A lot of great philosophers have said "Start right where you are" or "Use what you already have". I happen to agree with both of these. The thing about starting where you are and using what you have is that it allows you to build from the ground up. If you build something from the ground up, it means you will have laid a foundation. You never want to get to the top and have it all crumble right underneath you do you? No, of course not! Me neither. The particulars of starting where you are vary for each profession, but if you're an artist like me this means starting in your city and close by surrounding areas. Start with what you have and with who you know. Assuming you have a place to record and music already recorded. Now that you have the where and the what, get started. Listen to you music, no REALLY listen to it and get an idea of who listens to the kind of music you make. Get DJs or high school kids or college kids or whoever you can to give you objective feedback. Ideally, it'd be great if you could get a focus group, a group of individuals who are willing to give you consistent feedback on your sound. This helps you to make it better and get a feel for what direction to start pushing in. Once you know what music to push, start where you are. Hit up any high schools, barber shops, clubs, malls, stores, magazines, online blogs, social media that sounds music out to people around where you are. Once you've sufficiently saturated that area, go to where the music spreads. Most likely it'll be the next town over, and do the same process all over again. During this process, you'll probably start getting feelers come in from other areas outside the ones you're working. That's cool, go to those areas too. This process takes a lot of patience and constant "beating the pavement" , but if it's done right, can kick off the automatic spread of your music. Now, here's the key to all of this. Make sure you have plenty of music in reserve to back up these efforts and make sure you try to build a team. You're gonna need help. For instance, you've got to keep making music, so who's gonna keep doing all the promotions while the music is getting made. Don't make the mistake I did...trying to do it all yourself because you'll wear yourself out way too fast and have to start all over again. Not good!! Building a team is definitely easier said than done. There are a lot of pretenders and users out there, but keep looking for the good people. Eventually you'll figure them out. Until then, pace yourself and do what you can. In the midst of your start up promoting, be sure to factor in the time to keep creating music, as eventually this should become your full time focus, besides performing. All of this is not easy, which is why only passionate people crazy enough to believe and KEEP believing will be the ones who succeed. So, I hope to continue to be passionate and crazy, as I hope you are too. Atleast this way, none of us will ever be alone in this jungle!
So, ready, set, go!!!!
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