Oshawa Music Awards Nomination
Welcome to the Ongoing Blog Post #6!
I am fired up to announce my nomination for the 2020 Oshawa Music Awards (OMAs) as an Emerging Artist. In this post I want to send out some special thanks to the folks who helped me get here and provide some insight into how you can work towards getting yourself nominated for an award, and why that is an important step in establishing credibility in your career.
You can purchase tickets and find out more about the OMAs here: Oshawa Music Awards
You can also send your vote my way right here —> Vote for Hunter Sheridan
The ceremony takes place on April 4th 2020 at 7:00pm where all of the winners will be announced.
Thank you ~
First off I want to thank the ultra talented Jordan Moore who has been my go to engineer, mixer, videographer, and producer for the last 5 years. Jordan has mixed all of my music to date and has done so much to help me bring these songs to life. I also want to thank Jules Hall and Ty Callan for helping me with instrumentation - you guys mean the world to me. I also want to thank everyone who has listened to, and shared my music and helped spread the word.
What Can YOU Do ~
When I started releasing music as an independent artist in January 2019, I wanted to release music that I was proud of and that resonated with my musical identity. My main goal was to be honest with my songwriting and create an atmosphere that others could relate to. I also wanted to start promoting my music on a level that I had never done before, so I started researching the best ways to expose my music (for free) on streaming platforms. I found some great submission platforms through Spotify for artists, Daily Playlists, and SoundPlate that allowed me to submit my music to playlists curators all over the world - FOR FREE! This helped raise the plays on my songs, which is a massive help when it comes to award nominations and separating yourself from the competition. Another step that you should take seriously is being active on your website and social media. Try to post regularly so that you are always on people’s minds, whether you post pictures, videos, cover songs, etc. is up to you, but doing it consistently will help establish yourself so that when it comes to voting, people know you and want you to win because they feel connected to you and your work. Another thing you want to do is release material that you are PROUD of. Don’t try to sound like someone else or copy someone else’s approach. Be honest with your work and ideas and take some time to think it through. Now days it is very easy to find a videographer and audio engineer who can turn a beautiful space (indoor or outdoor) into an awesome live off the floor video, which you can then use the audio from as well - check out an example I did with Nick Babcock and Jordan Moore here: “i’m so tired” Cover Video. These videos will help build your material and repertoire, and doing a cover video can help expose your music to more listeners, which will then lead them to your OWN original music.
Essentially, you want to build a presence that portrays who you are as a person and a musician and then promote the heck out of it to try and cut through the traffic.
Let’s recap ~
1. Submit your music to playlists (on free platforms) to increase the play count on your songs
2. Be active on social media
3. Keep your website up to date
4. Release material
5. Find awards that you can apply to in your area
Thank you for reading and I hope you found this blog post helpful!
Oshawa Music Award Ceremony on April 4th 2020.
Tickets available at https://oshawamusicawards.ca/
