Ever since I was 4 years old, I’ve wanted to be a musician. I watched my Uncle play in the church, I saw musicians, singers, and rappers perform on stage. I learned about all of the European classical composers and studied much of their music.
After all of that work for the last 20+ years, I still only want to be a musician. I’ve been learning music, learning many different styles, and doing a lot of metalearning, learning how to learn things, and learning how to practice and make my performances more effective. I’ve started composing my own music, producing music for other artists, and have had some music accepted into music libraries for TV shows and movies.
As I’ve gotten older, I’ve learned that being a musician involves quite a lot of non-musical soft skills. Networking, knowing how much to charge for services, having financial literacy and skills in money management, and time management are all of these proficiencies that help musicians appear professional and reliable to those looking for their services. But one skill stands out among the rest that I’ve always struggled with, and have grown to really not like in the past
Marketing.
The act of promoting your work and services through content and media. Especially on Social Media.
Now, I’ve always had an aversion to cameras. I don’t like taking pictures, I don’t want to be in videos ever, the rare times I film things musically, it’s a video of an idea that I haven’t recorded or produced yet, an audition video, or a performance video to review and critique for myself later.
When I started to be more professional in the music world, I was told left and right that I needed to be making content, filming things, posting, and commenting on social media accounts to “put myself out there” or else no one would know about my music or what I can do.
I know that at the current time, this makes the most sense to do. You build up a following, maybe even go viral, people listen to your music, you get to have fun building content, blah, blah, blah…. Do all these things that have nothing to do with writing or performing the music.
I have a lot of problems with this, and it has always been hard to explain to people. Firstly, I have massive amounts of social anxiety, so “putting myself out there” is not as easy as people think it is (as of writing this, my heart is racing at the thought of even posting this, and I’ve had this planned for WEEKS before even beginning).
Second, I hate the idea that my work is reduced to “content”. I want my work to speak for itself, I want to be able to create music that I love, and that hopefully other people love. Following the marketing advice, it feels like you have to basically defend your work and convince people that it’s good, rather than have people listen to it and hope that they like it.
Also, if I decide to post practice videos, I’m going to start feeling this enormous pressure to put out something “perfect”, and its no longer about showing the process of learning, but about showing off. Because if I show what my actual practice looks like… It’s boring, I sound bad, it’s repetitive, and it’s supposed to be, because it’s practice. No one is going to watch that. And if you ask the people around me, they’ll say “it doesn’t matter” or “just do it” or my least favorite, “everything is content”.
I’ve always wanted to be music-focused. Music first. Create music to be music, or to tell stories, or to have people dance to. Not create content
But I also want a career in the music industry. I want to perform, I want people to listen to my music, I want to teach more students. And right now, the only way I can see to really do that is to start creating content. I’ve been thinking really hard about ways to create stuff that I’m okay with making and putting out. Like this blog. And very short Instagram posts.
But I’m working on it.
So here’s the official announcement:
Bad With Titles II is coming out August 30, 2025, on the 6th anniversary of my original Bad With Titles. (Listen now on Spotify or Apple Music)
I really hope you guys enjoy it when it comes out. From now until release, I’ll put out blogs like this, and small videos and other “content” to help promote it.
Hopefully, during this process, I will learn the skill and find a way to authentically show up musically and personally while still successfully learning how to exist and promote in the music industry.