Where to start a musical career… A question that has many answers, and some of them I will gladly share with you in this article.
For starters, who I am and how I’m connected to the music industry. My name is Oleksandr, 20, at the moment I am the frontman of the Ukrainian pop-rock band “MountainBreeze”, finalists of the TV show HFactor – 7 (Ukraine), participants of “LaimaRendezVousJurmala 2017”, winners of various online music contests, etc.
After participating in the show, we managed to make our first tour through the main cities of our native country and are now preparing to release our first album.
Everything that is written below is based solely on personal experience, not so much, but not so much, but not useless.
Where do we start the movement? As in any other business, the most important thing is to define a big goal and ask myself: why is it worth taking up a musical instrument at all; how far I’m ready to go; do I just want to be the soul of the company with a guitar in my hands and yard songs on weekends, or my destiny to play in front of a huge number of people in the stadiums…
Do you, or a solo performer, all need to know the clear answer to these questions, because how to start your journey without a given course of direction?
It so happens that moving up the stairs of a musical career in Ukraine is not an easy thing, but when in this life something was given easily? Many people say that it’s much easier to become a successful musician abroad and it’s more realistic to become a successful musician in that environment and with those opportunities than in Ukraine.
I don’t quite believe it. Certainly, our promotion schemes work differently and have different scales; but there are a number of other factors that influence the success in this or that environment.
No one will be able to achieve anything worthwhile without the most important component of a musician – his professional and unique abilities, for the development of which he will be ready to sacrifice a huge amount of time, effort and material investment.
Justice exists in the world! With these words, I would like to point out that, anyway, the real talents in combo with their great diligence reach their peaks and their audience. No matter what schemes you build, no matter how hard you work on yourself and your image, no matter how hard you do it, no matter how hard you do it, no matter how hard you do it, no matter how hard you do it, no matter how hard you rehearse.
This is the number one rule – working on your professionalism. This is where the correct path of a musician begins, when he develops his gift tirelessly, thus perfecting its uniqueness.
If you want to become a singer, you can’t do it without vocal lessons with your teacher; if you want to become a guitarist, you don’t have to go to music school, now the role of a teacher is a great substitute for YouTube, but a live lesson with a teacher will speed up the learning process.
After all, everything seems smooth when you performed at your first concert and you have the first fans; at such moments, it seems that there is nothing impossible and the star began its creative journey … But without the development of all the admirers of your music without much difficulty will shift their attention to someone else, who is more constant in their work.
As soon as the musician starts his activity, it is correct to find any opportunity to perform on stage and start getting the necessary experience. After all, it is impossible for a star to become such from the first appearance on stage.
Experience is being gained, professionalism is being honed, fear of the audience goes away. So everything happens. At first the band plays in ugly breweries and dubious concerts, but a few years later they are already being watched playing on the main stages of the city.
You have to be ready for what you have to spend or save for your good instrument, for classes, for participation even in some festivals, etc. And do not be stingy here, because the best investment – an investment in yourself.
But no matter how cool you play or sing, after taking part in more than a dozen performances, thoughts often come up, like: “What’s next?”, “I already have some experience behind me, but I can’t move forward…”
The Internet is the most moving force in today’s world, and I don’t see any other direction that is more accessible to beginners than sharing their work through their social networks, YouTube and other services if they want more people to hear about it.
Actually, that’s how the band and I started. Inspired by our favorite bands, we told ourselves we wanted to be like them, and started recording audio covers and posting them on social networks. Over time, we realized that this wasn’t enough for us, so we started shooting video covers and putting them up on everybody’s famous YouTube video hosting.
I have to be honest, everything seemed simple and easy for me, but when we made a few of our videos and the number of subscribers did not exceed 2 hundred, I realized that it is not so easy. But, as I said earlier, the main thing is not to stop and do the work incessantly, having faith in yourself and in what you do.
Therefore, after a few subsequent video clips, we have the first significant achievements. The uniqueness of YouTube is that you never know who can sit and watch your video on the other side of the monitor. And it can be a simple person “surfing” through a music video site, it can be a person who is looking for a new idol, or even a musician or band, on which you made a cover…
That’s what happened to us, and it was a coincidence that we stumbled upon a video on the same YouTube as the members of the neighbourhood commented well on our cover of their song “SweaterWeather”.
Therefore, creating a new project, which will not be in social networks such as Instagram, Facebook, YouTube (in some cases Twitter) can be safely called non-existent in the modern world. And the management of which should be as active and filled with interesting thematic content as possible.
You know, there is an omen: “They greet you by your clothes and escort you to your mind”. We can also refer it to our theme, referring to social networks, which are modern “clothes” of musicians and bands. After all, if all this will be in order, to see off a new fan of your creativity and no longer have to!
Also, watch closely and analyze your idols. Get inspired by the music you like so much. For creative work it is extremely important to be inspired and where he draws it from. Look for interesting features, try to apply them yourself, but at the same time – remain a unique performer.
It often happens that under the name of an artist, we are immediately associated with an artist’s work or song. Sometimes it can be one or less track. That’s the irony that lies behind it.
Whatever the great journey, the promotion can come from that concert, from that very song, from that very acquaintance. I want to emphasize that there are moments or actions in the life of a musician that determined his future fate. And the funny thing is that it may not be immediately obvious that this is the case.
If you’re in the music business, you’ll find a moment where your work can be divided into before and after. I hope you know what I mean. I will give you an example of my group. Up until a certain point, we were an amateur band that played at art parties and sometimes in cafes in our hometown.
You can count on the fingers of some of our events of the time. And at the same time we shot the same amateur videos on our YouTube channel. Maybe we didn’t do it professionally, but we actually tried to do everything as well as possible. The key point was the video on which we played the song “Sweater Weather” mentioned earlier.
It was when we saw this video that we were invited to the casting of the X-factor show, after participating in which, in fact, we no longer called ourselves amateurs, and for us it became more than a hobby.
By the way, such projects give you a healthy creative breakthrough, so if you have the opportunity to try your hand at TV projects – everything is in your hands!
Let’s move on.
At first there is no need in this, but if the intentions in development are serious, all the great artists have their own team. It includes public relations workers, administrators, photographers and many other positions. After all, a musician should be primarily engaged in music, not contracts. Therefore, it is cool to have your own team.
I would like to warn at once, touching upon the topic of interest to everyone, that if you start playing music for money, there is likely to be a danger of just being disappointed in your expectations.
Music sphere in Ukraine, when a musician is just starting his way, will not please with his generosity. And before you have a certain income, you need to prove that you deserve it. Some artists are given it not for one dozen years.
Taking into account all of the above, we will try to draw the appropriate conclusions. In fact, this article is more inspiring than informative. I have not mentioned any exact steps to start a musical career, but I have pointed to the steps that each musician takes at the beginning of his journey:
- Developing their musical skills, which will enable them to understand music; to be a performer, not a listener.
- Willingness to sacrifice their money, because there is nothing free in this life, and it will not be, and in the first place it is not even money, but time.
- To look for various possibilities of performance on stage, at first not big, but already there you will begin to receive on the really invaluable experience. It’s one thing to play or sing in your room or rehearsal in a quiet environment, a completely different experience occurs on stage.
- Make the most of modern features in the form of social networks and services such as YouTube, where you can create something like your creative resume.
- Be inspired by examples of artists you admire so much. Many people have not been as smooth as they might think, so it’s useful to see how they started their journey and what other stars have overcome in the process.
And you will certainly get answers to the rest of the questions, but from your own experience.