Want to make music but where to start?
Once again thanks to Chris Van Der Linden from Fourteen Twentysix for providing a really useful further article on the Indie Music Tips section, based in his experience over many years as a Music Creator. This time he turns his thoughts towards the art of creating music -
Make a start
A thing I hear a lot when talking to people online is how much they’d like to record and release music, but somehow they never get around doing it. The reasons are not always clear but over the years I discovered a few “common problems” that keep people from making music. In this article we take a look at those obstacles and how you can turn your music dream into reality.
The most common obstacles
Most of us are humans (except our guitarist who we think is a cyborg) and humans have hopes, feelings, dreams, doubts and all sorts of emotional stuff. This often is the main thing getting in the way of you making music. Its quite common for people to think “Ah I’ll never be a good guitar player” or “I’ll never be able to sing like him”.
All these things get in the way of making music. In fact some people are so worried about making bad music or failing in front of an audience that they don’t start at all. This is a big shame because lets face it: everyone starts out as a beginner, we don’t get born a full fledged Santana now do we? So the key here is to set aside your worries / fears / doubts and get going. Yes, things might sound shit when you start out but that doesn’t matter. What matters is that you continue making music so you become better over time.
Other factors holding people back are the lack of having clear goals (more on that later) or technical / practical stuff like “what to buy” with my budget?
What are your ambitions?
Before we look at other stuff lets first talk about your ambitions. Its important to understand what you want to achieve and set goals accordingly.
Its very different if you just want to put some songs online for friends to listen to or trying to hit it big and do 500+ live shows.
You will be surprised how many people are scared about starting to create music because they have a twisted view of their ambitions. I guess its because we’ve all grown up with dreams and ideas about the music industry that some of these images have translated subconsciously to our expectations, but a lot of us just want to make music, enjoy it. Suddenly its not so scary to pick up the guitar and record a few tunes!
Setting Clear Goals
Setting clear goals
Once you’ve set aside your insecurities and doubts you need to set clear goals for yourself. Most people I’ve talked to that could get themselves to make music told me they don’t set clear goals for themselves. Not setting goals for yourself makes it easy to not do anything. Setting goals is like making an agreement with yourself which is both motivating and fulfilling. There’s nothing better than looking at your list of goals at the end of the month and seeing you’ve nailed them all!
A good method to get you started is as follows:
- Start by writing down your ambitions, no matter how big or small
- This should translates into 1 or 2 bigger, long-term goals like “independently release an album before the end of next year”
- Write down your big goal in a big font at the top of a sheet of paper / document
- Underneath it – start listing all sub-goals that are needed to reach your big goal like “write songs, record songs, make artwork, request production pricing offer”
Don’t be afraid to mess up
Don’t be afraid to mess up
Relax, don’t worry about messing up. If you recorded something that doesn’t sound good, just don’t release it. You are likely not on a major record label, with them breathing down your neck to deliver a hit album by the end of the year.
It is important you see the things that ARE going well. Each month write one or two things down that you would like to improve and work on those alone, not everything at once. You will not make any progress if you worry about your singing, guitar playing, writing skills and mother-in-law all at once. Ignore mother-in-law, don’t worry about your guitar playing for a month and do daily singing exercises. That will make ensure you make some progress. Its a common fact that humans become non-productive when they need to do too many things at once.
Finding help
Great online guides
There are many people like you who are just starting out with music and have a lot to learn. There’s some fantastic guides/forums online that are made just for you. One of them I really like is TweakHeadz. It has one of the funniest (and best) guides to recording music out there and the community on the forum is kind and helpful. Google up and you are likely to find more great guides and resources. Good luck!
Now get out there and start making some music!
