Why Computers are Bad for Musicians
In the last decade technology has become so available that anybody can sit at home and make a top 10 album if they wanted. But very few do, and here’s why.
You will meet a typical unsuccessful unsigned band or who spend their time ‘working on the first album’. This usually means sitting at home, recording tracks on the computer. Normally, they will produce a mediocre track which goes onto MySpace and gets a few dozen hits. Sometimes they might hand this out at the very rare gigs that this kind of artist plays. And that’s about it. Artists who work in this fashion do not produce professional quality music, only mediocre ‘unsigned’ (unsignable) tracks.
This tends to be because recording is too easy, so recordings are made too early, before enough practice/songwriting has taken place. Recording takes ages and ages to do at home, time which would be better spent practicing, writing, gigging and generally improving.
Let’s look at the ideal artist now. The ideal artist knows nothing about recording, nothing about MySpace, but focusses on practicing and playing. This person is a much tighter musician and much more interested in the songwriting craft than the previous artist described. When making a recording, this person has somebody experienced do the recording work, and may use a pro recording studio. By contrast, this artist or band sees the studio day more like an impotant gig date where the playing must be exceptional and all the writing and practicing is complete and there are no loose ends.
This second kind of artist is far more likely to:
a) Be successful, because they are playing more often.
b) Be better musicians, because they are focussing on the performacne, and leaving the recording to someone else.
So the lesson to learn is, if you are an aspiring musician, focus on your performance and nothing else, and try and delegate tasks like recording and promotion to other people. Ensure that you are absolutely exceptional, so that even if you have to go up and play your song on your own, people will be blown away.
Here are some do’s and don’ts:
Do:
- Practice, practice and practice. This does in fact make perfect. If you want to be as good as Jeff Buckley, practice, practice, practice. It will come. Your goal is to blow people away.
- Delegate non-music tasks such as recording, mixing, promotion or management to other people, people who are better than you, so you can focus on the important stuff. Don’t worry about splitting potential revenues in the future; you will make more money with the help of other people, and remember that 10% of nothing is still nothing.
- Treat any recording days like gigs of the highest importance.
- Buy your recording buddy a bottle vodka before he starts to let him know how much you appreciate his help (and don’t let him drink it before the session!). This makes them more committed to helping you and it’s amazing how much better the results come out!
- Use somebody who can show you work done before and see if you would be happy to have your recording be of this quality. If it’s not someone you know, be aware of sharks who over compliment you on how amazing your music is. They just want your money.
Don’t:
- Get distracted with the details of recording.
- Shell out thousands of pounds on recording equipment. The adverts all say that you can get pro studio recording at home for nothing; but why are good studios still full of clients? They aren’t stupid.
- Use recording as an excuse to not gig. If you make a recording, it might get played to a few dozen people. Every time you play a gig, you are likely to have more people listen to you play than listen to the recording. Ultimately record labels will sign artists who already have built an audience they can sell to. They don’t sign bands with only a dozen fans.
Remember, focus on the performance. Recordings are just performances. The most successful artists have been successful without computers and without crap recordings, so don’t waste your time. If you spend hours every day on the computer, and less time really playing, you will probably stay that way forever, and this will suck.