HOW TO WEATHER THE UPS AND DOWNS OF THE MUSIC BUSINESS

“The music business is a cruel and shallow money trench, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free, and good men die like dogs. There’s also a negative side.” ~Hunter S. Thompson

There is no doubt that the music business is tough. But so is the “Medical” business, the “law” business, the “teaching business”, etc. You get the picture. Things are tough all over. But the music business is full of things that look promising and fall through, things that are “guaranteed” and don’t happen – on and on it goes. By this point I have shared some of my disappointments. Holds that were all but a “sure thing” and didn’t happen. Singles that were promised on Sam Smith and never came to be. 

The list is long and sad. And these are maybe less than 5 percent of the disappointments. But important is if you are going through these disappointments, you don’t give up and just use these rejections or unfortunate indicants as lessons and start again, stronger. So, how do you stick with it when the “downs” start to pile up? I learned the hard way that you have to have a plan. The plan I came up with was this.

Don’t live for songwriting. I had to re-align my priorities. If songwriting is the one thing you are living for, things are going to get rough. I had to back up a little bit, re-establish my priorities and start living for the real important things. In my case, my family. Living for them put musical disappointments in perspective because at the end of the day I know there are more important things for me to live for.
 
Don’t let yourself get too high or too low. I made the mistake of getting too excited about every hold and banking on it before it got cut. That road was the express lane to depression. I learned to celebrate a cool hold with a cool beer and then move on to the next project and let the song on hold to go through its natural process and see where it goes. I didn’t spend the money before it came. Keeping the “highs” in perspective also helped keep the “lows” in perspective.
 
Concentrate on the songs you haven’t written yet. I write songs, demo them and then forget them for the most part. I’m trying to write a better song tomorrow than I wrote today, and that requires a lot of focus. The song from yesterday or last week doesn’t get any attention until I have tried to write a better one. That philosophy keeps me moving forward and not looking back.
 
I hope those ideas help if you have struggled with the “low” aspects of pursuing a musical dream. Keep living for something bigger than music. Keep yourself cantered – don’t get too high or too low. And look forward, not back.

Author

Hangi Tavakoli is our in-house established and professional music producer with more than 17 years of experience in songwriting, music production, mix and mastering. He has produced more than 3,000 and written more than 4,800 published songs to-date, including some major hits in international scale.