Think that everything is going to go smoothly when writing music for a living? Think again. I’ve always been a big believer of Murphy’s Law. If it can go wrong, it probably will. The trick is to get through the adversity with the least amount of damage. But how do you do that and how do you deal with the everyday things that are likely to make even the best plans go wonky?
As somebody who has been in business for himself for over 11 years now, I can honestly tell you that I’ve seen it all. In fact, just recently, I had to change the server that one of my domains pointed to because I was moving it to another hosting account. Well, it turned out that the company I bought the domain from had been bought out from another company and they didn’t have my purchase info and the info I had (login and password) wasn’t good anymore.
To make a long story short, in order to get the domain moved, I had to prove I was the owner. The kicker was that all the info on file to prove I was the owner wasn’t “good” enough for them to grant me access. Finally, I had to give them my home phone number in order to get in, make the changes I needed to make and secure the account so that if I had to get in again, I could. I won’t even tell you how long it took to get that straightened out.
Just to move domain X from one server to another.
But I digress.
Musically, you’re going to run into all kinds of problems. Let’s start with getting the client.
You’re going to have clients who, for whatever reason, will either take forever to get their specs to you (what they want for the video or the video itself if that’s what you’re waiting for) or keep changing their mind every five minutes.
How do you deal with this? Well, you deal with it professionally but strongly. You let the client know that work can’t begin on the project until they get you the specs that you need. You put the onus on them to follow through. That way there is no excuse when they come to you asking where the job is. If they keep changing their mind before you even have a chance to get started, or worse, after you’ve already done some work, let them know that they need to be sure of what it is they want and they need to commit to it. If this goes on for some time, you may need them to actually sign off on the job once they know for certain what it is they want.
Bottom line is this. Your time is valuable and if you’re wasting it on something as simple as “What do you want me to write for you” then there is a big problem.
Another problem you’re going to run into once you’ve actually started on the project is software malfunctioning on you.
I love Cubase 7. Well, okay, I like it. I don’t have a problem with the functionality. It does everything I need it to do. What I have a problem with is all the bugs. There aren’t a lot of them, but the ones that there are, are really annoying. They make me have to shut down Cubase 7, shut down my computer and restart everything again. Sometimes the keyboard will lock up (I use an Axiom Air 49) and I’ll have to shut down Cubase 7, turn off the keyboard and then start them back up again.
So far, I’ve been lucky. I haven’t had any problems that have made me lose hours of work because I save after every part they I record. I learned to do that after the one time I didn’t and lost everything. Fortunately it wasn’t much.
You’re also going to find incompatibilities between some VSTs, your DAW and your operating system. For example, some of my 16 bit VSTs don’t work very well on my 32 bit Windows 7. So I had to get a bridge program to convert them to 32 bit. Well, sometimes the bridge program (I use VBridge) doesn’t work too well and I end up having to scrap a VST. This can lead to some lost work time.
Then of course there are production issues that you’ll sometimes have to deal with. Like all of a sudden your DAW will stop creating MP3 files for whatever reason and you end up having to get another piece of software to convert your wav file to an MP3 file. I myself have had to do this. Ironically, my DAW suddenly started creating MP3 files with no problems again. Go figure.
And if all that wasn’t enough, there is always the problems you will run into with web sites. They can get hacked, hit by a DDS attack, go down and all at the worst possible times.
Okay, but how do you deal with all this? Well, there are two levels of dealing with problems like these.
On the first level, there is the technical aspect of dealing with the problem. Here, you simply go through the problem and analyze what needs to be done in order to solve the problem. Sometimes the steps are simple. Other times, like trying to prove you own a site, are not so simple. But in each case, there is a procedure that you will need to go through in order to fix the problem. Any problem can be fixed, even if it means buying a brand new computer. The question is, how important is it for you TO fix? Only you can answer that question.
Then there is the second level. That’s the emotional level. This is actually the hardest one. When things go badly, it’s easy to get upset and bent out of shape. Trust me, it doesn’t do any good. Getting upset does not fix the problem. And the more upset you get, the harder it is to focus on the technical details.
How you deal with adversity will have a great effect on how successful your business is. So don’t you want to give your business the best chance to succeed?
I know I do. And that’s why I deal with adversity the best that I can.
And my business thanks me for it.
For The Love Of Music,
Steven “Wags” Wagenheim