How to Make It in the Music Industry

There’s lot of good reasons to write songs. For one, there’s the money. Songwriters get paid far more than the artist, the main reason for this being that any idiot can play guitar, but very few people write songs. Secondly, because nobody else will; allow me to digress…

The problem with most unsuccessful bands is the songwriting. Most of the technical stuff is easy, but nobody seems like songwriting. The main reason for this is because songwriting is difficult, and most musician wannabes are lazy or stoners, so motivation is low on the agenda. Consequently, the conclusion I came to was that if I didn’t write the songs, nobody else will.

Songwriting takes a lot time, and is similar to learning to play an instrument… in other words, everybody is rubbish at first. The more songs that you write, the better you will become, both lyrically and musically. I have been writing since about 2004 and finally, only now, do I feel like I can start to give advice on this topic. The standard of the songs have started to edge in a professional sounding direction.

Without decent songs, ultimately, you will never stand a chance at succeeding. That’s what I realised and that’s why I now make that the principle focus of my musical activities. If you have a good repertoire of songs under your belt, I honestly believe, that’s the hardest part all done, and the rest should be easy.

Remember to always push the boundaries of what you do. Try to write better songs, and listen to lots of records to pick up ideas.

I’ll discuss songwriting further in future articles.

My name is Chris Muktar. Born 1983, I am currently 23 year old, unemployed, university graduate, sat at home, with my parents, wishing for a better existance. I live in the suburbs of London, UK. I have been working in the city in a proper city job for a year, until I snapped and quit, largely because I had higher hopes in life than to become an accountant.

My quest is now to take myself and my music and make it successful. I know that this is the dream of a lot of people, and 99.9% of people fail, and this is a one surefire road to disaster, but I thought I’d document what happens here, and maybe over the coming months and years we will see an interesting story develop.

Two people I tenuously know have been signed, and reasonably well and very well out of it. They are “Liam Frost and The Slowdown Family” and “Cherry Ghost”. I met both these guys while at university in Manchester. You have heard of Cherry Ghost, his album hit #7 in the UK album charts and he is supporting the Manic Street Preachers. It must be a very tough life. Liam Frost is about 22, and Simon Aldred (aka Cherry Ghost) is about 32.

With that in mind, let me introduce myself a little bit better.

At 23, I can play the guitar. I have bought an electric stage piano, and I can play it pretty poorly but I can play with two hands and to a metronome. Having given up on bands and such like, I have been a solo writer for a while, and have written countless songs, although only a handful are worth reciting (in due course). I realised early on that I would never be a fantastic guitarist, and I would never be a fantastic pianist, and I would never be a fantastic singer, so instead I picked songwriting, as few of my peers seem to do much of that.

I should point out that I hate writing songs, at least while writing them. It’s extremely difficult, but I must admit the self satisfaction is awesome.

I have relatively little live experience (as of August 2007), though I’ve played a few times. I know this is something I should probably work on.

I haven’t lost the plot 100%, just yet. I’m trying to start a company selling medical instruments, although success is slow in coming. I hope maybe somehow I’ll be able to make some money out of this blog one day, a bit like ‘Steve Pavlina’. We’ll see. I hope not run completely broke, and my goal is to move out of my parents house and into central london ASAP.

So without any further ado, I will start to write whatever I think is relevant to help all of us succeed.