Doing your own thing is a lot harder than most people think. Most bands that start out sound like other bands. They have to develop their own voice, and it takes time. If you’re not embarrassed by the first things you’ve done, you’re doing something wrong.
Most of the people who are successful in music do so by working together with someone else – a singer/songwriter with a good lyricist, or a songwriter with a singer, or two musicians who work well together. Your chances of success will go up if you can find the right person to collaborate with.
If you want to succeed in the music business, there are three things you need: (1) talent; (2) hard work; (3) luck. The last two are up to you; only the first is out of your control. But if you’re lucky enough to be talented, and if you work hard, then you can succeed.
The music industry is a funny business. Too often, we focus on the problems and not enough time on the solutions. In this article, I’ll describe some of the things I’ve learned that have worked well for me.
There are many different ways to approach making music and making money in the music industry. I’ve chosen one that works well for me and my personality. At the end of this article, I’ll list a few people who do things differently, and do them well.
Nowadays it’s easier than ever to make music, yet it’s harder than ever to be successful doing so. The internet has given artists direct access to their fans, but it has also given every other artist direct access to their fans as well.
As a result, these days there is no clear path to success other than putting in hard work and taking advantage of any opportunities that come your way. There is no magic bullet, no secret formula. It’s all about blood, sweat and tears.
So you want to be an electronic music artist? You sit down in your room and make a track. It’s amazing! It sounds like nothing else on earth. Listen to it again and again. Play it for your friends, who have never heard anything like it–then they play it for their friends, who have never heard anything like it…
About four years later, you’re still sitting in your room, making tracks that sound like nothing else on earth. You’ve made thousands of them. Your friends aren’t even allowed to listen to them anymore–they’ll just laugh at you. The only person who still listens is your mom, but she doesn’t count.
At this point, most people quit. They decide there’s something wrong with the music industry, that it doesn’t get good music any more, that nobody is paying attention to genius when they hear it. There are a million excuses why they don’t succeed–but the only real reason they fail is they quit too soon.
The problem isn’t that electronic music is hard to do well. The problem is that electronic music is easy to do badly.
If the DJ is to be the next rock star, how will this affect the music industry?
There is always a hierarchy in the music industry, whether it be the recording artists or the various intermediaries in between them and their audience. Like any other industry, there is a pecking order of who counts as more relevant or important.
But unlike other industries, hierarchies in music are not carved in stone. In fact, they are constantly changing. The idea of what constitutes success in music requires some kind of understanding of this ever-shifting hierarchy.
The way that DJing has become a mainstream activity over the past few years has been a result of several converging factors. First, there has been an explosion in dance music over the past decade. Many young people now consider themselves to be fans of dance music rather than rock music.
Second, technology has enabled anyone to become a DJ. It’s now possible for DJs to play gigs using nothing more than a laptop computer and a small sound system by using technology which allows them to mix songs together with very little skill or effort involved.
Third, and most importantly, there is now an entire generation of young people who have grown up with computers their whole life, and are therefore familiar with this technology so
The conventional wisdom these days is that the music industry is dying. But from the point of view of someone who wants to make money, there’s never been a better time to be a musician. The reason is that the internet has dramatically lowered the costs of distributing music.
This has two effects: first, it makes it easier for musicians to reach their audience; second, it makes it harder for anyone to make money off their music.
Musicians have tried for centuries to do both at once: make music that reached lots of people, and made them money. But the constraint of distribution meant they had to choose between reaching a lot of people and making money. The more people you reached, the less you could charge each one.
Now musicians have a new option: they can reach an enormous number of people, but still charge each one close to nothing. One obvious example is free concerts on the Internet. You can watch U2 play live in your living room – if you happen to be there when they’re playing live somewhere in cyberspace. And if you miss them this time, they’ll be back soon enough.
Or if you want something more low-key, try following some local band on Twitter or Facebook and see when they’re playing in town
To be an electronic DJ, you have to put on a show. That’s the only way to get people to come out and see what you’re doing.
But even if you’re a DJ, it’s not easy. You still need to make good music and you still need to do something interesting. And that’s where a lot of people get stuck. They want to do something new and different, but they don’t know how. So they just go with what’s already popular.
That’s how most of us end up in the “me too” business. We figure we can ride on other people’s coattails. If other DJs are doing it, why can’t we? That attitude doesn’t last long though. It turns out that being good at copying other people isn’t very valuable in the real world.
If you want to succeed as a DJ, you need to figure out what your unique value is, and then create something new around that value. You need to find a niche that no one else has found yet, and then develop it into something that others will pay for. The fastest way to do this is by listening to your customers and finding out what they really want. Then deliver it to them in a way that no one else
“It was a big shock to me when I found out how many things there were that money couldn’t buy. For those of us who were brought up with the idea that money could achieve anything, it came as an unpleasant surprise to find there were so many things it couldn’t have. It couldn’t buy friends, or a wife’s love. It couldn’t buy back health. And most important of all, it couldn’t buy eternal life.”
“I’m still ambitious, but my idea of success has changed. Success to me now is being able to go down the street and run into people and they’ll be glad to see you. That’s what I call success.”
“The reason most people never reach their goals is that they don’t define them, or ever seriously consider them as believable or achievable. Winners can tell you where they are going, what they plan to do along the way, and who will be sharing the adventure with them.”
“Success is falling nine times and getting up ten.”
“Success is not final; failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.”
“Success means having the courage, the determination, and the will to become the person you believe you were meant to be.”
“Successful