It’s 2012. Technology has completely revolutionized what it means to be an independent musician. It’s liberating, for those that are capable. It’s terrifying and frustrating for those that aren’t. No longer are there any restrictions from you being able to get your music to a potential worldwide audience. The hard part is to make sure what you’re putting out there is ready for that worldwide audience.

If you’re not as big as Drake, not blowing up like The Weeknd, not selling as much as Adele… it’s not because people don’t know about you, and it’s not because you’re not shouting loud enough.

It’s because people aren’t telling others about you.

So why is that?

We all know being in a band comes with a hefty dose of competitive feelings towards other bands.  Whether it’s jealousy over who’s getting booked as who’s opener, or who is blowing who off the stage, who’s getting signed, who’s not, etc… bands are very often comparing themselves to other bands.

The problem I find, is most times bands are comparing themselves to their local contemporaries, or their friends bands.  Why is this a problem?  It’s a comparison of accomplishments, and rarely a comparison of skill.

If a band truly wants to constructively compare themselves to others, in efforts to improve their status, I would start comparing yourselves to world class bands.  Get live performance DVDs of the biggest and best bands in the world who are in your genre (and some who aren’t!), and study them.  Strip away things like expensive production, lighting etc and focus on how that band sounds, looks, and performs…Go see those bands live, listen to their songs, try to figure out what is making them a “world class band”… Study their faces, their stage presence, their performances, their techniques.  Hold your band to that high of a standard too.  Don’t settle for anything less.

Work towards being so good you could blow the biggest bands in the world off the stage.  And don’t worry about the other local bands.  Instead, you can just be cool, support them and be proud of them.

All the best to everyone for 2011, and I hope everything you’re working toward comes to fruition this year.  I’m sure many people made New Years resolutions to work on improving one thing or another, and since it happens to be New Years Day, you can get away with it, but how about this… starting now, what if you treat every single day like it’s New Years?  That way any day can be the day you start working harder to accomplish your goals.

You don’t have to wait until a New Year begins to start working on something.  You just have to start.

Too many musicians are waiting for the money.

“If only we had the budget for more production, our stage show would be sooo much better.”
“When we get signed, we have the best idea for a music video that’s going to blow everyone away.”
“If we could afford to hire big named producers, we’d have better songs too.”

Here’s the thing… creativity doesn’t cost anything.  There’s probably at least three ways a band could improve their stage show without spending a dime.  No one (except Kanye) is spending a ton of money on music videos, it’s all about the creative IDEA behind it.  And if a songwriter just kept writing more songs, the new songs would start to get better than the old songs.  At least in a way.

And, the number one reason to not wait for money to come and save you, is… there’s going to be another band who isn’t waiting.  They’re out there DOING something about it.

And between someone who’s waiting, and someone who’s doing… you know which one’s got a better shot at getting the money in the end.

Is he an aspiring musician?

I heard a radio commercial the other day, extolling the virtues of the electronics and audio store’s vast selection of headphones. “And for the aspiring musician on your list… we have the… blah blah blah.”

“Aspiring musician”…. that phrase gets tossed around a lot, but what does it mean? It seems to me that it’s something someone calls you if they don’t think you’re very successful at the moment. It’s almost offensive really. Somehow, the word “successful” has become implied when talking about musicians. As if to say, you’re not a musician, unless you’re a successful musician. But really, if you pick up an instrument and create a sequence of notes that pleases your ear… you’re a musician. Or if you open your mouth, and intentionally make a melodic sound, you’re a musician.

You could be aspiring to become more successful than you currently are, but with so many different possible definitions of success, maybe you already are a successful musician.

Don’t let people call you an aspiring musician, because you’re not. You either are a musician, or you aren’t.

So… what are you aspiring to?

Letting the little things pile up is rarely a good thing

When you’re in a band, there are lots of things that have to get done, but aren’t the glamorous parts of the job… Sure when it comes time to get on stage, it’s no problem mustering the will to perform.  Or when you have to go on TV or the radio to do an interview, for the most part it’s not a hassle.  But there’s many things that need doing, like having to set up the facebook event pages for all your upcoming gigs, taking merch inventory counts, re-skinning the drums, entering all the email addresses into the database from the last few gigs worth of signup sheets… etc. All those little things that pile up because they’re not the most fun, most impactful, or most pressing things that need to get done.  The truth is, if you let them all pile up and become a big long list that’s going to take a ton of time to complete, you’re just making the task more daunting, which will most likely mean you’ll put off doing it even longer.

The best way to tackle those things is to just dive right in and do them right when you’re thinking about them.  Don’t sit on the couch thinking about all the things you’ve got to do… get off the couch and do one or two of them.  If there’s none that are truly more important than the others, just pick any of them.  Then do a couple more.

Believe me, we’re all guilty of procrastination… but it’s never a good thing.  Putting something off till later rarely has any benefit over getting it done right away.

And all it takes is one long-term thought or projection… “what am I working toward?” to give you the motivation to get those little things done.