Launch Your Music Business: Online Resources

"In a world of regret, sacrifice and hardship, laughter and music are medicine." - Immortal Technique

“Ten years have worn this guitar down
Its ivory whites are now mustard brown
Its face bears cracks from every town
Still it resonates with age.
Where would I be without its ring?
Who would I be if I didn't sing?
For half a chance you spare nothing --
A tethered bird to a tethered cage.
I sing to you to feed the dream...” - Ferron song, Shadows on a Dime

"I didn't expect to do this for a living, being a recording artist. I was just playing music for the fun of it and writing songs. That was kind of my escape, you know, from the humdrum of the world." - John Prine

“Making music for me is truly therapeutic…I always feel like a sense of release every time I make a project…to let go from some of this trauma I was holding on to for decades…let it go with hopes that it would help other people too.” – Red Shaydz interview on Hot96.9

“When you begin to see the possibilities of music, you desire to do something really good for people, to help humanity free itself from its hangups…I want to speak to their souls.” John Coltrane

“Music makes us want to live. You don’t know how many times people have told me that they’d been down …But then a special song caught their ear and that helped give them renewed strength. That’s the power music has.”  - Mary J. Blige

“I would rather write 10,000 notes than a single letter of the alphabet.” – Ludwig van Beethoven

“People don’t understand the kind of fight it takes to record what you want to record the way you want to record it.” – Billie Holiday

“and they can call me crazy if i fail, all the chance that i need, is one-in-a-million, and they can call me brilliant, if i succeed,  gravity is nothing to me, moving at the speed of sound, i'm just gonna get my feet wet, until i drown” - Ani DiFranco song, Swan Dive

“I am not going to be dictated to by fans, certainly. I am dictated enough to by my record company to last me a million years.” – Marvin Gaye

“Toto stop your barking, 'cause we’re not in Kansas no more…” – Melanie Safka song Kansas

"I wish there had been a music business 101 course I could have taken." - Kurt Cobain

“From the get-go, I wasn’t going to sign a record deal unless I could completely do it on my terms…I’m not going to bend in hopes that it’s going to reach more people or whatever. It’s just not worth it.”  - Kacey Musgraves

“Good art provides people with a vocabulary about things they can’t articulate.” – Mos Def

“Life is like a great teacher... she will repeat the lesson until you learn.”
 - Ricky Martin

“At noon on one day coming, human strength will fill the streets

Of every city on our planet, hear the sound of angry feet

With business freezed up in the harbour, the kings will pull upon their hair

And the banks will shudder to a halt, and the artists will be there…” – Ferron song, It Won’t Take Long

“Success is how many people I can impact and connect to in the crowd on a scale where they want to push themselves further in life.” – Kendrick Lamar

“You can spend ten minutes in a really dark place and write a song about it that lasts forever.” – John Doe

“The beautiful thing about learning is that nobody can take it away from you.” – BB King

“Dream only a dream if work don’t follow it.” – Kendrick Lamar song Institutionalized

"It's not in the mainstream media, but across towns, it is amazing how there are small groups of people getting together and forming artistic collectives - they may not be being overtly political, but I'd say by channeling their energy into community projects, that's a valid political statement.” – Johnny Flynn