Shrewd stars make music add up

When unknown singers pen personalised songs for their biggest fans and top stars let people mess around with their hits, they have one thing in common.

They are both finding new ways to make money from their music that do not rely on the old-fashioned ways of simply selling records and gig tickets.

With music sales declining, artists, record labels and even opera houses are being more inventive in order to encourage fans to fork out.

Known as "monetisation" in business speak, that was the main theme at the largest music industry gathering of the year, the Midem conference in Cannes. And some of the best ideas are below.

THE PERSONAL TOUCH

When American singer-songwriter Allison Weiss from Athens, Georgia, wanted to make a new EP, she turned to her fans to raise the money she needed.

But rather than just asking for donations, she sold personalised products and experiences that she thought her fans would love.

Forty dollars (£25) got a signed copy of the EP, $100 (£62) got a hand-written thank you letter and $300 (£185) got a CD-R of Weiss performing five acoustic songs of your choice. For $500 (£310), two people got songs written especially for them about subjects they chose. ("Nothing explicit, sorry guys," she warned.)

The singer did this via the website Kickstarter, which helps raise funds for all types of creative projects with the proviso that the backers must get some kind of reward.

"Alison let her small fanbase on Twitter and Tumblr know that she was doing this project, trying to raise this money, and within 10 hours she had raised her full $2,000 (£1,240) goal and she ended up raising four times that by the time it was over," says Kickstarter co-founder Yancey Strickler.

Another musician charged fans $40 to come round to his house for a meal, while someone else asked supporters for $70 (£43) to spend a day in the recording studio and contribute handclaps to her album.

BANDS MEET BRANDS

Bands that took the corporate buck may once have been accused of selling out, but commercial sponsorship is now often seen as a smart way to fund your music.

Hal Ritson sings with Young Punx and is Dizzee Rascal's live musical director

So UK dance act The Young Punx accepted sponsorship from beer company Warsteiner, which wanted to raise its profile among clubbers in Germany.

Warsteiner put on club nights where The Young Punx DJ'd and performed live, the company gave away their music, used it in its MTV ads and the band featured the drink in their podcasts.

"They were paying to have us associated with their brand," says Young Punx singer and Dizzee Rascal's live musical director Hal Ritson. "We were happy to be associated with their brand since our brand is basically having a few drinks and having a good time."

During last year's promotion, according to Facebook statistics, the number of Young Punx fans in Germany shot up and Germany went from being "a territory of no relevance" to third on the list behind the UK and USA.

"That's a fanbase that came through one year without us maybe selling many records, but with many, many people hearing our music. And we got paid, so everyone's happy."

FAT LADY, BIG SCREEN

When Peter Gelb took over New York's Metropolitan Opera in 2006, he was faced with an ageing, dwindling audience.

The Met broadcasts on more than 60 screens

The Met had broadcast its productions on radio for almost 80 years, so Gelb decided to see whether he could bring in a new audience - and new money - by offering the "full blown visual experience" in cinemas as well.

The live broadcasts started on 60 screens but are now shown in more than 1,000 cinemas around the world, with typical ticket prices around $20 (£12) in the US.

"We approach them very much like a sports broadcast," Gelb says, with backstage cameras capturing the action in the "locker room" and an off-duty star such as Renee Fleming or Placido Domingo acting as a reporter and interviewing singers as they come off stage.

The Met keeps half of the box office takings, he says. "That 50%, when there are hundreds of thousands - which is the average attending these transmissions - more than covers the incremental costs of producing them in high definition.

"And it actually provides a profit stream which helps us cover our other costs, which are extremely high."

GIG MEMENTOES

Kiss fans who saw the rock band on their 2009 US tour had the chance to take the show home with them in their back pockets when they walked out of the venue.

Kiss have made hundreds of thousands of dollars from instant USB recordings

"We do a multi-track recording of each night and make the recording available on a USB drive right at the end of the show," says Gerrit Schumann from German company Music Networx, which makes the recordings.

"We have USB duplicators that do it pretty much automatically at the venue. We stop recording about half an hour before the end of the show and include a download code, with which the fan can then download the encores and remaining 30 minutes online."

Each stick cost about $20 and an artist will get anywhere between 20-50% of the price, he says. With around 1,000 sticks sold a night at 58 dates last year, that adds up to several hundreds of thousands of dollars for Kiss.

They will do it all again for their European tour this year, where they will also introduce an instant download-to-mobile option.

Kiss, already the masters of music merchandise, are also selling meet-and-greet gig packages for £905 per person in the UK.

MIX IT UP

Letting fans remix, re-record and generally mess around with songs by established artists has given those songs a lucrative new lease of life.

Michael Jackson songs were available to remix as part of an album promotion

I Am T-Pain is an iPhone app that lets users record themselves singing along to songs by the US rapper with the help of AutoTune, and post their recordings to Facebook and other sites. Costing $3 (£1.85) - three times the cost of an average song on iTunes - the app sold more than 600,000 copies in two months.

French company MXP4 provides technology that lets fans loose on songs by the likes of Michael Jackson, Britney Spears and David Guetta in a similar way, both online and on the iPhone.

Users can remix tracks and buy their mixes - at a premium price - or record their own vocals and share the results with friends, who may then discover the originals.

In the next 10 years, the music experience will be revitalised in the same way that 3D has revitalised movies and innovations like the Wii and Rock Band have revitalised gaming, says MXP4 chief executive Albin Serviant.

"Our vision is about having a 3D music experience, where you can not only play and listen to music but play with it, remix it, get the lyrics on the fly, share with friends and record your own version."

Music therapy 'may help cut tinnitus noise levels

Individually designed music therapy may help reduce the noise levels experienced by people who suffer from tinnitus, say German researchers.

They altered participants' favourite music to remove notes which matched the frequency of the ringing in their ears.

After a year of listening to the modified music, individuals reported a drop in the loudness of their tinnitus.

The researchers said the "inexpensive" treatment could be used alongside other techniques to relieve the condition.

It could significantly complement widely-used and rather indirect psychological treatment strategies Dr Christo Pantev Westphalian Wilhelms University

It is thought that around 1-3% of the population have chronic ringing in their ears which is significant enough to reduce their overall quality of life.

Writing in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the researchers said although the cause of tinnitus remains unknown, it has been shown that the part of the brain that processes sounds is frequently disrupted in people with the condition.

The theory behind the new technique is that removing the spectrum of noise associated with tinnitus from the music reduces activity in the brain relating to that frequency, alleviating the condition.

Therapy

The 39 patients who took part in the study all had chronic tinnitus for an average of five years but had no other hearing problems.

They were split into three groups and were offered either the modified music therapy, a dummy version of music therapy or usual treatment.

Participants listened to the music for an average of 12 hours a week and by the end of the study, those who had been given the tailored music reported a significant drop in the level of the ringing they heard compared with those listening to the dummy version.

Study leader Dr Christo Pantev, from Westphalian Wilhelms University in Munster, said the approach specifically targeted the part of the brain responsible for tinnitus.

"The notched music approach can be considered as enjoyable, low cost, and presumably causal treatment that is capable of specifically reducing tinnitus loudness.

"It could significantly complement widely-used and rather indirect psychological treatment strategies."

Dr Ralph Holmes, director of biomedical research at deaf and hard of hearing charity, RNID, said he would look in detail at the findings.

"While we find it encouraging there is new investment in treatment for tinnitus, we know there is no proven 'cure'.

"This seems to be similar to tinnitus retraining therapy which is one of the most common ways of managing the condition."