Your Life Is Music

You made up your mind and decided to start a career in music. Congratulations! One realizes quickly that it is a challenge and the paycheck is not as regular with respect to other institutional jobs. Nevertheless my cousin is a violinist. He lived in Marseilles, France last spring. One day he came back walking from the luthier, a maker of stringed instrument, who repaired his violin. He started playing on the street nearby the “Vieux-Port” area (the old harbor) just to test his violin sound. He did not pay attention of the few bars and the people around and soon realized he had money on his violin case. He stayed there for a few hours just for fun. He soon realized he could make a living. He could earn from one hundred-fifty to two hundred dollars in four hours. His only challenge was to use this money as it was made of all kinds of coins from one cent to fifty cents.

You never get a second chance to make a first impression says the adage. I recently read an article by Shaun Barrowes regarding “Starting Up a New Career in Music”. According to Barrowes, “Getting your music known is absolutely your biggest challenge. First, make sure to get a good recording of your song(s). If you're really serious about this, pay the money and get a professional recording studio.” You have the opportunity to win the audience and make your music heard. Of course there is a big “fan base for all genres out there” as S. Barrowes said, yet there is a process to follow on the road to your own success. Use the Internet to promote yourself.

Again write good songs you might have to brainstorm and research topics and moods for your songs. Clearly define where you are. Paint a picture. Find your own genuine voice. Remember there is no right or wrong at this point. Your songs are very important and they are a key. In order to work in your album, find the right songs. The right tone should be meticulously chosen.

List all your songs. Pick the best twenty tunes. Ask some musicians, friends, your producer, manager or an agent to grade each song from one to twelve. Add up each grade per song and group them per grade. You might end up with ten groups. Eliminate the last one and rank the best ten songs from the best grade to the least. You might have some challenges as one group might be larger than others. In this case you can reiterate the same process with the specific group with your musician friends in order to be more accurate. Your objective is to select a ten-songs album. You may add up songs later but at least you’ll be able to target a tone.

If you have trouble finding songs sometimes rewriting some lyrics on some melodies can help or even changing a verse or a chorus melody can do. Before starting this process pick your best ideas. Sketch out your lyrics before writing. I think the key is to find a catchy title for your songs. I always think that there are two kinds of songs. The ones we keep for ourselves and the ones we communicate. I would play the most commercial ones just because. But that’s me. Remember that you are trying to sell something to an audience. There is always space for one tune a little less commercial in an album but it has to be well chosen. And it is just one tune. Remember the exception confirms the rule and it can be applied here too. Again this is only my opinion and definitely cannot be taken as a rule.

It takes time to grow from the bottom up so enjoy the process. A little reminder, a good thing to do is to start building your fan base from the very beginning. Write down first and last names. Emails, phone numbers are crucial. You are only as good for promoters as your audience. Keep your listing up to date. From a small stage to a large audience there are many places where you can express yourselves and those people can be anywhere so carry a paper pad or the equivalent to collect this data. We did it and collected one thousand names in about one year as an example and this is only for a small band. Those people spontaneously wanted to give their information to hear more about the band. Of course you can hope to gather fifteen percent of this crowd for an event. That’s a good start.
Good luck and remember to have fun!