of what the first steps should look like once a new cooperation is started. Before actually starting with the content of the project, try to first give space only for the ‚human connection‘ itself and exchanging your purposes (why am I in this project/collective/…). No matter if this is only three hours or a whole day/week, it is all about getting together and make a proper connection right from the beginning, when starting the whole process.

It is elementary get to know each other to create some kind of psychological safety for the process and any conflicts that could come up.

The second issue mostly coming up pretty soon after getting into the process ist how to communicate with each other.  To avoid misunderstandings as much as possible, it also makes sense to tackle these in (one of ) the first meetings. This is not only about aiming for common values but also technically when it comes to communication channels on –and offline. In general it makes sense to reduce communication channels to as few as possible and rather try to get all people involved on board for one or two platforms.

Third important point is talking about structures and creating your own structures once you already dealt with connection and communication in your group. In case there is no talking about structures like e.g. how do we feedback each other, meeting rhythms etc., they will happen anyway and maybe have destructive effects.

Try to create a rhythm for your group where you reflect on the internal group process and  on a meta-level about your interactions. Regarding this, at one point also the question will come up how to find working-groups inside the collective. It strongly depends on the type of cooperation, the ‚product‘, which workfields exist, what the timeframe is, what milestones are to be reached when and what tasks maybe have to be sourced out.

One of the main structures to decide about is the decision making process. For taking decisions first you have to decide in which way you want to take decisions, otherwise you will repeat them over and over or frustrations arise due to unclear conditions.

Stefan mentioned the Holacracy as a model of self-organization which has partly tension and partly role – focussed meetings. It has many similarities to taking decisions in a consent-procedure. Konsent-decisions are, in comparison to consens, much faster to take: 1. prepare a very concrete and ‚small‘ decision with precise wording 2. Ask for understanding problems and solve them 3. Ask for heavy doubts (+ solution to solve them) 4. Modify the decision/implement the addition 5. Do a final decision round where everybody confirms by saying the word ‚consent‘

Teambuilding

One of the concrete methods for each meeting  is the so called ‚Check In‘ that helps getting to know what the individuals feel like at the current situation of any day. Stefan added, that maybe it is good to set a time limit to every individual Check In as many people like to talk about themselves.   Spontaneously we decided to all check in with the people attending this Berliner Musiker*innen Treff. Larissa mentioned that often you feel that there is no time to do stuff like a Check In, so you also have to keep the discipline to make it happen during the whole working process. Same goes for ‚Check out‘. She also told that in all of the three projects –garden, music festival, political clubculture- the internal structures are very different. This also shows that you have to find out your very own structures once you start a new project and cooperation.

We also exchanged a while about all different kinds of project management tools like trello, slack, loomio, owncloud, and frab, of course also still many people use google drive or classic emails. Again it makes sense to check those tools within the group and see what fits the collective goals.

What to do once problems and conflicts arise during the actual working and team process? Sandra threw the example that often there is a list with to-dos and deadlines and many of them are not solved to that deadline until you meet again in the group. Larissa mentioned that in her experience many of these conflicts happen because people are not sure about their roles and felt insecure, not supported or think somebody else ‚is doing it‘. So if the case happens, it can be helpful to try and find out whether the person (still) likes his/her role or not. It is helpful to define each role by purpose and responsibilities. If there seems to be a bigger structural problem it can make sense to call for an emergency meeting and evaluate inside the group whether the goal of the group is still the same and if it is reachable at all. Probably you will also have to skip some tasks/ideas and source out some of these. The challenge is to figure out whether the problems arising are a personal orproject-related issue. Hereby it is crucial to not make a project-related thing into a personal problem by trying to stay away from ego-related argumentation strategies. In case it really is a personal problem often a four-eye talk can help. But what to do when talking about problems doesn’t really help anymore? As you can only start by reflecting yourself, try to change perspectives, calm down, try to get rid of the tension you feel towards that person. In case two people still have tension inside themselves while trying to solve a problem, it makes no sense trying to connect.

Moderation and Documentation

In case it is really not working out, sometimes it can help to have an external person moderating the conflict inside a mediation to bring those two (or more) parties at the table again. In general many times tensions come up due to a lack of appreciation, trust, commitment and openness.

One more focus during a progressive process should be also to reflect on other –maybe unwanted- social roles like gender roles for example. Reflect on who is talking how much and how loud and how often. One method to avoid dominant speaking behaviour is a moderated or even quoted speaking list. A digital moderating list can help as an effective tool to keep speakers’ times balanced, the names are written in a list online and the software creates a fair list out of that which is openly shown to the group via beamer. A quoted list can help to give speaking time to underrepresented people in a group, this methods contains self-determined rules like e.g. after every tenth male contribution, the word is given to a female speaker if wanted. Tasks that need to be done, like writing the protocol, moderating the session and being the time keeper, can also be solved by a rotating system. Before starting each meeting, these roles should be distributed in a fair way. 

At the end of this Berliner Musiker*innen Treff, Sandra gave a literature recommendation for people who want to get deeper into alternative organizational structures: “Reinventing organizations” by Frederic Laloux.  We all did a Check Out together to close the evening.

[digimedial]

Berliner Musiker*innen Treff – "I am here! Strategies for more female* participation on stage - 18th of September 2018

So where is the actual progress after years of feminist work and decades of talking about it? Not much has happend when looking at paygaps or simply daily routines. And most of the time it is still the white, heterosexual, not disabled male guy in his 30s being on stage. 

While waiting for OMA's Café to fill up Matthias Krebs introduced the new format of DigiMediaL called 'Skillfried', a platform to represent and connect artists and any people involved into music-related projects. More: https://skillfried.de

Experts for this BMT were Elena Woltemade or 'Elliver' (her DJ name), who is organizing 'Quality Time Booking ', a Berlin based booking agency, as well and has a huge vita of involvement with the issue. In the following, the expression 'female*' refers to all women and non-cis-persons.

Also Christian Morin joined the discussion; a curator of Pop-Kultur Festival where many female, transgender and nonbinary people played this year. Since 1997 also he has a booking agency called 'Headquarter Entertainment'.

Sandra Flachmann shortly introduced Female Pressure as a concept and their survey female:pressure Facts of female* representation in line ups of festivals. The numbers roughly increased from 10% in 2012 to 16% during the last couple of years. These numbers are more or less what is 'normal' average in Europe and the western world.

The question came up, whether people don't really want to change something in general or are afraid of it, too. Also in our audience this evening there were only two or three guys of 12 people attending altogether.

Sandra asked Christian about the Key-Chance initiative (goal of 50/50 bookings within five years), as Pop-Kultur Festival is a member of this. He sees the initiative in a critical way as it seems more like a 'greenwashing label' with a weird counting system to him.

Female Pressure at least makes a distinction between 'mixed acts' and female* acts (meaning the female* can be joined by guys, but she has to 'lead' the band artistically), whereas the Key-Change initiative counts every act that has somehow female* artists (can be one background singer) inside the act itself. Christian mentioned that there is no way to change the consciousness if it is just a publicity thing to sign up to these kind of initiatives/quotes.

Whereas a qoute normally leads to emotional discussions, rather people should try together to find better solutions to at least get close to 50/50 bookings.

The true initiative has to come from everyone involved - especially bookers, for example. There are always the same excuses from bookers like 'there are no females* in this music style', 'the females* are not good enough', but it really just is a matter of making the effort to do a proper research and putting different priorities. We as a society need men*, who are willing to push feminist approaches. Also inside the 'private life' there is a chance to support female* artists, for example on marriages, birthday -and homeparties.

All artists should use their power and networks to adress the issue themselves, no matter if female* or male*, actually especially men* as they are dominating the scene. Talking about these issues on- and offline as well as asking their own cooperational partners to involve (more) female* acts.

In the opinion of Elena pure female* bookings wouldn't change much, as this is a nice approach mostly but an equal booking should be created naturally. 'Strictly female*' line ups would rather emphasize, that it is somehow 'special' to represent females* in normal club and festival bookings. Elena used the phrase 'Charity event' to describe how these events could feel like.

Also she strongly put an emphasis on the responsibility of clubs and 'alternative spaces and/or spaces of music and art' of any kind. To put female* people on non-typical woman*-jobs (bouncer, head of production/Abendleitung, technician..) would make it easier for to get the process rolling.

As the topic of participation and visibility is connected to relations of power, the so called alternative music and clubscene could (and should) especially adress this issue. At this point of the discussion, there was an important comment coming from the audience that the same mechanisms and effects are found at any kind of discrimination not only for the topic of gender.  Different forms of discrimanation often come together and have influences on each other (intersectionality). On the other hand it would make sense, if the well established agencies with enough money to really invest into researching, publishing and pushing female* artists joined as well.

Christian pointed out the field of education, starting with early school already. Young females* have to be encouraged to become self-confident enough to tackle areas which 'normally' still belong to male* activism. As it is harder for females* to keep swimming in the music business, especially to be taken seriously as artists and not to be labeld as a 'girlsband' or just be booked because being female*.

What is the audience expecting when listening to female* artists? Why is the focus still on looks and the (oh so surprising) fact of being female* instead of focussing on the art itself?

Also it makes sense if confronted with prejudices being female*, to have a snappy answer in the pocket when being asked those sexist questions. Even if the discussion gets complicated, our sisters need as much support as possible! To leave a lasting influence, it is very powerful to open spaces like this BMT for sharing very individual (and at the same time similar) stories among all people.

So the conclusion of the evening was: 'We have to do it together', we must listen carefully to each other, we still need to create a lot of awareness and let this awareness reach mainstream (media) as well.

[digimedial]

“I am here!” - strategies for more female* participation on stage

At the booking office. While planning a festival. At the program meeting. Lineups and event programs are often too soon too full with the usual 85 % of white and mostly male* acts. But how do we bring more female* acts on stage? A 50/50 lineup seems to be a topic all over the place, but nothing really changed yet. It's not only about female bookers and artists, but more about to increase the visibility of female, trans and nonbinary persons in music, culture and art fields. Why don't we just do it?

We want to talk about common strategies, ideas, approaches and subjects like networking, support strategies and positive female* role models. What are best practice examples? How do others deal with it?

After the summer break, on 18th of September, 8 pm, we will talk about the current situation at Berliner Musiker*innen Treff. The talk offers monthly in a cozy atmosphere the possibility to put relevant subjects of the music bizz into focus. After the festival season we will gather to have a closer look at the subject female* participation on stage, in the booking offices and studios.

Our guests Christian Morin, program curator at Pop-Kultur and Elena Woltemade, Quality Time Booking will answer all your questions. Feel free to participate, all genders welcome, a highly diverse discussion of all interested in the music scenes is our goal.

When? 18th of September, 8 pm Drinks on donation Free entrance

Where? OMA’s Café, Holzmarktstraße (entrance via "An der Michaelbrücke/ Holzmarktstraße", through the gate)

Im Bookingbüro. Bei der Festivalplanung. Im Programmtreffen. Die Lineups und Veranstaltungsprogramme sind oft wie von selbst voll mit den üblichen 85 % meist weiß und männlich* besetzten Acts. Wie bringen wir aber mehr Frauen* auf die Bühne? Ein 50/50 Line-Up scheint als Thema in aller Munde, doch getan hat sich bislang wenig. Es geht hierbei nicht nur um Booker*innen und female* Artists, sondern um den Wunsch Frauen* inklusive trans und non binary Personen in Musik, Kultur und Kunst mehr Sichtbarkeit zu verschaffen. Was hält uns davon ab?

Wir wollen über gemeinsame Strategien, Ideen, Lösungsvorschläge und Themen wie Networking, Support und positive weibliche* Role Models reden. Wo gibt es Erfolge in der Praxis, wie machen die anderen das?

Nach der Sommerpause, am 18. September ab 20 Uhr wollen wir beim nächsten Berliner Musiker*innen Treff über die aktuelle Situation und vor allem gemeinsame Strategien sprechen. Der Berliner Musiker*innen Treff bietet monatlich eine Plattform in Wohnzimmeratmosphäre in der entspannt aktuelle Themen aus dem Musikbusiness diskutiert werden können. Nach der erlebnisreichen Festivalsaison kommen wir nun zusammen und schauen uns das Thema female participation auf den Bühnen, in den Bookingbüros und Studios gemeinsam an. 

Unsere Gäste Christian Morin, Programmkurator von Pop-Kultur und Elena Woltemade, Quality Time Booking werden interessante Inputs geben und für Fragen zur Verfügung stehen. Fühlt euch herzlich eingeladen mitzudiskutieren, all genders welcome, eine diverse Diskussion aller Interessierten aus der Musikszene ist unser Ziel.

Wann? 18. September um 20 Uhr Getränke auf Spendenbasis Eintritt frei

Wo? OMA’s Café, Holzmarktstraße (Eingang an der Michaelbrücke/ Holzmarktstraße, durch das Tor)

[digimedial]

BMT 19th June: Busking – getting ready for a hot summer

Sandra shortly introduced the OMA's Café as one of the last uncommercial places with drinks on donation who kindly offer us to use their cosy room. Karla Hajman, known as musician and stand up comedian Karla Chemistry, was our special guest and expert for this night. Karla was born in Serbia and raised in Italy; after ditching her university-life researching biotechnology she became a free busker, starting off in Barcelona.

As she is now based in Berlin, normally Karla is presenting this kind of topic with Laura Hoo. They are both strongly involved with Berlin Street Music (http://www.berlinstreetmusic.com/), an 'informal formal' initiative about how to deal with angry neighbours, police issues and so on.

Especially in Berlin (where there is no regulation on a city level but on a Bezirk-level) busking exploded somehow since 2015, meaning pressure is increasing, too. To avoid the development of Venice, Barcelona and Zurich, Berlin Street Music tries to act progressively.

Berlin Street Music found out that it is actually mostly owners of marketstands, bar- and restaurant-owners complaining. Berlin Street Music tries to start a dialogue between buskers and people who complain to find a constructive solution, putting up a meeting soon (in the second half of July 2018, probably even at OMA's Café), addressing the problem of how to deal with the Ordnungsamt.

A lot of spots in Berlin got 'redzoned' during the last two years (check berlin.de, Bezirke), so even if you have a license for Friedrichshain you cannot busk at Boxhagener Platz for example.

Any busking inside of parks has to be organized via the 'Grünflächenamt'.

Busking at public transport stations is organized through a lottery; every wednesday at 6am at Wittenbergplatz. It is a very different approach than the 'overground' busking. Busking inside the public transport trains has no rules at all.

If you do a busking tour around Europe, it is the best chance to promote your music and exchange contacts internationally. But even if aiming for an adventure, busking tours somehow have to be planned at least a little.

If you travel alone by public transport, make sure you can actually carry all your equipment, especially amplifier, mic-stands and merch (not mentioning your personal stuff). There exists a telescope-mic-stand but the headset-microphone is a way easier solution (it is close to the mouth and not so sensitive). Merch could contain download cards, business cards and a USB with an 'emergency flyer' print version – once the prepared merch is all gone.

When going by car, check on the fuel prices before, as well as the currency-changing-options. Also it’s worth it to check if any highway tolls are demanded, especially when only crossing. Tolls are billed differently, some by month or even by year.

Make sure to never leave your gear inside the car, there are too many cases when all the equipment got stolen at once!

Check online on the local policy, even though rules that you found online can have been changed since the last season (banned spots etc.). Every city has its own rules, written and unwritten ones. Meeting and talking to other buskers is the best source of recent developments.

The most crucial question everywhere is 'can I use an amplifier or not?'.

Also check https://busk.co/ - it is the biggest database regarding busking, as well as a booking agency.

Especially being a 'guest' in foreign countries, try to be kind and modest towards authorities and bar/restaurant owners, so you are not ruining the city for busking in general. Karla pointed out how important it is to respect the local scene and local rules, no matter if you are in Berlin or touring Europe, use your common sense instead of starting a 'volume-war'.

Following a short list of cities in Europe which currently should be nice for busking:

-Bristol, UK

-Milan (where you have to pick up your permit personally) & Trieste, Italy: for both cities, apply online for the permit two weeks before and pick a spot online (it is also possible to get a license online and then check on 'last minute spots' later on)

-Belgrade, Serbia

-Galway, Ireland

-Vienna, Austria

We will go on a short holiday brake - stay tuned for the next Berliner Musiker Treff in September!

[digimedial]

Berliner Musiker Treff am 19.6.18: Busking – getting ready for a hot summer

Summertime is busking time: Everbody seems more relaxed, life takes place outside and people seem more open for good music and entertainment. Buskers form an important part of summer in the city’s picture and atmosphere. But how does busking work? Can I just choose a spot and start performing? Or do I need a special permit from the city council? Do I need to pay taxes on the money I make on the streets? And are there differences in the laws from city to city and country to country? And how about busking at festivals?

On the 19th June experts from Berlin Street Music will be our guests at the Berliner Musiker Treff to tackle some of the problems you can topple upon as a busker. They’ll talk about their experiences, will discuss the above questions on busking and answer your specific questions. When? 19th June starting at 8 pm Where? OMA’s Café

free entry

___________________________________________________ Zum Sommer gehört Straßenmusik einfach dazu: Nicht nur in Berlin wimmelt es dann von Straßenmusiker*innen, die jedes Stadtbild und dessen Atmosphäre maßgeblich mitprägen. Aber wie funktioniert Busking? Kann ich mir einfach eine Straßenecke oder eine Bahnlinie aussuchen und loslegen? Oder brauche ich dafür eine Genehmigung von Ordnungsamt bzw. Bahnunternehmen? Welche Orte sind geeignet, um meine Musik einem breiten Publikum zu präsentieren? Muss ich das dabei verdiente Geld eigentlich versteuern? Welche Tipps und Tricks verraten erfahrene Busker unter der Hand? Und wie ist das mit Straßenmusik rund um Festivals? Beim Berliner Musiker Treff im Juni werden erfahrene Straßenmusiker*innen der Initiative Berlin Street Music zu Gast sein, um von ihren Erfahrungen zu berichten, die oben genannten Fragen zu beantworten und auf eure spezifischen Probleme und Fragen zum Thema einzugehen. Wann? 19. Juni ab 20 Uhr Wo? OMA’s Café

freier Eintritt

[digimedial]

BMT 15th of May 2018 How to deal with GEMA

Having DJ Aroma from the label aromamusic and Sarah Klute, member of Kulturkosmos Lärz e.V. as guests, the program already promised to be interesting before the session actually started.

Within her label Aroma has worked with various artists in the field of deep techno, minimal house and beyond for more than ten years. Besides she was collecting experiences inside the music industry and clubculture of Berlin even longer, being a member of the thinktank ‘musicahead’ for example.

Sarah Klute is explicitly responsible for GEMA-relations questions at the Fusion Festival and at.tension Festival, bringing with her a bunch of knowledge regarding different genres, forms and levels of music-related activity.

Every musician active in Germany has heard of the almost mysterious institution called GEMA – but hardly anybody truly understands how the system works, and especially if and how you can use it to your advantage and let it work for you.

One of the first concise questions of the evening was whether the structure is somehow complicated on purpose. It became clear, that how to deal with GEMA is always relative, depending on your individual situation being a producer, live musician, DJ, event organizer or club owner.

Clarifying one outstanding point; there is a difference dividing two kinds of memberships:

To be a ‘real active member’ you would need to proof an income of at least 20.000€ each year over 5 years, so 100.000€ after 5 years.That’s why 95% have no rights relating to decision making processes, they are the so called ‘non-active’ members. Aroma summarized that GEMA is not a democratic place at all.

As an individual the starting fee to join would be around 100€, afterwards you pay 25-50€ per year.

In case there is no regulation from the side of the venue - called ‘GEMA repertoire’ -, you as an artist have to prove before the event that no GEMA-registered songs will be played, handing in a tracklist formula. Normally the venue takes care of GEMA, paying a fixed negotiated amount. For festivals again the negotiation strongly depends whether and how much live music is being played.

Sarah Klute gave an example of how the GEMA is not working in favour to the actual cultural sector: In 2016, the Fusion Festival had to give roughly 380.000€ to GEMA, paying royalties for the artists playing their very own music on the festival. Two years later, when GEMA should generally distribute towards the artists at the latest, most of them still didn’t get paid. And once the two years are used up, the artists have no chance to get the money anymore and all of it goes inwards, only supporting the so called ‘real active members’. To avoid this on an individual level, the strong advice of Aroma was to continually probe the GEMA with asking for your money, starting three months after your gig.

Still this judicable institution - using the correct german bureaucratic term: ‘Verein kraft Verleihung’ - is somehow responsible for the income of many well known and established artists having their residency in Germany. But it seems becoming a member only makes sense once you are a well established artist having regular, big shows going on as well as your music being played on television, radio and similar.

Also there is a division between two very vague and arbitrary categories made by GEMA: U-Musik ‘Unterhaltungsmusik’ (music for entertainment) and E-Musik ‘Ernste Musik’ (serious music). Classifying music using those categories, it depends on genre and musical performanc, the location and form of the event also have an influence. Musicians who can identify their music as ‘E-Musik’ simply get money, so if you feel somehow related it makes sense for any musician to ‘insist being E-Music’

Planning a possible accession to GEMA, there is no chance by now to pre-calculate how much money this will bring you on a long-term basis.

Of course there exist different similar alternatives all over the world like STIM, SGAE, KODA or BMI. There even was an attempt to work out a more progressive, sustainable version of GEMA called C3S which somehow ended up without a  proper monitoring system.

Finally by asking yourself the question ‘Should I join GEMA as an artist?’ both Aroma and Sarah Klute highlighted the fact that GEMA is quite an antiquated institution which somehow can’t keep up with the digital age and online sharing and streaming of music.

[digimedial]

Berliner Musiker Treff am 15. 05.2018: How to deal with GEMA?

Every musician active in Germany has heard of this mysterious institution called GEMA – but hardly anybody truly understands how the system works, and especially how you can use it to your advantage and let it work for you. Parallel to their annual membership party at the Columbiahalle we offer a platform to exchange experiences with the GEMA at the upcoming Berliner Musiker Treff: What do I need to know when planning an event, a festival, a concert? Who profits from the system? And are there alternatives?

Our guests: Sarah Klute – a member of the Kulturkosmos e.V. and responsible for GEMA-relations at the Fusion-Festival and the theatre-festival at.tension – and DJ aroma from aromamusic – a berlin based electronica label publishing flavoured microhouse, deep techno and minimal since 2004 – and member of the think tank musicahead.org will talk about their erxperiences and answer all your questions.

When? 15th May starting at 8 pm Where? at Oma’s Café, Holzmarktstraße 19 – 23

Von der GEMA haben alle Musiker*innen schon einmal etwas gehört – wissen aber oft zu wenig darüber, wie genau das System funktioniert, was es ihnen bringen kann, und das es dazu auch Alternativen gibt. Parallel zum jährlichen Mitgliederfest der GEMA in der Columbiahalle bieten wir im Rahmen des Berliner Musiker Treffs am 15.5. Platz zum Austausch über Erfahrungen mit der GEMA: Was muss ich als Veranstalter*in beachten, wenn ich ein Event plane? Was muss ich als Musiker*in bei Konzerten beachten? Wie ist das Ausschüttungssystem organisiert und wie kann man auch als junge*r Autor*in daran partizipieren? Und welche Alternativen gibt es?

Unsere Gäste: Sarah Klute – Teil des Kulturkosmos e.V., die u.a. die GEMA-Fragen für das Fusion-Festival und das Theater-Festival at.tension betreut –, und DJ aroma von aromamusic – einem Berliner Elektronik-Label, dass seit 2004 deep techno und minimal house-Musik veröffentlicht – und Teil des Thinktanks musicahead.org, werden aus Ihren Erfahrungen berichten und eure Fragen diskutieren.

Wann? 15. Mai ab 20 Uhr Wo? in Oma’s Café, Holzmarktstraße 19 – 23

[digimedial]

Berliner Musiker Treff 17th April 2018 @ OMAs Café Tour-Booking & -Promotion

With three well-versed guests regarding the topic of tour-booking and -promotion and a promised jam session later on, this edition of Berliner Musiker Treff filled up with people very quickly.

As there were too many people to introduce everybody by name, Felix Gebauer - who organized this session for the last time - made a quick check on the distribution of backgrounds: Roughly 80-90% of the audience were active musicians, some bookers and some randomly interested people joined them.

Felix welcomed the speakers Mauricio Lizarazo Prada, Nils Kreutzfeld - and Ray Herlitz who dropped in spontaneously.

Mauricio has managed the concert tours and live-music production of various well known bands and solo-acts via founding Pachamama Culture, which is a multi-faceted sustainable venture, including tour management, live-music and production for bands and artists with social responsibility.

Nils ist currently working at F-Cat productions - a booking agency and tour organizer for world music, jazz and suchlike who are representing artists worldwide using their extensive network.

Ray was managing a club in Zürich before participating at Springstoff, which started as a small female rap project and has now developed into a well known music company (booking, label and events) pushing educational and equality issues.

Talking about tour booking and promotion in a room full of musicians the question came up whether or when it makes sense to have a personal booking agent. The three guests on stage gave the following advice:

Ask yourself at what point of your career you really do ‘need’ a booking agent to keep on playing music. Make sure they really work for you and your music (maybe start with a close friend who is interested). In general, don’t go for huge agencies, better look for a real team. Normally, 10-15% of the payments go to an agency doing booking only, if the agency does the complete management 20% is a good estimate.

No matter if being a booking agent/artist manager or a musician, the first topic of interest was how to find good venues for artists in other countries/cities. The first step would be to check online which acts are similar and find out where they already played. Also it makes sense to choose smaller cities for newcomers and establish a connection to local promoters and the ‘scene’.

Where are my fans? If you have to choose between cities/countries for a tourbooking, you can go into the facebook ‘like-check’ statistics, check statistics at youtube/spotify or simply use ‘chartmetric’, a program which focusses mostly on analysing playlist data to see where most people who like the music come from.

When the first input from the audience came up, the person was asked to put his/her own style of music into words which seemed not that easy. Even though few artists ever want to categorize themselves, it is essential being able to describe your style in ten seconds/one or two sentences.

This lead the discussion towards the way of finally approaching a concrete location somewhere else. First there should be an email with all the details (i.e. a photo, music-links and best a video), then maybe a call one week after not getting any response. The send material should give an image of how the band ‘works’ on stage.

In case you have a very new project it makes sense to go step by step. Start playing a lot in the streets (hand out little gimmicks, stickers and/or CDs), then go to small venues which can be sold out by 50 of your friends (easy mobilization) and finally move to bigger venues, maybe by starting as a support act. Being a support act mostly doesn’t get you money but a lot of good promotion when supporting a similar band/act.

In case you have some kind of message or can identify politically, there are many venues/structures that already use official fundings and actually search for acts to play at their place. All of this can open the doors to playing a big show somewhere, even if a lot of promoters just check like-numbers online there are still a lot who do the job for the love of music. Establishing personal contacts still stays the core of opening possibilities to play out of town.

Sometimes promoters also just use facebook and whatsapp, but these are mostly young ones - in Germany email probably is the most common thing to use.

Once the connection is established and booking is fixed, local and your own promotion should start as soon as possible, working close hand in hand. Sometimes you have to make sure that the local promoter/event organizer is really promoting the upcoming show (maybe send posters and flyers to push them, some venues even pay shipping costs). This also means the artist has to hand out his/her material/EPK in time. The EPK (electronic press kit) is one page pdf-file with active links of video (30 seconds) and audio, a logo and a small description. Apart from that it makes sense to have some kind of creative content (acoustic versions, video of studio recordings...) to create a buzz and raise some expectations towards the show.

In case you need to really put pressure on the local promoter because they are not promoting at all, artists can threaten to cancel the show and still make the promoter pay accommodation (depending on the contract).

In general to have a close connection with the local promoter as an artist you have to balance your booking fee and what is in it for the venue. Here it is most important to be on the same track as this leads to a collective interest of the show being a success.

To enhance the reach you can also suggest little interviews in the local magazines, use radio stations or any kind of underground marketing. Also use your guestlist wisely (invite other promoters, journalists etc.).

When it finally comes to the show, always double check about the tech rider and provided equipment as well as get the personal contact of the technician working that night.

With the interesting guest combination of Mauricio, Nils and Ray and a lively participating audience, the time for speaking passed quickly and the Berliner Musiker Treff was rounded off by a cosy jam session.

[digimedial]

Berliner Musiker Treff on the 17.4.2018 with JAM SESSION

What do I need to think of if I want to go on tour? How do I find out where my fans are? How do I find suitable venues and how do I get in contact with them? What’s the best way to communicate and cooperate with the partners on site? And is it better to focus my touring on hot venues in Hamburg, Paris and London, or do I profit more from starting in Potsdam, Cottbus or Eisenhüttenstadt?

To not have your tour bus stranded in the desert, the next Berliner Musiker Treff will focus on tour-booking and tour-promotion. This edition’s guests Nils Kreutzfeldt from F-Cat Productions and Mauricio Lizarazo Prada ( founder of Pachamama Culture) will share their knowledge and answer your questions on the toppic. F-Cat is one of the most influencial concert agencies for global music in Germany and work with artists such as Habib Koité, Rokia Traoré and Chancha Via Circuito. Pachamama Culture is a multi-faceted sustainable venture, including tour management, live-music and production for bands and artists with social responsibility. Mauricio has managed the concert tours and live-music production for Ohrbooten, Lola Marsh, Acollective, Garden City Movement, Outernational, Barbarella’s Bang Bang, Jaqee, El Sie7e a.o. and has collaborated with other acts like Panteón Rococó, Maldita Vecindad, Namika, Die Toten Hosen, Culcha Candela, Chico Trujillo, Systema Solar, Toto La Momposina, among others.

After the discussion we again invite everybody to a joint JAM SESSION. So pack your instruments, bring your questions, discuss and jam with us.

When? 17th April starting at 8 pm Where? at Oma’s Café, Holzmarktstraße 19 – 23

Was ist wichtig zu beachten, wenn ich Gigs außerhalb meines Heimatortes spielen möchte? Woher weiß ich, in welchen Städten meine Fans sitzen und wie ich diese erreiche? Wie recherchiere ich Venues, die zu mir passen? Wie nehme ich Kontakt auf, wie kooperiere und kommuniziere ich mit meinen Partnern vor Ort? Macht es mehr Sinn, auf angesagte Venues in Hamburg, Paris oder London zu zielen, oder bringt es mich eher weiter, erst einmal nach Potsdam, Cottbus oder Eisenhüttenstadt zu fahren? Und wie können wir auch als unbekannte Band Neugier erzeugen?

Damit euer Tourbus nicht in der Wüste strandet, dreht sich am 17.4. beim Berliner Musik Treff alles um das Thema Tour-Booking und Tour-Promotion. Unsere Gäste Nils Kreutzfeldt von F-Cat Productions und Mauricio Lizarazo Prada (Gründer von Pachamama Culture) werden ihr Wissen mit euch teilen und eure Fragen rund um das Thema beantworten. F-Cat ist eine der einflussreichsten Konzertagenturen für globale Musik in Deutschland und arbeitet mit so unterschiedlichen Künstler*innen wie Habib Koité, Rokia Traoré und Chancha Via Circuito. Pachamama Culture ist ein facettenreiches und nachhaltiges Unternehmen, dessen Spektrum Tourmanagement, Live-Musik und die Produktion für Bands und Künstler*innen mit sozialem Verantwortungsbewusstsein. Mauricio übernahm bereits das Tourmanagement sowie die Produktion der Live-Musik von Künstler*innen wie Ohrbooten, Lola Marsh, Acollective, Garden City Movement, Outernational, Barbarella’s Bang Bang, Jaqee, El Sie7e u.A. und kollaborierte mit Akts wie u.a. Panteón Rococó, Maldita Vecindad, Namika, Die Toten Hosen, Culcha Candela, Chico Trujillo, Systema Solar, Toto La Momposina.

Im Anschluss an das Treffen findet erneut eine JAM SESSION statt. Also packt eure Instrumente ein, schreibt eure Fragen auf – kommt vorbei, diskutiert und jammed mit uns.

Wann? 17. April ab 20 Uhr Wo? in Oma’s Café, Holzmarktstraße 19 – 23

[digimedial]

BMT 20th of March “Overcoming Shyness”

To talk about the topic of dealing with any negative emotions blocking artistic activities, Aaron Pfeiffer was visiting the Berliner Musiker Treff again.The singer, songwriter and performer has different music projects going on and quite some experience when it comes to handling doubts, worries and nervousness, fears in general. As those emotions can lead to ‘shyness’ about showing your art and expressing yourself in any way, this session became an almost philosophical one.

First, there was a big introduction round which revealed that the guests were international ones - coming from New Jersey, Uruguay, Bulgaria, the United States, Israel, Hungary and Argentina - bringing very different skills and talents from singing-songwriting via production, drumming and DJing to music management throughout all different genres.

Also if there were amateurs sitting next to full time professionals, Aaron Pfeiffer mentioned that in the so called creative sector, unconventional schedules and ways of working have to be accepted more or less. So first he strongly advised the book ‘Catching the big fish’ by David Lynch, which helped him a lot to figure out his own personal way of dealing with being an artist and showing it to the outside world.

As the life of an artist can’t really be compared to whatever ‘normal’ standards are, he said meditation as a way of ‘exploring yourself’ is the biggest step towards having a flow of creativity and representing yourself/ your ‘true’ artist self. Once you know yourself very well there is no need for trying to be someone else, or acting weird in public situations.

After the short input there was a second round in which all different fears were collected, which showed clearly that everyone has them and they are all not so different from each other.

Here a few examples: -pissing people of by posting too much online -working with very skilled/successful people next to you -releasing music and there is no public reaction/not being seen as an artist/nobody cares -speaking in public -not receiving ‘the energy’’ on stage -exposing the private life - overexposure vs. underexposure -being judged hardly vs. the illusion (people lie to you about your art) -no financial progress even if putting all lifetime into the project

Aaron listened to all those thoughts and experiences and finally summarized shortly, that all those negative feelings can be destructed in your head as well as they are created there.

Of course it makes sense to be aware of your ‘scene’ and respect ‘underground politics’ if any when it comes to restricting your own promotion or putting yourself out there. And surely the goal is to promote yourself in an authentic way, stay humble and keep learning.

But something else became clear during the process: Mostly people are so harsh with themselves even though they accept imperfections of other artists as perfection. So it really makes no sense in letting yourself down or putting a project down because somebody made a negative comment (maybe just because of a bad day/different taste). And Even after writing 100 emails and having 100 rejections, number 101 can be a YES. It can be more effective to write one personal message or email to the right person than 100 public postings.

The two best finishing statements of the evening were that today people of the music industry get paid to give positive feedback, so you are better off being your own best criticizer.

The next Berliner Musiker Treff will take place on the 17th April at 8pm. Tour Booking and Tour Promotion - with Jam Session Guest: Nils Kreutzfeldt (F-Cat Productions)

[digimedial]

Berliner Musiker Treff am 20.3.2018: Overcoming Shyness – Artistic Self vs. The Public

The life of an artist in the digital age is demanding. Sometimes it might seem that „putting yourself out there“ is more important than actually making music. But what do we do if we are shy, introvert, or just value our privacy? Is it neccessary to reveal our private lives to our potential audience? Are there ways to interact physically and digitally that can feel comfortable? Or what are ways to deal with uneasyness and to collect confidence to speak publicly, in front of a camera, to „go live“?

Aaron Pfeiffer (Universal/Delicate Artists), who already talked about how to best release your music at January’s Berliner Musiker Treff, will be our guest again and share his experiences with you. Aaron recently signed with Universal Music Germany but before that has been self-promoting and self-releasing his music in the United States and London very successfully, making it to several thousand followers on social media, to over 100k listeners on Spotify and even landing a placement with H&M worldwide all on his own. He knows the ins and outs of promotion and marketing and is eager to share his knowledge with you.

When? 20th March starting at 8 pm Where? at Oma’s Café, Holzmarktstraße 19 – 23

Das Leben eines Künstlers in Zeiten des digitalen Wandels ist eine Herausforderung: Es scheint fast so, als sei es wichtiger, sich der Welt gut zu präsentieren, als gute Musik zu machen. Aber was macht man, wenn man introvertiert und schüchtern ist – oder einfach seine Privatsphäre schätzt? Muss man sein Privatleben (was bedeutet das eigentlich?) mit seinem Publikum teilen? Gibt es Wege, sich digital und in der Öffentlichkeit zu bewegen und sich dabei wohl zu fühlen? Welche Möglichkeiten gibt es, seine Schüchternheit zu überwinden und selbstbewusstes Auftreten zu üben?

Aaron Pfeiffer, (Universal/Delicate Artists) – der beim Berliner Musiker Treff im Januar bereits sein Wissen zum Thema Track Releases diskutiert hat – freut sich bereits darauf, seine umfangreichen Erfahrungen mit den anwesenden Musiker*innen zu teilen. Aaron hat kürzlich bei Universal Music Germany unterschrieben und seine Musik davor jahrelang und sehr erfolgreich in den USA und London selbstvermarktet. Dabei hat er es auf über 100.000 Spotify-Hörer und mehrere tausend Follower in den Sozialen Medien gebracht.

Kommt vorbei, bringt eure Fragen und Anregungen mit und tauscht euch aus.

Wann? 20. März ab 20 Uhr Wo? in Oma’s Café, Holzmarktstraße 19 – 23

[digimedial]

This is how divers the music-scene in Kreuzberg is! The next  Berliner  Musiker  Treff will take place at OMA's Café on the 20th March - save the date!

The toppic: Strategies in overcoming shyness - getting ready for the public

[digimedial]

Berliner Musiker Treff: First Session @ OMA’s Café 16th of January 2018 Topic: Track Release

Centrally located at Jannowitzbrücke, OMA Café welcomed the move of Berliner Musiker Treff with open arms. The cosy room filled quickly until 8:30pm, all standing room and seats were packed.

Due to the amount of guests the introduction round was kept short, just getting an overview on names, music projects and genres.

From Funk, RnB and Jazz influences via Stoner Rock, Hip Hop, Balkan music and so called Urban Pop all kinds of passions were present; electronic music-producers, DJs and acoustic musicians (guitar, trumpet, singer, piano..) sitting next to each other.

Three guests were invited to discuss the topic of track release in the digital age. On the one hand releasing music has never been easier but on the other hand there is the challenge to stand out in the surplus of music online.  

Marius Schwesig ('Mauli'), a Hip Hop/Rap artist of 'Immer Ready' for example said about himself, he actually got famous through 'the internet', meaning he joined an online rap battle and simply founded a facebook page which then got liked a lot. A perfect example of the right timing and placement.

Timo Scholz was a music editor who originally came from Rock/Punk music and at some point wanted to combine this with electronic influences. After publishing podcasts to promote the event series and artists of the label 'Tal der Verwirrung', the wish to release tracks and EPs as well came into being. These label activities started through supporting ‘underground’ artists within their circle of friends but now developed a reach extending beyond Berlin.

Aaron Pfeiffer ('Delicate Artists') was the third guest. Born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, he lived and had a band in New York City as well as did recordings in L.A. Dedicated to Gospel and Neo-Soul sound, the singer always focussed on getting his music out there in any way possible (self-promoting and self-releasing) and managed to collect thousands of followers on social media. He just signed with Universal Music Germany.

Having those three different guests with their individual musical background, the probably most interesting and controversial aspects of promoting a track release came out. From keeping a little bit of understatement (like mainly doing live performances to catch an audience) to seeing the very own project like a little company/business (dedicating a certain amount of hours every day to promotional work) every advice can be true.

So first it became clear, that the kind of promotional ways/methods one should choose deeply connect to the 'target audience', meaning the scene itself. Understanding what culture you are contributing to is the core of every promotional step. Get to know how your ‘crowd’ or potential fanbase probably wants to discover and research your music. Find out about the 'niché' to place your product.

Focussing on track releases, how do you know if your track is ready to be released?

According to our guests, these are the top advices: Listen to the track yourself all over again on repeat in different situations and on different sound systems. Only show it to friends when it is more or less finished, otherwise the feedback could influence the artistic process too much. Every song should have an (inherent) meaning.

Even if putting the new track on soundcloud seems like the easy way, maybe it is not the best. Soundcloud cuts down the quality and there are different digital distribution platforms which offer different services. Another hint was to stay away from ‘random online offers’ which promise to put your track on spotify playlists for example.

Which platforms can be trusted to actually help and support spreading/selling your music? The following short list is an insight into the positive experiences of our guests:

→ Tunecore helps you to spread your music online via catalogues of iTunes, Amazon, Spotify and other. Apparently you keep 100 %of your rights and earned money

→ CD-Baby represents your music on their page, mainly focussed music-CDs from independent musicians without a record deal, also they distribute MP3-formats

→ Paradise Distribution is an independent digital music and video distributor network based in Berlin, Hamburg and San Francisco, but not too easy to ‘get in’

→ SubmitHub is a website to connect artists with music bloggers, playlisters and record labels - there’s a standard and premium version and it’s a good start to get some online-reach

→ imusician digital is a digital music distribution adn you tube monetization platform

→  bandcamp is a platform to discover new music

When it comes to mixing/mastering your own tracks, this can be an ambivalent topic, too. You probably should find somebody to really trust, but it could also be good to actually pay a skilled stranger, as the somehow ‘impersonal’ attitude contributes to professionalize your music. Here ‘Chris Gram Mastering’ or ‘RobSmall.com’ are highly recommended, as these are institutions which give you three mastering versions to decide on. In general it is not recommended to use digital mastering, where there are no actual people involved but everything is done by machines/algorithms.

Planning the actual promotion for a release strongly depends on whether you do acoustic or electronic music: For acoustic music two months should at least be considered, maybe have three to six months to plan the whole project from A to Z. This includes getting people ‘on board’, making sure that people understand your brand/style/genre, making lists with similar artists and blogs where this kind of music is spreaded.

For electronic music on the other hand, between two and five weeks of promotion is fine, meaning the duration of uploading the track on soundcloud to the possibility to buy it on beatport.

After all this input by the group-discussion on stage time was already overrun and the Q & A session tightened as the audience at the same time wanted to know more and get the jam session started. So the one question by the audience which probably summarizes many details was whether someone has to be a business person to exist as an artist.

Whatever business person exactly means, caring about your music like a business just makes sense if you really aim to reach a big audience. Also you should never do ‘more’ than what is fun and makes sense to your individual artist-being. Balancing on that line you will find out which doors need to be opened and how to get over which boundaries, where there is no reason to be shy presenting/promoting your art.

The whole evening was nicely rounded off with a proper Jam Session and many smiling faces, lasting until midnight.

[digimedial]

BMT Relaunch: Release your music!

And after: JAMSESSION 16.1.2018, 8 pm @ new location: Omas Café auf dem Holzmarkt-Gelände

In the new year, everything’s new at the Berliner Musiker Treff: We’ll start 2018 at a new location – the intimate Oma's Café, part of the bustling Holzmarkt area. AND: We’d like to invite the musicians to jam with us after the event – show what you’ve got!

picture: Jason Krüger

The first toppic of 2018 will be the track release. Releasing your music has never been easier – but still a lot of things can go wrong. So how to plan a successful track release? Which platforms are trusted for a digital release and where can you find good partners to have an impact? And most importantly how to gain that rare and neccessary glimpse of attention from a crowd that is drowning in information. Our guests Timo Scholz from the Label Tal der Verwirrung and Aaron Pfeiffer (Universal/Delicate Artists) will give some insights on the toppic. Berlin based "Tal der Verwirrung" is a successful event production crew for almost a decade now, hosting on various occasions throughout the year and peaking with an annual festival in summer. Their recent label activities have had an instant impact reaching far beyond berlin. As a label Tal der Verwirrung aims to provide a platform, giving opportunity for underground artists within their circle of friends to successfully reach out to the public and to connect great minds who think alike. Aaron just signed with Universal Music Germany but before that has been self-promoting and self-releasing his music in the United States and London very successfully, making it to several thousand followers on social media, to over 100k listeners on Spotify and even landing a placement with H&M worldwide all on his own. He knows the ins and outs of promotion and marketing and is eager to share his knowledge with you.

So come to the next Berliner Musiker Treff and find out: Discuss your experiences with fellow musicians, get advice from experts of the music scene and make new contacts.

We’re looking forward to seeing you there on the 16th January!

When? starting at 8 pm Where? at Oma's Café, Holzmarktstraße 19 – 23

Im Neuen Jahr ist alles neu beim Berliner Musiker Treff: Neue Location, neues Format!

2018 startet der BMT im intimen Omas Café auf dem lebendigen Holzmarkt-Gelände. UND: Wir laden alle anwesenden Musiker*innen im Anschluss an das Treffen zur gemeinsamen Jamsession – zeigt was ihr drauf habt!

In der erste Ausgabe des neuen Berliner Musiker Treffs dreht sich alles um das Thema Track Release. Musik zu veröffentlichen war noch nie leichter als heute – und trotzdem kann Vieles schief gehen. Wie plant man also einen erfolgreichen Track Release? Welchen Plattformen kann man beim digitalen Release vertrauen und wo finden sich einflussreiche Partner*innen? Und vielleicht am Wichtigsten: Wie erregt man den so wichtigen Moment der Aufmerksamkeit bei einer Informations- und Reizüberfluteten Öffentlichkeit?

Unsere Gäste diesmal: Timo Scholz vom Label "Tal der Verwirrung" und Aaron Pfeiffer, der die letzten Jahre sehr erfolgreich Selbstmarketing betrieben und gerade bei Universal Music Germany unterschrieben hat. Beide freuen sich darauf ihre Erfahrungen mit euch zu teilen.

Komm zum nächsten Berliner Musiker Treff und finde es heraus: Tausche dich mit anderen Musiker*innen aus, erhalte Rat von Expert*innen und lerne neue Leute kennen.

Wir freuen uns schon darauf!

Wann? ab 20 Uhr Wo? in Oma's Café, Holzmarktstraße 19 - 23

[digimedial]

The Sound of Neukölln - BMT 11th December 2017

This edition of the BMT was all about promoters, event series, venues, genres, jam sessions, studios, concerts and the general development of the musical landscape in Neukölln.

Michael Aniser, event organizer, writer, member of noisekoelln and noisekoelln tapes label, was our special guest. The audience was a mix of international musicians who just came to Berlin 1-3 years ago and more or less old-established event-affiliated people.

Among the participants there was a musical variety ranging from Bossanova-Funk to Live Techno and UK Bass productions; still all of them wanted to get some information on places to play gigs, studiospaces and information about the district in general.

After a short introduction, we directly moved on to current interesting promoters and events going on. First things to be mentioned here were the 'Shameless/Limitless' party series and 'Sameheads' (event-radio-fashion-art conglomeration).

Maybe the hottest topic of the evening was the gentrification process in Berlin and its implications for and effects on the cultural and music scene. Talking about exiting venues while knowing about the gentrification process, especially those locations which are somehow operating outside or parallel to legal boundaries, was interesting. Soon a longer discussion about suppression and displacement of cultural freedom spaces came up. A contributing factor in Neukölln is also that rents went up and that leaves less room and time to do art or be creative. In this context Michael Aniser described several experimental underground and live-music venues around S-Bhf Sonnenallee.

Another interesting example the discussion moved to was the subversive DIY Neukölln-Festival. As it couldn't be expressed any better, here is a short self-description from their homepage:

„Off-Kultur is a critical response to Pop-Kultur Festival. Off-Kultur wants to open up a discourse about the state-run Pop-Kultur Festival, that is using Neukölln as a cool marketing gimmick without acknowledging the local scene.“ (http://off-kultur.berlin/ 13th of December 2017)

Some more interesting facts from the discussion: In Neukölln, alternative pop-music as well as electronic music are big at the moment. The Griessmühle probably is the place to be for electronic music, whereas the Loophole was mentioned for more experimental stuff and the Klunkerkranich offers space for Live Music (still they are struggling with loudness issues). For live musicians who just want to get a foot in the door, an early evening during the week in wintertime is quite appropiate at Klunkerkranich. And talking about Live Music: There has been a regular Jam Session at the so called Keller which already stopped a long time ago. It's clearly time to establish a new one!

[digimedial]

BMT am 11.12.: The Sound of Neukölln

Gigs, Venues, Rehearsal Space & Music Culture - What's going on in Berlin's South East

Neukölln represents Berlin‘s creative scene like no other ‚Kiez‘, but the space for artistic and creative experimentation is limited. Too many complaints of neighbors lead to a short duration of event and concert locations in this thriving part of the city. That makes it hard to keep up to speed with existing performance spaces and events that make artistic exchange possible.

At the upcoming Berliner Musiker Treff we and our guest Michael Aniser (OffKultur, Noisekölln, Electronic Beats) would like to discuss secret – and not so secret anymore – tipps concearning the Neukölln scene, and we’ll try to discover it’s possibilities and trends together.

When: 11.12.2017, 8pm Where: Rotbart

Foto: Tina Eichner

Neukölln steht für die Berliner Kreativszene, aber die Räume um sich auszutoben sind begrenzt. Die Nachbarn üben viel Druck aus, so dass die Orte oft nur für kurze Zeit bestehen. Es ist daher schwer einen Überblick über Auftrittsmöglichkeiten und Veranstaltungsformate zu bekommen und Räume zu finden, in denen ein gemeinsamer kreativer Austausch stattfinden kann.

Beim nächsten Berliner Musiker Treff möchten wir uns gemeinsam mit unserem Gast Michael Aniser (OffKultur, Noisekölln, Electronic Beats) mit euch über Geheimtipps und nicht mehr ganz so geheime Tipps unterhalten – und den aktuellen Trends im Neuköllner Musikleben nachspüren.Kommt vorbei, bringt eure Fragen und Anregungen mit und tauscht euch aus.

Wann? 11.12.2017, 20 Uhr Wo? Rotbart