We recently celebrated our first year assisting Do It Yourself artists with their music careers, representing them as record label and manager!

The occasion went by without much fan fare, we were too busy formulating up big plans for our future, and working hard to assist our artists! That is always our first priority, and we’re a small company without any investors or such to answer to, so we can focus our efforts on what matters most:
Helping our artists connect with existing and future fans in the most effective way possible, and assisting them in giving fans what they want, how they want it for a long-lasting and profitable relationship!

Thank you to all our artists, who endured with our growing pains, and pioneered this transforming industry with a whole new way of doing business.
Thank you also to our staff, particularly Roshena and Clarice, without which we could never have accomplished this first year milestone.

We’ve got bigger and better things than ever for our artists and for the company this year, stay tuned for all the news right here.

Our first year has been great so far despite the economic times we live in, we’ve been working with a total of 9 fantastic artists!

Here are some of our top blog posts of 2009 in order posted:

Tips from a successful DIY indie musician…

Music and the Mobile Phone

Automatically posting your blog feeds to Facebook etc.

How many ‘active’ fans do you have?

The new music business model – Connect With Fans!

Is Music for free really a good idea?

The 10 Commandments of Music 2.0

A brave new era of music self release…

How to get people to come to shows

DIY takes more time than many think

Thank you to all the artists we work with, you have made this a great year, helping us take the music business into the future!
In return, we hope expanding your career to new heights has made this a great year for you as well.

We’ve got some fantastic new things planned for our artists in 2010, and were looking forward to a great year!
Happy new year to all of you, all the best for the year ahead.

Director Jarome Matthew, and the Pro Soul Alliance Team

It’s the end of our first year providing record label representation, and professional management and promotion to artists worldwide, and to celebrate (and because we’re feeling generous) we’re having a year end special!

Pro Soul Alliance is offering artists who have some professionally recorded material:

• professional management and promotion to take your career to the next level!
• the latest tips, techniques and tools to help you build your audience, connect, and give them reasons to compensate you
• professional phone consultation and assistance with CEO of Pro Soul Alliance on your development and career
• professional bio and press copy writing, blog development and updating
• mailing list setup and integration, with fan capture into database for website and social networking profiles
• search engine optimization for effective search ranking
• graphic design, photography and image assistance for promo materials
• social networking configuration and integration, connecting with fans
(ReverbNation, Facebook, MySpace, Blip.fm, Twitter, Youtube, Ourstage etc.)
• offline & online marketing assistance, radio & podcast airplay, follow up, and tracking
• product development, design, CD production and digital distribution through major online retailers worldwide including ringtones and mobile phone
• licensing and song placement; electronic licensing options online
• scheduling of show dates for live performances
• and much more as we explore exactly what you need right now for your music career to thrive!

Limited Time Special: $100 US per month! Click here to subscribe now!

Cancel / upgrade any time! No contracts required! No rights taken! No profits taken!
[make sure you choose the 'Basic Label' $100 subscription option after completing your submission form!]

Also on special:

• a professional, blog based website you can edit and update with basic word processing skills, upgradeable with hundreds of plug ins for all kinds of functionality, and different design themes you can choose from! Complete with hosting by Rackspace, one of the best in the world, with yourname.com

Limited Time Special: $350 US! Click here to order your website now!

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Do you have an artist on your gift list? Imagine giving them these as a gift!

These specials will only be available until December 31st, 2009! We can only handle so many artists, so if response is high, offer may end early.

Find out more about Pro Soul Alliance and why we’re the best solution for your career.

Please Contact Pro Soul Alliance if you have any questions or would like more information.

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Founder of Pro Soul Alliance, Jarome Matthew,  just posted this on his own blog, a must read for any performer and artist.

An important part of my role as a music producer is to get the best possible performance from artists in the studio both technically and emotionally.

I find I often fall short in this area though because unless they are professionals who have done large live performances for many years, most vocalists are often unable to deliver to their full potential. This doesn’t necessarily mean they don’t give great performances, it just means they could have done even better.

This is usually because the vocalist is not in optimal physical shape. Your health and physical fitness level has a huge impact on your vocal performances in the studio, and of course live. Sure, how comfortable you are with letting go and giving your all emotionally in the studio is also very important.  But to get a great performance, you really need to have a lot of power to deliver strong, clean vocal phrases. Without this power and energy, your performances will sound weak and shaky, quivering, particularly on the ends of longer words or sustained melodies and this drastically reduces the quality and impact of the performance.

Studio tools and tricks can rarely correct these problems effectively, so that’s why it’s so important for singers to keep in top physical shape if they want to give the best performance they’re capable of live and in the studio. Eat healthy food that gives you lots of energy, and adopt a regular cardio exercise routine at least 4 times a week.

Another recommendation, in addition to warming up properly before a performance and singing regularly in a choir, is opera training, or a great vocal coach such as Brennan Barrett, to help you get as much power as you can without exerting yourself more than you have to, and to assisting with effective breathing techniques that will give you better phrasing and power in the right places.

A producer can only do so much, and in my case, I can work a lot of miracles to make you sound great no matter what, but ultimately, I can only use the best you give me! Make sure that really is your best, as you never know who will hear your finished performance, or how far it will spread.

NEW YORK, July 1 /PRNewswire/ — Sony Music Entertainment (SME) today announced that it has entered into a global partnership with IODA to create a new leading distribution and services network for independent rights holders. As part of the partnership, Sony Music has made a strategic investment in IODA, a leader in digital distribution, marketing, and technology solutions for the independent music industry. Additional terms of the deal were not disclosed.

In a statement released by Kevin Arnold, Founder and CEO of IODA, “Sony really impressed us with their respect for, and understanding of the needs of the independent community.” He adds, “We remain, as we always have, fully dedicated to helping independent content owners succeed in the digital world. This alliance will greatly enhance IODA’s ability to continue delivering effective solutions for Independents.”

The question arising out of this major merger or “Partnership”, is how will the independent label community react? After all, the I in IODA is supposed to stand for Independent. What we do know is that some indie labels are seen at times to be in distrust of large corporations. We know that IODA gains a strong marketing partner in Sony. Sony operating through its independent distribution subsidiary RED taps into IODA’s digital distribution system worldwide. Released in the Newswire, Sony identifies making a strategic investment in IODA. Sony’s subsidiary, RED will continue to offer digital distribution services and IODA will be an added option for clients who need other services than what RED currently provides, specifically more indie-focused marketing and global distribution services.

In time, the answer will unfold as to how the independent community will react to this meeting of corporate minds. What is clear – did we honestly think – major corporations, responsible to their shareholders, would sit on the sidelines for long – better yet, did they ever sit on the sidelines? Or were they just waiting for the savvy, independents like IODA to work hard, build and develop this growing, transitioning industry, and then come in when the time was ripe and call “Merger” aka “Partnership”.

Corporate strategy and business development in true form. Sony’s way of addressing the changing needs of their market without doing due diligence to innovate and make changes necessary themselves from scratch.

The RIAA has now announced Jennifer Pariser, former Sony BMG lawyer, as the Senior Vice President of Litigation and legal affairs for the music industry trade group.  Will this solve anything in regards to the RIAA’s stubborn attitude towards music consumption? To be frank, the RIAA and the major record labels are not listening to what music lovers have to say, and they certainly aren’t interested in giving them what they want.

A little while back, recently, we posted a blog entry about the Isle of Man, which is an Island not to far from Ireland. This Island has started to put a tax on the consumers Internet. This tax money is then distributed between record labels accordingly. But of course this is just an experiment, another attempt to avoid giving music lovers music on their terms…

Is it logical for the rest of the world to follow suit? Especially in America, clearly there is something wrong here. The creator of Kazaa was fined 200,000$ for violating the distribution right, and for what, helping people do a better job promoting music than the record labels are?
Not only is suing the distributors costly, but its proven ineffective, this is why DRM has been dropped for the most part on digital music.  Another dangerous individual to the freedom of music is Thomas Perrelli. He single handedly convinced the Copyright Board to help kill web radio by instilling massive fees for broadcast royalties! This has forced web radio companies to beg their listeners for donations just to stay afloat.
Then there is Neil MacBride, VP and Anti Piracy for Business Software Alliance.

It’s almost as if major record labels are begging fans to stop listening, to stop caring. The big record labels are pushing the fans farther and farther away.
The only way they can stop this downward spiral is to simply give in to what’s inevitable, and give customers what they want or risk becoming irrelevant and insignificant.

People are listening to and finding out about music in different ways than they used to and music companies and content creators should understand this and act accordingly.