Self Sufficient Musician

People focus too much on effectiveness, and while that’s not wrong, effectiveness can be tweaked, improved and sharpened over time.

The true secret to a successful strategy is to make it sustainable.

This applies to everyone but particularly true for musicians.  We get into this because we like music — playing it, making it, recording it, etc.  But with it comes the rest of “business” — promoting, schmoozing, booking, tweeting, and so on.

There are many how-to info out there that claim to make you successful.  But the problem is, they don’t take who you are into account.

Back when I released my first album, I promoted it heavily on MySpace, because Your Favorite Enemies was very successful with that approach.

9 months later, I got so burned out that I just couldn’t go on.  I did many things right as far as I could tell, and my fan base was growing — if slowly (YFE has 7 members, I was by myself) — but getting burned out and not logging in for a long time just burned down most of what I built during that time.

Definitely not a successful strategy.

Derek Sivers says it well when he says “Do what excites/scares you.  Don’t do what drains you.”

I’m still trying to figure out what a successful strategy for me is.  But one lesson I learned: it better be sustainable.   If it’s even half way effective, if I can sustain it, it’ll build.

So, don’t blindly accept other people’s success methods without taking compatibility with yourself into account.  If you hate parties, don’t attend them.  If you hate going online, stay offline.  If you like drawing, incorporate that.  If you like biking, incorporate that.

Make up a career strategy stuff full of activities that excite you, and boldly ignore the rest of good advices.

So that you can sustain it.

Most artists go and record an album because they thing it’s “the thing to do.” While I don’t disagree that it’s a thing to do in your pursuit of a career as an original artist, but it’s a good idea to pause for a moment and ask yourself “why.”

There are many good reasons why you should record an album, but off the top of my head, I can think of three big ones:

1. You want to sell it to make a profit.
2. You want to use it as a promotional tool to get as many people as possible to know your act or come to your gig.
3. You want to showcase your talent/songs.

Now, they are not exactly mutually exclusive, let’s just say that it’s extremely hard to do all of them extremely well at the same time.

Consider for a moment.  If your goal is to make a maximum profit, you may want to reserve some money to promote the album instead of spending it all on production.  In fact, you may want to spend as little as possible on the production as you can get away with, so that it’ll increase your profitability.

On the other hand, if your goal is #2, you may want to forget about profits — and give away your recordings for free.  That way it’ll make the maximum impact on your promotions, and your visibility may help you move forward.

Or if you want to make an album as a showcase, then you’ll want to put everything you got into your production, and never mind what happens afterward.  Having a great showcase of your talents can be your greatest asset — it may woo and impress the important people, if not that many of them, that you’ll want to attract.

I’m sure for most of us, our goals are varying mixes of three.  When I made my first album, my goal was to see if I can do it by myself.  I did everything on my own, and I never let anyone else listen to my work in progress until the very final stages of mixing.  My experiment was to see if I made a record that appealed to nothing but my own taste, if people would like it.   Judging by the responses I got from my listeners, I think my experiment was a success.

But beyond that, I didn’t have very clear idea how I was going to use my album to further my career.  I spent about 9 months on a diligent MySpace campaign, then got burned out doing that, and took a break from my own music.  As I am pondering resuming and thinking about my next album, I realize how my lack of vision/strategy really made me spend my time and resources in an inefficient way.  Lesson learned, I hope to make a bigger impact when I release my next one.

What about you?  What are you setting out to accomplish with your album?  Ponder for a moment and write them down — it’ll help you make decisions throughout your recording, releasing and promoting process.

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I’m sure we’ve all done it: playing to an empty house. And my story is probably a familiar one, if not mirroring your own.

Back when I was performing as a solo singer/songwriter, this is what happened all the time.  I was getting whatever gigs that I could get, thinking that a little exposure is better than no exposure.  And I was counting on the club or the coffeehouse to have a “house crowd” that I could play to, because while I always had friends, the kind of people I associated with were seldom bar patrons or live music enthusiasts.  But the venue was counting on the acts to bring in the crowd — thus, both parties looking to the other to produce the audience.

On another level, I knew that playing with an acoustic guitar by myself, I was never that good.  While I could write songs that sounded good with just an acoustic guitar, it sounded so incomplete and boring to my mind.  And my singing isn’t my strongest suit — I would never impress anybody with my vocal= prowess alone.  I knew that my strength was in songwriting and arranging and without a band to bring out the intricacies of my songs, my performance was flat.  (continue reading…)

There is a right answer to that question — what you must say if you are to become a Self Sufficient Musician.

The answer: “I am.  I am my biggest fan.”

Well, and just saying it isn’t enough, obviously.  You must believe it.  I once read Steven Tyler of Aerosmith saying “You think you’re my biggest fan?  No, you’re wrong.  I am my biggest fan.”

Now, I am not saying that you have to be a narcissist.  There is a fine line between egomaniac and loving your own work.

And there are at least three reasons why this is required for your success in music business: (continue reading…)

I’ve been running a poll to see what the perceived obstacles people are facing in their music career pursuit. Is it luck? Is it the industry? Is it the competition?

Well, I’ll give away the answer here. The biggest obstacle between you and your success is YOU.

That’s right.  You’re the only one standing in your way.  Or to put it another way, if you figure out how to get out of your own way and unleash the real, unrestrained you, you will succeed.  You won’t be able to prevent your success.

Does that sound all abstract and new-agey?   Would you rather I discuss the proven-and-tested technique to win 1000 fans instantly? (continue reading…)

It took me 13 years since graduating from college to become a full-time musician.

Does the depress you or encourage you?  Why did it take me such a long time?

Well, there are many reasons.  But one of them is because it took me that long to figure out exactly what I wanted to become.

There are many forms of musicians, and I tried being many of them.  Below I’m going to list all the careers I’ve tried, and my own take on their pros and cons and what’s needed to really pursue them.  Hopefully my real-life tales will help you determine which direction you’re drawn to. (continue reading…)

There are many resources out there for discussing how to write a ‘hit’ song.

And there are a number of techniques, like analyzing past hit songs to determine common characteristics and emulate them. That’s useful information if you plan to pursue a hit-based career.

However,  here at SSM, we are more concerned with being unique than hit.  Why?  It’s because being unique is much more reliable and practical way to ensure that you have a lasting career as an original recording artist.

Quickly, here are the reasons why.  (continue reading…)

In the previous article, I stated that it’s very possible and realistic for musicians to earn enough to sustain a comfortable lifestyle while creating, recording and performing music that you enjoy. While the second phrase, the bit about music you enjoy, can include writing jingles, playing string quartets in weddings, or playing showtunes on a cruise ship, let’s narrow it down to what is commonly the ultimate ideal for most musicians writing and playing popular music: make a living from original music.

Is this still possible?

Yep.

So having defined a very specific objective and activity, let’s further break this down into its most fundamental and essential elements. (continue reading…)

One of the ultimate dreams of musicians — particularly, songwriters, composers and “artists” — is to make a living making music you love.  Not only you are “in” the music business, but you are one of the elite few who just do what you please.

It certainly sounds attractive to me.  No bosses to boss you around, no clients to please — just make the music that makes your heart sing, and get paid for doing it.

But there is a catch there, isn’t there?

Yes.  The catch is this: you can’t do it.  It’s not a theoretic impossibility, but realistically, no.  You need to be both extremely exceptionally talented, and equally exceptionally lucky.  So, no ma’am.  You can’t expect your life to be that exceptional. (continue reading…)