Q: I've got some well-written songs -- what are my chances of making a living as a songwriter?
A: Let's just put it this way, my standard advice to everyone is to keep the day job.
There are folks who make a living off songwriting but they are few and very far between and tend to be both extremely disciplined, extremely dedicated to making a living rather than any sort of artistic impulse, and very well connected.
People think that it may be easier to get somewhere as a songwriter than as an entertainer -- but, perhaps ironically, it may well be easier to get somewhere as an entertainer. For some. The business is very much oriented to marketing.
It cares very little for artistic merit; it views craftsmanship through a very narrow lens, basically just as something that may help assure financial success, which trumps all other concerns.
The music business is absolutely filled with vampires, conmen, scammers, and victimizers and, to the extent they are successful, they are lauded with praise. If not, they're typically tolerated. Why? Because so many people in the biz know that they are only a few steps away.
The number of people with creative talent in show business is very, very small. But the number of people employed in the business, or making money off the business and those creative people are legion. So, in a sense, many or maybe most folks in the biz are dependent on the skill or talent of the few.
The music business has a much larger shadow industry which is dedicated to preserving the myth that you, too, can make it in the biz. Music superstore chains do not get by on the money spent by actual working musicians -- it's all about the wannabes.
Ditto many/most recording studios: they sell dreams, castles in the air. (One of the reasons I don't run a project studio, any more.)
If that sounds jaded or cynical, maybe. It's just that I've been paying attention to what I've heard from friends and acquaintances since the late 60s, even before I played or wrote music.
Yes, I do know some people who have done OK, even pretty well in the biz. (Mostly because I know a lot of people.) But, overwhelmingly, most folks who pursue getting over get shafted.
There is one very good reason to make music.
Because you love it.
Creating music can be one of the most rewarding of human endeavors, it seems to me. But I've known a lot of folks who walked away from music in bitterness -- some people who were very good at doing what they were doing -- because what they wanted was not something music itself could give them.
Me, I finally decided I loved making music too much to let my creative spirit be drained or twisted by the music biz.
I went back to my day job. It didn't hurt that I could charge more for my dayjob services than I could have charged for a studio with five times as much gear, mind you. But, really, it was just getting depressing dealing with people's cockeyed dreams of fame and success.
There are folks who make a living off songwriting but they are few and very far between and tend to be both extremely disciplined, extremely dedicated to making a living rather than any sort of artistic impulse, and very well connected.
People think that it may be easier to get somewhere as a songwriter than as an entertainer -- but, perhaps ironically, it may well be easier to get somewhere as an entertainer. For some. The business is very much oriented to marketing.
It cares very little for artistic merit; it views craftsmanship through a very narrow lens, basically just as something that may help assure financial success, which trumps all other concerns.
The music business is absolutely filled with vampires, conmen, scammers, and victimizers and, to the extent they are successful, they are lauded with praise. If not, they're typically tolerated. Why? Because so many people in the biz know that they are only a few steps away.
The number of people with creative talent in show business is very, very small. But the number of people employed in the business, or making money off the business and those creative people are legion. So, in a sense, many or maybe most folks in the biz are dependent on the skill or talent of the few.
The music business has a much larger shadow industry which is dedicated to preserving the myth that you, too, can make it in the biz. Music superstore chains do not get by on the money spent by actual working musicians -- it's all about the wannabes.
Ditto many/most recording studios: they sell dreams, castles in the air. (One of the reasons I don't run a project studio, any more.)
If that sounds jaded or cynical, maybe. It's just that I've been paying attention to what I've heard from friends and acquaintances since the late 60s, even before I played or wrote music.
Yes, I do know some people who have done OK, even pretty well in the biz. (Mostly because I know a lot of people.) But, overwhelmingly, most folks who pursue getting over get shafted.
There is one very good reason to make music.
Because you love it.
Creating music can be one of the most rewarding of human endeavors, it seems to me. But I've known a lot of folks who walked away from music in bitterness -- some people who were very good at doing what they were doing -- because what they wanted was not something music itself could give them.
Me, I finally decided I loved making music too much to let my creative spirit be drained or twisted by the music biz.
I went back to my day job. It didn't hurt that I could charge more for my dayjob services than I could have charged for a studio with five times as much gear, mind you. But, really, it was just getting depressing dealing with people's cockeyed dreams of fame and success.
posted by TK Major at
3:04 PM
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