MIC: Music Industry Connected

Welcome to MIC, a sanctuary of education for musicians aiming to create full-time commercial music careers independently, or with a record label. Inspired by the question "Where do I even freaking begin?", we were founded in 2013 so we could begin our official research out on the indie music scene learning from fellow musicians, and going through the marathons ourselves. Our research experiments made it obvious to us that all musicians struggle (welcome to the club!) and crave a structure that supports their dream, but allows them to be their own completely unique artist. Simply reading books and articles of tips and tricks for how to create a music career created a scattered, desperate, American-overwork-ethic feeling in our souls - and this unity of shared frustration with other musicians inspired us to create the IMBM Mountain.

Since we're less-is-more people uninterested in intimidating with business jargon, and we believe that learning through visuals and stories is sticky and memorable and effortless and so fun, we created the IMBM for all of us to use. The IMBM is a Mountain we musicians build ourselves, then climb up, following our unique definitions of success - all while inviting people into our Music Worlds and monetizing our endeavors so we can keep going for the long haul.

We're also the home of many music career mental training principles, like the 1st Circle Conundrum: we observed a trend across nearly every single musician we met and studied, and decided a name needed to be put to the face of this beast. The Conundrum heals the confusion of why the people already in your life don't (usually) seem interested your music. We dove into the consumer psychology behind it, and found that this trend is so common because anyone who's in your first circle (only 1 degree of separation away from you) has already labeled you, and they cannot relabel you and put you up on a pedestal of respect the way a fresh fan can (anyone more than 1 degree of separation from you). Understanding this natural law relieves the scars of discouragement leftover from all those social media posts and invitations to shows that were "ignored". The 1st Circle Conundrum's discovery motivates us musicians through acceptance, so we can keep going and forge through that circle, to those potential fans more than 1 degree of separation away.

The 1st Circle Conundrum, and many more mental training and psychological principles like push vs. pull marketing dynamics, listener behavior motivation, the nuances of mental training and self-motivation, and more are included in the IMBM Mountain, and available during our personal IMBM Music Career Diagnostic consulting sessions. These private sessions give you personal attention to your career: an IMBM Strategy Expert studies your unique music story and dilemmas to uncover roadblocks and opportunities even deeper than the IMBM Mountain - roadblocks and opportunities that you aren't expected to be trained to see as a musician. We take the business-desperation edge off.

We are not a label, nor are we a management company - we're an educational research consultancy. Our goal is to spread our research to as many independent musicians as possible. That's why we give the IMBM free of charge here at our Sanctuary Blog, and our IMBM Music Career Diagnostics are to-the-point and empowering - we don't want anyone to become dependent on us, that defeats the purpose of the IMBM's brand-deciding, copyright-owning, music-choosing, scheduling-freedom independent music career spirit.

Whether you want to stay indie or prep your materials to pitch and sign with a label that becomes your partner (not the demise of your dream) the IMBM is for you. We want to be invited into your music worlds - so remember to come back at us and tell us how the IMBM helped you. Gosh we will be so thrilled to hear your story, and become your fans, too.

- 2019, MIC Founder/CEO Emily Plazek