By Cari Cole

 

 

 

The fastest (or rather surest) way to grow your music in the world is not a marketing trick. It’s not about spending a boatload of dollars on Facebook Ads or plugging a boatload of cash into a publicist or a radio campaign. It’s not about meeting with Spotify playlist curators — although all of those things can help. But those meetings or strategies won’t truly work until you actually have the music that people want to hear. And that’s not a subjective opinion, that’s a unanimous across-the-board kind of opinion, from pretty much everyone who hears it.

People love great music. It’s that simple. And music aficionados and fans are sophisticated. They know great music when they hear it, even if they can’t tell you the inner workings of why.

And you do too. That’s what got you in this game to begin with. Your taste. You’ve got good taste.

But there’s one small problem.

When it comes to your own music, do you have that kind of perspective?

Can you tell, beyond a shadow of a doubt, what is good, mediocre or just okay?

Or are you too close to it?

All the hours spent, writing, recording, producing etc — a song kinda grows on you – right?

But that doesn’t mean it’s the right song. Or that it’s capable of breaking ground for you (which you need.) It doesn’t mean that if you love it, others will. Is it strong enough to hit your fans in their solar plexus and make them fall in love with it too? How can you be sure? You can’t. As much as you’d like to think so, and as hard as that is to swallow — your opinion alone is not enough.

Because one of the biggest problems that artists have, is perspective on their own work – on their music and their songs.

Mostly because music is such a subjective thing. It’s all about taste and your musical aesthetic and leanings. Not everybody likes, or grows up listening to, the same stuff. Some people dig rap, some people don’t. Some people love punk and acid rock, and some don’t. Some music fans hate EDM and some live for it. It is highly subjective and personalized. And that’s a good thing. There is something for everyone.

But when it comes to your music and evaluating your own songs, your voice and your production, you don’t want to be subjective. You want to be objective.

An objective perspective is one that is not influenced by your emotions, opinions, or personal aesthetic – it is a perspective based in things that are quantifiable and measurable.

A subjective perspective is one open to greater interpretation based on personal feeling, emotion, aesthetics, etc.

And yeah, you can get objectivity from songwriting classes – there boatloads of ‘em. And they’re good ways to sharpen the craft. Jason Blume, Pat Pattison – all great stuff.

However, those classes have a particular objective that is about songwriting craft, not about objectivity as it pertains to you as an artist. They are about writing “hit” songs. They are about the “formula.” And don’t get me wrong, formula, song structure and craft is extremely important.

But songwriting classes, which are geared towards songwriters not for writing for artists, miss a very important (critical actually) piece for indie artists. How to write songs for your record that will brand you as an artist, and truly catapult you and your message to the world. The A & R piece.

And without it, you won’t reach that critical shift from obscurity to popularity.

Ever put a song out that you were all fired up about – I’m mean really excited about? This was it. Your best music ever. And you pulled out all the stops, invested in a new website and branding, paid a seriously small fortune for an amazing video, and plunked another small fortune of your hard earned cash into a radio campaign and Facebook ads. Because you knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that this was the song that could take you somewhere. So much that you were willing to bet your your precious dollars and resources on it.

And you did okay out of the gate — got some nice reviews, some views on YouTube and some rotations, but then — it just kind of fizzled? And the Blogs, the ones you really wanted, turned it down saying it just didn’t stand out enough. There you were again, like all the other times you thought you had something, only for it to turn out not like you had hoped. And now you’re eating pizza (which is bad for your voice) and counting your nickels watching that small fortune you spent on your video flow further away from you down the stream, leaving you broke.

Now what?

I hear you. And you are most definitely not alone.

This goes on every minute of the day as independent artists release their music in the marketplace. With high hopes, investing their hard earned precious last dollars, only to come up empty.

Let alone that boatload of time, resources and effort it takes to get music out in the marketplace. Months, even years in developing the material, more months or even years to record it, then resources to hit refresh on your “look” and your website — followed by months of promoting, touring and working your butt off to get it heard, get publicity and radio play. And this can go on not once, but over 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 or 7 records. I know, I’ve been there myself. And it’s extremely discouraging when you spend all of this time, effort and resources, and it doesn’t resonate the way you hoped it would.

 

 

It’s a gamble.

But what you stopped gambling.

What if you took a different approach?

What if you decided to do some test marketing on your material before you invested in your next project? What if you decided to get some objective perspective before you rolled your own hard earned cash into it? Certainly worth a try?

That’s what labels do, that most likely you’re not. And they do it because they are trying to improve their ROI – return on investment. It’s smart — but not solely for that reason. Because if you ask an artist if they want to make a million dollars or touch a million people, they’ll choose the latter. That’s why it’s smart for you to do it.

Here are 3 quick tips I recommend you follow to uplevel your next project — or if you’ve got one sitting at the gate, you might want to do this before you plug promotional dollars into it… I’m serious about that…

 

3 Quick Tips on How to A & R Your Next Record Project

 

1. Get objective perspectives (and not just one)

 

Enlist people whose musical opinions you trust to give you feedback on your songs. Most pro artists write 3x the amount of songs they need for a project. So if you’re doing a 10 song record, write at least 30 songs to find the 10 best and a few that are top-of-the-heap gems. Put together a private Soundcloud as you go and have people (again I’ll reiterate, whose musical opinions you trust and respect) comment. Tell those people that you want the truth – the whole truth and nothing but the truth. They don’t have to have the same taste in music that you do, but they should have good taste in music.

 

2. Learn about the process of A & R and apply it

 

A & R is the process used by labels back in the day (and some still), in developing an artist’s material for their record. Technically called “Artist & Repertoire” the job of A & R is to match the material to the artist, whether they are finding songs for the artist, or creating environments for the artist to write in, or having conversations to help the artist dig deeper into their lives to create better material. The job of A & R was to influence the artist towards their finest work and ultimately bring the artists best music to the label and ultimately to the world resulting in millions of records sold for the artist and the company.

Start with the book “The Soundtrack of My Life” by Clive Davis for some real life stories of how A & R impacted the songs we hear today.

 

 

3. Interview yourself as an artist

 

Interview yourself.

Ask yourself these questions and record the questions and answers.

• a. What kind of person are you?
• b. Who was around you growing up?
• c. What kind of people were your parents?
• d. What kinds of messages did they tell you?
• e. What challenges did you face as a young child?
• f. What challenges did you face as a teenager?
• g. What did you rebel against?
• h. What challenges did you face as a young adult? Adult?
• i. What challenges are you facing right now?
• j. What are 3 defining moments in your life from which you were never the same again?

Listen back to the recording and take notes. Jot down the biggest themes and things that stand out the most from the interview. As you talk, let your mind imagine these scenarios and jot down song concepts and titles.

This is the first thing that producers (who know what they’re doing) and your creative music team (A & R rep, mentor, manager) will do at the start of a record project.

It’s the first thing I do when I am A & R’ing a project (which I do every day at my company and in my programs.)

Now it’s yours!

You’ve GOT THIS.