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The dudes at Ultimate Guitar have cooked up this list of tips on what you can learn from bands in your local scene.

Looking at music promotion on this local level is important. If you have any live performance element to your act, you need two things in the modern music business. A great online presence to help build a virtual fanbase, and a great local following built up from your live shows which you can then add to as your physical area of influence expands – i.e the distance you can travel from home and still draw a crowd.

This piece has some great advice on making it work in your local area first.

Are you like the majority of musicians trying to move your career forward and ‘make it?’ If you are, you’re probably already spending lots of time and effort researching and doing things that will propel you to the next level. Finding the correct things to do for your music career is easy, have you ever thought about what things you shouldn’t do to hurt your chances? This is an often overlooked, but very important, aspect of building and maintaining a career in music.

Lucky for you, I’m sure you have a bucketload of examples of what not to do in your own hometown. Local bands who are stuck on the local level, when their goal is to move forward (yes, some bands do want to stay at a local level, which is perfectly fine), can be perfect examples of what you should not do if you want to move your music career forward.

Let’s take a look at five lessons to be learned from local bands and give yourself a hand up on the local scene or, if you’re suffering these problems, fix them!

Read the piece here.