Music without the Industry 1

Music Industry Rule No. 1: You cannot do music without the music industry.

Music Differently Idea No. 1: Why Not?

In life, you will often be presented with only two options for any decisions you’d like to make. You can boil down those options to their essence and end up with something like:

“It’s my way or the highway.”

“Love it or leave it.”

“There’s a right way and a wrong way.”

The music industry avidly promotes this illusion. There is a right way to do music. Every other way of doing music is therefore wrong and illegitimate. And it seems that everyone has bought into the lie. Whenever I tell someone about my band, Lynfield, one of their first questions is inevitably, “Are you ‘signed’?” You see, if I say, “Yes,” then my music is legitimate, it is ‘right’ and ‘good’. When I must inevitably say, “No,” the listener becomes cynical. Maybe my music is ‘wrong’?

This feeds right into Music Industry Rule No. 1. The most important rule within the music industry is that you cannot do music without the music industry. And everyone believes it. Or so it seems.

I have been doing music differently – that is, without the music industry. Reflecting on what I have accomplished, I have finally decided to stop feeling bad about doing music the ‘wrong’ way.

In this blog, I will share with you my personal journey toward doing music differently. I will share with you some music industry rules I uncovered along the way and how I’ve managed to reject them in forging my own path. I will, however, also share with you some music industry wisdom and how you might use it to further your own music goals.

I would love to hear your feedback, so leave comments everywhere.