First, The Music

IIt’s all been said before, but among many music marketing circles today, it is being ignored.

Live performance.

It should be the obvious thing all musicians put all of their focus into. This is why labels were born — to give the artist the room she needed to focus on her job. Her job was to give a damn good performance to an audience who was looking for just that. She was paid very well because she delivered.

Today, things are a little different. As musicians, we have taken over the role of the label, which is fine, but while doing this, many of us have forgotten about our role as musicians — a role which shouldn’t feel like a role; it wasn’t a role when we started: it was who we were. It became a role when we put all of our attention on marketing. On being our own label.

Image credit: iamoutside on Tumblr

We live in a sea of musicians. We all are trying to make it — to survive in this sea. We realize how big of a sea it is, and the sea overwhelms most of us. There are some very big fish in this sea, and we often long to be what they are.

The problem is, we start changing our music according to what we think will advance our career, instead of playing and writing the music that our souls are longing — so desperately — to play and to write.

Have we lost touch of the artist inside of us in exchange for a survival kit?

I believe that the artist inside of us (the one who wants to write the damn good music) knows how not only to survive, but to thrive in this musical sea, if only we’ll surrender.

Stop reading every blog post on marketing your music.

Stop surfing the web, looking for a how-to guide. It doesn’t exist (believe me, I’ve looked). Instead surf the waves of your own music. As ridiculously cheesy as that sounds, it’s the only way your marketing campaign is going to work.

First, the music. The marketing will come in time.

Alec Tucker is a musician, blogger, and student. He studies media and communications as well as art at Maharishi University of Management. Read more posts from Alec at alectucker.wordpress.com