When I was making music, I always had an image in my mind of this awesome release, with good artwork, a website and tons of views.
Instead, I ran into tons of problems, because I worried about the marketing before I even figured out how to get a good mix. I worried about the mix before I even figured out how to get good chord progressions.
I was learning music theory, mixing and mastering, writing lyrics, song composition, Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator, Propellerhead Reason, FL Studio, playing keyboard, HTML, CSS, Adobe Dreamweaver, marketing, psychology, networking and social media – all at the same time. It was a lot of hats to wear, and I learned each thing slowly, so the results were a little half-ass, to be honest.
I should have just focused hard on the music, and then I could have created networks while I did shows. Then, I could have gotten people in my network to do my website, my graphics, etc.
Of course, I learned a lot of cool shit in the process, but it really stalled my music dreams. I don’t regret it, but it makes me wonder if I was really into the music in the first place, or creating the final product. There were a few pieces of the puzzle that took a long time to figure out. For example, in audio production, I somehow never learned the importance of saturation, and every song I made until recently was lackluster and missing punch. I released a few of those, and they never stood up to any commercial release.
Here’s an example of some Photoshop work that I did, that didn’t even have a music project behind it: 