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 Before you begin to write the bio, be sure you have "taken an inventory" of your background, accomplishments, goals, and objectives as a musician, and remember who you are writing the Bio for: A&R Reps at Record Labels, Media Contacts, Booking Agents, and Management Contacts. These professionals in the music business are busy individuals, who may deal with dozens of "wanna-bes" every week, so make your bio informative, upbeat, and filled with useful comments, descriptions, quotes, and motivational language that can make them want to listen to your music, and help you on your musical way. When you are ready to rock n’roll, writing the Bio using this outline can keep you focused and organized.
1st Paragraph: Start with an introductory sentence that clearly defines the essential band/artist name, your specific genre of music, where you are from, and perhaps a positive quote about your music from a contact you have made in the music business.
2nd Paragraph: This section should address the immediate purpose of the Bio. What are you doing at this time? Mention a current activity you are involved with. If a new CD is coming out, that should be the main topic of the first sentence of the second paragraph. In other words, a reason why the Bio has been written should be clearly stated early on. Hints about any promotional activities that will be occurring to support the CD is also useful in this paragraph.
3rd and 4th Paragraph: At this point, information on any other band members can be introduced, and background information on the forming of the group, past experience, accomplishments, and recognition issues can be addressed. If you have developed a plan for your career path, additional paragraphs elaborating on this type of can be written, that demonstrate how your current project is part of a larger career development plan.
Note: The thing I can’t stress enough about the Artist bio is that you don’t need to make it a history lesson. Bios that include things like “Joe Blow was in the band for two years, then he left, and we then found John Smith to be the lineup we are today” are history lessons.. Plain and simple, it it hard enough to sell YOURSELF, let alone confusing people by listing former members that could give a rat’s ass anyway.. If you are going to talk about the lineup.. Only feature the CURRENT members.
Ending: As stated earlier, the Bio should not waste words. For a new artist one page is sufficient to get the job done. For more experienced artists, a page and a half to two pages should be the maximum length. So, ending the Bio in a efficient way should be the aim; use another quote from a gatekeeper who supports the artist, or summarize the 2nd paragraph information, reminding the reader of current activities.
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