You are here: Home / 2010 / Archives for June 2010

5 reasons every spoken word poet should have a poetry CD or poetry MP3

June 29, 2010 By 1 Comment

Generic Touchscreen MP3 PlayerAre you excluding fans by not making your poetry and stories available on CD?

When you read a poem or story you cannot easily capture the rhythm and emotion of the poet or storyteller, which is why live poetry and storytelling performances can be so powerful. Spoken word poets and slam poets should always consider having a storytelling CD or poetry CD and a book.

Below are 5 reasons why every spoken word poet or storyteller should have a CD:

1) Poetry CDs and poetry MP3s are a marketing tool and can act as a business card for spoken word poets

I love books but books are heavy and you always have to think twice before carrying them everywhere. Poetry CDs often take up less space and you can carry them around more easily. It is always a great idea to carry around a sample of your work because you never know who you are going to meet and when that CD will come in handy. It is okay to meet someone and tell them what you do, it is more impressive to leave them with a physical sample of your work.

2) It is important to have your work available in all formats

Reading takes commitment and 100% focus. You can listen and drive or write at the same time. If you do not have a CD you may be excluding some fans who are too busy to read.

If you want your voice to be heard you may need to have your work available in all formats. People can listen to a CD in their car as they are driving or cooking. If you are trying to be part of a large event, it is a great idea to send a sample of your poetry CD or email a poetry MP3 to an organizer and hope they hear it, rather than hope they read your book.

3) You can sell a poetry CD at poetry slams

The same way that you sell books, at a open mic sessions and slam poetry venues, you can also sell CDs and make money.

4) You can produce a CD straight from your computer

If you are tech-savvy a stack of CDs can be cheaper to produce than a stack of hard copy books. Hard copy books need a cover design and printing which costs money. All you need to produce a CD in your own house is a good microphone, a computer, some audio editing and recording software. If you are perfectionist you can also get a stand alone hard disk recorder.

5) Poetry CDs require less poems to produce than a poetry book

It takes a lot of poems to compile a poetry book – you need more than 10 poems in the book to be able to price the book at a certain price. With a poetry CD you can choose your 10 greatest poems and produce it straight from your computer without worrying about ink etc. Start marketing your CDs at venues, and start building your career and getting your name out there. Work with what you have and see what doors start opening.

Image by Flickr user AngelaShupe.com

Filed Under: Art of Spoken Word Tagged With: , , , ,

What babies can teach you about owning the spotlight

June 26, 2010 By Leave a Comment

spotlightYesterday I was invited to dinner and found myself in the presence of a 1 year old baby.

In the middle of dinner the baby decided to walk away from the kitchen to the living room to watch television with his older sister (who is 10 years old). When he got there he attempted to climb onto the couch to sit with her. The next thing we heard was a huge thump and a scream and then silence.

As you can imagine, all the adults at the table froze and ran on queue to the living room.

When we got there his sister was attempting to pick him up and told us he had bumped his head on the edge of the couch (ouch). At this point there was still not sound from the baby just an open mouth and no sound. I thought: great he is okay, he is going to do this silently.

His dad (who adores him) took one look at him, looked at his mom and responded, “Oh it’s a long silence, this is gonna be a big one, make sure he is breathing.”

At first I was really confused and asked him what he meant but he told me I would see in a moment. A few seconds later the baby let rip a very loud and long crying session.

After a few minutes or so he calmed down, got his kisses and candy from all of us and went back to the living room to climb on the couch and sit with his sister as though nothing had happened.

There are 2 lessons I feel spoken word poets and storytellers can takeaway from this story:

1) Never underestimate the power of a pause

How do you build up anticipation in the middle of a performance?

When we heard the baby scream followed by silence, we were all scared and on tenterhooks…we were anticipating the climax. The sudden silence is what made us anxious, not the scream. We would probably have walked to the living room had we heard screams, but silence played havoc with our imagination because we had no clue what would come later. A pause is a great performance technique – do not underestimate the power of a pause.

Most spoken word poems have a rhythm to them, but sometimes a break in that rhythm calls attention to the lines that you want your audience to focus on. If you want people to remember a particular line, you need to call attention to it by saying it in a different manner. A long pause during a speech or poem can usually do the trick.

A lot of times when we are in the middle of a great story, spoken word poem or speech we want to speed up and get to the punch line faster. But there is a lot to be said for pausing and building anticipation for the climax of any story. Perfectly timed pauses can be a powerful tool.

2) Keep getting back on stage

Watching the baby go back to climb the couch just to sit next to his sister, right after getting hurt and crying reminded me that pain and embarrassment, is not as important as achieving your goal. Cliché as it sounds you need to keep getting back on the horse.

There are times when being on stage can bring many embarrassing and painful moments. You may consider it embarrassing to forget your lines during a slam contest and having to start from scratch (been there, done that). Keep on performing and getting back on stage regardless of all the bad experiences, and eventually you will have more annoying or embarrassing experiences that will make the original ones seem like god sends.

Even slam poetry contests can be painful at times because you can write the most amazing slam poems only to have everyone disagree with your valuation. The important thing to remember is that the next week there will be a different audience, hell there may even be a different audience at the next venue so just keep performing those poems until someone recognizes their brilliance. The important thing is to perfect your craft and keep performing.

I would be interested to learn more about some of the lessons that anyone has learned from babies….

Image by Flickr user sunshinecity

Filed Under: Art of Spoken Word Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

Sharing your story is the first step to becoming a slam poet

June 23, 2010 By Leave a Comment

AloneYesterday as part of our show titled: Services every self publisher should consider, we interviewed Titilayo (Titi) Ngwenya, singer, songwriter and founder of Blue Panty Publishers.

In the interview we asked Titi what she felt the most challenging thing for writers was, and her answer was: marketing.

The insight that Titi shared was that most writing and poetry is so personal that it becomes hard for the writer or poet to distance themselves from it long enough to market it.

Art, my co-host on the show, always jokes that I see the colors and the texture of the canvas and he sees the painting and how others could use  the painting to decorate their houses. This analogy can be used for people who are so intensely involved in creating a product: artists, scientists and even software developers, these people see the little details about a product and why it is unique. But the audience sees only a finished product: a painting, a book or a car and they will not know about the greatness of this product until you tell them.

When you are writing a poetry book or putting together a storytelling cd, you know what makes your book or cd unique. You know that you wrote a poem in response to the atrocities of genocide and that you slaved day and night to find just the right metaphor, pause and rhythm for the particular poem or spoken word performance and you had to write it because you could not stand the silence and the injustice. You may know all this, but your audience does not know this and worse, they may not even appreciate it.

That does not mean you are failing at what you do or that the poem is terrible. It simply means that your audience does not know where you are coming from. They are seeing the painting, not the colors and the texture. The story behind the painting is missing. This is where marketing and branding becomes important because marketing is simply telling your story and help your audience identify with you so that they can have a reason to buy your book or cd.

To tell the story behind your poetry book, your poetry cd or your slam event, you may need to step back from the work itself and explain the background and motivation of it to your audience. Tell your story.

There are 6 billion people in the world, surely it is not farfetched to believe that anyone can find a core group of people that can identify and understand your work. But to find these people, you have to share your story; you have to give them a reason to attend an event that you are headlining.

But what if you are so attached that you cannot distance yourself enough to tell your story?

In this case I would suggest:

1) Working with a marketing consultant or marketing analyst to take over the marketing portion of your book.

Titi, did this when she launched her first album and she says it went very well. If you cannot pay a marketing person be innovative and trade services (marketing people often need some kind of copy written).

2) Help other spoken word poets and slam poets with their book launches, cd launches and event launches.

Titi suggested this because it is a great way to get experience and also get to know others in the industry. You can learn a lot by watching what others are doing.

Ultimately the decision to market and promote yourself rests with you but it is important if you are starting out. I would love to here your thoughts on this topic in the comments section of the Speak 2B Free blog.

Image by Flickr user kreslava

Filed Under: -Publishing Process Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Money Tip: Spoken word poets make great voice over talent

June 22, 2010 By 1 Comment

Dog Looking at and Listening to a Phonograph, "His Master's Voice", The Original RCA Music Puppy Dog Logo Symbol for AdvertisingThe question on any artist’s mind is: How do I make extra money?

Part of speak 2B Free’s mission is to explore new ways for spoken word poets to make money and one of the things the things the blog will be doing is to provide a money tip once a week.

This week’s tip is: Voice over acting!

It is not that easy to get into this line of work and it can take a while to make a name for yourself but you can make good money from voice over work. Voice over rates can be quite competitive: you can get paid up to US$1,000 for 60 seconds on a national radio commercial or US$2,000 on a national TV commercial in the USA.

What is voice over acting?

Voice over acting is using your voice to act. Voice over actors provide voices for radio adverts, soap operas, television adverts and animation characters on TV and movies. Sometimes voice over talent will be the background singer for an actor or actress (singing voice). Julie Andrews is said to have been Audrey Hepburn’s singing voice in “My fair lady.”

Why would spoken word poets make great voice over talent?

Very good spoken word and slam poets know how to use their voices to portray emotion, which would make them great voice actors. The way slam poets use their voices can be as important as the content in their poetry, which means that the average slam poet or spoken word poet has some knowledge of tone, pauses and inflection in speech.

Voice over work is still creative work and will not take away too much time from your writing or performing, instead it may give you more skills.

Many actors do voice over work but the great news for many spoken word poets is that most producers or brands are just not willing to spend more for well known actors and actresses, which explains the rise of voice over talent agents and networking websites.

Before getting started

Before starting out as a voice over actor you may want to create a few 15 or 30 second demos of yourself using different voices. You may need to get these professionally done but a good agent should be able to point you in the right direction.

How to land voice over work

To get started in voice over work you need a talent agent. The trick is to find a talent agent that resonates with you – some talent agents are big and reputable but they may not give you the focus that you want and need as someone just starting out in this industry. The one good thing about an agent is that you can ask them for advice on what you need to do to increase your chances of success in this industry. It usually helps if you keep in touch with your agent.

You can also register with various voice over sites online but they can charge up to $200/ pa for a registration but they do give you your own web page where you can upload videos and MP3/ audio demos but they do not necessarily promote you.

Market yourself as a voice over actor – just because you have an agent and a demo, it does not mean that you are going to get work. You will still have to network to get jobs. Marketing can be as simple as networking, blogging or mailing ad agencies directly.

I would love to hear any thoughts that anyone has on this article in the comments section below

Image by Flickr user Beverly & Pack

Filed Under: -Marketing, Branding & Blogging Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Hip hop meets spoken word poetry and fem MCs

June 16, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Danseur de Hip Hop sur l'Alexander Platz (Berlin)Yesterday on the Speak 2B Free radio station we had an interview with Reza Clifton and Kalyana Champlain, the founders of Isis Storm a women hip hop group.

The interview was aptly titled: Hip hop meets spoken word poetry and fem MCs (note: due to technical issues the program starts 3 minutes into the recording).

Before I continue with this post I would like to relate a recent experience. This afternoon I found myself having a conversation with a 17 year old boy and I happened to mention that we interviewed an all-women hip hop group. And his answer was (and I quote): “women rapping? They can’t be any good.” I was so taken aback that I just cracked up laughing because in the interview Kaly states that whenever she performs at shows she is often the only woman, and men are always taken aback by the fact that she is an MC.

I asked my young friend why he felt that women were not good rappers and he explained that in his opinion women go on and on about the need to be treated equally and by doing so they create inequality. The constant talk about equality annoys men who would otherwise be fine with women if only they did want to compete with men in everything. And he was sure that women rappers would keep pushing the notion that they are not treated equally and therefore be boring. And he thinks hip hop is not misogynistic because they never mention any woman by name and yet women keep reacting as though every song mentioned them personally.

Bare in mind he is 17 I(and actually very funny) but ironically his answer actually highlights the reason why we have to keep talking about gender issues in hip hop without shunning or excluding men.

I am glad to state that this interview was not just about gender and hip hop, it also had creative business insights for spoken word poets and hip hop artists:

Sometimes an idea can take years to come to fruition

Isis Storm is an idea/concept that has been in the making for the past 10 years. It was a passion that is now turning into a business with a very definite mission.

“The mission of ISIS STORM is to bring forth those voices that are being neglected; to be a vehicle to the generations of women who are fed up with seeing and accepting someone else’s definitions of who they are; and to give attention to the generations of women who are awakening to the realization that they are more than what [their generation] sees.”

“The privilege of fearlessness” – Reza Clifton

Reza said it -  just launch the concept. Most times, when an idea is new and never been done before, especially in the arts, you just have to launch it and see what happens. Take a page from Nike and just do it. Invent the rules as you go along.

“Find your inner P Diddy” – Kalyana Champlain

Do not ever let anyone tell you that what you do does not have value. See the value on your own work and believe that your voice is important and that you have a mission in this world. Money is just an expression of this value, it does not mean you are selling out or not being deep, it just means you are putting a value to your work.

For a feminist movement to succeed you need men

Most of the people that are promoting Isis Storm are men. Feminism is not about excluding men, it is about supporting women and that support needs to come from all fronts. To quote Kaly, “if I become stronger, you become stronger. One of us cannot be held in bondage and consider the other one free.”

Networking is important

I know that we keep pushing the notion of networking on Speak 2B Free but that is because networking is a sure-fire way to meet people who have similar mind sets. Networking is different for everyone, you have to decide what networking looks like for you and how you do it and make it suit your style.

When I was in business school, I got the idea that networking was going to an event and meeting strangers, getting business cards and following up. But that never felt right to me and I failed at it. Turns out that my idea of networking is making one on one connections online and offline and getting personal introductions to the people I want to meet and then talking to them on the phone or meeting them for coffee. It feels more authentic that way.

Please feel free to tune into Kaly’s radio station at: http://www.the5thelament.com

and Reza’s radio station at: http://VenusSings.com

Image by Flickr user dalbera

Filed Under: Art of Spoken Word Tagged With: , , , , , ,
« Older Posts
Login