taoistpenguin

[taoistpenguin]

How to get people to listen to your music

i’ve been a songwriter, solo artist, sideman, and mercenary picker for 30+ years. i see a lot of social posts from people, who i assume are mostly younger folks, that basically lament how nobody’s listening to their music. i wanna help you out so i’ll share what i’ve learned after being in the game for the long haul.

first thing you need to accept is that nobody gives a fuck about your music. they have zero knowledge and zero interest about you.

if you want people to care about your music you have to make them care. and not in the bullshit “create engagement” way everyone sells. you need to go out and play your music in front of people in a way that demonstrates 110% commitment to your art. and you need to ask yourself a couple hard questions:

1. why are you an artist? is it a driving force in your life that you can’t live without, or just a lifestyle dream you aspire to?

2. do you have anything relevant to say to a mass audience?

i get it, sometimes you feel blocked or worthless. but those are the times when you need to hit it even harder. you need to stay in a musical mindset 24/7. if your primary approach to making music stalls, find different ways in.

lose the ego. if you’re a writer, sing someone else’s songs. if you’re a solo artist, go be a sideman in someone else’s band. maybe try to listen deeply to a style you hate. the main thing is to keep finding paths to creativity, no matter the circumstances.

if you don’t have the skills to make music that’s outside your current zone, develop them. stretch yourself. if you really care enough to grow artistically, do the work. that alone will break any creative blocks you may be having.

and don’t give me sob stories about how there’s no place to play. back in the day we made places to play, and three decades on, we still create our own opportunities. i gig regularly in 3 different bands plus solo shows. you want it that bad? make it happen.

here’s the main thing i’ve learned after 30 years: regular folks hear music differently than musicians do. if you’re posting your woes to other musicians on social media, you’re coming at it from the wrong perspective.

your job is to connect with non-musicians. non-musicians don’t give a shit about your creative process. they don’t care what EQ you used to record it. they just want to be entertained, so fucking entertain them. it’s not about passing a credibility test among other musicians.

if your music isn’t connecting with people, go find out what they want to connect with, and try to give them what they want. and no, that doesn’t mean “sell out”. it means frame and present your own unique art in a way that people with zero knowlege and zero interest can understand and relate to it.

of course, this approach presumes that you want to have a successful career creating music. if you just wanna make noises in your bedroom, that’s cool too. no judgement on any level of creativity.

but, if you’re posting in public that nobody’s listening to your music, yet you’re also not doing anything to make them listen and care, then maybe you need to decide if you’re really serious about being an artist.

yes, it sucks to not be heard or validated. but there’s no justice in the world. without even trying, i could name you three dozen artists who make beautiful - and accessible - records that blow the doors off anything in the current top 40, but nobody mainstream knows them.

but you know what? they ain’t quitting, because it’s what they do and it’s *who they are*. and that’s the biggest point. it’s fine to wanna get paid for your art, but first you have to really be an artist. and these days the bar is high. you gotta be really good.

look, creative life is tough. get a helmet, and maybe adjust your expectations. but if you really want to make a career of making music, start by finding answers to the two questions i posed up top. and then go kick ass.

[taoistpenguin]

so you wanna be an artist? really?

i see a lot of posts from young folks saying “i just wanna be an artist and i put my music out there, but nobody’s listening to it. woe is me.”

it’s not enough to just want it, even if you want it a whole lot. you have to commit to it 110%, to the exclusion of all else.

if you really wanna be an artist here are some questions to ask yourself. answer honestly:

1. are you good at your art? i mean really good? objectively great, not just among your friends? like, better than 99% of what’s out there in the same zone?

2. why are you really doing this? does making art burn in your soul? can you not live without it, or do you just like the image of yourself in a spotlight?

3. most important, what do you and your art have to say? is your artistic perspective really relevant to a large number of people? why should they care about you?

if you have real answers to those questions, you might be on the artist’s path. if not, you’re gonna end up just another commercial product without a clearly defined vision, chasing trends in an arbitrary & capricious marketplace.

sure, you might get some buzz that way, but those people will never stick with you as fans long term. you know who will? people you actually touch with your art. people for whom your art resonates and has meaning. and when you find that audience, your definition of ‘success’ will likely change too.

[taoistpenguin]

making music in the 1980s - then vs. now

I see a lot of young musicians on social media saying they’re considering quitting music because they haven’t gotten enough clicks or likes or follows. I’ve been writing, performing and getting paid from music since the early ‘80s so I thought I’d provide some context of what the game was like back then, in my case in New York City, in the pre-social media, pre-video universe:

Among my friends, deciding to play music wasn’t a career choice, it was driven by a need for creative self-expression. There weren’t schools or online courses promising shortcuts to glory like there are now. Sure, you wanted to be successful, but that wasn’t the primary motivation. You did it because you literally knew no other way to express yourself. It’s not an exaggeration to say music was life and death for a lot of people.

You got a day job that you didn’t care about, just to pay your rent and bills. You saved every extra penny to buy gear. You split the cost of a rehearsal space and spent every night of the week doing something musical. If you weren’t rehearsing, you were gigging, and if you weren’t gigging or rehearsing, you were on the scene, checking out bands, making connections, trying to become part of a community.

When the band was ready you paid maybe $350 to go to an 8-track studio and make a 3-song demo tape. Yes, there were cassette portastudios and reel to reel decks, but most people didn’t have the necessary space or outboard equipment to make a professional sounding home demo. Yes, you could do it in an empty loft or garage with your own gear, but it would sound like crap. After you made the demo you took a band photo. Good music videos were expensive, so that wasn’t really an option.

You copied your demo and photo and took them to every club you wanted to play. You got the booker’s phone number and would call every week on a landline – no cell phones, so no texting - to harass them about when they were gonna book you. When you did get a gig, you hoped it was a good time slot. Back then, nightlife didn’t start until around 10pm, so if you got an earlier slot you were bummed. Midnight was prime time, and it wasn’t unusual to see bands playing full rooms at 1 or 2 am.

To promote your show, you xeroxed your homemade flyers, went out in the middle of the night, and stuck them to every flat surface you could find in as many parts of town as you could cover. In the days before email, you also mailed flyers to the mailing list that you got by asking people to write their names and addresses on a clipboard at your shows.

When it was time for the gig, if you didn’t own a band van, you hired one to get you and your gear there and back. If you played well enough and brought enough people to your show, the club would book you again. If you were serious and didn’t let drugs and drink get in the way, your band would improve and eventually you’d start getting better time slots on better nights. As word of mouth spread, you’d get bookings in different neighborhoods and eventually out of town.

Throughout all of this you’d be sending tapes and photos to press and record labels, inviting them to your shows and trying to get signed. If you were lucky, the Village Voice or a local zine would write about you, and sometimes that led to more shows in new places. If you stayed in the game long enough and behaved professionally enough, you eventually met people who enjoyed what you were trying to do, and tried to help you. But mainly you said “yes” to every potential opportunity.

There were plenty of nights when there weren’t a lot of people in the room. I remember playing at CBGB once when the only person there was the bartender. What did we do? We rocked as hard as we ever did, and got him nodding his head and air drumming along with us. We figured this guy had seen a thousand bands at that job, so if we could get him to respond we took it as a victory,

All this to say that if you’re thinking of giving up because you’re not gaining a bunch of superficial followers on social media, you might not be in this for the right reasons. Likes and follows don’t require any real investment in your career. They’re fair weather friends. Don’t chase trends. Focus on making music that matters and hit it hard every single time.

[taoistpenguin]

advice for young people from an old person

i’m old. but not really. i’m 50+ chronologically, so by social media standards i’m ancient. but i don’t think old, or act old. in my head i’m still in my 20s, and i still do the things i did in my 20s. okay, not as many drugs, and i regrettably can’t drink like i used to, but the creative things, the intellectually, emotionally, and physically stimulating things, i still do. a lot of them i do better now than when i was in my 20s.

i’ve acquired some scars and wisdom along the way. i’ve been married, divorced and married again. i’ve had my heart broken hard several times, and i may have broken a couple. i’ve pulled six figure incomes, and i’ve lived paycheck to paycheck hiding from the landlord. i’ve had careers and dead end jobs. i’ve gone backwards or sideways to go forward when i had to, in the interest of keeping a roof over my head. i made lots of mistakes, but i learned from them. i have very few regrets.

i’ve struggled with depression and i’ve been an outsider, and i’ve felt the joy of real and close friendships. at this point i give zero fucks what anyone thinks of me and my life. through all of it, the highs and the lows, there’s been one constant, which is this: i kept going. i shut up and did the work. i pushed to accomplish my goals. if i kept hitting brick walls, i found a way around them. so based on my ancient lived experience, here’s my completely unsolicited advice to young folks:

in any situation you encounter in life, you really only have two choices: accept it or change it. doesn’t matter if it’s a random encounter in the checkout line or a life-defining decision you have to make, it’s always only just those two options. if a situation arises that you can’t live with, it’s on you to change it. or at least try, because you won’t always succeed. but the effort alone, just the attempt, shows you who you are and how hard you’ll go in defense of your beliefs.

your other choice is to accept it. sometimes acceptance works out fine. everyone has different levels of tolerance. but here’s the thing: if you’re living in a situation that you chose to accept, then when the outcome is bad, you don’t get to complain. you made the choice to accept it. i’ve seen humanity at its lowest several times. i’ve seen people just give up and give in and get bitter. i’ve seen others in the same situations say ‘hell, no’ and stand in the fire, fully aware of the risk.

so as you go through your daily interactions, make conscious choices about how you want to respond, then act accordingly- but put up or shut up. my other advice for a happy life is: get away from screens more. go for a hike. read a real book, or play a musical instrument. get dirty. whittle. do martial arts. garden. play ultimate. become a beer geek. do tangible stuff with your hands and brains that also requires the participation of other actual humans in the same place at the same time.

talk to each other about shared experiences. bond over shared beliefs. most important, don’t cobble together your worldview based on comments from randos on social media. there’s an entire universe where this cyberworld doesn’t exist. get out in it and fall down, skin your knees, put a bandaid on and go back out to make more mistakes. after awhile you’ll see that the likes and the comments don’t matter as much as your own perspective. oh, and remember to be kind.