If You Record An Album And No One Ever Hears It, Did It Make A Sound?
OK, first off a lot of you are thinking...
"Album" what the heck is he talking about? All right, let's call it a Mix Tape, EP, CD or whatever floats your boat.
What does it mean if "no one" ever hears your work? Perhaps "no one" is a bit too literal - since you've obviously heard it, and the people who helped you record it, and maybe even some family and friends.
But by "no one" I'm really talking about "everyone" in large enough numbers to begin to justify the effort and expense of the endeavor to begin with.
Now, for those of you who record and make your music available simply for the joy of doing so and could care less about how many people wind up listening, this obviously does not apply to you.
I'm talking to those who go through the additional expense of doing what it takes to make the music available more widely - which includes physical and digital distribution efforts.
Now, some of this plays into the idea of expectations, and whether those expectations are reasonable.
Did we expect to sell one million downloads, one hundred thousand CD's, or have a top 40 hit? As an independent artist, those may be pretty lofty expectations, and could fall into the realm of unreasonable.
This doesn't mean that you shouldn't aim high.
However, none of the above can ever take place if "no one" ever hears you.
And to have a "prayer" of achieving anything close to those expectations, you'll need to be heard by significantly large numbers of listeners.
It's great that the playing field has been leveled by the Internet and the digital revolution.
Just about everyone can create some music and make it available.
It's unleashed a tremendous amount of creativity.
And wonderful music along with some not so wonderful music can be found everywhere.
But this dynamic also makes it more difficult to be heard.
Now, you may be thinking, well "it's not a problem as long as your music doesn't suck".
And you could be right.
But I think that many of you reading this believe that you have some really great music, but also if you're reading this it probably means that your music hasn't been heard as much as you would like it.
So, how do you overcome this hurdle? How do you manage to stand out in a literal sea of other talented artists all essentially shouting "hey, listen to me!" Well, if I had a nice simple answer to that, I would package it as a subscription web site and charge everyone $19.
95 for it and retire a billionaire (then I would release my Albums for free and not care if "any one" ever listened to them).
But I think a big part of the answer is finding a way to shout "hey, look at me!" differently than the next person.
And even more importantly is finding a way to answer the question "why should the listener care about you?" If you develop compelling answers for those two issues, you'll be well on your way to scaling any expectations you set for yourself.
"Album" what the heck is he talking about? All right, let's call it a Mix Tape, EP, CD or whatever floats your boat.
What does it mean if "no one" ever hears your work? Perhaps "no one" is a bit too literal - since you've obviously heard it, and the people who helped you record it, and maybe even some family and friends.
But by "no one" I'm really talking about "everyone" in large enough numbers to begin to justify the effort and expense of the endeavor to begin with.
Now, for those of you who record and make your music available simply for the joy of doing so and could care less about how many people wind up listening, this obviously does not apply to you.
I'm talking to those who go through the additional expense of doing what it takes to make the music available more widely - which includes physical and digital distribution efforts.
Now, some of this plays into the idea of expectations, and whether those expectations are reasonable.
Did we expect to sell one million downloads, one hundred thousand CD's, or have a top 40 hit? As an independent artist, those may be pretty lofty expectations, and could fall into the realm of unreasonable.
This doesn't mean that you shouldn't aim high.
However, none of the above can ever take place if "no one" ever hears you.
And to have a "prayer" of achieving anything close to those expectations, you'll need to be heard by significantly large numbers of listeners.
It's great that the playing field has been leveled by the Internet and the digital revolution.
Just about everyone can create some music and make it available.
It's unleashed a tremendous amount of creativity.
And wonderful music along with some not so wonderful music can be found everywhere.
But this dynamic also makes it more difficult to be heard.
Now, you may be thinking, well "it's not a problem as long as your music doesn't suck".
And you could be right.
But I think that many of you reading this believe that you have some really great music, but also if you're reading this it probably means that your music hasn't been heard as much as you would like it.
So, how do you overcome this hurdle? How do you manage to stand out in a literal sea of other talented artists all essentially shouting "hey, listen to me!" Well, if I had a nice simple answer to that, I would package it as a subscription web site and charge everyone $19.
95 for it and retire a billionaire (then I would release my Albums for free and not care if "any one" ever listened to them).
But I think a big part of the answer is finding a way to shout "hey, look at me!" differently than the next person.
And even more importantly is finding a way to answer the question "why should the listener care about you?" If you develop compelling answers for those two issues, you'll be well on your way to scaling any expectations you set for yourself.