Love Doesn't Come In A Minute...

Sometimes, it doesn't come at all. 

That is a lyric from a Paul McCartney song.  It is true.  Most things in life, especially the good things, don't just happen in a flash and they are done.  Good things take a prolonged effort, sometimes many hours, many days, many years, before you reach your desired result.  I have been playing guitar since 1995 but only recording albums since 2017.  In three years, a lot has changed.

Even three years is not a long time, and I feel my life has improved dramatically since becoming an online musician.  I have a presence on YouTube, Instagram, Reverbnation, Twitter, and of course, Facebook like everyone else.

If I learned more about business principles and music marketing, I could make more income as a musician.  It turns out streams and downloads is the worst way to make money as a musician.  And that is my only musical income stream.  So I am not rich.

I have published one album through Reverbnation, two through CDBaby, and three through Routenote.  They are all good sites, but I feel intuitively that I am being ripped off of thousands while I get dollars.  The music industry is extremely corrupt and most of the money you generate does not go to the artist himself. 

When I first released Money and Women in 2017, I had no idea what I was doing.  I had a friend who was my music marketing guru at the time instructing me on how he did his career.  I feel my music is above average and his music is below average.  But since he had the experience in recording and publishing, he was the teacher and I was the student.

The best albums were the last three released through Routenote.  It seems like a fair business paradigm where you publish for free and they take a small percentage of everything you make.  It uses mostly streams and views from Spotify and YouTube, which by itself is not that lucrative.  But at least I am doing what I want to do and I have enough income every month anyway.  I do what makes me happy, not what makes me rich.

Coffee Blues, Lonely Days, and Trouble On My Way are good albums.  Each subsequent album gets more creative and masterful.  Some of my favorite songs that I have written include Roll Over and Boogie, Lonely Days, Trouble On My Way, Down So Low, and Weekend Blues.  It is better to feature vocals than to create an instrumental. 

I look on Spotify and see that in 2019 alone, I generated 5.1 thousand streams.  That is not a lot, but in actuality it is for an indie musician with no advertising.  Somebody out there digs it.

Spotify and the MP3 both ruined music and gave it to the whole world.  If you only make 7 dollars per 1000 streams, it is hard for musicians to make money.  But if all the music of the past 70 years is online on Spotify and is free to listen to, music has become a big part of modern life.  We need music.  It is emotional therapy.

So music fans are happy and full time musicians are sad.  It is not easy to make money as a musician, but it is possible.  The distance between starving artist and rich and famous is shrinking.  With clever business savvy, an understanding of marketing, and an advertising budget, one can create a side income of online music.  That is my ambition.  Perhaps music cannot be my main job.  But it is perfect for the evenings and weekends. 

So being a famous musician didn't come in a minute.  And it may not come at all.  But as long as I am creative, playing my guitar, writing new songs, and pretending I am the fifth Beatle, than life is alright.  I can do a dayjob and do music too. 

Get a job.