When I talk to most people, they're often surprised to learn how much effort goes into getting your first release out there as a bedroom producer. They often assume you put together something that sounds reasonably nice and just upload it to wherever you want to be heard and then wait for that sweet sweet moolah to come right on in to your bank account. The far more unforgiving truth, however, is that it takes much more than simply creating music to be an active member in the music industry. The past month or so, for me, has been an incredibly involved process of recording, mixing, mastering, and strategizing, and that's not even mentioning nearly half of what I've been up to on a daily basis. So, let's take a quick backtrack to see what I've done to try and sure up any chance of success I can find in the vastly saturated market that is indie music.

The phrase, “It takes a village,” I feel could be applied well to what it takes to get an artist from obscurity to respectability to fame. Previous to this experience, I had only been putting my finished tracks on Soundcloud while I taught myself production, all-the-while thinking that people only really sent to music to A&Rs at labels because of industry connections and the ability to work with an established producer, but now I can see a much bigger angle to why labels can be a major asset to any musician: they take care of a fair bit of admin work, as well. Making the music can be a difficult task. Having studied music for well over a decade and a half now has taught me a few tricks of composition and musicality, making the writing process a shallower learning curve to maneuver. Then, production brought a whole new set of challenges into the fold. How the hell am I going to actually record this junk? I often wondered. I started small, playing with samples and analog synths before gradually working my way up into recording acoustic sources and then tackling mixing and mastering. I was fortunate enough to have worked as an audio engineer at my university for a few years to have a primer on some of these concepts. Although, I primarily did live sound, then.

But then came the part I've come to dread the most: admin work. Administration in any field can be a real slog, but in a field where the bulk of what you actually want to do is create beautiful works of art with meaning and cultural value, filling out forms and setting up accounts can feel rather soul-sucking. Not to mention math *shivers*. In addition to routing all of your financial means, you also have to concern yourself with things like copyright, marketing and promotion, distribution, publishing, community building (through social media or otherwise), and other small business components that can bog you down. Nobody told me ten years ago that when I got to this point I'd be starting my own business and would have to figure out a whole different set of taxes! The real value of a label, from my newfound perspective, can really come in taking the workload off of a starting professional.

One particular thing I've had to deal with this past week has been realizing that I can't access my Spotify artist page until I've already had a release. This poses some trouble as I'm planning my first single release on May 5th and now can't submit to indie and editorial playlists because I don't have a URI (specific link to song) or an artist page. In my case, I scrambled to cobble together a quick EP of past work I've done and polish it to release professionally, which is what you've found on the homepage! It can be frustrating when you already have a humongous workload and then discover more obstacles. Maybe someday I'll get a manager or a music business manager to help get myself some gigs or possibly even broker a deal with a label. Time will tell!

For all the opportunities that music brings, like connecting with people and understanding them better, there are plenty more aspects to music that can take you away from those opportunities. Life may be about balance, but it takes walking a fine line between creative work, engagement, administration upkeep, and self-care to keep yourself from burning out. There's a saying that in order to succeed as a musician or artist or any creative type, you just need 1,000 fans. Now, these are not just any ordinary fans, these are members of your community that will follow you from project to project and support you, even when you put out a miss instead of a hit. Build that and you may just find some good stuff ahead of you. Do that and have people around to help you keep them? Well, now that's a winning strategy in my book.

Until next time, I wish you all the best to come, from now and into the darkest of nights.

Salem Clawthorne