Crazy that we’re at number 20. Time just keeps on moving! We have a shorter episode today, but a lot to mention. Here are the four main things talked about.
- Big Launch Giveaway winner, contests, and a look at biblical competition
- Audience Building
- Discovering New Music Segment with Stephen Bradley
- Part 3 of our productivity series
The winner of the Big Launch Giveaway
We launched the site on June 15th and to help get it going, we did what we called the Big Launch Giveaway. There were over 800 entries. Awesome! People were tweeting about the site, signing up, and spreading the word… But you know what’s more exciting than that?
A very fortunate winner will receive a $200 gift certificate to sweetwater.com to go towards their music making journey. And that to me is awesome.
Listen to or download the podcast here, and check out the detailed show notes below….
[powerpress]
So I don’t wanna leave you hanging… So the winner of the Big Launch Giveaway is Chris Etling.
Congrats Chris!
We’ll be doing more giveaways… Primarily through our e-mail list, so make sure you sign up for our newsletter and you won’t miss out on exclusive giveaways and prizes. There’s an opt in form below this post.
Another contest going on currently, not at CMB, but at weareworship.com, is a songwriting contest that a handful of CMB-ites have signed up for, including myself.
WeAreWorship is looking for a song, born in the local church. A song that is not only one born out of a worshiper’s heart, but one that is born out of a worshiping community. A song serving the local church.
Here’s a link to a recent blog post about the song contest with a list of CMB-ites submitted their music.
A word on contests, and competitions…
Is competition biblical?
I was talking with someone about that this week. Can Christians enter contests like this?
I believe the answer is yes. I wouldn’t encourage you to enter it if I thought there was something ungodly about contests.
The issue isn’t competition. The issue is our heart. What’s the motive? Why do you want to win? Do you want to win too much? What lengths will you go to win in a game or a sports match? Will you cheat? Will you steal? Will you get mad and start a fight?
Those are the things people often think about when it comes to really competitive people. Here’s the issue: Not the competition itself, but the character of those involved. The world looks at competition completely differently than God does.
The devil does not create. The devil only perverts! God has created a world that has in it work and reward. God’s economics are not socialism. He gives the gifts he wants, in the measure he wants, to the people he wants – and he asks them to be faithful with them. To work at them. To become better at them.
Think of Paul who uses the runner as a metaphor. The runner competes in such a way to win the prize. But the runner should be one of integrity; not pushing down others around him in order to win, but simply doing his very best with what God has given him. The runner still wants to win! He runs in such a way to win the prize. He does his best.
That is good, healthy, Biblical competition…
…And here’s the thing:
It glorifies God when you see people in a contest who honor and respect each other.
Audience Building
As a practical example of what artists can do to promote their song in a contest like this, you can check out a landing page that I created at my personal site where I’m giving away a chord chart and mp3 for Glorious God.
It’s the song I entered, and that’s one way that I’m getting the word out…
Head over to this page and you can download a free mp3 and chord chart of the song.
The reason I say this, is because this is something we will talk about a lot at CMB. How musicians and artists can grow in their understanding of building an audience through blogging and online inbound content marketing. That’s certainly something I’m passionate about helping artists learn more about…
More on that later…
Discover New Music Segment
We love what Stephen Bradley is doing at his blog thegoodchristianmusicblog.com. He’s got an exciting thing coming out soon at his site: The GCM Summer Mix Tape. The very first of many more to come, that are playlists of artists that have recently been promoted through Stephen’s unique YouTube viral video method.
The new mixtape will feature several artists including several who have been featured on his blog. It will be released on Tuesday, July 23rd! Visit his website to download it on Tuesday for free.
Here the three artists that he mentioned in this episode and their websites:
- Judah and The Lion
- Wayfarer Hymns
- Rivers & Robots
- Check out Jonathan Ogden (lead singer of Rivers and Robots) and his graphic design stuff here. It’s amazing stuff.
Artists! If you want to submit your music to Stephen and GCM, you can check out his submissions link at his blog here. It’s important to know, however, that he can’t take all submissions. He gets a very large amount.
Follow Stephen on Twitter here.
Follow GCM on Twitter here.
Here’s the GCM Facebook page.
Fuel Your Productivity with D.O.S.E.(Part 3)
The D was discipline. O was organization… and today we’re looking at the S in the acronym, talking about simplification.
We’ve talked about the importance of having vision in your life. How a compelling vision fuels and sustains your discipline. We’ve talked about how we’ll need wisdom in order to better understand what good organization truly is. That organization is not primariy a personality issue, but a wisdom issue.
And so to wrap things up in this episode, I simply want to leave you with just one thought on simplification…
It’s not a new insight that has come from me. It’s something everyone has probably said a few times in their life. It’s this: Less is more, so cut the clutter.
Less is more.
You’re gonna have more time. More resources. More impact in your musicianship even, when you cut things out. You’re gonna be more effective for the Kingdom, you’re going to have clearer thinking in your decision making, you’re going to write better songs and make better music.
If two guitar guys were standing in front of me; one had super fast, technical chops, just causing smoke to come off the fret board. The other guy lays down a simple tick-tack groove that’s in the pocket with tone that’s amazingly seasoned. Who do you think I’m gonna be more moved by?
Who do you think would be asked to play more by producers and artists on their records?
The dude who cut the clutter.
To give you a little take-away I wanna ask you to do something…
What’s one thing this week that you can cut out of your life?
I’ll give you a personal example. I do not watch the news. I don’t read the newspaper. I don’t listen to news radio. I do my very best to have a low information diet. I only read a few blogs, and listen to a few podcasts. I don’t have the time anymore anyway, but at one point I realized I had to cut it out to get more back. Less is more.
What is it for you? Pick one thing. After you pick that you can move on to other things that are probably cluttering your life too, but for now just think of one thing that you can cut out of your life.