"Making It" in the Music Business

Welcome to my making it in the music business thread. Welcome to all musicians, music artists and those curious about this subject.

My mother was taking organ lessons while she was pregnant with me. This may be why I have a heavy use of organs in my music. This brings me to the question of how early in life do you need to start music?

Well music should never be forced on a person. The desire to play and participate in music should be uncoerced and voluntary.

I was exposed to music but I started out on the harmonica. We were visiting a friend of the family and they had a harmonica and I remember playing a harmonica at that visit. I must have been about 9 or years old. I remember realizing I could play any song my mind could think up on the harmonica and thinking this was great.

I remember playing a drum in 1st grade music class. At this early age you may not actively play an instrument but you have to develop your vocalization at this time.

Your vocalization is your greatest talent as a music artist. Many may argue but I think this to be true. Your second greatest talent it your ability to write words. When I am making a song sometimes I will get stumped and not be able to figure out what the song needs. A bassoon maybe? Maybe some strings? Quite often I find the answer is the human voice. The human voice is the greatest musical instrument ever to exist.

Then there are many other instruments, sounds, presets, voices, tones, etc... a music artist will use in their music. Instruments, sounds, presets, voices, tones various words all describing the exact same thing.

A diverse sound library, and the human voice is front and center.

Around the same time I started harmonica I went to organ classes and learned to play a Hammond Organ. I learned organ chords mostly. At around 12 years old I started piano lessons and learned my scales.. How to play major and minor scales etc.

We always had a Hammond organ as a piece of furniture in our house while I was growing up as a kid. I would even as a toddler attempt to get at the controls of the organ if possible. When my mother would play it I would have been about ear level to the speaker. We had also many old and new vinyl records in our family and a tape recorder (tiny mono reel to reel).

The music recording and playing devices were often in use by either my mother, my siblings or myself.

So music was gradual to me there was constant exposure to music on TV also.

Two things developed at the same time, one was learning to play musical instruments, instruments other than the human voice.

I started playing guitar at 11 or 12 years old. That was when I got my first acoustic guitar. It was a nice Yamaha.

Before I could play guitar I could remember wanting to learn but finding it difficult. I recall one night trying to play guitar and it occurred to me that instead of trying to learn chords I would make up my own sequence of chords. I would just put my fingers anywhere on the strings and find some place the strings sounded good. I would make note of that place where I put my fingers and how I strummed it. Then I would find another place on the strings fret board to put my fingers that sounded good when I played it and take note of that and so on.. I would sing words to the sequence of chords and write them down too.

This exercise of trying to make a song was what got me into finally learning my guitar chords. I went to guitar lessons but they did not really click until I started trying to improvise on my own. The hardest part of learning to play guitar is toughening your fingers to the instrument. Pushing the strings requires building calluses and musculature in your hands and fingers.

Once you can play about 12 basic chords you can put those chords together into thousands of songs. But the other remarkable thing is you have a full band in one instrument.

I will tell you a story. I was singing in that bar called The Thirsty Whale in Bar Harbor Maine. A man came up to me while I was taking a small break from singing and playing my guitar. He first said he was the entertainer for the Blue Nose Ferry that travels from Bar Harbor to Nova Scotia Canada.

Then he said he was walking up the street and heard me in the bar singing a few doors down before he reached the bar. He then said, "You sounded like you were a whole band and your guitar was thundering. It sounded like thunder."

My point is you, your voice, your fingers and your guitar begin a romance that possibly no other instrument can quite fulfill to the same degree. A piano is way too bulky to carry around on your back. With a harmonica you can't sing while you are blowing into it. But a guitar is just perfect to strap onto your back and go with it take a hat for tips and you can play anywhere on the streets.

There is something to be said about sitting in a room and hearing someone just strum a guitar as loud as they can and sing at the top of their voice.

This comes to the art of captivating an audience.

Before I go there though I would like to talk about the recording artist aspect. At the same time that I was learning to play my guitar I was also learning another thing. Recording devices. I mentioned the reel to reel, well we also had a Montgomery rewards cassette deck.

My natural propensity to keep hitting the record button on that turned out to be another aspect of music. Gadgetry and musical devices, electronics, record players, machines, etc...

I had to become nimble with electronic recording devices. I started learning the vocabulary of technology at the same time I was first learning these instruments. Electric guitars and weird funky guitar amps and speakers, PA's, reverb and other digital/analogue sound filters, equalizers and effects.

So music at first was not just about sitting under a tree and playing my guitar and singing but also about recording it and learning the vast amount of technology that revolves around recording and creating music.

So to answer the initial focus of this discussion. When should a young person start music? Well, first exposure to music should be from the womb but playing of instruments should not go beyond 12 years old before you seriously grasp your first instruments. A 12 year old can learn music at such an accelerated rate because it is like learning a first language.

Ten years old is good for organ and piano. That is an age when a young person can really begin to understand music.

The object is to master both organ and guitar or you can also call them keyboards and stringed instruments.

A well rounded human voice must also master many other instruments to accompany their sound. If they do not learn to musically accompany themselves they will always stand at a loss when no musical accompaniment is around to fill in this gap. The best instrument to fill in this gap is the acoustic guitar. It needs no amplification and it is light weight and travels well. The guitar and human voice make a great full sound range combo.

Plan on learning all instruments to some degree. You need to know not only what these instruments sound and various techniques in how to play them.

So your hands become highly functional on these instruments and learn to respond to your brains commands. Learn to play to the beat of a metronome.

So you learn to sing, play instruments and you seek out venues, school, friends, family where you can play your guitar and people will listen.

This is how it all starts. So you get books at the library to read about music theory and you begin to practice music for what becomes a life long endeavor.

Zero music

There is no alternative for talent in the Music business. If you are talented and have the right contacts along with a bit of luck, there is no reason why you cannot be a successful person in the music industry. From music composers and producers to singers, all of them start at a basic level, learning the tricks of the trade before establishing themselves as forces to be reckoned with.
It is important to cultivate interest in music at an early age. For those who inspire to play an instrument in a band or for studio recordings, mastering the instrument at an early stage is important. Similarly, for an aspiring singer, taking lessons to improve one's range and learn the finer nuances of singing is vital.

There are plenty of alternatives for talent... Royal birth into the Hollywood elite... Lip syncing, auto tune, sound editing and tone/time manipulation.

Video touch-ups and tons of make-up... digital video alteration...

While actual talented people who have earned their status in music due to very hard work and devotion to the art are passed up for the privileged and already wealthy... Like a cycle and over time, many are denied entry into the arts so less talented people can prosper instead...

Can John Travolta sing?



I wonder who was passed over so this song could be made?

Notice the youtube comments on this song...

I would like to comment that I do think John Travolta is a fine actor and a good dancer also, but, I wonder how many dives he had to sing in for how many years, like most Olympic style vocal artists, before his singing talents were, err, "discovered"... How many countless nights did he spend on the road before he was taken into a multi-million dollar studio with a dozen sound engineers at his disposal.

Gary Benson wrote "Let Her In" (not Travolta) where most music artists, considered to have "talent", write their own songs too... Often by the hundreds of songs.

So the said rule that talent always prevails is not necessarily the case...

There are many other examples of producers favoring those with less talent over those who have the talent yet this negative line of discussion is not very worthwhile to pursue anyway.

And yes this was "RCA" that made this record...

I have many things I would like to share in this thread but I won't do it at a zero rating...

My latest endeavor, a copy version of "Song of Wyoming"...
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=10151485977623778

Please like and share thanks. Be sure to click the HD quality button.

Rex