john

Hi Dhritiman, Welcome to Songstuff! What sort of music are you writing/recording/releasing?

Good job. Have you tried it with a drum track?

That is sad to hear. It sounds like she was the cause of a lot of anguish, but what (songwriting/artist-wise) did she inspire in you, in your music, etc?

Targeting real listeners and genuine fans on social media is so important. For most of us, musicians are not your natural audience. That’s why relying on Follow for Follow (F4F) Is Killing Your Music. Exchanging likes, targeting other musicians might see your follower count quickly grow but pretty soon your engagement stats will completely tank. Musicians chasing easy likes and followers might temporarily make you feel a little better, but it is much, much more likely to be a nail in your musical coffin. You will eventually realise that they are “pretend fans”. In their eyes, for most, you are an asset for their music, not the other way around. Other than a very small core of people who might genuinely be supportive, most are not. For the pretend fans, your posts about your music eventually become unwelcome internet noise. They don’t engage with your posts, give social platforms the impression your content is dull, uninteresting…. Ie social platforms are being told, over and over again that your content sucks. You need to connect with people who actually want to read your posts, want to listen to your music because… now here comes a radical idea… they actually like your music. Chasing anything else just sees your feed blocked with stuff that doesn’t help you meet your goal of finding genuine listeners, sees you eventually spamming everyone you meet for a shrinking percentage of actually interested people. Have a personal account where you connect with family, friends and you follow people whose content you genuinely find interesting. Have an artist account where you grow your reach to real, potential listeners. Grow engagement with them and encourage them to listen to your music. Put things in place that genuinely help you to build your fanbase. You might find this blog post useful: There is a very small window when it might, arguably, help you in the early days. Yet that is for a few days in the beginning, nothing more. The sooner you move from targeting false audiences the better. That means quickly identifying the genuine fans and taking them somewhere you use just for talking to your listeners. Cheers John

"Follow for follow" (often abbreviated as "F4F") is a tactic where individuals agree to follow each other on social media platforms with the hope of boosting their follower counts. It is often used, to the point of being highly damaging, by artists in the independent music scene. Without realising it, they are killing their own music. Let me explain. While this strategy may seem tempting, especially for emerging artists looking to build a presence, it comes with a variety of drawbacks. Here's a deeper look into the pitfalls of this approach and its interactions with social media algorithms: 1. Inauthentic Audience Growth: One of the major drawbacks of "follow for follow" is that it doesn't lead to a genuinely interested audience. An artist's followers should ideally be people who appreciate and engage with their content. People who actually like their music. With F4F, the followers gained are usually more interested in increasing their own numbers rather than genuinely supporting the artist's work. They rarely, if ever, interact with the artist’s posts never mind listen to their music. 2. Low Engagement Rates: Social media algorithms prioritize content based on engagement. If a high percentage of your followers interact with your posts (like, comment, share, etc.), the platform sees your content as valuable and will show it to more people. However, followers gained through F4F schemes are often not engaged, which can decrease the overall engagement rate and reduce the reach of the artist's posts. 3. Algorithms Can Penalize You: Platforms like Instagram are always evolving their algorithms to promote authentic engagement and combat tactics that attempt to game the system. Engaging in F4F can be detected by these platforms, and there's a risk of having your content deprioritized or, in severe cases, having your account suspended or shadow banned. 4. Dilutes Your Brand: For artists, a consistent brand image and a clear message to their audience is crucial. When an artist's follower list is cluttered with random accounts from F4F exchanges, it can dilute the clarity of their target audience, making marketing efforts less effective. 5. Time-Consuming with Little Return: Engaging in F4F exchanges is time-consuming. Rather than spending time creating content or engaging authentically with potential fans, artists end up chasing hollow numbers that offer little real value. 6. Unwanted Content in Feed: By following a multitude of accounts without genuine interest, an artist's feed can become cluttered with unrelated and uninteresting posts. This can make it more difficult to engage with content from followers the artist truly values. 7. Unsustainable Growth: While F4F might offer a temporary boost in follower numbers, it's not a sustainable strategy for long-term growth. Many users involved in such schemes may unfollow after a short period, leading to fluctuating follower counts. Interaction with Social Media Algorithms Social media platforms use complex algorithms to determine what content gets displayed to users. These algorithms often consider user engagement as a significant factor. When an account has a high percentage of inactive or unengaged followers, as is often the case with F4F schemes, the algorithm interprets this as the account producing low-quality content. As a result, the platform may show the artist's content to fewer users, including genuine followers, leading to even lower engagement. Find Listeners, Build Fans Instead, invest your time in reaching listeners, and building your fanbase from your listeners. This means actively reaching beyond your friends and family. Sure, find potential fans among your friends and family, but by far the majority will be supporting you because they like you. Liking you and truly liking your music are not the same thing. Fans are made from people who like your music. These are the people you are struggling to reach. Grow your reach, yes, but the quality of that reach is massively important. Don’t find followers. Find listeners. In conclusion, while the temptation of quick follower growth might make "follow for follow" schemes seem appealing, they can ultimately hinder an artist's genuine connection with an audience and potentially limit their reach on social media platforms. Building a genuine and engaged following takes time, but the results are far more rewarding and sustainable.

Hi With society's pressure eternally pushing music to be cheaper or free, I thought I'd ask a few related questions. I'd love to hear your opinions. When should music be free? When should music be paid for? Should there be such a thing as a "Professional Musician"? Do you still pay for music? Do you, or would you, sell your music? What do you think would be a fair price to stream a song? What do you think would be a fair price to download a song to keep your copy? Cheers John

I think it largely depends on what it inspires in you. Looking at the lines themselves they prompt questions. Who is the bad influence? Why are they a bad influence? What did they get you to do? What did the devil make you do? It must be bad! So, what did it inspire in you?

It was only confusing because there was no quote and came right after my reply, was like “eh? Wtf?” Lol

Now that I did not know. Every day is a learning day!

I deleted my reply... I thought you were talking to me (as it was the next post) but re-reading I am not so sure you were addressing me! Onwards and upwards.

Some good choices Tom!

Practical is an interesting word choice. There's certainly a more pragmatic edge to it. There's a desire for the outcome, but a lack of work within many. Youth has hope, and the huge benefit from the knowledge the internet can bring them... unfortunately they don't always have the necessary work ethic and the world is SO full of distractions. Even the internet is so full of distractions. Older generations I find have a different pragmatic edge, in that they relegate a lot of music aspirations from foreground to background tasks under the guise of "realism". They tend to lack knowledge and the fuel and energy needed to get that knowledge. The internet was less of a resource when they were younger. They don't realize really what the wired world can give them. They also haven't adjusted their musical goals so much as they have effectively removed them. Those in the middle are a confused mix of the two above. All 3 struggle to know where exactly to spend their time for the best progress towards their vague goals. The middle epitomizes this. So much so that they can stop progress, rabbits in headlights, making little or no progress at all. The above, I know, are broad generalizations. They cover a lot of ground.

Hi Gwen Welcome to Songstuff! It’s good to have you with us. Cheers John

Learned experience is definitely the best teacher. Notice the emphasis on learned and teacher. Without learning we might as well burn our money and our time. Yet artist after artist keeps repeating what is already not working and then become disillusioned and sometimes bitter. First we have to learn how to get attention We fine tune that by getting attention from the right people Then we have to learn how to keep attention We fine tune that by creating an audience hungry for attention Then we have to learn how to direct attention. We have to learn how to give them something to do and engage them fully We fine tune by asking them to do something and they do it Share a post, leave a comment, play a song, buy an EP, share this post etc.

Hi from Scotland! I love some good hard rock, so I look forward to being impressed!

i think there is some homework to be done first on target audiences and reaching them. Know what you are paying someone else to do before you pay them to do it. Learn by hard work. There are no quick fixes, just ways to lose a lot of money!

You need to set your sights beyond friends and family. Most will like you, but that doesn’t mean they are real fans of your music, so they behave differently. Motivating them to spread your music only really works if they are in touch with your target audiences. Better to lean heavily on the few that you know ARE in contact with that audience…. And use the benefits, leverage their effort to make actual fans from people you don’t know and learn how to motivate those people to help. Who are your target audience. Write down profiles. Include who they listen to. Where do you find these people? How do YOU reach those people and put your music in front of them.

Dems the stats. Too old, too you, anti-tech, mentally handicapped, bad internet connections… they all count.

Tiny Tunes are great for discovery. Fans still binge on artists they like and will absolutely consume longer song formats. The age old axiom still holds true. Get attention, then use that attention. The YouTube algorithm will do a lot based on complete views, but it also understands when videos are very short. Ultimately they make money on advertising, and they place more ads the longer you watch. For the same royalty payment. Even when it comes to paid subscribers, it costs them more (potentially) to have to show 30 of your titles vs 8 of someone else’s. The short attention span really is a discovery statistic. By that I mean people browse in a way that they give new content by unknowns very little time to impress. In fact, often only the title and thumbnail, never mind play time. However, once they discover you, listening habits change greatly. Additionally, you have to think about other platforms and how they respond. On music only platforms it is a big issue. I get that maybe you have a very YouTube centric approach, and there is a lot of virtue in that. Still, look at the bigger YouTubers. They do a variety of formats, largely keeping most of their short format for shorts.

None taken. People have different experiences and different goals. True, people’s attention spans aren’t what they used to be. Still, I would use 60 second songs (We call them Tiny Tunes) as quick tasters, to attract new listeners. They fit into a proper release strategy, but I wouldn’t make them my releases for Spotify etc. As I type I see Mahesh has posted about Tiny Tunes lol.

Thanks for thinking my response was awesome A few supplementary questions Questions are thought experiments, and thought experiments get you closer to understanding your situation, your priorities, your goals etc. What is more important to you, making money from your music or having an audience that loves your music? If it came to it, would you choose to have a smaller audience that were absolutely dedicated fans, making you enough money that doing your music made you pocket money, ie cost plus $500 per month, or a larger audience of lukewarm fans making you more money per month, say $850? Change the numbers. At some point money likely wins. At some point the extra satisfaction of loving fans likely wins. I would argue that as yet you: May not have identified your audience Probably haven’t found a way reliably reach that audience Possibly don’t know how to effectively market the real you (or a made up you) Probably don’t have a creative team Probably don’t have a marketing team Haven’t put in place a business model to support all of the above There’s also a good chance that doing it all on your own sees you getting less than ideal results, and a cycle of doing what is already not working in rinse and repeat just feels a bit depressing. The trouble is, there is no magic wand, only hard work. The truth is with a population of about 8 billion people, and 5.3 billion of them use the internet. With less than 10,000 dedicated fans you can make a very good living. That is 0.000188% of internet users.

Is there no role for you singing any of your songs? For example some songs you perform for enjoyment, some you sell. (Don’t do both with individual songs) In this modern era, almost anything is marketable. You just have to identify your market. Sell your songs, or pitch your songs to artists (you retain ownership of the song, they perform a version of it)? What kind of creative force? Ie, what would you do? Reading your answer, thanks for taking it seriously and giving it some thought. The overall tone sounds like you are settling, resigned to a second scenario. Have you ever really tried to build an audience for your music? That can tell you if you have identified a market and also allows you to work out how to market yourself. Apart from that, if you have existing songs in the market place, it demonstrates that your songs have something worth investing in… good news for potential investors in you. What you mention is also very work/money oriented. What about fun? Personal enjoyment? Setting aside writing songs to sell, if you couldn’t do that, what would you do with your songs? A personal question. What do you base your “unmarketable” comment on? Did you have a very firm idea of who you wanted to be as an artist, but now you feel physically you cannot be that particular dream any more? For example, your songs are about being an angsty teen and you are now in your forties? Or you dreamt of being Pink and you no longer feel you could look like that? I can identify with the above in that at 23 I suffered a spinal injury that changed the direction of my life, so I could no longer pursue what I did. I still plan to release my music, but my plan is very different. Time has evolved me, but so has my music, and my plan for my music. I am open to writing for others and indeed have written songs for specific others, but my focus is still on recording my songs for me to sing. If someone then wants to cover them, awesome!

I have to agree with @BigDAWaudio. Sing out loud. Make your mistakes loud and proud. Own them, learn, and don’t do them again. Singing timidly in “weak voice”, allows you to hide your mistakes, plus you are only learning to sing in that weak voice, when you need to learn how to project. Sitting with your instrument is a good idea. If you are a singer, it’s always a good idea to play a second instrument. For singing you have to train your ear the difference between the sound you hear through the air and the sound you hear through bone, particularly your jaw bone. There is a pitch difference. What you hear through your jaw bone is at a higher pitch. Not being able to tell the difference, and especially if you have an attention dominance issue (paying too much attention to what you hear through your jaw), you will have a tendency to sing flat. I find simply cupping your fingers behind your ear, with the heel of your hand towards your mouth, you will amplify the sound you are hearing through the air and by adjusting how close the heel of your hand is to your face you adjust the volume balance between what you hear through bone or air. This helps you train your ear. (Also useful when you are struggling to hear your voice, and importantly how to adjust your pitch, when you are hearing yourself more through bone in a live setting) Use a software program or even better a mobile ear training app for your phone). There are many.

Hi A great question! The shortest answer is to record, mix and master at the highest quality your system can cope with for future proofing your audio. You can lose detail from your audio at any time by reducing quality, but you cannot add back lost detail by increasing quality. Instead, all you do is interpolate values… ie adding pseudo or false detail that merely preserves the same audio signal at that better quality. 44.1kHz 16 bit is a 40 year old standard, but still being used in some 8k video, albeit in 22:2 audio channels. Apart from that you are looking at 48kHz for HD video and 48kHz or 96kHz for 4K (which is also 5:1 surround sound) and 44.1kHz or 48 kHz in 22:2. Video is vital for modern musicians. If you ever plan to have your music used in video formats, then master at 48kHz minimum. Just now 96kHz 24 bit is used by sound designers for movies, audiophiles but as processing continues to speed up audio quality will only improve. Why have your audio languish? Disadvantages of recording, mixing and mastering at higher quality? You need higher spec computer, software, audio interface. That’s it. Cheers John

Hi There is no right answer, only the answer that is right for you. What do you want to DO with your music? Is this (answer to the above question) the real extent of your ambition for your music? Do you consider yourself to be happy with achieving this? If you are happy, then all is well with the world if you have achieved it! Well done you! If you have yet to achieve your goal, are you actively work to achieve your goals? If yes, awesome, if no, what’s your big plan? If you are not happy, you are the master of your own story. What are you doing to make it a happy ending? Cheers John