Quit your day job?

[Tarekith]

Making a living from music?

http://tarekith.com/quit-your-day-job/

[fcarroll]

Hard work, honest, lucky, be professional ..... Very wise words Tarekith! Millions of people are involved in the music industry but as you know if you get a bad name for being "un-professional or a dick head" your not going to get much time from anyone. As they say, if your not nice to everyone on your way up the ladder, be careful because you will meet them again on the way back down.

Have to say I have meet a lot of people on the Ableton forums that have been very helpful in giving advice and giving free lessons. Most schools would charge you an arm and a leg for some of the tips and advice I have gotten from people.

Like I said, great advice again for your good self!

[H20nly]

/bump

[ArmandoC]

that's actually a good post. really has a lot of good advice.

[Khazul]

Good article.
I know lots of people who make a livign from music in some way (well actually, scratch a living would be more accurate). I know only two people who actually make a comfortable living out of music and by comfortable, I mean its comparable with say a decent senior IT technical or project management job - a middle class income etc.

One of those people is famous in his own right, sell quite alot fo record, does lots of gigs all oevr the world, the other is in a well known band.

Its never been the people who scratch a living DJing, doing gigs, getign royalties frm music libraries etc that have put me off - its the two I though were sucessful and realise that actually alot of us doing some horrible shitty borderline suicidally depressing IT job reporting to some asshole who are arguable the sucessful ones - can pay the mortage reliably etc...

I guess its different if your the new hot bit of fluff on MTV

[Tarekith]

I thought we weren't going to talk about my MTV appearance again man?

[Geebag]

I just did this in Sept 10. Yea I left a 6 figure salary in the middle of a recession with just about enough to clear my debts and start again. I going to write an album and also get my health right with some serious exercise. I have worked like a slave for the past 17 years in uncreative jobs that I hated which resulted in depression.

Not expecting to make a living from it (am expecting to enjoy living while doing it) but I am lucky to be debt free and have a supportive (non materilistic) wife and kids and will be able to get by.

The freedom is great so far. I have lost 2 stone walking and listening to all sorts of music for inspiration. I have no money for new gear so I am wasting less time.

My gear consists of:
A decent room
imac i5 2.8
Saffire pro 14 interface
M-audio Nova mic
HS50m monitors
Remote SL MK2
APC20
Live suite
U-He ACE

Type of music I enjoy the most would be dark electro, new wave type stuff but I seem to write more of a cross between deadmau5, depeche mode and OMD no matter what I try to do. Not sure what genre it would fall into but I am not putting up any tracks until I am happy with the album.

Hope to get some help along the way from some of the more expierienced members of this forum and will deffo need the services of a mastering guru at some stage.

Peace and happy new year

Baz

[heavensdaw]

good article Tarakith,

Kudos Geebag.. go for it man .. may the spirits be with you!!

If you really love what you do it really helps all the other necessary aspects, like the hard work, luck, respected professional, good guy, quality bits!

We have all had to become not only 'Jacks of all trades' but masters of quite a few too! Exciting times indeed.

Hd

[ze2be]

A great and inspiring read, Mr. Tarekith

Nice to follow your evolution here on the forum!

One of my best friends have been doing it for 10 years now. I sometimes joke about him being a whore. But the fact is he even got a local "gramy", (spelemans pris) the highest diploma you can get for production in this country. It was a Nils Petter Molvær album. I find it inspiring and very brave when I see people going the long hard road alone, AND sucseding!

I tip my hat of to you

[Geebag]

Your article was a great read by the way Tarakith. I agree with all you wrote. Staying professional online is really important and is an area where I have fallen down with a few drunken late night forum posts in the past and a with name like Geebag

It is liberating to not expect financhal gain from my work and therfore not worrying about how I appear to people but if If any of us ever did write a hit and got attention we might live to regret our online history. With social networking etc I think people need to realise that there online identity is out there. Take usernames for instance on forums etc. If you google them then all sorts of shite comes up and then there is the dreaded search all posts by this user buttons.

I do think that you can make some money and possbily a living from making your own music but if you are not part of a label you really need to put some serious time into the marketing of your music and I am not talking about dudes friending people on myspace and facebook and asking them to listen to your stuff. Contacts in media and education is also another route as there is always funding available for various projects. If people are going to give thier music away for free as they do a lot online then you are better off giving it for free to be included in TV or advertising and then generating track and album sales from profile.

I have a masters in business and hope to use those skills with the marketing of my music in the future. Struggling with depression and my slow and reflecting process with limtied real time playing skills for music creation I don't see the live route working for me (but you never know)

I suppose that one advantage is now how little money is required to record music in comparision to previously and the potential route to market and quality is only limited by your skills. Still waiting for real online colab to take off as I see this as a big leap forward with virtual bands etc. We cant all be great at everything.

Anyway thanks for an interesting read mate.

[ze2be]

Id like ro add that working hard can create inspiration in it self!
Here in scandinavia its possible to live on wellfare. I tried it for 3 years, thought it was the dream. But the fact is ive never been so un-productive in my life!! (for 3 years you get 75% of you day jobs sallery, if you get sick. After that, you could get it for life, if you cant get cured. I luckily got cured!) Now I make half as much as I did on wellfare. Im working only 3 days a week at a dayjob. But the pay of is 3 studio days a week, plus a rest day (sunday) and its been my most productive period ever. (I ONLY do my own music) 3 CD relleases, started a Record label, and the last 2-3 years ive been able to make about 30% income from gigs. I can do 100% by DJing pop localy in the country. But I rather live on peanuts, and fulfill my dreams: performing my own music arround the world.

It doesnt matter that I cant aford to eat out. From time to time I get to eat at top resturants around the world for free! Japan resturants: mmmm Also a big hit is when the promoter turns out to be a wonderfull chef, and he invites you home for dinner. Thats a great social way to build ties!

I find "working hard" to be very inspiring, and it doesnt really feel hard at all when you love it. I wish more of my friends would agree, and dare to rip free from the day jobs.

[fisto]

me too: I'm on benefits since 4 years (austria) and ONLY doing music, dj-ing & playing live.
I'll get of the state's money when the income from music is enough for living.

Love it so far

[UncleAge]

I just did this in Sept 10. Yea I left a 6 figure salary in the middle of a recession with just about enough to clear my debts and start again. I going to write an album and also get my health right with some serious exercise. I have worked like a slave for the past 17 years in uncreative jobs that I hated which resulted in depression.

Not expecting to make a living from it (am expecting to enjoy living while doing it) but I am lucky to be debt free and have a supportive (non materilistic) wife and kids and will be able to get by.

The freedom is great so far. I have lost 2 stone walking and listening to all sorts of music for inspiration. I have no money for new gear so I am wasting less time.

There's some all-too-familar tones in your words. It was 14 years for me and I did the same last August.

Best of luck to you man!

[beats me]

I just did this in Sept 10. Yea I left a 6 figure salary in the middle of a recession with just about enough to clear my debts and start again. I going to write an album and also get my health right with some serious exercise. I have worked like a slave for the past 17 years in uncreative jobs that I hated which resulted in depression.

Up until recently I used to say things like "I don't hate my job but….." or "I'm just lucky to still have a job."

Then we got to our yearly self review we are forced to do each year that also serves as an internal resume if we want to move to a different division of the company. I know I've done my job and our branch has been profitable but for a good week I just stared at the thing infuriated almost to the point of punching a hole in wall. I'm not some corporate career climber and the type of information they are looking for has very little interest or importance to me. It was then that I realized I do indeed hate my job because I have nothing of positive importance to say about it. It's a never ending cycle of the same old shit and the only moments of excitement come when we get multiple deals from multiple reps each claiming they are more important than the other and then we somehow magically accommodate everybody. That's stress excitement, not excitement over some great new product you really believe in or are doing something that somehow betters peoples' lives.

But still I'm at this level of adulthood and responsibility with the money saving habits of a 16-year-old where I can't just say fuck it, quit, and hope to make a living off something creative or anything where some kind of set income isn't guaranteed. And I've never had the stomach for any kind of work where I don't know where the paycheck is going to come from day to day, week to week, month to month.

The other side to this like you mentioned is depression and while I may start my day thinking I'm going to go home after work and work on music, the reality is by the end of my uninspired and draining work day I'm no longer interested in just about anything creative when I get home. Doesn't help that I'm surrounded by people at work who think the height of creativity is just raising a family while keeping up on sports stats.

I totally respect anybody who has been able to venture out into this frontier, especially now a days in anything audio or video related where so many people can get a "good enough for me" result just doing it themselves at home.

[Tarekith]

And I've never had the stomach for any kind of work where I don't know where the paycheck is going to come from day to day, week to week, month to month.

The other side to this like you mentioned is depression and while I may start my day thinking I'm going to go home after work and work on music, the reality is by the end of my uninspired and draining work day I'm no longer interested in just about anything creative when I get home.

Not knowing if you'll have income week to week is definitely very stressful at first, I really struggled with coming to grips with it myself.

As for the creative aspect once you get home from a day job, I used to go for a run or bike everyday after work. First thing I'd do when getting home, helped me clear my head, woke me up, and got rid of all the stress of the cubicle grind.