Music & Your Goals

[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

[Mel J]

Great question...

I wanted to sing my own songs but now since life has been moving fast forward and I am no longer marketable, I want to sell my songs and have others sing them. 

I do want to be a creative force in the recording process of the songs,  if possible, however I have to realize not all artists will want me in their mix.

[john]

1 hour ago, Mel J said:

Great question...

I wanted to sing my own songs but now since life has been moving fast forward and I am no longer marketable, I want to sell my songs and have others sing them. 

I do want to be a creative force in the recording process of the songs,  if possible, however I have to realize not all artists will want me in their mix.

 

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!

[Mel J]

Thank you for an awesome response; If my songs cannot be sold, I guess I would sing them myself. Because, I would hate to have such works be wasted.

I no longer see myself as marketable, a female at my age. (Although I still have swag).

 

My influences are Janet Jackson and Sade, and now mixed with India.Arie and Marley. 

Building an audience has been slow- a few open mic appearances and some YouTube videos. 

It may sound as if I would be settling, however I am aware of what is selling on mainstream and who is filling the seats at clubs and venues. 

I have much to think about...

 

Thank you for such a great post.  This is a conversation I needed. 

 

[john]

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.

[El Diablo Songwriter]

2 hours ago, john said:

 

The truth is with a population of about 8 billion people, and 5.3 billion of them use the internet.

 

 

I'm guessing the other 2.7 billion is in prison?

[john]

8 hours ago, El Diablo Songwriter said:

I'm guessing the other 2.7 billion is in prison?

 

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