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Musicians Desk Reference is a must-have, interactive how-to for aspiring artists

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In addition to writing a blog about new music, I work with musicians. I’ve booked tours, run press, produced albums, consulted on projects, and lots more. I know a little bit how music works right now, and I can say with definition that it’s a brave new world for musicians. Old business models are inaccessible, unreliable, or totally defunct. There’s a lot more artists have to do on their own. The problem is, of course, that there are few people to teach them how to do it.

Enter Musicians’ Desk Reference. Put together by the fine folks over at Counter Rhythm Group, the Reference gives step by step guides on how to do everything associated with being a band. I do mean everything, from starting a band, to branding, to managing rights, to booking tours. It is a comprehensive guide of how to get things done. Furthermore, it’s set up in five neat chapters, because you don’t need to know all of that at the beginning of your musical venture’s life. If that weren’t enough, there are checkboxes for when you get each section of the chapter done. If you’re a go-getter, Type A person, this is just the absolute best.

The Reference website allows you to run multiple projects at once, as well; so if you’re managing several bands, you can keep them all in the same account. Various people can be looped in, and they can be given different privileges corresponding to their level of need-to-know and editing privileges. In short, this is a comprehensive self-managing (or small manager of a few bands) system. I haven’t gotten to work with it extensively yet, but just from what I’ve been able to do and find so far, I give it my highest recommendation. This will teach you everything you need to know about how to be a musician right now. The fact that it’s an interactive system as well just makes it even more impressive.

If you’re an artist who wants to make career of it but doesn’t know where to start, you need the Musicians’ Desk Reference. That’s all there is to it. This is excellent, excellent stuff. It’s currently a one-time fee of $75, which is an absolute steal. I spent 10 years and thousands of dollars learning the hard way what you can get for less than a Benjamin in under a minute. I can’t stress to you how much of a good deal that is.