Sorry, It's Not For You 🙃
One of the best lessons I’ve learned as an entrepreneur and artist is to have these four words on the tip of my brain when I begin sharing my work.
“It’s not for you.”
This doesn’t have to be in anger or some weird passive aggressive way. Rather, by knowing that sometimes what I’m making is not going to resonate with the majority of people is 100% totally ok! In fact it would be really weird if I rarely said it!
When I first started off seeking to make a difference with my tunes and ideas, I approached it like you would making a lasagne. “What are the ingredients and flavors I need to inject into this recipe that appeals to the most people?”
When we do this we create mediocre lasagne. There’s nothing really special or significant about it. It tastes typical and totally expected. No one calls their mom and will tell her about your amazingly average lasagne.
When we seek to make change through our art or ideas we MUST come at it from a strong voice, or uniqueness that will get noticed. Some will be repelled by what we have done, but it’s not for them.
But then others will love where you are going, the new take you provided, the new sound, rhythm, video, voice, effect… etc. Those are the people that we have gained trust with, and will follow you, buy your music, and support your vision. It’s for them!
Being an artist is fucking scary. And if you’re currently undergoing the pressure cooker of “make music that appeals to the masses”, and you don’t want to. …. well…. You have my permission to stop that.
The world doesn’t need you to be Adele, Lady Gaga, Sia, Björk, Dolly Parton, Mick Jagger, or Ed Sheeran. It has all those amazing artists already.
But there’s only one of you. Be unique baby!
I urge you to use these internal words often while you bravely put out art into the world. Like, if you know what you’ve made is good, and you’re proud of it, there will likely be many others that will love it also.
And for the rest… well, just quietly tell them, “it’s not for you.”
And then show it to 100 more people.
Zion
PS: I have a weekly get together with other home music makers over Zoom every week called On the Hook. Each week I give people a game that involves them making music using their production tools, but they have to do it in less than an hour. Then we get together at the end of it and listen and encourage each other on how to grow and get better. Join us this week?
Stop Looking For a Producer.
I'm willing to bet you have some great recording gear, effects and tools already at your disposal. I can help you learn to make the most of them right away so you can start producing your own music. You are way more capable of this than you might realize. And with a little practice you could move away from trying to find a producer who "gets you" to making great sounding music whenever you have an idea. I've created a whole class with over 120 videos and exercise routines to show you the skills I've learned over the last 15 years. Also, you'll get access to a Facebook community full of people just like you that are learning and growing their skills. And I've made it extremely affordable so you can invest in more equipment or other classes as well.
So, you in?
Tool For Tracking Your Song Metadata
Ditch the spreadsheet, and start using a real database tool. I want to show you how I use Airtable to manage all the songs I write, produce, mix, master, or have ownership on. You can easily start with my template (which I named GIZMO) and then customize and scale it to suit your specific needs.
Red Zone Production Timeline
Check out the tool that has transformed my songs into fantastic productions in half the time. I never realized how much time and money I was wasting until I started using this.
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