I know this article is going to ruffle a lot of feathers. A lot of people are under the impression that in order to make it in the music business your stuff has to be of high quality. If only that were true. A lot of people starving right now would be making a living and a lot of big stars would be on the streets begging for scraps. The truth is, quality has very little to do with how successful one is with his music.

But why?

Okay, before I answer that, let me ask you a question. Why is it that very few pop music stars have careers longer than a few years? Even superstars reach a point where their music doesn’t sell anymore.

Paul McCartney just turned 72 today. Why is it that I can’t remember the last time he had a number 1 song? In fact, his last big world wide hit was “No More Lonely Nights” in 1984. that’s 30 years ago.

Did Paul McCartney suddenly forget how to write a quality song? Somehow, I don’t think so. If anything, after all these years, McCartney should be writing the best music of his life as he has so much life experience to tap into.

And if you listen to some of his recent albums, he’s written some amazing music including the haunting “The End Of The End” from “Memory Almost Full” released in 2007. While the album sold well (over 2 million copies) there wasn’t one hit single from it. And “The End Of The End” wasn’t even released as a single.

Point is, where are all the big hits that McCartney churned out with regularity back in the 70s like “Uncle Albert”, “Live And Let Die”, “My Love”, “Let ‘Em In” (which was really a horrible song) and on and on and on?

If “Let ‘Em In” is a quality song, I’m digging into my catalog of crap I wrote in the 80s and sending it to every tone deaf publisher I can get a hold of.

An artist or song is popular, not so much because of the quality of the song or artist itself but because of intangibles that are very hard to describe in any meaningful way.

In short, the taste of the general public is very subjective and very fickle. The public gets tired of things very fast. So while the quality of the music might be the same, the outcome could be totally different.

A perfect example of this is the group Boston. Each album sounded exactly the same as the one before it. But they never duplicated the success that they had with their debut album that sold 17x platinum. By their 4th album, which took 18 years to release after their first album with only 2 in between, they barely made it to platinum status and their last 2 albums didn’t sell at all. This is a group that had a 37 year career with only 4 selling albums. Personally, I was tired of them after the second album.

That’s the key word…tired. Especially since EVERYTHING they did sounded the same. They had a formula, the beat it to death and eventually it killed them.

What about the awful music that became chart toppers? Too many examples to point out so I won’t bother. One just needs to listen to “I’m Too Sexy” or the more recent “Friday” to find out how bad music can become ridiculously popular, even if it’s not for the right reason.

So the question you need to ask yourself, if your a composer or performer is this.

Do you want to write good music or music that sells? The two don’t necessarily have to coexist together.

Can good music sell? Sure! Lots of good music sells. But lots of bad music sells just as well if not more. I can just about listen to the radio these days with all the crap that’s on it. The good songs are in the minority. I sometimes wonder if my chances of making it are slim to none simply because I can’t lower myself to the standards that today’s consumer has accepted as acceptable.

Regardless of what you may or may not think of today’s music and regardless of what you decide you want to do with your own music, if you want to make it in any business of music, whether it be royalty free, pop, classical or whatever, you need to tune in with what’s going on in the world today.

Me? I go to other royalty free music sites to see what kind of music is up there. I look at the genres that they cover and I listen to a good sample of the music in each genre to see what’s popular. You can’t create tracks that people want unless you know what they want. The only way to do that is through research.

What if you’re looking to make it into some form of popular music as a composer? Well, it’s pretty much the same thing. You need to do your research. That will involve listening to a lot of radio to see what’s popular today. Because stations are highly specialized today you’re going to hear a lot of the same kind of music depending on what station you’re listening to. In some parts of the world, country is very big. In other parts, dance music rules the airwaves. Make sure you’re tuned into the kind of music YOU want to create.

After that, it’s all imitation. No, not plagiarism. You don’t steal. You emulate. You’ll notice that most songs of a particular genre have certain characteristics that are carried over from song to song with the only thing really changing is the melody. If you think I’m kidding, watch that hysterical video by Axis Of Awesome about how all songs are four chords. If it wasn’t true, it wouldn’t be so funny.

Once you have the formula down, you’re half way there to having a hit. All that’s left is persistence and a little luck.

Yeah, with all that, you still need some luck.

For The Love Of Music,

Steven “Wags” Wagenheim

Wouldn’t it be great if every idea that we had turned out to be a winner or every piece of software we bought was amazing or every customer we ever got was a dream to work with? Wouldn’t it be great if life was perfect?

Neh. Life would be boring if it was perfect. We need some conflict to keep the juices going and start that five alarm musical fire. What exactly is a five alarm musical fire? Glad you asked. I’m going to explain what it is and why it’s important to our creativity.

Let me start by saying this. The five alarm musical fire gets harder and harder to come by the older you get. The reason isn’t any more complicated than the fact that the older you get, the fewer things there are that you haven’t done. If nothing else, that song you wrote yesterday, you can’t write it again. It’s done. And when you’ve written thousands of songs like I have, trust me, that pilot light gets harder and harder to get going.

If you haven’t quite figured it out yet, that five alarm musical fire is what happens when you get the inspiration to do something that is really special. And you’ll know it when you hit it. I can probably list all my five alarm fires on two hands. That’s not a lot when you take into consideration that I’ve been writing since the late 70s.

The most recent was probably when I came out with my first Modern Classics CD. It was the first group of songs that I ever wrote with notation software. Up until that point in time, everything I had done was just sitting down at the keyboard or guitar and playing. I don’t think I ever wrote a lick of music until last summer, mostly out of laziness. Notation software changed all that. My first piece, “The Great Days Of Old”, was really something special. It was the first rhapsody I had ever written and was rather lengthy, relatively speaking.

It’s things like that you remember. Yeah, a lot of the daily creativity get lost in the soup because not everything can be a five alarm fire. And some things are just downright awful. That’s why you remember the special moments, because they are special.

You’re probably thinking that this kind of inspiration can’t be forced, that it has to come naturally. Well, to an extent, you’re right. You can’t force inspiration. But you can do things to help it along.

For example, I picked up a copy of Finale 2012 and started to compose real music. In fact, to this day, I am regularly writing music for the church choir, something that would have never happened had I not turned to notation software. In fact, I’d go a far as to say that buying Finale 2012 changed my life more than anything else I’ve bought in the last 35 years.

Why?

Look at these chain of events.

I bought the software and started “fooling around” with it. That lead to me writing a song for the church choir. That in turn lead me to writing more songs, which got me to thinking that maybe it’s time to do something with my music since my old business was falling apart. That lead me to putting up this site. That lead to me coming up with other ideas for my music including the major project I’m working on now.

When you get a chance, watch “It’s A Wonderful Life.” It’s really true. Every life touches another life and can greatly affect what happens to that other life. In the early 70s, I almost drowned but was saved by my friend. Had he not been there, who knows what would have happened.

If you want an ever better one than that, try this one on for size.

In the mid 70s my mom took in cats that another friend of mine brought to her house, though I asked him not to. This lead to us getting evicted and having to move to another town. In that town, I met the mailman who asked me if I wanted to bowl in his league. From there I enjoyed it so much that I ended up joining another league on another night. That league is where I met my wife to be.

All because my friend brought some cats to out apartment.

Music is no different. Everything we do affects how and what we compose. My next inspiration could very well come from this very article that I’m writing. There is just no way to know.

So if you want some inspiration, get out of your comfort zone. If you’ve been writing all your music on a keyboard, toss it aside for a moment and get a hold of some notation software. Force yourself to learn it. You might find that you actually enjoy composing this way.

If you’re the opposite and do all your composing with notation software, put it away. Pick up a guitar or sit in front of a keyboard. Heck, if you play keyboard put that aside and pick up a guitar. Do something that you’re not comfortable doing.

What’s going to happen, at least every once in a while, is that you’ll move to something foreign and that in itself will be what triggers the new idea. At that moment, if you want, you can then go back to your regular method of composing and use it to create your inspirational piece. “The Great Days Of Old” could not have been written on a keyboard. Not a piece that was scored for a full orchestra.

So yes, you’re going to have those times when you’re locked into your new composition tool of choice. And that’s fine. True inspiration will fight its way through it and come out the other side with flying colors.

I truly believe that everybody has that five alarm musical fire inside of them. All they have to do is loosen up and throw caution to the wind.

Hey, it works for me and I ain’t no Beethoven.

For The Love Of Music,

Steven “Wags” Wagenheim

I’m going to essentially share my opinions on a recent article I wrote about the current state of affairs of the music industry. I’ll first give you the Readers Digest version of what’s going on and then I’ll toss in my two cents for whatever they’re worth. I trust, if nothing else, that this information will give you some food for thought in regard to your own music. This shift can be applied to royalty free music as well, even though the article just discusses the commercial music industry.

Back in the stone ages, before the Internet, if you wanted to have a hit record you needed to hook up with a major label, or at least a solid underground label. And back then, record sales were big. Albums sold in the millions.

Well, the world has changed a lot since then. With the advent of the Internet and the ease of creating professional quality music in your home, thanks to digital audio workstations, you can have a hit song created right in your living room.

But the biggest shift has been in the way the music is being distributed. Record sales are at an all time low in this industry. Music today is downloaded from places like iTunes or directly distributed from artist to consumer. YouTube is huge as far as getting new music to the masses. In short, the game has changed drastically.

While music is now easier to create than ever, there is also more real competition than ever. Kids who, back in the 60s and 70s, could only dream about creating music good enough to sell are now doing so with regularity and ease. The old saying about anybody and their grandmother wanting to be a pop star is now actually true. We are seeing success stories we probably wouldn’t have seen years ago.

So you have to ask yourself. Is this good or bad? Well, it depends on who you talk to.

Certainly from the perspective of the big record labels it’s not good. They aren’t making anywhere near the kind of money they made years ago, which is why they have to look into other avenues for income generation. They’re now investing in things that they would have never touched at one time.

From the perspective of the artists themselves, it would appear on the surface that this is a good thing. And for the most part, it is. No more hoping that some major label will sign you. With the increase of performing talent out there, there is also an increase in the demand for talented writers. So songwriters who, at one time, had to wait for a publisher to offer them a song contract, now can find talent on the Internet to record their songs.

But all is not roses. With the ease of entry there is also the ease of theft, piracy and every other form of illegal activity that you can think of. If you decide to go out on your own in this business without having to rely on publishers and record labels then you also can’t lean on them for protection and support. It’s harder to steal a CD than it is to illegally download an MP3. There is an old saying. Be careful what you wish for.

So essentially what we have is the wild west and so far, nobody has really figured out how to keep it in check. The word copyright almost has no meaning anymore. The mentality of the majority is that if it’s on the Internet, it’s not really a thing and thus anybody can have it. I mean after all, you can’t hold an MP3 in your hand.

Thus, we have a trade off. Yes, you can break into the business easier than ever before, and your income opportunities are probably greater than ever before but at the same time you are going up against more competition than ever before and the piece of the pie that you can realistically get is probably smaller than had you landed that record contract 40 years ago.

Great, so how do I feel about all this? I’m torn. I love that I can turn on my computer in the morning, load my DAW and start making music…the kind of music that I could only dream of making when I was a teenager back in the 70s. When I wrote and recorded my first symphony I was like, “Wow, I can’t believe I actually did this.” But that’s what Finale can do. It was an experience I’ll never forget. So for all that, I’m very grateful.

But then there is the other end of it. The amount of talent on the Internet is staggering. I am in awe of some of the stuff I hear on a daily basis. And 99.9% of this stuff will probably never be heard by the masses. The thought of going up against all of that just boggles my mind.

That’s when I have to put things in perspective and what I’m going to try to do for you now if you’re feeling a little discouraged and down about your own music.

As much competition as there is out there, it’s not all in the same niche. I’m not going up against the pop rockers, singers and even other writers of commercial music. I’m going up ONLY against other royalty free writers. And trust me, of all the niches, this one is probably one of the smallest. I mean let’s face it, writing music for people to use in their home made videos is not exactly glamorous. It certainly won’t win you a Grammy.

We don’t live in a utopia. It would be nice if the current way that the music business worked was easy for anybody to break into it and have success without having to worry about their material being stolen or pirated and without having to go up against 100 times more competition than ever before.

But if I had to choose between the way things were in the 60s and 70s and the way things are today, I’ll take today any day of the week.

I mean it’s not like I was winning any Grammy Awards when Paul Simon was writing “Bridge Over Troubled Water.”

For The Love Of Music,

Steven “Wags” Wagenheim

You know, it’s so funny. We live in an age where technology makes it so that things that used to take weeks or even months to do can now be done in a day. Think about it. And if you don’t remember the old days of writing and recording music, don’t worry…I’m going to take you back there in this article. No, it isn’t technology that’s the problem. It’s our own procrastination that is going to kill the modern musician.

But let’s go back in time for now.

Do you remember the days before computers when you wanted to write a song? When I say write, I’m not talking about jotting down a few chords on a piece of paper, banging them out on the piano and singing some obscure melody over them. I’m talking about actually writing out the sheet music. I think I still have some manuscript downstairs in the basement. Anyway, do you remember how tedious that was?

Today, we have computers and programs like Sibelius and Finale and can whip out symphonies in record time. I wrote an entire four movement symphony in less than a month and that was with having a full time home business to run. Finale 2012 is a great little tool.

What about recording the music? Back in the stone ages, you had to rent studio time. And who knows where that studio was even located. The drive there alone could take hours. And then of course there was lugging all your gear. Yeah, that was always so much fun. Setting up was a pain and getting takes just right when you had nothing but analog tape to work with was not fun if you tended to make lots of mistakes.

Today, we have Digital Audio Workstations in our own homes with VST sound modules that sound better than anything that existed 40 years ago. We can lay down 10 tracks of music in the time it takes to roast a turkey. Editing is a breeze. No equipment to lug around. Our setup is as compact as can be. We really do have the good life these days.

We also have something else…procrastination.

I see it all around me. Guys who, a year or two ago, told me that they’re working on their new CD and here it is, two years later, and it’s still not done. Oh yeah, they all have the usual excuses like not enough time, money problems, business getting in the way and so on. But what it really comes down to is procrastination.

And I am convinced beyond the shadow of any doubt that this procrastination is due to fear of failure. What if that CD we want to make is a bust? What if that symphony we want to write turns out to be really bad? What if I put up that royalty free music site and nobody downloads any of my tracks?

Fear is a killer. I can only imagine how many amazing careers we would have never seen in our lifetimes had some of these artists let fear govern their actions.

Do you really think that no successful artist was ever afraid or had doubts? Human beings are, after all, human.

Okay, so what do you do if you’re one of those human beings who keeps putting things off? You know who you are. Well, if you suffer from procrastination syndrome, these few tips just might get you over your fear and past the procrastination.

For starters, I want you to imagine what life would be like if you had the kind of success that you want. What does it look like? Isn’t it wonderful? Isn’t it so much better than what you’ve got now? Aren’t you even the least bit angry that you don’t have it? That’s right. I want you to get angry. I want you to look at the other artists and musicians who have the lives that they want and envy them. There is nothing wrong with a little envy and anger if it motivates you to get up off your ass and get to work.

If that isn’t enough to motivate you then find something that does. What I usually do when I have a chore to do that I don’t want to do is reward myself with something after I’ve completed the task. It doesn’t have to be anything big. In fact, the reward should be proportional to the work being done.

For example, if I’ve just done something small like, well, like say writing this article, I’ll reward myself with something small like maybe a half hour of video game time later in the day. If I’ve done something really big, like completing a major 3 CD music project, I’ll reward myself with a new piece of software or maybe a new video game. The reward system works great if you use it honestly. If not, you’ll just end up procrastinating and rewarding yourself for nothing. If you do that, the system doesn’t work.

You can also try turning your workday into a game. Make a list of things that you have to do that day and then randomly pick one of the items from the list and work on that item until it’s complete. If it’s something that is going to take more than a day, devote a certain amount of time to that task before you move onto the next one. Not everything you do has to be finished in a day. That 3 CD set I’m working on, 30 songs for each CD, is going to take me about a month to complete. That’s fine as long as it eventually gets done.

In short, find something that motivates you. If the prize at the end of the rainbow doesn’t do it alone then I don’t know what to tell you. Me? I want financial security like I used to have. I don’t like being a broke, starving musician anymore. That alone is enough to motivate me to work on my business everyday.

Find what works for you and get to work.

Because procrastination will kill the modern musician.

For The Love Of Music,

Steven “Wags” Wagenheim

Music is an interesting animal. There is a fine line between a work of art and a total mess. Sometimes that total mess actually turns out to be the work of art. Come with me as we explore the strange world of music composition and how sometimes what you set out to do doesn’t quite turn out so good and how sometimes that piece of trash turns out to be genius in the making.

If you follow the music industry you’ll notice that there are new genres coming out all the time. Go to Wiki and take a look at the list of genres just in the electronic music genre. There has to be over a hundred if there is one. If you then examine the sub genres, you will find a lot of overlap and a lot of gray areas where one genre and another are so closely related that it’s very hard to tell them apart outside of maybe one characteristic.

For example, take the jungle sub genre of electronic music. If you listen carefully to it, you will notice that it contains elements of breakbeat, dubstep, reggae and dance hall What makes jungle distinctively jungle, if you can even use that word, is the speed at which it is performed. Jungle music is typically from 150 to 170 beats per minute (BPM).

Think about that for a moment. Taking the same song, with the same instrumentation, arrangement and just about everything else and slow it down 10 to 20 BPM and it’s no longer jungle. At this point it’s anyone’s guess where it would fall.

Let’s take house music, which originated in Chicago back in the early 80s. Generically, house music was very close to mid 70s disco except that it was more minimalistic and electronic than early disco. Remember early disco? They actually played real instruments back then. House is almost robotic in comparison.

But we’re not done. See, house music isn’t just house music. You’ve got electro house which can be further broken down into complextro, Dutch house, fidget house and moombahton. What’s the difference between them all? Well, I’m not going to go over all of them because we’ll be here all day so let’s take Dutch house and fidget house.

Dutch house originated in the Netherlands and is mainly characterized by complex rhythms and Latin based drum kits. Throw some low bass lines and high squeaky synth leads and you’ve got Dutch house.

Fidget house is mad up of snatched vocal snippets, pitch-bent dirty basslines and rave-style synth stabs all over glitchy 4/4 beat.

It’s all electro house but there is a big difference between those two.

And none of this even takes into consideration the other forms of house such as acid, deep, diva and ghetto, just to name a few. In fact, there are over 30 sub genres of house music.

Try to wrap your head around that for just a second. There are more sub genres of house music than there were of popular music in general if you go back to the 60s and 70s.

Okay, where am I going with all this? Well, here it comes. This is where things get very complex.

Imagine you decide you want to write a song. You are staring at a blank manuscript. Even if you finally decided that you wanted to write a house based song, what kind of house are you going to write? Are you going to stay true to that sub genre? What if you don’t really understand the genre that well? If you read one of my previous articles, you’ve heard me talk about how we can’t possibly be proficient in composing for every possible genre of music.

So what if somebody comes to you for a royalty free track and they want it in the style of deep house which is actually a combination of Chicago house, jazz-funk and soul music and rendered in tracks that are usually between 7 and 10 minutes long with tempos between 120 and 130 BPM.

What if the customer’s video is only 3 minutes long? Obviously he either doesn’t understand what deep house really is or thinks that the other elements alone will make up for the lack of time. In either case, what you come up with isn’t technically going to be deep house. You can sugarcoat it any way you like and dress it up the same. It still won’t be deep house. So what you’re going to have is some kind of other hybrid even if you hold true to the other elements.

But what happens if you decide that because of the lack of time it would be better to abandon the classic deep house sound but still don’t want the customer to think he has something else? What you’ll probably do is pick the most obvious elements of deep house, incorporate them into the song and then maybe throw in one or two elements of your own.

If you do this, will you have, in essence developed another sub genre? Well, it depends. Without going too deep into how sub genres come about (pun intended) essentially a sub genre comes about ONLY if it becomes popular. You can invent a totally off the wall type of music and give it a name. But if it doesn’t catch on, it’s never going to be listed as an official sub genre. It’ll just be your own little thing.

Back in the 1970s, I did such a thing when I started composing. I came up with stuff that was like nothing out there. But it wasn’t all that good and it never caught on past my home studio and that’s where it died. My friends euphemistically called them “Waggy Tunes.”

Today, it’s becoming harder and harder to come up with something that is truly different from everything else that’s out there. But it is still possible. So use your imagination. Sure, fall back on what you’ve heard and what you know, but try to throw your own little spin on it.

Ultimately, that’s what’s going to separate you from everybody else as a composer.

For The Love Of Music,

Steven “Wags” Wagenheim

There is an old saying. You have to learn the rules first before you can go and break them. I agree it’s kind of nice to know what you’re doing when it comes to music composition. If nothing else, knowledge will give you more possibilities when trying to come up with a tune, unless of course you’re so naturally talented that you come up with the “rules” all on your own. I don’t know many people like that. I certainly wasn’t. I didn’t get decent at composing until I got some formal training. Before that, I was a train wreck.

But that’s neither here nor there.

Breaking the rules shouldn’t be something you do just because you can do it. I know some people who are just naturally rebellious. I used to be that way. Over the years I’ve grown to become more of a conformist. Why?

Well, I’ve come to learn that those who have come before me were pretty bright lights when it came to composing. It’s hard to question masters like Mozart and Bach when their stuff was so great. Bach was described in one episode of MASH as having a mathematical precision to his music. And he did. If there was anybody who was a rule maker, it was Bach.

So breaking the rules shouldn’t be something you do just because you can do it. It should be something you do because it fits what you’re trying to do.

For example, everybody knows the rule about parallel fifths being a no-no. But what if that’s the effect you’re going for? Parallel fifths have a very distinct sound. Imagine playing them going up the scale in half steps. Can you hear what that would sound like? What use could you imagine for something like that? A comedy comes to mind or some quirky video moment. It would certainly stick out. And while I wouldn’t want to live on a steady diet of parallel fifths, I can see a case where the use of them could be justified. Again, they have a very distinct sound.

What about the rules of resolution? For example, leading notes of a dominant always going back to the tonic. Sure, that’s what we expect because the ear naturally wants to go in that direction. But what if, instead of going back to the tonic, we went to the fourth or even another key altogether? If I’m in the key of C and I’m playing a G chord going back to the tonic of C, why can’t I instead go to an E flat? Both chords share a G note in common. It wouldn’t be that odd sounding and might even sound interesting.

I’ve always been fascinated by harmony and all the things you can do with chords, inversions, 7ths, 9ths, and on and on. A lot of people say that melody is the most important part of a song. I don’t always agree. Sometimes an unusual harmony can carry a song even if the melody is simple. In fact, a complex harmony can make a one or two note motif sound interesting.

How about the “rules” of what I call atmosphere? I’m referring to how a song sounds based on what instruments and effects are used on it. This is where we can really go breaking a lot of “rules” or what has become standard accepted practice, especially when you’re talking about specific genres of music.

For example, let’s take a typical orchestral score. In the old days, orchestras were recorded very simply inside a hall with natural reverb. Listen to any old symphony and you will notice that the atmosphere of each one was essentially the same and for the most part is the same today.

But what if we turned this accepted atmosphere on its ear? There are many things we could do, especially with today’s technology and the ability to lay down each instrument track separately.

Let’s take the French Horns. What a lot of cinema producers do today is run those French Horns through a guitar overdrive. That’s how they get that really big sound on those Hollywood movie scores. This is something that wasn’t even thought of 30 years ago. Now, it’s common practice. Violins are recorded with tons of high EQ to really bring them out and over he top. Timpani are doubled with sine waves in a side chain to give them a fuller sound. And I could go on and on with all the effects used on instruments.

We could even take this farther if we want. How about running the entire orchestral score through a mild phase shifter so that it’s noticeable but not overpowering? Or we could run it through a filter.

You know that effect that’s used on a lot of records today where they make vocals and instruments sound like they’re coming from an old record player? This is something else that was unheard of years ago. We tried getting away from that old analog sound so we went digital. Now digital is trying to sound analog because we realize how cool analog really sounded.

So in essence, the rules are almost constantly changing. And the reason for that is simple. Stuff gets old fast. Face it, we as a race of people get bored with things pretty easily. That’s why so many popular acts are gone after 2 years. We get tired of them. It’s the exception, not the rule, that an artist will have a long career.

Anyway, this is what I want you to do as an exercise. I want you to sit down and compose a song. I want you to think about some rules in the composition that you can break along the way. Then, when the song is completed and ready to be recorded, I want you to think about what rules you can break in the recording, mixing and editing process. Maybe make the drums louder than you normally would in the mix. Do something to shake things up.

I think you will find that you’ve written one of the more interesting pieces of music that you’ve written in a very long time.

For The Love Of Music,

Steven “Wags” Wagenheim

What is it about musicians that they feel they have to do everything themselves? I think it’s one of the main reasons why so many of them fail when trying to establish an online presence. Anyway, I’m going to relate a little story and then offer some advice on how to give yourself a better chance of making it online in the music business.

True story time.

I used to be a very successful marketer. I lost my last corporate America job in 2000. Long story. For three years after that I tried finding work with no luck. I finally turned to the Internet. It took me a while but eventually I started to make a nice living that ballooned into a very nice living.

Then the unexpected happened.

My methods for driving traffic to my sites stopped working because of changes at Google. It didn’t happen overnight but I gradually started seeing a decline in my opt ins and sales. Then one day it just dried up completely.

To make a long story short, things got so bad that I had to abandon my old business and try something new. That’s when I decided to go into the royalty free music business and other related ventures.

My problem is, my marketing skills are terribly outdated. I honestly don’t know how to drive traffic to my site. Well, instead of knocking my brains out and trying to do this by myself, I went to a marketing forum and asked for help. Guess what? I’m getting help. The people there have been, for the most part, very helpful Some have even offered their services.

Now everything is in the early stages so I don’t have any results to report back to you yet, but I do know from past experience that once a plan is in place, one that has been tested and proven, it’s just a matter of time before the traffic starts coming in, along with the income.

In short, I am totally confident that by this same time next year, I’ll be writing an article telling everybody how I’m back on top of the world. And part of the reason is because I asked for help. I didn’t try to do it all by myself.

Okay, so what advice do I have to give you today?

Well, for starters, you need to sit down with a pen and paper (get away from the darn computer for crying out loud) and write down your strengths and weaknesses. We all have both. I’m going to assume that your strengths are related to your music. If not, then you’ve got a big problem that I can’t help you with other than to say, work on your craft. So let’s assume for now that the music is solid but you have absolutely no idea how to get your name out there and start building a following. What do you do?

Go to a marketing forum. I suggest the Warrior Forum. In spite of a few snarky people, a lot of folks there are very helpful. I would honestly be lost without the place.

When you go there, tell them exactly what you’re doing and that you need marketing suggestions for getting your name out there. I would offer some myself but like I said, I am no longer a marketing expert so anything I would tell you in that area would probably be wrong unless I actually tried it myself and it worked. But the marketers at this forum HAVE done all this stuff and they know what works and what’s a waste of time.

But getting your name out there is only part of the battle. You need to have a web presence that grab people’s attention. In short, you need a kick ass site. I can’t design a good looking site to save my life. So what did I do? I went to a friend of a friend and he designed this site for me. Personally, I think it’s one of the best looking royalty free music sites on the Internet. Fortunately for me, because it was a friend, I didn’t have to pay too much for it. But even if you don’t know anybody, there is always someone out there who is running a special or just trying to make a name for themselves and they do pretty darn good work. You just have to keep your eyes open for deals.

We’re not done. You have your site and you have your traffic driving methods but you still need an ad pitch. Whatever it is you’re trying to sell, you need to put it into words that are going to make your prospects take action. That takes copywriting skills. Not a lot of musicians have them. Yeah, writing copy is not the same thing as writing a dance track. I wish. And while I used to write my own copy for my old business, I would never trust my skills for what I’m trying to do now outside of this site. Yes, I do have plans that I’m keeping under wraps for now. So I’m going to have to bite the bullet and hire a copywriter. I’ll tell you right now, they’re not cheap. Not the good ones anyway. This is something you may have to save up for. Either that or try to find an up and coming copywriter who just happens to have some great skills. They’re out there. You just have to look.

And there may be other little odds and ends that you’ll have to take care of. Maybe your business will have to do with show bookings and you’re totally unorganized when it comes to keeping track of where and when you have your next show. For that, you might want to hire an administrative assistant.

Point I’m trying to make, and I hope I’ve made it, is that you can’t do it all yourself unless you’re some kind of superman. I used to think I was one of them. I was wrong.

There is no shame in going for help. The only shame is letting a business crumble to the ground because you didn’t.

For The Love Of Music,

Steven “Wags” Wagenheim

I’m bringing out the cheerleader section on this one because I think all of us get a little down in the dumps about our music from time to time, especially when things aren’t going so well. Hopefully, this little article will give you that little spark to keep going through the hard times. And trust me, there will be plenty of hard times. It is after all the music business.

Let me start off by saying that I have had more than my share of frustration. In over 35 years of being involved in this business, I can count my successes on way less than one hand. So what keeps me going? Well, I’m going to list a few things that do just that plus offer some advice to you to keep you going through the hard times if none of my personal inspirations apply to you.

First off, I’ve tried just about everything else I can think of to earn a living online. And while I was very successful for a good number of years, the well has run dry and I am in the process of starting over from scratch. Given that reality, I figured why not music? It’s no better or worse than anything else I could come up with to make some cash. While this may, on the surface, seem kind of mercenary, we all do have to eat you know. But I couldn’t do this if I didn’t have at least some love for it and at least s modicum of talent. I mean you can’t get blood from a stone.

But that in itself is certainly not enough to keep me going at this business, one that I’ve been banging my head against for over 35 years. There has to be more or eventually, just like with my old business of selling information products, you give up out of frustration. There is more. Music is a very competitive field. So it’s a challenge. It’s one of those professions where you can say that if you’ve made it you’ve really made it. I mean anybody can become a CEO of a company if they just work there long enough. But to make it as a successful musician or songwriter, wow, that’s something special. So the challenge keeps me going.

As exciting as a challenge is, however, eventually you can still reach a point where you realize you’re beating your head against a stone wall and just give up. Well, that’s where what is normally one of my worst traits comes in. I’m stubborn as all hell. If you tell me the sky is blue, I’ll tell you it’s green just for spite. It’s why it takes a lot for me to quit at anything. It’s why I’ve been at the music business for over 35 years and why, now, after all this time, I am probably diving myself into it harder than ever. I’m even going back to school to get yet another certification. Yes, I am determined, more than ever, to succeed in some way in this business, even if it’s writing custom royalty free music scores for people. I don’t need a Grammy to be happy.

Finally, and maybe this is the most important thing of all, music has been my life for as long as I can remember. I made my first vocal recording at age 3. I started playing the piano at age 5. I wrote my first song at age 20. I had my first song contract at age 33. There isn’t a day that goes by where I’m not at least thinking of music even if I haven’t written or played anything that day. I’m always planning something in regard to my music. And I never go too long before I actually do something with my music. Otherwise, I’d go crazy. In over 35 years I’ve written thousands of songs. Yeah, a lot of them are crap, but every once in a while, I tap into something special. Those are the times that make it all worth while.

In short, my deep love for music keeps me going.

But what about you? What if you don’t have that deep love for music but for whatever reason you need to keep working at it? Maybe it’s your job but it’s not your ideal job, like when my mom had to accept a job as an itinerant pianist in the Newark school system just to pay the bills. This was a woman who could have been a professional concert pianist or opera singer if she had just managed her life a little better. But we all make mistakes.

Okay, so what i this is something that you have to do? How do you muster up enough inspiration to keep going?

Well, look at things this way. Of all the things you COULD be doing in the world to make a living, is music really so bad? I don’t know about you but if I could get ANY kind of “job” in the music business, even if it didn’t pay that much, I would take it. I would do anything to give myself a chance to reach my higher goals. Very often in life you have to start at the bottom to even have a chance to make it to the top.

But what if music is not something you’re not making a living at? What if it’s something that you’ve been trying to get somewhere with for years and just haven’t gotten anywhere and you’re getting frustrated and you just don’t know if you can go on anymore. Then what do you do?

That’s when I personally fall back on my last line of defense, something that I didn’t mention up top because I wanted to save it for last. Why? Because this one is the deal breaker. It’s the two little words that keep all of us from giving up.

What if?

That’s right What if you gave up and the NEXT DAY you got that letter from a publisher that you’ve been waiting for or you finally got into that rock band you always wanted to be a part of, or whatever?

What if?

I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to live with what ifs. I don’t want to wonder what would have happened had I not given up.

So at age 56, I’m still going at it. I have no intention of ever giving up. I’ll either make it or die trying. But I can’t live with what ifs.

Can you?

For The Love Of Music,

Steven “Wags” Wagenheim

Let’s be honest. Making a living is tough. I haven’t had an employer since 2000 when I lost my last corporate America job. After spending three years looking for work, I finally turned to the Internet. Fortunately, I was able to make some money for a while until some changes in the SERPs crashed my business like the Hindenburg. Now I’m starting all over again. That’s why I finally decided to get into my lifelong passion…music.

But this site isn’t my only egg, so to speak. One thing I’ve learned from my change of fortune is that you really can’t put all your eggs in one basket. So let me ask you. If you’re doing music for a living too, how many eggs are in your basket? Actually, how many baskets are you using because that one basket may just go away tomorrow. Trust me, I’ve been there and it’s not fun.

So what I’m going to do in this article is point out a few ways that you can use your music writing to make a living so that you’re not putting all your eggs in one basket. I’ll try to keep this as generic as I can while still kind of using my own examples. Don’t want to get too specific so as not to shoot myself in the foot, if you know what I mean.

One way to make money with your music is of course to put together a site of royalty free music like I’ve done. Now I have to be honest with you, this is a long shot. The reason is not so much that people don’t download short tracks. It’s that technology has made it so that it’s very easy to download music that normally comes with a price tag. In spite of thousands of downloads from this site, I haven’t sold one of them. And I kind of expected that.

So then why put up the site? Or why not just make the downloads free? Well, there’s kind of a psychology to that. If people are downloading music that comes with a price tag, they feel like they’re actually getting something of value. Doesn’t matter that the track is the same track whether it’s free or $1.99. The perceived value makes it more desirable to download at $1.99, even if it’s not paid for.

Plus, the site gives me exposure. It’s my web presence. It’s my way of saying “Hey guys, here I am. Have a look around and see if there’s anything you like.”

But what it really does is pave the way for custom scores. If people who download my music like it and someday have the need for longer tracks, like say 10 minutes of a Celtic score for a video, they might consider hiring me for a custom royalty free music track. And that’s something that they will have to pay for. So think of the downloads as kind of like a loss leader.

However, this site, downloads and custom scoring aren’t my only eggs. After a few months, I realized that relying on just this site might not be a great idea, so I decided to diversify and branch out into other areas.

One other area that you could consider is hooking up with sites that sell services or products that lend themselves to working alongside music. I don’t want to get too specific there because somebody is sure to steal the brilliant idea that a friend of mine came up with.

What you do is offer this site an affiliate program for sale of your musical product. My product consists of several CDs of music that they can sell along with their main product. They’ll make 75% commission on every sale. That’s a pretty good incentive.

In addition to this, you could set your product up over at some affiliate showcase like Clickbank or JVZoo. That way other affiliates can find it and try to sell it to people in that market.

Another thing you can do is hook up with video makers. These can either be marketers who create videos or sell their own software to make videos. There’s lots of stuff out there that fits into this category. Most of the video software out there doesn’t even come with music and the ones that do feature music that isn’t all that great. The one that I am targeting is rather poor in the area of musical inserts. You can certainly work up some kind of JV deal with these people to supply music for their products.

Of course you can always buy one of these products yourself and create your own videos for people complete with music. Now I realize that this means a bit of a learning curve having to learn a new piece of software in a medium that you may not be too familiar with, but it’s worth the effort. The more you can do, the more marketable you make yourself.

I am personally pursuing all of these things. I don’t expect every single one of them to pan out or to be of equal value, but I figure by branching off into these several areas, I give myself a better shot at making a few bucks online with my music.

Now, how do I balance all this out? After all, this means doing quite a few different things all at once. Well, I make a schedule and I stick to it. Yeah, I know, easier said than done. Well, nobody said any of this was easy. But if you can learn to break up your day and devote a specific part of that day to a specific task, you’ll find that eventually, everything gets done. Overnight? Not likely. I am not even close to being finished with any of my projects. In fact, I project that it won’t be for another year before everything that I’m doing is in place. But once it is, that means several possible income streams instead of putting all my eggs into one basket and praying.

Anyway, it’s something to consider when planning out YOUR musical future.

For The Love Of Music,

Steven “Wags” Wagenheim

I’m going to relate a true story in this article. Hopefully, it will get the point across without my having to hand down a lecture.

Many years ago, I was seriously into writing music with the intention of becoming a pop songwriter. I was determined to have a hit record. I honestly thought that my music was good enough. In fact, I thought I was a great songwriter. I just needed a break.

Well, I found out about this music workshop located somewhere in south Jersey. So I went to the free seminar to see what it was all about. It was run by the gentleman who discovered Bon Jovi. His name was Steve Zuckerman.

Anyway, lots of people from the music industry spoke at this seminar. They shared lots of tips about how to make it in the music business as a writer. They also explained a bit about the process as far as how songs were selected for albums and so on.

To make a long story short, I signed up for the workshop. At this workshop, we would bring our songs to play for the other members and we would critique them. Naturally, I thought my songs were great and expected a rousing ovation.

I remember the first song I ever played was a tune called “Love Enough For The Two Of Us.” I would upload it to YouTube and let you hear it but I’m too embarrassed to. Yeah, but we’ll get to that later.

After the song finished, the members of the group all gave me a round of applause and of course I thought to myself, “Of course, this song is great.” And then Steve Zuckerman asked me a question.

“Who do you think is going to sing that?”

I hesitated for just a moment and then realized exactly what he was getting at. I responded, “Donnie and Marie.” He said, “Great, but Donnie and Marie aren’t popular anymore.”

And that’s when it hit me. It’s not that the song was so terrible. It wasn’t. It was just dated. There is no way that song could ever be a hit in that era.

Oh but it gets better. In a later week I brought another song called “And The Angels Sing” which is the only song I ever wrote to be published by a real music publisher. I thought this was the greatest song I ever wrote. My mother, God rest her soul, said it was “touched by God.” One music publisher called it “special all around.” He called it something else but I’ll get into that later.

I played this song for the group again. That day a big artist was there looking for material. Don’t remember her name. She was on some TV sitcom and was making a comeback. Anyway, before my song went on, Steve Zuckerman, who had heard it, escorted this girl (first name Dana) out of the room. I didn’t understand why at the time. He left the room in charge of another industry pro. I was a little upset but I wasn’t going to make a scene.

After the song was over, this other person asked me, “Why did you bring this song today>” I answered, “Because it’s a good song.” He said, “Well, it may be a good song but it’s not commercial and it will never sell.” He just flat out told me I was wasting my time.
Later, Steve told me that he took Dana out of the room because he didn’t want her to hear it. He didn’t want me to be embarrassed by playing such a “dated” song.

Shortly after that, I left the group. I realized that I was wasting my time. Not because I believed my music was bad but because these people were too blind to see how great it was.

This was 24 years ago. Today, I can’t even listen to these songs. No, they’re really not that great. And they’re certainly not slick and cool enough for today’s market, especially today’s market. In fact, I listen to a lot of today’s “popular” music and I just don’t get the appeal. I think most of it is horrible. It’s certainly not great music like back in the 60s and 70s. Oh wait, my parents said that was crap too. I guess I have become my parents.

But it doesn’t change the fact that my music just isn’t good enough for the pros. I subsequently submitted songs to song contests. The biggest criticisms were not about the music but the lyrics. They were too generic and didn’t tell an interesting enough story. They said the same thing over and over and didn’t develop further. And so on.

And that’s when it hit me. If my music is fine but my lyric writing is poor, I’ll write instrumentals. And what better way to break into the business than by starting a royalty free music site? After all, it’s a great way to get exposure.

You’re probably wondering what the point of all this is. Well, here it comes.

For years I thought I was a great songwriter. And then the reality hit me in the face. I wasn’t. Had I been able to objectively look at my work and not fall in love with it I would have seen that it wasn’t so great.

Steve Zuckerman said it best. He said it’s very hard for a songwriter to look at his child and admit that his child has cancer. My songs had cancer. They were terminally ill. I just refused to see it.

So what about you? Can you be your worst critic? Can you admit that your songs have cancer and are terminally ill? When will you be able to reach the point where you can listen to your music and tell that it really is good?

That day will only come when you can put it up against what’s on the radio today, listen to them side by side and say “Yeah, that sounds just like what’s on the radio.”

I’m still waiting for that day. But something tells me I have a long wait.

In the meantime, ain’t nothing like writing scores for somebody’s video and living the dream that you’re John Williams.

For The Love Of Music,

Steven “Wags” Wagenheim