Music Can Be Tough

Photo By: Steven ErricoMusic Can Be Tough, Very Tough…. But Don’t Let That Stop You….

 

The harsh realities of any new, upcoming, seasoned, or even veteran artists is that the music scene is no easy task to accomplish. Many of us spend countless hours and dollars on our works of art, fine tuning them, and delivering  them to your ears. A lot of us will never truly see huge gains financially, have a huge following of fans, or people who will truly understand and appreciate all that we have done to make our music. Not everyone will be heard, and that is just the sad reality of things. Artists are like sand grains on a beach! There are times when we give our hard work away for free, hoping to grab a few new ears and maybe a few more people who can help pass our vision and sound on. Even then, we struggle to get people to download, listen, and receive our music for even free. And when we finally do actually release our music, we are usually upside down financially. Distribution, mastering, promotion, and other costs leave us actually in the hole. It is a cycle that revolves over and over. These are the things we all deal with as an artist, this applies heavily in the music world but can easily be added into any art form.

We do sacrifice a lot to get a little, c’est la vie (such is life!). I think the best thing for any artist, regardless of your status in the scene, is to continue forward. I can’t count how many times I wanted to pack up my studio and sell it off, give up completely based on such frustrations, and simply leave the music scene behind! It is that frustrating for us artist and especially those how have a strong passion for our art and work. I’ve caught myself saying things like

 

I can’t even give away my music for free!

 

And sometime this is sadly true! Regardless of the hard work promoting albums, songs, tracks, and so forth. It is the reality of music, you have to understand that getting attention musically is a tough task. But like anything, you also have to understand that working hard will pay off. So maybe you will not make it big, maybe you will not get crazy recognition, and maybe your music only reaches a handful of people. By all means, keep moving your music! Don’t let this stop you from achieving any of your goals you have set for yourself personally. And at the end of it all you easily can look back and say you worked your hardest, no matter how your music was received, you poured your heart and soul into it! Most of us have been in this situation at some point or another in our music careers or lack of 🙂 .

Photo by Gareth WiltonSome people are going to get lucky, get huge recordings deals, mass promotions, large albums sales, and maybe can truly live off their works of art musically.  For every one successful artist, their are a shit ton more who will never be heard, who are equally good if not have better sounds, tighter ideas musically, and are literal the “hidden gem”.  Take a tour on sites such as Soundcloud, Bandcamp, Youtube, just to name a few; and you’ll hear some amazing shit! We are talking quality sounds that probably will never get the attention that they honestly deserve! This is frustrating as all hell and trust me when I say I’ve pondered such thoughts throughout my life.

I guess the main point I would like to drive home, don’t fucking give up!  🙂 If anything hopefully this will help walk you away from the ledge of “musical suicide”, so to speak, and help you refocus on why you started off as an artist. We all get frustrated and we all have good and bad days. Don’t let the bad over shadow the great times you have had with making music. Put into it what you want out of it! Hard work does pay off! And even if you don’t make it huge, or even reach your goals; remember lets be realistic, music is tough! At the end of the day you worked your hardest and you can always slip away into the comfort of your headphones and rock out to your sounds and smile at the marvelous work you have created.



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