Are You Managing Your Expectations?

One of the trickiest aspects of managing a music career is managing expectations. Many of you reading this probably think that you should be the next big thing. Your dreams are big, and that’s a good thing. Be that as it may, you need to understand where you fit in the industry. The fact is, the closer you are to the mainstream, the better your music will sell. I am not advocating writing like Randy Jackson, but understand that artistic integrity does not translate into stardom. This is not to say that you can’t get in front of massive crowds, it’s just going to take a lot more work. That being said, if you’re music is Avant Garde cat noises over radio static and you’re expecting to headline Austin City Limits, your clearly delusional.

What Are Your Goals?

So perhaps you should give thought as to why you’re in this business, is it to make art, or make money? If it’s the latter, you will fail. If it’s the former, do not be disappointed if everyone doesn’t see your musical genius because you will never get everybody. If you wish to do both, well, you will have to decide where your artistic vision and grand schemes meet and focus there. What is your audience? Have you figured that out yet? That is perhaps one of the most difficult aspects of being an artist as there is no set and definite demographic and it will always vary to a certain degree.

Be Honest With Yourself

Do you realize how good you are? Do other people, besides your friend’s family go out of their way to tell you that you’re talented? They better otherwise; you’re just not that good. The world is full of musicians who think their God’s gift to music when in reality they should be looking into basket weaving as a hobby instead. Are you a guitar player but can’t seem to find anyone who wants to be in your band? Well, I have some bad news for you. If you think that the world just can’t see how awesome you are, if you are going out of your way to tell people how good you are, your fooling yourself. You have not managed your expectations very well. Unfortunately, many peoples aspirations exceed their talent, Is it possible that your one of those? Any musician worth his or her salt has thought about it at one time or another.

SO let’s say you arte insanely talented-where’s your market? It’s no secret that pop stars are going to get the spotlight first in the industry world. Yea, that may not seem fair to you, but you must realize that we musicians see the world very differently than your average music fan and they are looking for music that makes them feel a certain way, not how many 32^nd notes you can fit in your guitar solo, or how many key changes you can go through and still find the root. All they want is a beat they can dance to and a melody that makes them feel good. Now, when those two worlds collide, it’s awesome, but rare.

Meat And Potatoes

Now I hope I haven’t dashed your dreams to the ground because I’ve used this to set up what I really mean by managing expectations.

Let’s start with the premise that you have a real talent, and your band mates are equally talented. It will be recognized, but like I said, the less mainstream you are, the harder it is and the longer it will take to get widespread recognition. This is what I mean by managing expectations; you may know your great, your producer and his team may believe you’re great, your fans may love you and you may be wondering why you haven’t sold 30 million copies of your CD. Now it could be because your genre is obscure, or totally new even, and I’m all for that; please, follow your artistic vision. I’m all for expression, but have you really considered how commercially viable it is? You could be the best damn 80’s metal band in the world, but as Sam Feldman says, “you’ve made the best pair of bellbottoms ever in in an era of skinny jeans”.

Does that mean you won’t be successful? Not at all. Find the people who buy bellbottom jeans and market to them, aggressively. The world has 7 billion people in it. Over 100 countries buy digital music; Japan alone has 127 million citizens. You need only appeal 1% of Japanese music lovers alone to make your million dollars, and the Japanese love American music.  In the digital era, it’s more plausible now than ever before. Social media and the internet have given us wide access to the entire world, but this means everyone has the same advantage so you really need to utilize it to the fullest extent. As I’ve said before, simply being talented is not enough. If you’re sitting on your couch right now and not working on the career side of things 

expecting the power of your awesomeness to make you famous, you have unrealistic expectations.

This means in order to really be successful, you should be conducting research, crafting an online marketing strategy , building a fan base through platforms like Reverb Nation and sticking to it. You should be connecting with your fans on a regular basis and following in the footsteps of others in terms of how they succeeded in your niche. If you’re willing to put in the work, and are dedicated to long hours promoting yourself, you will see the results.

Just a Little Patience

Now again, let’s assume you are doing all of this, and are insanely talented, and your still not seeing results. How long have you been at it? Again, even if you have mainstream appeal, note that there are 2.5 million acts on Reverb Nation alone, so you have some pretty stiff competition. This is not to dissuade you, but to keep in mind you are in arguably the most competitive business in the world so its going to take time to rise to the top. If you’ve been at it a year and think you should be on a world tour already, realize that it took Dave Mathews 10 years to make it into the national spotlight an he is a very talented musician.

You need to be on your game constantly and consistently in this business just to keep pace with those who are serious, and realize that some of these guys have resources you do not, like connections, money, or they just are in the right place to be recognized. You need to have plenty patience and faith in yourself, work hard, and don’t forget to enjoy the ride.