Since the day when I decided to pursue music as a career (the exact day was December 20th 2008) I have been trying to listen to as many different varieties of music as possible. I try to keep an open ear while I'm listening and try to discover what makes certain bands that seem to have no talent just "make it" in the music business and others with plenty of talent not "make it." I'm also doing this to try and decide which specific genre of music I want to get labeled under. I have learned to appreciate many musical genres that I wouldn't normally listen to and I also have come to many conclusions regarding what allows other bands to "make it" and other bands not to. The first conclusion I came to was that not very many talented people make it into the music business. This first struck me as odd but I believe I'm beginning to understand why now. I believe that this is mostly due to the fact that although they are talented, they are not creative enough. You're probably now thinking "What? Not creative? Don't they write songs and play them the way no one else could play them?" Of course they do, but everybody does that =] Let me clarify by listing some trends I've noticed:
- Many of the popular bands and people are the ones that change the way people think about music. They don't just play rock or pop, they change the way people think of rock and pop. They incorporate elements from other genres into their music and the way the play it or they create a whole new genre of music entirely. This is true with many bands such as Paramore, Nirvana, Relient K, and many many others that I don't feel like listing right now =p
- Many of the remembered bands or people were the first to do something. This is similar to the first point. Why do we remember Scott Joplin, Gary Numan, Van Halen, John Cage, Nirvana, and many many others that I once again don't feel like listing ?
- If they weren't the first to do something, they were the first to perfect it (well, not quite perfect it, but you know what I mean). This is pretty much self a self-explanatory point. Do I really need to keep listing names because I'm getting tired of it...
- Many bands simply don't make it because of two things: lack of funds and lack of promotion. If bands and people don't know how to promote their music then it is nearly impossible both to 1: get backed by a record company who can help you promote your music more, and 2: find people who will listen to your music. A lot of bands make the mistake of waiting to be "discovered" instead of promoting their music on their own. Or, if they do promote their music then they don't know how to do it well. Bands not only must be creative in their music but also in their self-promotion.
These are just a few of the things I've noticed but they are the main things as well. And I'm sure everyone reading this is asking "So, what are you doing to promote your music and what creative elements are you putting into your music?" My answer is fairly simple: I'm waiting to begin promoting my own music until I finish writing a few songs and recording them. So far in the creative department though I'm not so sure what I'm going to do, and even when I am sure I won't tell you just in case somebody reads this, decides that my ideas are good, uses them, and takes credit for them. It's a dog eat dog world (sadly..) and I figure it's safer to just write my ideas down on paper stored in my room, record a few songs, and then get them copyrighted so that nothing like that happens =] I'll tell ya'll whenever I finish writing a good song and maybe I'll give you some samples, but it will probably be a while before you get to hear any original music. Hopefully it won't be too long though, I'm in the middle of 2 songs currently, one of them is not that great but so far the other is probably the best I've ever written. =} I'm also going to do a musical collaboration with a friend of mine on a couple songs and those will probably be the ones that I'll post on here before the others. But it will definitely be a while, we just started getting some ideas down a couple days ago.
(Still on the topic of music): Hopefully you guys aren't all completely and utterly lost after that immense amount of information I just threw at you. But also hopefully most of my posts won't be so long lol However, you may come to expect that in my musical updates you will get to hear about my latest musical influences. These will be bands that have completely changed the way that I view music as a whole and will definitely influence the music that I write. This week I found two huge influences: Art Tatum (listen to any of his music, it's all amazing, but "Tiger Rag" is pretty commonly viewed as one of his most complex and interesting pieces) and Regina Spektor (to get a good sample of her music listen to her song "Musicbox" you can find it here [note: it's a youtube link])
Please pray that God would allow me to see what I need to do to touch more lives with my music. Also pray that He would bless me with creative inspiration to set myself apart from the many others in the music industry and continued prayers that He would guide many to where I need to be would also be appreciated =]
*phew* that was a lot about music and you're probably all ready to read about something else now. I'm sorry to say that this particular blog post was mostly dedicated to music and you'll have to go somewhere else to relieve your mind. It was nice of me to warn you wasn't it~
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