Songs that don't go anywhere
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@beacon Mar 2022
Rick Beato just came out with a great video about amazing songs that he has produced by artists, but that didn't get any airplay and are sitting and they aren't getting listens. It hit me that this feels like a key thing I've picked up in being in this community that it is mostly about the creative process and the joy of that, and you can't assume on commercial success for anything. I thought others might also resonate with it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JHlxTiR1zsk -
@gm7 Mar 2022
I saw that one also Ken..very interesting.
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@metalfoot Mar 2022
I watched that video too, and yeah, I've long been convinced that 'making it' in music is as much about connections and luck as it is skill. Give me FAWMers any day!
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@billwhite51 Mar 2022
it depends on how you define success. i spent two years writing songs for chappell music, u was well paid, but none of my songs were cut. bur i had still made it into that enviable group of published songwriters into which less than 1% of applicants enter. so in a sense i was successful. if making a living at doing what you love is your idea of success. it is onlly in show business that success is measured by public acclaim. in all other industries, millions labor on wihout recognition yet are considered successful. my father, for example, was one of many engineers who worked on the apollo moon landing, his work was part of what made that mission a success, but you will not find his name in any history book. it is very difficult for an unknown songwriterto get a song cut by a major artist, even if the song arrives to the artist through lhrough respected channels. unless your song absolutely blows the minds of every person on the song-screening panel,, a name-brand songwriter will win out over your effort. i have to admit my songs of this time, while solid, were not exceptional. i was trying so hard to be commercial that i lost my own voice. so it was no loss that y work was shelved. still, i consider those years to have been successful ones. i was making a living writing songs. and a few of them were even long listed, but none made the final cut.
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@sarahk Mar 2022
Thanks for sharing this. I spent some time reading through comments and thinking, and my conclusion is this: you have to define success for yourself. If you recognize that there's a massive market and you're unlikely to break into it, is easier to accept that the music you make just needs to please you.
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@nadine Mar 2022
THIS is why I want all my semi-finished drafts to be finished. Even if it takes 15 years. I hate having good songs on my hard drive. And if it's only for 2 people on YouTube, I don't care. My work has not been in vain. The work of nobody I work with shall be in vain.
Success can mean a chart hit, a couple of streams, your best friend loving it so much that he sings along, just finishing it or whatever. I am happy when I finished a song in the best quality I can provide in that situation and put it into the internet for somebody to listen to. -
@siebass Mar 2022
This is the bar-none most soul-crushing part of the music hobby for me. Most of my friends and family won't take 3-5 minutes to listen to tracks that I've worked on for hours or even days, some songs of which I think are exceptional. I have had to rewire my brain time and time again to remind myself that I'm not making music to be successful, or even for my friends and family to listen to; but rather that I'm making music for myself. This constant rewiring has been done mainly out of emotional necessity, after getting emotionally ground down and reaffirmed in that belief time and time again by crickets after each musical achievement (but still even now, I want people to listen to and love my music).
I think everywhere BUT FAWM no one wants to listen; it's part of what makes this place so very special and important. Just taking the few minutes out of your day to listen to a song can mean the world to the person who made it, and it is an oh-so-precious gift, and never an assumption or right.
Anyway, probably a little darker here than I wanted to go, but it's something I grapple with inside very frequently. Thanks for sharing the video, it was nice for solidarity. -
@nadine Mar 2022
@siebass I hear your pain. I really don't understand why music lovers prefer listening to some songs on Spotify over music their friends produce... even if it's the same genre! It's even more ridiculous when you hear that they listen to the same song 10 times a day!
Last year, I decided to share my listening time with people who deserve it and not being the 1 billion listen of any chart topping song. On SoundCloud, I do not follow accounts with many fans. I did not buy any professional record and spent my money on Bandcamp instead. This is everything I can do for my folks. -
@mandolinda Mar 2022
I wish i could put FAWM songs on a random play. I would listen all day long.
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@coolparadiso Mar 2022
You know @mandolinda i mostly do! Well all those that are downloadable.
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@lemonsmoke Mar 2022
I bought more music on Bandcamp this year than I ever have before, it's cliche but it has been fulfilling. I gravitate more toward cassette releases, but I have found some pretty awesome releases.
I personally recommend Digest by Smother. I remodeled my kitchen with that album on repeat, no lie. -
@lemonsmoke Mar 2022
*Digest by Smothered
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@slusk Mar 2022
Excuse my ignorance but in what part of the world is Bandcamp big? I have seen a few talented artists referring to Bandcamp on Youtube but in my part of the word Bandcamp is litterary unheard of. To me it is as if BC is a club for mututal admiration for your fellow artists rather than a commodity music outlet for the common person/potential music fans. I might be wrong. Please enlighten me!
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@coolparadiso Mar 2022
Not sure what defines"Big" or "a commodity music outlet" @slusk. Bandcamp sold US $203 million worth of music last year! Nearly US$1billion in the last 12 years. So i assumed it was most places. The future may be interesting now its been bought by Epic Games
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@chipwithrow Mar 2022
Such an interesting thread - as they often do, it goes in a few different but related directions.
First, the song that went nowhere that Rick Beato loves struck me as just ok - if it popped up on an Americana playlist I wouldn't feel particularly compelled to find out who the artist is. But then I found a YouTube clip of a live version of that song - quite powerful and soulful!
Which got me thinking about another aspect of this thread - getting friends to listen to your music. Way back in 2007 and 2009, I recorded two albums of family-themed folk-rock, and I gave CDs to my friends and family (even sold a few)! And quite a few told me they listened with their kids in the car.
Outside of that, about the only time friends will listen is when I perform a song for them. Sometimes they will even ask to hear something I wrote! I think the immediacy and intimacy are factors there - also, although I'm rusty now, I'm a pretty decent live performer and storyteller.
Still, the ridiculously vast majority of my songs - and I think I've written more than Rick Beato - are gathering what he calls that digital dust. I get anxious and depressed pretty easily - clinically so - but for whatever reason lack of listeners doesn't much bother me. -
@timfatchen Mar 2022
There's a lot I'm tempted to add but it's late and I'd get depressed! Let's say:
(1) all of the above
(2) write music because you're moved to and without any hope of financial reward
(3) assume no family or friends will ever listen
(4) accept gratefully whatever affirmation might come your way, and let the affirmers know you appreciate it if possible
(5) accept happily whatever money might come your way, it all helps.
(6) As someone who has had serial disasters and bitter disappointments, I won't say "don't let it get you down" because it does, sometimes very badly. But usually it's circumstance, reverse serendipity or whatever you might want to call it, and not the fault of your music. [EDIT I've restrained my self from expanding on this!!!!!!!]
(7) As well as the painful old saw "don't give up your day job" I add "and don't burn your guitar/violin/DAW/manuscript".
(8) There's beautiful music in the world. And some of it is yours. -
@lemonsmoke Mar 2022
I've fallen into a particularly embarrassing trap a couple times, pretending to not care about financial gain is not the same as actually doing what you love.
I resonated with what @timfatchen said: "(2) write music because you're moved to." I have a window of time in my week in which I can write music, and this presents itself into more of a job than a passion, which inherently becomes dull. Creativity doesn't thrive in the mundane -for me at least.
I've got a lot to work on, but this thread is helpful! -
@thomasfred Mar 2022
What a great thread this is! I feel very similarly to all of the comments and loved the op video link as well.
At my best, I try to think of what music writing and performance was pre 1900… basically some famous performers but mainly a community affair. I wonder if anyone even had notoriety for writing songs then. It was more likely just something that was done, especially if you couldn’t afford sheet music or didn’t have a good musical memory.
Thanks helps with the self depreciation sometimes.
Also thinking that music is a service and, as @nadine astutely points out, if even one or two listen to your music… that’s amazing and should be celebrated because your music made a connection with another human being. I really enjoy this supportive community of FAWMers and am happy to be a part of it. -
@billwhite51 Mar 2022
art is a telepathy between the artist and audience. although it is possible for one to create art for oneself, just as one may make love to oneself, but it rather defeats the purpose, which is communication. art is successful when a person plants something of oneself into the consciousness of another. for this transaction to occur, the recipient must be in a receptive state, which is rarely possible in light of the way art is presently consumed. when popular music, for example, was approaching the possibility of evolving into an art form, it was listened to intently and intensely, giving rise to the emergence of composers and performers who had something of value to communicate, something beyond pretty sounds and images going pleasantly into one ear and out the other while engaged in a moveable embrace with a dancing partner. scrolling through a spotify playlist, sampling each song in 30 second sound bites is not a way to receive the work of an artist. looking for new music this way is an anxious undertaking, not a search for the edification offered by the telepathic exchange of human commonalities that is the hoped for result of experiencing a work of art. therefore, the failure to reach an audience today is often the fault of listeners being conditioned by formats desiged for browsing, not listening.
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@nancycunning Mar 2022
I've been thinking a lot about an idea that popped up in the Ken Burns Country Music documentary. Someone talked about A.J. Carter scouring the hills for music that had not been copyrighted. When I watched it, I thought, "Hey, wait, that's not right." When I was 19, my mom bought 100 newly hatched pheasants for me to raise. She wanted to repopulate the wild. It didn't work out well for the pheasants, but the foxes and hawks were all pretty happy. Anyway, I like the idea that maybe this moment in time is one where we can repopulate the wild. Bring music back to the porch or the barn, but there's more room on the porch and in the barn. I'd like to keep writing songs I like to sing to myself. Sort of like my Aunt Susie makes gorgeous quilts for her own beds, and she'll show them to other people when they come over, but doesn't sell them. If other people want to listen or even better sing or play some of my songs. there's all kinds of room on my porch. And I'll look forward to listening and singing their songs too...Like a big old porch song pull.Oooh. Porch Song Trilogy - there's a cool name for a triple album....Maybe for 50/90...
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@billwhite51 Mar 2022
@nancycunning were it not for the ethnomuicologists scouring for and recording the music of regular folk, we would have little record of ourfolk music, heritage, from delta blues to blue mountain hillbilly. like generations prededing us, all we would know of music would be the hit parade, when harry belafonte singing calypso was a novelty tune on the juke box in a tiki bar. i only hope someday an etnomusicologist discovers and distributes some of the front porch riches of our times.
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@phenola Mar 2022
When I was a child I used to listen to the radio and keep a C-90 in the cassette deck at all times in case a song popped up that I particularly liked. Its scarcity made it valuable. It isn't scarce any more.
Technology gives with one hand, and takes with the other.
Much has been made about how advances in home recording have made music creation far more accessible, and how the internet has made music distribution trivial. The downside is that the world is now awash with free music. It has immensely cheapened its value. -
@intoyourlight Mar 2022
This is really an important thread. My father, now age 67, was always passionate about listening to and making music, composing and recording songs. It was a huge part of my childhood actually. He always created music, although nobody listened to his songs but family and friends. But he was happy just creating. A few years ago he gave up on it, because he somehow didn’t get out of this mind trap where you think that your music is only good if it’s popular. I often try to spark his interest in showing him my songs. Once I brought one of my synthesizers to my parents home and my father and I played together. But unfortunately he feels disconnected from making music, we even talked about it today.
For me, it’s my greatest passion, though I don’t do it for living and probably never will be. Sometimes I wish it was different, but now music is my safe place and that’s great as well.
As a FAWMling this year I experienced so much appreciation for my songs. I got butterflies in my stomach every time I received a comment. And I listend to songs that blew my mind, something that few popular songs do these days.
I think it’s important that someone is listening, if it’s one person or more, doesn’t matter. But music is a conversation, as @billwhite51 has pointed out. I really wish my father would have had the support of Fawm years ago, maybe he wouldn’t have abandoned his passion. -
@timfatchen Mar 2022
@billwhite51 At least the ethnomusicologists existed then. But common songs: right now, here in Oz, the notion of community singing has long since vanished, along with church congregations (says the ex-methodist-ex-Anglican cathedral organist) and disappeared from schools to a very large extent. The Wiggles are a poor fill-in. I have a music library FULL of kids/young people's music and also what would now have to be called folk collections but in 1965 were regarded as mainstream songbooks: the Adelaide Uni songbook, Engineer's songbook (NSFW throughout) 1960s/1970s Broadcasts to Schools songbooks--that program/support vanished decades ago...what do I DO with this collection when i kick the bucket? no-one's interested.
@phenola "awash with free music" hasn't cheapened music's value, in that it gets listened to. But it certainly has cheapened its _financial_ value! -
@sheilerk Mar 2022
Just today I was listening to music by an old friend who has since passed. Much of his music is still up on reverbnation, and I happened across a link, and spent a wonderful afternoon listening to some great country, and 50’s style doowop music, which you never hear anymore, and it just brings such a smile! He was a master at that. If your music is somewhere accessible you never know who’s going to be listening, thinking of you and appreciating what you’ve done.
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@timfatchen Mar 2022
@sheilerk You've reminded me why i started putting music on the internet in the first place, oh so long ago (2001. mp3.com, soundclick.com, others). The faint hope that someone somewhere might listen, and the music might even last a bit longer than I did.
And, way back then, I actually had an index card sitting on my computer saying "so far 15,000 people have listened to your music, so STOP WORRYING". It didn't stop me worrying, BTW.
In fact it was State Opera South Australia, a flagship company, taking on the (ill-fated disastrous story!) opera that finally, finally penetrated to me that I could, in fact, write music. And that was 2012, after 10 years of trying and writing (and 6 years of FAWM, too). Think the 10,000-hours-to-mastery bit https://open.spotify.com/track/2OUMnqXQ9HHi3yRUsJSyPX
And a couple of months ago, a total stranger contacted me whether I'd written The Internet Opera (which sunk and burnt with mp3.com!) because he could only find a couple of tracks still and wanted the lot! I was amazed (and sent him all the mp3s!)
You don't know, you may NEVER know, but what you _must_ know is, if you don't sow it abroad, it'll never have even a chance to grow. -
@billwhite51 Mar 2022
bandcamp is the new smi thnsonion, where coun t less wonders lie fallow, yet every day somebody discovers some thing new/ o believe that more people have heard mymusic in my four years on bandcamp than in 50 years of playing hundreds of regional clubs
