You should by now know that it’s not easy to make it in music. There’s no doubt that you’ve got to put the work in to succeed as an independent musician, and anyone not willing to do that may as well give up now. Some people spend years working hard before they start to see some sort of decent profit, some people put in that time but never get to that stage at all.

So does working hard mean you’ll end up succeeding in music? The simple answer is no, as you can see it doesn’t. What’s important however is you understand why working hard alone doesn’t mean your music career will be a success, and what you can do to increase your chances of succeeding.

Here’s how it goes for a lot of people: They embark on their music career, hoping that one day their music will take them far enough to earn a full time living and make them famous. They write a few lyrics, make a few songs and put them online, and maybe even turn up to the odd open mike night and perform. Then they do all this again. And again. And… Again. At one point, they stop and wonder why their music career is moving extremely slowly, if at all. Maybe they’re not putting enough work in? So they decide to up their game (If they haven’t quit by then) and focus a lot more on being everywhere. They up the amount of time they spend online networking with fans, they try and get more local shows, and they try and talk to everyone they can about how good their music is. So now they’re running around like a headless chicken, trying to get as much done as possible. But wait, how much are they really getting done? Yes they’re working really hard, but how smart are they actually working?

There’s no point entering the music game and swinging round wildly till you hit something, why not instead look at what you want to hit, work out how you’re going to hit it, take aim, and then whack it with one knock out blow? That’ll make a lot more sense…

Work Smart When You’re An Independent Musician, Not Hard

“Victorious warriors win first and then go to war, defeated warriors go to war first and then seek to win”. Quote by Sun-tzu, a Chinese general & military strategist (400BC).

Yer, that’s what I said mate…

The point is this; Fighting a battle blindly is not ideal. So if you’ve got a chance to see before your battle begins, there’s no reason to not do so. You want to be able to know what you’re going to do and then go out and do it. Instead of just going to the studio, making as many songs as possible and then giving them all out for free, why not stop and ask why you’re doing that? And how it’ll help you in your music career? But don’t just take a guess as to why and how it’ll help, make sure you’ve got proof to back it up! Study the game. You want to see who’s doing well, and why they’re achieving success. Chances are it won’t be just because they’ve got talent, there’ll also be business elements that come into play. So see what’s working for them, and try and recreate your findings so you can make your music just as successful.

One thing I’ve noticed, is a lot of people don’t leverage the promotional opportunities they have available to them. They could easily get someone else or a service to reach a whole load of people for them, yet instead they choose to reach potential fans one by one manually. Of course, this takes a long time. I’m not going to go into how to leverage your music career right now, as I’ve got a whole other topic coming on that very soon. What I will say however is this: What’s the point of working hard when you can get someone else to work hard for you?

Have a think of how you can get other people to work hard for your music career (And let us know your thoughts in the comments below), and I’ll let you know my ideas in a topic very soon. To your success.

One thing I’ve noticed, is that a lot of people take the term being independent too literally. They think that just because they don’t have to rely on a record label, they don’t need help from anyone other then themselves and their group members. But with the truth is, everyone will need help sooner or later. Unless you’re very lucky, there’s a lot of work you’ll need to be doing as an independent musician, often too much for one person.

My stance has always been the same: You need to learn to do everything by yourself, but understand you can’t do it all on your own.

What I mean by that is this; while it’s important to learn the music business inside out, you need to realise it isn’t possible to put together all the factors needed for success by yourself. You need to learn how the music industry works and what needs to be done to progress in it, but no one person would have the time to implement all the needed components without help.

While being in a group can often make the job easier (More hands make lighter work), sometimes it’s not enough. Often group or band members still won’t have the means to do everything by themselves, they are after all musicians like you.

Who’s Help Do You Need

During your journey, you may need help from the following:

• Promoters / Your Fans:
  If you’ve done any promotion before, you’ll know promoting can be a full time job. Promoting entails constant website updating, website promotion, finding shows, getting DJ songs, building new contacts, and much more! The job is never ending, there’s always some way to help you further get out there. If you were to rely only on your promotional efforts, you wouldn’t get anywhere near as much work done as you could with a team of promoters around you.
  A good idea is to get either specialist promoters and / or fans to help you in this area. Many musicians get fans to help with promotions by encouraging them to share things with their friends. Social networking websites have made this even easier then ever before, as even by contacting just one fan with some influential friends your material can get all around the net.

• Video Makers:
  As with most of these things, this is something you could do if you had the right resources. But in reality, it wouldn’t be practical to make all your own music videos. While you can use consumer level camcorders for promotional efforts, they can only take you so far. As you get more well known, people will be expecting a higher level of product from you and you will need to provide. Unless video making is something you want to taker seriously and have the budget / time to learn the craft, you may want to leave it to someone who already knows what they’re doing.

• Designers:
  Along with promoting, designing has low barriers to entry. Good quality free image editing software has meant that anyone wanting a go at designing can do so for freely. So why would you want to get someone to do designs for you? Well, mainly because not everyone has a good eye for art. We can often see when someone else’s work looks good or bad, but going through the process step by step it’s hard to tell how yours is turning out. It’s like the saying “Bad singers don’t know that they can’t sing” (X Factor anyone?). It’s often hard to judge your own voice or acting skills unless you record it and watch it back, so unless you’ve got a proven eye for art (In other words you’ve been working on perfecting your artistic flair for a while), it may be best to leave this to the professionals.

• Studio Engineers:
  While most musicians don’t realistically think they’re going to make a studio to record all their own material in, some people do. And while there’s nothing wrong with that, you need to ask yourself if you want to be a musician or an engineer. Being an engineer is very time consuming if you’re allowing other people in your studio, and the studio can be very costly to start up in the first place. Often it’s much easier (And cheaper) to hire studio time and let a professional engineer take the session. Then, if you really want to be able to record your own music, do so when you’ve established your name. Then with the money you make set up shop.

• Record Labels:
  Even when you’re an independent musician, you can’t count out the possibility of signing if the right deal came along. At times in your career, record labels may come along and be willing to help you. They may have heard a single you released that didn’t go very far, but may be willing to do a single deal with you. If they have the resources to push this single as far as it can go, this may be a good opportunity for you. Remember, although record labels can be a liability, they can also be helpful if you’ve proven you can sell the amount of records needed to make the deal a profitable one. When it comes to finances, they can push you further then you probably could by yourself.

There are many other people you may need to rely on during your music career, but these are the main ones. While these are all things you can do yourself with the right amount of time and money, considering the amount of time it’ll take you to learn all these things (And then implement them) it won’t most likely be worth it. So how independent an independent musician are you? And what other types of link do you think you may need? Let me know in the comments section below.

As I’m sure you’re aware, talent alone doesn’t determine how successful you are in you music career. There could be two largely identical musicians, both with similar styles, image, and budget. Yet one of them could end up playing to audiences of thousands of screaming fans, the other could end up playing bedroom sets to them and their mates. But why is this?

Well to be honest, there are many factors that could make this happen, but today we’re going to look at just the one: Who you’re making music for.

So who are you making for? This one question will determine your decision making through your whole career. You’re either making music for yourself, or your making it for your audience / potential audience. When you make music for yourself, you make songs exactly as you want them, regardless of feedback of any sort. You have tunnel vision, and as long as you like the music you’re making, nothing else matters. However, when you make songs for your audience, feedback is very important. You make music you personally like, but you’re also open to constructive criticism and making your songs better. Which of the two sound better to you?

Before I go any further, let me explain why I’m writing this post. I have a very successful Dj friend who’s been playing at top clubs for many years. As with anything, to get where he is now he had to put in the hard work and learn his business inside out. One of the thing he learned along the way is this: “You have to play what the audience want”. It really is as simple as that. If he was to turn up to clubs and play what he wanted (For argument’s sake, play hip hop to a people who came to the club for pop music) he wouldn’t go down too well at all. He also wouldn’t get very many booking, if any. If however he gave the crowd what they wanted (And gave it to them well), there’d be a good chance he’d get more bookings from both the current club and others when word about him gets around.

Although this seems like a obvious thing when it comes to Djing, many people don’t think about this when it comes to their music career. It is however exactly the same; you need to give the audience what they want! Unless you’re aim is to sell all your CDs to your friends, then you need to appeal to people other then just your nearest and dearest. If you don’t obtain fans, your music career simply won’t take off. The fans are the people that allow you to get paid for doing the thing you love, so not listening to what they want is basically like asking them to not support you.

How Do You Know What The Audience Wants?

So how do you know what the audience wants? Well, as I’m sure you’ve heard, the simple solutions are often the best. Firstly, you could just ask them. If you have a website or other method of communicating with your audience, you could ask them what they want to hear more of, what other musicians they like, what their favourite all time songs are, and many other questions that’d help you better understand their wants and needs. You could also, for example, run competitions where you give out a prize for the person who gives you the best song idea. By the end of it, not only would you have a great new song idea, but you’ll probably have a few. You may even end up with a whole album’s worth of good ideas in a very short space of time.

Another way you can see what an audience wants, is by analysing them. Going back to my DJ friend, he knows every set he plays is different. Before he even steps up onto the decks, he scopes out the crowd to see what type of people he’ll be playing to. This will determine how his set starts off. He doesn’t however start playing one type of music and stick to it for the whole night, he adapts to the crowd’s reaction. If they look like they’re starting to get bored with one type of music, he’ll switch it up until he finds something they enjoy. No words have to be exchanged, he can simply see how they react to what he’s doing.

You can also do this. By analysing how well your singles, albums and other material do, you can get a better idea of what the crowd do and don’t want. Then you can adapt your style accordingly.

While it’s important to find out what the crowd want from your music, you will find sometimes that even them crowd themselves don’t know. In this situation, it’ll probably be best to give them what you enjoy making and then gauge their reaction. Either they’ll take to it and you keep going down the same route (Switching every now and then so they don’t get bored), or they’re not to keen and you test a new style out on them.

So, when it comes down to it, who are you making your music for? While you obviously have to enjoy the type of music you’re making, your listeners should have a big say in the direction your music takes. They are after all the ones that are funding your career, and if you lose them, you haven’t really got much left.

Before I go I want to say this; Letting your fans know how important their voice is to your music career can help strengthen your relationship and make them feel more involved. Giving them a sense of belonging can make them become more loyal to you, and even spread the word about your music. This can only be a good thing, so if you take the fan’s opinions into account, make sure they know this.

So tell me, who do you make music for?