Let me start off by asking you a question. Have you ever been in a relationship? Of course you have. Well, at least I hope you have. So tell me, when you first asked this person out or approached them for a date, or however it happened, how did you go about doing it? Didn’t you sit there for a moment thinking of just the right thing to say? I know I did. After all, first impressions are very important. So you want to put your best foot forward. Well, running a royalty free music business is kind of the same thing. Let me explain.
If you go through my site, you will notice that certain genres of music have more tracks available than other genres. Know why? While I can write just about anything, I feel more comfortable with some genres of music over others. I mean it’s natural to have preferences. The key to being successful in anything is recognizing your strengths, emphasizing them, and downplaying your weaknesses, if you can’t outright avoid them. Sometimes that’s just not possible.
Take the example of accepting custom jobs. If somebody comes to me and says they need a classical music score for a video, I’m all over it like a cheap suit. I know that classical and orchestral music are my strengths. Probably comes from growing up with a mother who was a pianist and opera singer. Yeah, growing up I listened to a lot of Chopin and Bizet.
Then how did I get to a point where I’m cranking out rock tracks like nobody’s business? Well, as I grew up, I started branching out and discovering other forms of music. I followed the Beatles ever since they were on the Ed Sullivan show. I was heavily into prog rock in the mid 70s, following groups like Renaissance, Yes, Genesis, Emerson, Lake and Palmer and Kansas. So writing rock or prog rock started to come easy to me.
But like with anything else in life, you can’t possibly learn and be good at everything. Trust me, I’ve tried. And as a result, there are some kinds of music that, while I can technically write it, I don’t feel as comfortable with as others.
So what happens if somebody comes to me and says they need a Reggae track for their video? If you check my site you will find exactly zero Reggae tracks on it. I have absolutely no feel for the genre. So in that case, I would have to turn down the job. For one thing, I take pride in my work and would never do a shoddy job for anybody. Aside from that, the amount of time it would take to become competent with the genre just wouldn’t make taking the job worth it. I would need a good three to six months just to turn out a quality Reggae score and that would be doing nothing but listening to Reggae music morning, noon and night.
No thanks. There are easier ways to make a living.
And this applies to just about anything in this business. Aside from not taking certain jobs because you don’t feel comfortable with certain genres of music, there’s also the way you go about creating your music in the first place.
For example, some composers can’t really write a note of music. They wouldn’t know a C from a C sharp if it bit them on the nose. But they can play by ear and can play their instrument like a pro. For those people, they’ll probably grab a hold of a keyboard and play everything real time. Others have absolutely no playing ability but can compose like Mozart. For them, Finale or some other music notation program will do nicely.
But that’s just the tip of the iceberg.
What about WHEN you do your work. Are you a night owl or are you best first thing in the morning?
I’m kind of a strange duck. I’m up between five and six AM every single day. I start working as soon as my backside hits the seat in front of the computer. I can go on like that all day until ten, eleven o’clock at night or later if I have to. I need very little sleep. Been like this since I was a a young adult when I used to tell people that sleeping was a waste of time. Point is, you need to figure out when you do your best work. You’ll be more productive that way.
What about administrative stuff? Unfortunately, writing music isn’t the only thing you’re going to do if you’re running a royalty free music business. There’s a lot of administrative stuff like updating your web site, placing ads, doing the social media thing and even paying the bills on time. I won’t even get into the learning curve with all the technology. Are you good at all this or would you be better off hiring an administrative assistant? Fortunately, I ran a business before I got into the music business, so all the admin stuff comes second nature to me now. But it didn’t always.
Like it or not, you’re going to run into certain aspects of running your business that you’re just no good at. I know very few people who can do it all. Me? I’m bad at generating traffic. Don’t know why. I just wasn’t ever very good at it. I should probably hire a traffic manager but right now I can’t afford one. So I’ll have to make do with what I have.
What about you? Have you ever sat down to take stock of yourself to determine what you’re good at and what you really need to stay away from? Even if you do everything yourself (I had this site designed for me because I suck at web design) it’s a good idea to at least know where you’re weak so you can put it on the back burner as something that might have to be redone someday.
Play to your strengths. It’ll make your weaknesses not seem so terrible.
For The Love Of Music,
Steven “Wags” Wagenheim