The stereotype of the “starving artist” has pervaded our public consciousness to the point where people believe that it’s impossible to make money with music. This is simply not true. You may believe it to be true (I did), especially if you grew up in a smaller city. You may not see many examples of…
Getting views on YouTube is getting harder. It’s becoming difficult to drive viewers to your YouTube channel and off of their social media platform of choice. Once you have people watching your videos, you need to keep them on your channel watching more of your videos. This drives up your traffic and visibility, and if…
I feel like podcasts are something everyone gets into at some point in their life. A couple years ago I dove way into podcasts, and it was awesome. I was on the road a lot, and sometimes I got sick of listening to music. I also crave educational content and like learning new things to…
LinkedIn has been around since 2003 (a lot longer than most other popular social media platforms) and is largely seen and used as a professional social media platform. On Facebook, you might post about personal interests and issues, but LinkedIn is a place to focus on finding work, finding people to work for you, and…
How do you know if you’ve written a good song? It’s hard, right? Sometimes, you’ll love a song immediately after you’ve written it, and then hate it two weeks later. Did you just fall out of love with it, or was the song not very good? Beyond the song itself, the production on a song…
Have you ever written songs that just don’t seem to fit in with the rest of your songs? Perhaps you write pop songs, but ended up writing a song that bends a little more folk-y or country. Or maybe you wrote a blues song by accident. This happens sometimes. Personally, if I hear a song…
One of my worst fears is losing my voice. Singing is possibly my favorite thing to do like, ever. Losing my voice would be incredibly discouraging. It would impair my ability to perform, to write, and to communicate and otherwise enjoy my life. If you’re a singer, you use your voice all the time. Singing…
Search Engine Optimization (or SEO) has been a focus for marketers for many years now. The goal of SEO is to optimize your content so that when searched for, it appears right away. Companies are keen on optimizing their websites to be among the first options people see when they search for their services. Just…
Teaching guitar (and other instruments) is a common way to make money as a musician. Whether teaching is a side hustle, or your primary source of income, you may be looking to take things to the next level. To me, there are a few areas in which you may be able improve the way your…
The creative process is different for every artist. But there is no right or wrong way to write. Typically, I will follow the same process every time. I often find myself inspired by a cool chord progression and will write from there. I also write a lot from titles. Coming up with good song titles…
If you came here looking for a quick fix, an easy out, or a slam-dunk social media tip, you came to the wrong place. For most of us, a career in music is a grind. It’s hard. What I have (only recently) started to figure out is how to make that grind more rewarding. My…
When artists achieve a certain level of success, they no longer need to work as hard to build anticipation for their releases. Their fans are already hanging on to every social media post waiting for new material. For the rest of us, life is a little harder. It takes a long time and a lot…
There are lots of places for artists to get exposure online. There are the obvious social media platforms (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter) and the obvious music streaming/buying platforms (Bandcamp, SoundCloud, Spotify, etc.) These platforms allow you to build an online presence for fans to connect with, and for the most part, these platforms are free to…
These days, it seems like everyone and their dog has social media. And in fact, there are way too many Instagram accounts dedicated to people’s dogs for my liking. What does this mean for the artist? The musician? Do you need to be on every social media platform? How do you cut through the noise…
Learning to take care of your voice is not always easy. Like most things in life, it requires patience and practice. However, if you want to become a professional singer, you need to learn how to do it. You can lose your voice, and it can be devastating. It can take months to make a…