The most fatal mistakes a music producer can make in their careers

Certain mistakes in your music career can have a deep impact on your success, and learning what they are can help you avoid them in the future.

Therefore, here are some mistakes that can negatively impact your career if you don’t learn how to avoid them.

4 THOUGHTS FROM ME

1. Start releasing more music.

Not releasing music is a good way to slowly kill your music career. As a musician, your music is your art, and not releasing anything for a long time can make people forget about you. Even if you know that, the problem lies in some traps that sometimes get us stuck, and you need to avoid them at all costs.

1. Stop focusing on more content than on your music. As a musician, your art is music, not content. Content can help you promote your art, but it isn’t your ACTUAL art, and fans will get tired of your content if there’s no art that is available for them to enjoy. So:
   • Don’t even think about making loads of content without having music to promote. Focus on first filling up your release schedule, and then you can start prioritizing content;
   • Post content that is relevant to promote your music or your brand. Funny videos may get you numbers, but probably won’t help much when you’re releasing your own songs;
2. Be consistent with your music. When you’re not consistent with your production schedule, your release schedule can suffer. Therefore, you need to maintain a workflow that allows you to release a song at least every 2-3 months, ideally every month.
   To achieve this, finish at least one track per month, and this will make it easier to maintain a nice release schedule;
3. Prioritize your music over other dumb stuff. You likely have a job and a family, and that should be your main priorities, probably leaving you less time than you want for music. So, with this free time, quit your games and Netflix, and put it to music.
   If necessary, on Google Docs or Excel, map every hour of your week to see how much free time you have in a week, and schedule music time so you can then focus on getting your songs done;
4. Finish your tracks. People don’t listen to your unfinished tracks, and if you’re not able to finish them, you won’t be able to release them.
   • Create a workflow that allows you to finish tracks faster;
   • Learn how to let go of your songs to avoid overthinking them and wasting time you could spend making other tracks;
   • Read this post with several techniques to help you finish tracks faster.

2. Don’t let your ego be bigger than your music.

During several parts of our career, you’ll have moments where your ego may inflate a bit, but you need to calm it down and get back to reality before letting your ego speak. For example:

1. Don’t bitch about bad feedback. Whether you receive bad feedback from a label or from a friend, don’t bitch about it. Take it in, and learn how to make the most out of it.
   • Take a day to calm down and, if you’re angry or hurt, NEVER respond right away;
   • Find what you can learn from this feedback so you can improve your music for the next time;
   • Ask a friend if they agree with what that feedback said. When you realize that other people, including friends, agree with the comments, it can become easier to digest it;
2. Don’t try to do it all on your own. Lots of producers are proud to say that they are self-taught, but don’t let that pride be what also slows you down. If you’re stuck and don’t know how to solve an issue, ask for help from a friend or find a mentor who can help you.
   Letting the issue become something that gets you stuck and eventually drains your motivation is a far greater problem than having someone help you, so just do it;
3. Share your knowledge with other producers. A lot of producers are protective about their secrets for a multitude dumb reasons, and I was once one of them. However, believe me, when you start helping others, you can gain so much more back.
   So, if someone asks you for help, be the first one to offer help, and people will help you when you need it, and I can’t even mention how many times this mindset has helped me with labels, techniques, collabs, and so much more;
4. Keep your egocentric friends away from you. When you’re too close to egocentric friends, you’ll likely start becoming a bit egocentric yourself. It’s a bit of common sense, but we often forget that we’re an average of the people that surround us, so don’t let egocentric people and producers around your circle, or you’ll possibly end up like one as well.

3. Don’t be a pain in the ass.

The number one step to avoid killing your career is not to be a pain in the ass and treat people with respect.

1. Be careful when emailing labels. When you’re talking to a label, don’t email them three hundred times asking for them to listen to your demo, and definitely only write a polite email when sending your demo. It’s ok to follow up once per week, but after two weeks, just move on.
   And, very importantly, never send your label to two labels at a time, since if they both want;
2. Be constructive to your friends. When talking to your friends, always take a constructive mindset and avoid spamming them at all costs. Always look for ways to help them do what they need, and they will reciprocate when you need them;
3. Don’t publicly shame other people online. I’ve seen producers trying to diminish others’ work by posting content online, and just looks horrible. It not only makes the producer look bad, but it also makes the community look at you with the same lenses, so just don’t do it.
   If you have personal issues with someone, try to solve them privately;
4. Stop trying to get it all for free. If you’re looking for help, even if it’s from a friend, ask them for a way to reciprocate for their help. The same goes for when you’re trying to promote your music and ask your friends for a spot on their playlists. Be the first one to offer them something in exchange and also promote their playlist. Remember, we help those who help us.

4. Don’t neglect the business side of your music.

Depending on your goals with music, it will be crucial for you to pay close attention to the business side of your music. This won’t necessarily kill your career, but it can prevent you from achieving something greater than just releasing random songs:

1. Actively promote your music and your brand. You need to spend time and money on your releases to keep and increase your reach and presence. For that:
   • Invest in your releases by promoting them to playlists and do social media posts to help engage people to listen to your music;
   • Release your songs with labels that can help you expand your reach, so be mindful when looking for labels that can help reach more crowds;
   • After releases, keep your socials active by finding magazines that could feature you on a post, doing guest mixes for other artists, starting your Youtube channel doing live sets.
   • Look for more ways to promote your music here;
2. Develop relationships with other producers and labels. Networking can open some doors for you when it comes to collabs, remix opportunities, and even signings, which can then open even more doors. So:
   • Develop relationships beyond the music. When you get to know a person beyond their work, it’s easier to connect on a deeper level, and this can help you since this can make them more prone to help us;
   • Meet people in person. Meeting people in person can get you to have longer conversations than email or chatting online with people, and that can help you connect further. One cool way of doing this is by going to events like ADE or Miami Music Week in which most labels have events that you can attend;
   • Talk to everyone online, including bigger artists. Interact with their posts, eventually send them DMs when they ask questions, and this can help you connect with them, which will make it easier for you to meet them when they play a gig where you are;
3. Play live gigs. Another amazing way to expand your reach and have a deeper connection with your fans is by playing live gigs. When you throw an amazing set, the experience can make fans connect with you further, turning them into promoters of your music.
   In addition, this is also an amazing way to meet established artists and connect with them backstage, eventually developing a deeper connection that could later turn into something else.

3 QUICK TIPS FOR YOU

What other things can kill your career if you overlook them?

1. Don’t let bad situations destroy your motivation.
A big part of your career will be learning how to dust off from bad situations, and keep on going. For that, read this post on how to move past horrible situations that you’ll face as a producer.

2. Take the pressure away from your career.
If you keep adding pressure to your career, it will eventually drain you and your motivation, and suddenly, music will feel like a chore to you. For this, you need to keep having fun with your music, and you can check how to do this in this post.

3. Stop blaming the industry for what you’re not being able to achieve.
Instead, learn how to play the music industry’s game, or hire someone to do all the work you don’t want to do for you, which is something you can read in this post about how managers can help your music career.