Stepping up - taking dreams to success. Study this thorough article from our editor on how to succeed in the industry as an artist. Only on InternetDJ.
Back in 2002 I wrote a popular piece on how to become a Professional DJ, at the time I promised to follow it up with an article on becoming a professional producer but then everything changed. The MP3 was tearing up the music industry, at the time the business was struggling to cope with the new media but in the years since digital music has been embraced and now it is the business. We have seen the file sharing revolution come and go as well as the rise of iTunes but now the field is opening up with a multitude of other companies jumping on the bandwagon. The end result is the death of the major labels and the rise of the successful independent artist. For the first time artists can distribute their music to a global audience without the backing of the major labels and distributors, what’s more they can get a bigger cut of the sales than they would have 5 years ago. With these factors in play shrewd artists can make a living off their music with little or no commercial backing, giving them the opportunity to really work at improving their sound and fan base. A START Most people our drawn to the music business with the lure of sex, fame and money, the rest just love music. Regardless of whether you are the former or the latter you do need to realize that success does not come easy, there will be a lot of hard work and difficult times ahead but with the right attitude and the proper motivation even the hard times can be fun. Sure nobody is going to be throwing their underwear at you before you've even sold a track and theirs definitely not going to be any sex in the champagne room when you can't even get into the club but rest assured the road to the top is filled with lots of interesting people, experiences and stories to tell your grandkids (when they are old enough). You can start under many different guises a producer cutting sounds in his basement, a one man band busking on the subway, or a band struggling not to kill each other rehearsing in mom's garage. In any case the start is the same you need to record a track. Not to difficult for the producer who can just mix down and master his current session while watching TV but for everyone else and initial investment will be required. Thankfully recording studio's are not as expensive as they were a few years back and with the rise of the homemade studio's there are many low-cost even free options out there. You don't even need to spend top dollar on an engineer or other recording experts as long as your track sounds like you it's a start. Once you have a copy of your music ready to go then the next step awaits. LEARNING "Learning? But I already know how to play and I even have a record ready to sell what more do I need?" This isn't the old days where you would be sending a demo to every address you can find, the industry has moved on, while there still are a lot of labels who will do all the work for you good luck getting signed or even finding one you will look in your direction without fleecing you for every penny. Buddy right now you are on your own and trust me, it's the only place to be. "Fair enough, what do I need to learn?" So you are sitting there with your music in hand, in many ways you are a small business owner with a product they need to sell, all that's missing is retail space and customers. Finding a place to sell your tracks is easy, we have a free store service right here and there are many other options out there. My advice: sell your music on any digital service you can just don't go and do something stupid like signing an exclusivity agreement. Different sites will give you different cuts of the sale, we give a very generous cut while other sites won’t be so nice but hey a sale is a sale regardless of where it comes from. Moving on you have your music up there and ready to sell but where are the customers going to come from, definitely not out of thin air you need to attract them first and this is where you need to learn how to market yourself. Not an e…