What do you do when your music doesn't do well?
Sometimes it's difficult as musicians when we put music out there for people to enjoy, but we can barely get people to lend an ear to what we've made. We end up resorting to unsavory methods of trying to get people to hear our music. We start to look like a middle child who is seeking attention by doing destructive things in order to be noticed. We tag everyone in our posts, tell people we've make audio fire and sometimes try to be controversial with our posts by calling out a well known artist. This usually doesn't work and we resort to posting less music and we tend to whine about how no one is following our stuff. Sound familiar?
Recognition isn't for free. Having great sounding music is not a free pass to an active fan base. Building a group of people who follow you and dedicate time and effort to your craft and it's promotion and that comes at a price. That price is constant posting of great work for a long period of time a day dedication to learning the best marketing techniques. Do you want hundreds of comments on your work every week? Do you want a bunch of likes and plays on your work? You're definitely going to need to dedicate time to posting frequently. It doesnt help posting once and then dipping out of social media for the next 3 weeks before posting again. You'll never build up any traction. Momentum is everything.
The next thing I want us to look at is rate of output. Are you able to post as often as you need to? This takes a decent work ethic. You're going to need to start completing all those old projects and start completing projects more frequently. If you were able to make 3 songs a week would you post them to social media? If not, why not? I'm not saying one has to post each and every song they make regardless of quality, I'm just saying that increasing output will really help your chances of getting people's attention. I tell people a 30 day Challenge is great because it forces you to create something each day which results in 30 new pieces of content in 30 days. That's great for posting and generating likes, views and follows. This all leads to increased amounts of awareness and engagement which is exactly what up and coming artists need.
Do you struggle to make music? What's your barrier and how do you overcome it? Is studio time a too expensive? Have you ever thought about spending a once-off fee to buy equipment so that you can create at will. I had an artist tell me he struggles to create because he doesnt have equipment. I helped buy him equipment and eliminated his barrier to creation. He wasn't really able to make more music given the same amount of time. We looked into it further and we realised that his schedule was so full already that regardless of whether he had access to the equipment, he didn't have time to use it anyway. This realization was great because now he knows that his true problem is time management and once he solves that his output will either increase or we will find another barrier that he needs to overcome. People always say
"I would create more music if I owned my own studio".
It's too easy to say this. Raise the money and go prove it. Studio equipment is a fraction of what it used to cost.
On the other hand I know people that can put out new work everyday, but they still don't generate a following. They also need to reevaluate why this might be the case. If you've been working for months and months releasing new work and your situation isn't changing then there might be a quality barrier that you need to overcome. This one is a bit more difficult to realise. As artists our egos will tell us that that isn't the reason.
"My music sounds fine. Why would I need to change it. People just don't get me yet".
There's no way your work isn't good enough, hey. I've recently realised that my work isn't everybody's cup of tea. I have a niche fan base of people who like my music, but it's not huge. I know I don't appeal to as many people as I could and I need to find out why.
Is my genre too specific and in one niche or I the quality of work I'm putting out too low?
This is a small list of improvements I'm trying to make:
- I know my mixes could be better and I'm trying to improve on the way I master my tracks.
- I also feel like I need to improve my melodic complexity and I need to diversify the scales I make use of.
- I also need to improve my percussive and drum patterns so that I create more of a groove in my tracks.
All these improvements will eventually lead to growth in my sound. This growth might be all that's needed to take my music to the next level. I'm cognizant to the possibility that I'm not quite there with the quality and I'm therfore open to improvement.
At the end of the day there are a lot of barriers that stop us from being able to progress in our careers and it's our goal as creatives to figure out what's missing and find a way to compensate. Other people may be able to help you point it out, but it's up to you to actually realise your shortfalls. Keep at it and realise that it's going to take time for you to emerge with the prize of people's attention. Good luck.
SB
