There are so many musicians putting their music on the internet these days. Some of them are consummate professionals who have high production values and years of experience and practice behind them. Some are posting YouTube Videos entitled Me, Learning to Play the Guitar – Day 2.
Prior to the internet, the finished recording was the minimum standard for releasing material to the general public via media platforms. You could always take your guitar into the street and play it at passers-by, but if you wanted people to hear your music in their living rooms, there was an automatic selection process and fairly stringent entry criteria.
Punk taught us that you don’t need to be a virtuoso to play music to other people. But with no real barriers to access to a lot of musicians getting their stuff out there (and, let’s be honest, some truly awful stuff out there) – how do you know when to start letting people hear what you’re working on?
As usual – it depends
There can be a strong case made that encourages musicians to let audiences get a glimpse behind the curtain and see the music in development. Songs that spring up partially formed can be worked into full-blown masterpieces in full view of the public eye.
I would suggest that this is actually a great strategy on one condition: that you have a confidence in your professional ability (and, preferably, a track record) as a creator of music that other people want to listen to.
Beginners
Now, let me not discourage you from posting your early experiments up on YouTube. If you’re just starting out, getting to see yourself play, and showing others can really help – but by God, you’re going to need a thick skin. YouTube commentators can be a vicious, unforgiving, nasty, and frequently illiterate bunch.
Do not expect constructive criticism and enthusiastic support, as a rule. You may well get that, but it will generally be interspersed between dismissive remarks by people who, it must be said, do not have your creative path and artistic personal development at heart.
Pros
Hey – why the hell not? Refer back to my earlier post about creating narrative and character development. The story behind an album can be a really interesting journey (assuming you edit out all the long hours in the studio trying to get the right kick drum sound). If audiences can get a taste of how something comes together, it can be a really interesting way to engage with the record and start to have some sort of emotional stake in its successful fruition.
Of course, this is fraught with difficulty. People can get attached to earlier, acoustic versions of songs that they may think have been ‘over-produced’ in the studio. It can also be very difficult revealing that much of yourself in the process. But it is something to consider.
By and large, the answer to ‘When should I let people hear my music?’ is when you’re ready. That may or may not be when the music is crystallised into its final, idealised form. That’s entirely up to you… and I suspect that opinions may diverge on this.
What do you think?
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27 Comments
It’s important for pros to know that they should make sure they only have performances of finished work on the internet rather than works-in-progress, lest people perceive your abilities to be less than they actually are.
Funny, I’ve been debating this very question in the past week…
I’m recording songs for my new album at the moment and I’m putting my home-made mixes online whenever a song is finished. That’s primarily for the fans, so they can check out the new stuff now, instead of having to wait another year (the album will be released next October).
However, some of the people I work with have expressed their concern about this, saying that booking agents / talent scouts visiting my site (or MySpace) will get the “wrong” idea. They would rather see me wait until the final studio masters (mixed by a pro engineer, which is something that I am most definitely not) are in.
I can understand their concern, but I think that satisfying the fans is ultimately more important. It’s the fans who (hopefully) will eventually be buying the new album when it does come out…
Hobbyists vs. Professionals. Hobbyists create music in their basement or home studio and rush to put it online and share it with everybody.
Professionals (do or should) take what they create and then think about how to best use this new material, song, rough mix, re-mix etc to somehow leverage or advance their career. That is – should they put it on MySpace, use it as a reward track and send to existing fans, use at as a bonus track for anyone that purchases the new album, give it away for others to re-mix, use it to create a lyric writing contest….
Whatever use best suits the current situation and somehow adds value in terms of raising profile, increasing fans, extending artists’ career…..
I would go one step further than saying, “when you’re ready”. I think there should be some strategy as to when you release things.
If you’re just starting out, releasing that crappy demo is a BAD idea. But if you’ve been at it for a few years and you’ve got a good core fan base going, release that crappy demo from a few years back then might be a GREAT idea.
Keep creating content (and that includes photos, videos, blog posts, stories, songs, etc) and then release it all in a strategic way that will keep people interested.
Example: you’ve recorded 10 songs. Release only 5! then, every month release one more. Now you just turned one release into 6 that lasted half the year. (and think of all the other content to release in between!!!)
I’d be inclined to say just release more good stuff.
Write more, record more, release more.
Crappy old demos may be interesting to some, but I’m sure they’d much rather a new polished song/album/whatever came along instead!
One of my favourite bands, InMe, have put a new demo online, and frankly it’s put me off a bit. I’m sure it’ll sound great recorded but the rough recording doesn’t do them justice and I don’t really want to listen to it when I could just listen to better versions of other songs!
Saying that, I do enjoy old Radiohead demos, unreleased live songs.. but I would much rather a new album/song/etc. from an artist any day.
It’s more work, but hey ho.
That’s my take on it anyway.
The best time is righ now…..
Agree with Chris. Sometimes, especially in music less can be more. I guess the more popular you are, and in popular I mean Oasis, Pearl Jam, U2, Coldplay, who have been around the traps for a while, then maybe some dodgy b-sides is just what we crave.
But for new acts. Only the best should go on there, with maybe a tiny sprinkling of rough stuff. But not to much.
Now need to pull down some my old stuff ; )
I wait till all my music is mastered before putting it online because if the quality is not good… that’s what people will associate with your brand.
The only things that I may put up directly from my home studio are unreleased tracks that I’ll add to my “Demo Club” in order to entice people to sign up for the site.
Working on internet radio for Unsigned Musicians I notice that everyone just seems to release whatever they want.
I don’t think there is any sort of standard anymore, but you can really tell the difference between people who know what they are doing vs.people who are just posting whatever.
With that said, the cream always rises, if you are talented you are talented. All the production in the world can’t save some songs, and even cheap recordings of good artists can’t mask the talent.
Noodge,
Don’t over simplify. Obviously talent is required, but there’s A LOT that goes into making it “rise to the top”… Some sort of strategy is required or else a talented artist can still go unnoticed in today’s over saturated market.
I wrote about why and when I put a tune online. “It depends” is right but I believe there should be some sort of method to the madness.
I clearly indicate when something is in development or “raw.”
I’ve been toying with the idea of a set of comparison songs – let’s call it the “songwriter’s collection” for sake of discussion. A CD of songs with the “raw” first recording verses the more complete/produced songs.
http://www.matthewmoranonline.com/2008/11/28/letting-others-hear-songs-as-they-develop/
I have made the cardinal sin of putting my music up online before actually getting a band together and playing gigs.
This wouldn’t be so bad if I then didn’t get all disheartened that I’ve only got 7 myspace friends and one download via bandcamp!.
So my tip is – make sure people are going to have a reason to listen to your music before you put it online, otherwise it’s like playing a virtual gig to an empty room.
Im also currently toying with the idea of posting an album in progression online, and so far i am leaning neither way. We finally gave up striving only for a record deal last week when we we’re ‘postponed’ by another major.
So were doing it indie, and its going to take a long time and a lot of leg work, but its worth it to actually be able to release something. The issue is keeping the fans interested, and content.
So putting some promo tracks up has been a major consideration although something like a video diary of the recording might be an idea.
Thoughts?
I believe that it’s important to get your music online as soon as you feel that you have something worth promoting. If you are an independent artists, placing your music online and allowing your potential consumers to comment on the songs, will allow you to not only gain information to improve each individual song, it will also allow you consumers to get involved with your project which should later on improve your song sales and fan base. For those aspiring indivduals seeking stardom you can visit sites like:
http://www.schofieldandcompany.com/wordpress
to gain information that will assist you in placing your music online and promoting your songs to potential consumers as well as radio directors and industry professionals. Schofield and Company also offer free consultation from major labels and A&R’s.
I emailed dubber about this very topic a few weeks ago.
I think its wreaks of totally snobbery to denigrate some and ‘elevate’ otehrs by stating “Hobbyists vs. Professionals”, as if somehow there is a talent devide. Isnt this exactly the ‘attitude’ the big labels take and why musicians hate big labels now and are doing it themselves?!?!?
The ONLY difference between this so called “Hobbyists vs. Professionals” is MONEY, end of story.
I also think to many of you are getting caught up in the ‘crappy old demo’ red herring. This discussion isnt about some 10 year old demo you recorded on an old 4 track. We are discussing ‘right now’ (at least i thought we were, and it was definately the context in which i sent my email to Dubber)
Case in point, me.
After 18 years of writing my own material I’ve finally decided to pursue a music career instead of being afraid of it and running away from it.
I started down my new path a mere 9 months ago back in April, I started writing again after a about 10 years of writers block and not playing. I started attending Open Mic nights in my area and playing my new material, over the next 6 months I wrote 13 new tracks, all diary entries of the past 6 months of turmoil (marriage break up, entering therapy, losing job).
Started recording my new material at home on Pro Tools.
2 Choices
1. sit on this material for the best part of 12-18 months until i have the finances to release to finished album. Meaning the only person who hears it is me
2. release ‘competent’ work in progress mixes at various stages of the recording process and offer the entire world a chance to listen to material immeadiately and start building a fanbase straight away
To me thats a no brainer. Granted if you already have a large fanbase then its probably not so important to win new fans, but as ‘professional’ with no fanbase (professionalism is a state of mind not a measure of talent) it made sense to get my music out there now, gain the exposure.
In the 6 months or so my ‘Beta2′ work in progress mixes have been live I’ve had over 500 plays on reverbnation, gained some 300 fans (only 10 or so of them are ‘friends and family’ doing their bit)
But the icing on the cake for me has been getting to No.3 in the tourdates.co.uk unsigned chart…. with an unfinished, un mastered test mix -
http://www.tourdates.co.uk/unsigned-chart/02-Nov-2008
No.3 Leon Live “Beta2 – Let Love Shine”
Its currently No.9, but it stayed in the top 5 for 4 weeks, not bad for something that most ‘pro’s’ would be to scared to even play to anyone outside their trusted ‘inner circle’.
To me my results say only one thing, strong songwriting. Jon Bon Jovi (love, loath or hate him) once said something along the lines of, “you know you have a great song when it sounds great with just an acoustic guitar and your voice”. The man wasnt wrong.
Well, if I’m an established artist, I’d like to put rough demos/ unfinished songs etc. on myspace, official website etc. But if i’m a new artist, then I probably won’t do that as many potential fans might just get disinterested in my work just because of the production quality. But if production quality isn’t an issue (let’s say i have the chops and a quality home studio setup), then i’d like to share recordings in various stages of the process..
Demos are a funny thing. Sometimes I’ll send songs out to friends in a raw piano/vocal state that I would never dream of putting out. Then when I finally get the fully recorded track together, they’ll tell me about all the things they miss from the raw version, to the point where I’ve thought, like Matthew Moran above, about releasing a separate record of “original versions.”
So when I was working on my last album, I wanted to do the transparent process thing and let listeners in, but I didn’t want people getting attached to things I was going to end up cutting. So I just blogged. I tried my best to describe the process, what I was thinking about, what I was changing, etc. and sort of build up the songs as characters that grew over time. With the album, I guess, being the movie version, where you hear the song, and it’s nothing like you imagined it from reading. :)
Now that the record’s out, and I’ve read this entry and others on this site, I’m thinking about going back and attaching files from these various stages of development to the old entries. But I’m not sure that’s worth the effort, now that the process has ended…
I think it’s great that artists can release music so easily, but many have definitely taken it too far with the amount of things they’re putting out.
“Less is more” should be the rule, in my opinion.
Before releasing something, artists really need to run it by trusted professionals (and also selected fans) to get opinions on it. Not everything is worth putting out…to most people. I’m sure there are selected fans who want everything, but there is such thing as over exposure.
This is a very good topic! I am an A&R who work with a major label and have been asked the question about when should a independent artists release their music to the main stream consumer market; and how would they know if it is good enough. There is a really great entertainment consultant firm named Schofield and Company LLC (www.schofieldandcompany.com) that I work with as a volunteer to assist aspire artist. Schofield and Company offers FREE consultation to all aspiring individuals who seek stardom in the music industry. They will guide you through the steps of producing a great album and releasing it into the consumer market. This company is ran by major labels, A&R’s and various other music industry professionals. They also have a blog page with a lot of information that will assist you. The blog page url is: http://www.schofieldandcompany.com/wordpress
Have a blessed day
An interesting thing about creating music and albums is that you may think you’ve created a masterpiece, and two months down the line begin to realize that you probably could have done better. When things take too long it’s easy to think “let’s just get it done and put it out there”. I think you should do the best you can, and hopefully your next album is a reflection of something better than your previous effort. If there’s no improvement, no difference, nothing new, then why continue releasing music?
Thank you Andrew, as usual, right to the point and right on the money!
Hope you’ll come have a listen when i put some new music online.
I think it’s simple. When the song is finished, as in you aren’t going to make adjustments anytime soon then you post it. But if it’s not your best work and you think it may give people the wrong idea about you as an artist then think about holding out until you complete something better. Painters don’t display every painting they ever do and musicians shouldn’t either. Only the pieces they feel represent them as artists… Anyways, there’s a site that I like for artists, http://www.putiton.com It looks fairly new but its very user friendly
I’m skepitcal of any site that takes a cut of ones sales simply because they can. For that reason I’m pretty picky about where I sell my tunes. I looked at putiton.com and I have to say it looks good. They ain’t taking anything and they seem like they genuinely interested in helping new acts establish themselves. thanks Reggie!
There are so many websites that offer great feedback from a community of like-artists (songfight.org, fawm.org, etc.) I’m surprised anyone would deny themselves of the opportunity to swap reviews and constructive criticism. I meet lots of musicians who are so shy about releasing demos or rough takes, yet they’re great song writers. Sure, send me your CD when you finally get a big producer and mastering engineer in 4 years, but in the meantime I’d love to hear your music. So would many other people.
watch out for my album
keep putting it out there…and keep working your art.
If you’re looking for feedback, a great new site called RhythmScore (http://www.rhythmscore.com) might be worth checking out.