Children's Music: Performing, Producing, Marketing

As many of you know, I have a kids/family project called Debbie and Friends. One of the most rewarding aspects is interacting with our fan families and making them proactive contributors to our overall plans, including song and video production.

A recent example is “casting” the part of the fairy for our new song about Cinderella. We offered up half a dozen “fairy” characters for our fan families to weigh in on and we received more than 100 enthusiastic votes!

The Fairy Godfather won. We are having a great time working on his lines! The song and the cartoon are currently in production.

Here’s a “sneak preview” into the music and animation (currently in development) that we recently shared with our fan families via Facebook and our Kids’ Music blog.

Our fan families are always part of our new product development process from start to finish. This kind of engagement not only furthers our relationship, but also makes for a better product!

The final version will be released in December.

No matter the genre, fan engagement is important! What are some of the ways you involve your fans?

Debbie & Friends on Fox TV’s “24″!

It’s hard to believe after posting about this licensing opportunity more than seven months ago, the Season Premiere of 24 will air this Sunday night, January 17 at 9:00pm EST. I’ve been told that two Debbie and Friends cartoon music videos will be playing on a TV that Sutherland and a young girl will be watching together.

This is just one example of what an exciting time it is for musicians to find licensing opportunities for their music. I am proud to say that I was able to put this opportunity together because of all that I have learned from our Berkleemusic instructors and their courses in music production and music business.

I hope this story will inspire more of our Berkleemusic students to monetize their song catalogs through licensing opportunities.

Please tune in this Sunday to see Debbie and Friends’ children’s music videos on 24!

Uploaded with plasq‘s Skitch!

Berklee Shares is a wonderful educational resource filled with free music lessons based on Berklee’s curriculum. The lessons are in the form of videos, interactive PDFs, Flash activities, MP3s and more.

Since its debut in 2003, there have been hundreds of Berklee Shares lessons available to download and share. New lessons are constantly being added to this educational resource. Below is an example of just one of the many new lessons by Berklee Guitar Professor, Joe Musella.

Berklee Shares is an example of Berklee’s commitment to providing music education opportunities to the music community around the world.

Check out Berklee Shares at www.berkleeshares.com.