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Music can be used as a fundraiser and to promote a good cause. In my opinion this is one of the best things singers can do with their career. Knowing the amount of fans and audience that follow their music, they should all take time from their careers to giving a positive message and example. Musicians become a model to follow to a lot of their fans, and showing people that they play, sing, and spend a little part of their time trying to recollect money to give to a needed organization, helps motivate other people to do the same. Seeing it from an artist manager stand point, this also helps with the artist's image and reputation. 
The main purpose still is that the artist is wiling to sing for free in order to unite and motivate people to come to the event and give donations. People already like seeing their favorite artists sing, even more knowing that the money their are going to pay is going to a non-profit organization or charity. 
I had the opportunity to help produce and participate in a fundraiser event for the Make A Wish foundation of Puerto Rico. “Rock A Wish Concert” was presented for third year in a row in 2010. For the first time the concert’s theme was in reference to the christmas season. We wanted to put in practice the tradition of giving in this season, by granting a wish to one of the children. At the end of the night, we announced on stage that a child got his wish of going with his family to Disney World. 

This concert took place in Hard Rock Cafe at Old San Juan on December 16 2010. With a  donation of only $15.00 the audience enjoyed an evening with local artists who volunteered, such as Si SeƱor, DaZoo, Viva Nativa, Millo Torres, Black Guayaba and Sie7e.  Approximately 300 people participated of this activity, achieving to a great extent the purpose of the fundraiser.   
Events like these also help artists become even more recognized. After this concert, Sie7e's career happened to grow. Sie7e is a Puerto Rican that sings, composes and plays spanish rock/pop. By this time he already had 2 albums and in 2011 he released "Mucha Cosa Buena" which help him sign with Warner Music Latina. With this album he won the Latin Grammy for Best New Artist. Sie7e is known for his motivating and positive songs. His motto is "Mucha Cosa Buena" which means, "A lot of Good" which is what he desires to all his fans and the world. He is constantly talking about love, peace and the changes we need to see in the world. 



It was a really great experience working together with an artist like this and getting to see all the positive energy they all brought to the stage that day. Even though these artists may not get to be well known worldwide, participating and putting together events like Rock a Wish are the little changes they are contributing to the world, even if it is in their own little world.

We are looking forward to planning this event once again. But for know, browse the details about the Rock A Wish X-Mas Concert by entering the following links:




Note: This event was produced in collaboration with Universidad Sagrado Corazon students, Gabriela Torruellas, Dana Lampon, Lewis Magruder and Carla Rivera (me). 


Music videos, an expensive tool but, does it work? Of course! 

There is no doubt that a music video is a tool used to help the artist’s career. There was a time when music videos were used to introduce a new artist into the industry and help show the audience “what they got”. Music videos also used to be made to be more competitive in the music industry, because an artist that was already known, wasn’t using it to “introduce” him or herself, but they used it to maintain an image with their fans and to compete with other artist’s videos. For example, MTV was very famous for television programs like TRL (Total Request Live), where the audience voted for the best music video. The problem with this was, people had to wait for the show to see a new video. The audience did have slight control over the artist because they voted for their favorite and the amount of votes decided in which position the video came in. On the other hand, the program, TRL, controlled how long the the video was played, which most times, they cut the video and viewers did not get to see the complete video and had to wait until the next day.  

Source: http://joshnason.com/tag/trl/ 
“When music videos were initially introduced on MTV, for the first time, artists had a real opportunity to put themselves out there for the public to judge them and to perhaps garner a following...videos became so powerful they could make or break a single or even a fledgling artist’s career.”  says Brian Petchers from Forbes Staff in "The Branding Power of Today's Music Videos".
Today, we live in a time were the audience has total control. Videos are no longer a competition between artists, only for award shows and so, but they are definitely an effective marketing tool. Artists create music videos to satisfy their fans need of seeing their favorite song created into a visual story and see what the artist “still got”. Now, with the internet and social media, the fans do not have to wait for a TV program to play the music video. They have the freedom to search for it themselves and see it anytime they want. In the article “The Branding Power of Today’s Music Videos”, says that today’s advantage over television is that videos are reachable and shareable. This is not only great for the fans, but great for the artists as well because if a fan shares a video they liked, they are doing marketing for them.     

I think that today, artists could keep videos simple. The creation of a music video is highly expensive, but artists should still do them because they are important for their fans. For example, there is this new trend called a lyric video. This term came out from the amount of videos uploaded in Youtube that the fans made themselves to be able to follow the lyrics and sing a long at the same time. A lyric video is not as expensive as a “regular” music video, yet it has become highly effective as well. 

A video that I saw these days that really impressed me was from the American Idol winner, Phillips Phillips. His music video for his first single release "Home" is a collection, a video montage, of moments in his career. You notice they had to add some images for the editing of the video, but this is a great idea to lower costs on making a musical video, yet it is a really well done and inspiring video. 

Check it out: