Five New Year’s Resolutions for Musicians
My career at an audio engineering studio and music production school has put me firmly in the middle of musicians of all types, ages, races and levels of accomplishment.
There are a few distinct differences between the successful and non-successful musicians; real talent, focus, and above all, commitment! So
So here are the top 5 resolutions I suggest for musicians in 2017:
#1 Your song is not “a hit” until it sells enough units, or downloads, or whatever to pay your monthly bills for at least a year.
Too many times musicians are seduced by the way their music sounds in the studio. Please be reminded EVERYTHING sounds good in the studio! There’s state of the art gear and software and a professional audio engineer. The determining factor on if your song is a legitimate “hit” or not is sales, plain and simple. It makes little or no difference how many people downloaded your song for free, or how many hits you have on YouTube. Unless any of that translates into real spendable currency, keep on practicing!
#2 Resolve to write better music!
Writing better music does not mean steal “beats” from free websites, or sample bits of songs that have already been written and published. Or you think the songs are so old the composer is dead, thus no lawyers will come after you. It means do some research, take a composing class or two, collaborate with a real songwriter, anything to help you become a better songwriter.
#3 Either clean your computer keyboard or dump it and buy a new one.
You know how many times you’ve consumed food and drink while making your music and all that stuff is lodged in that keyboard, which as far as I’m concerned is the reason your music sounds sub-par. Remember: “cleanliness is next to artist-ness” or something like that.
#4 Make sure you back up ALL your flies religiously.
This means back them up all the time and often…the time to “get religion” and start praying is NOT when the God of the computer takes ALL your files as a spontaneous sacrifice as well as snatching a hard drive or three. Its one of the points we make to the students in our music recording program. Also very appealing to the wife of the God of computers (Mother Nature) is lightening… it likes to destroy mother boards. No, the God of computers is not a benevolent god!
#5 Finish at least ONE song this year.
SO many times I’ve know musicians who are always “in the studio…” Years later we meet and when asked what they’re doing, they’re still “in the studio…” Finish a song for Pete’s sake! Most of the time musicians spend so much time making endless numbers of ultimately meaningless changes to music the song is never completed. So many musicians have the “DAW Syndrome”, like for example Dr. Dre and his ill-fated “Detox” project. Twenty dozen leaks and more than and a decade later there is still no finished product and there never will be. Don’t succumb to this syndrome…”put down that damn mouse!”