At any point in your career, collaborating with another artist can have huge benefits to your music and career, and here are a couple of reasons why you should consider doing a collab right now:
4 THOUGHTS FROM ME
1. Expand your ideas and unstuck your music by inviting a friend to work with you on your song. When you ask another producer to collab on a song, it will open it up for a lot of new ideas that you haven’t seen or done before, which may help to unstick your music from where it was. Let’s say you’re stuck on an 8-bar and don’t know how to move on with it, another producer might have new ideas and be able to move on with it to transform this 8-bar loop into a full song, which is what we’re all after anyway. In addition to that, he’ll add all his experience and implement ideas that are unique to him, taking the song to a new level and a place you probably wouldn’t achieve by yourself. Collabs are a good example that 1+ 1 might equal 3 since you’re combining experiences and you’ll be able to develop better songs than what you’d be able to do alone. Therefore, even if you’re not stuck on song, consider inviting a friend to give a spin on your song and see where it takes.
2. Use your collab as an opportunity to learn new skills and develop as a producer! What techniques is your partner implementing that you haven’t seen before? How can you learn from everything that is being done in a collab? As mentioned above,collabs are great opportunities to see what a producer would do with your project and turn it into something different, and that is already something that you could learn as a way to ‘unsticking yourself’ in the future. In addition to that, you can also learn the techniques that the producer is using to implement his new ideas. How does he/she mix your kick and bass? How does he/she mix and master your music? What is he/she doing to the project that you didn’t know before? This alone could be a reason to get into a collab, even if the song is not released, but at least you’re learning a technique that will help you out develop your own music later on. But, for this to happen, you need to actively study what was done and feel free to ask questions about it to your partner.
3. Explore the networking and marketing side of a collab to reach new audiences and meet new people. When you develop a song by yourself, it will be you pitching your song to your fans. However, when you have a collab partner in it as well, it will be you pitching your song to a completely new audience of people who like your partner, and they can now also be discovering you. In addition to that, let’s say your partner has a really good relationship with a label or artist that you’ve always wanted to sign / contact… well, that could be your way into meeting or getting to know them by submitting the song to them or getting the contact of this label / artist later on. That has happened to a friend of mine, for example, when he collaborated with an artist from Anjunabeats, and that got him signed later on. Not only this, but if your partner’s career explodes, you will also get a bit of that hype on your song with him, so look to your collabs also as opportunities to expand your audience and to facilitate your way into new artists/labels that you’ve wanted to reach in the past, but didn’t know how.
4. Learn how to receive and give feedback on a constant basis, and learn how to work as a group. As an artist, you will need to learn how to collaborate and work together with other artists even if you don’t plan to work with other producers, you might want to work with vocalists, and that is just like any collaboration. For example, when you receive the song back from the artist, you’ll need to give feedback, and you’ll also receive feedback when you submit your changes. Therefore, as you’re in a collab together with the other artist and you both have the same goal with the song, you’ll have to learn how to give constructive feedback so the song can move forward. In addition, you’ll need to learn how to work together with another artist, respecting his time and schedule, which often is something that can frustrate you or the other artist if you don’t know how to handle it well. This will not only help you to give/receive feedback on your own productions, but also to possibly enhance your workflow in case you learn something from the other artist in that they do with their time management and workflow.
1 QUESTION FOR YOU
Why do some producers avoid collaborating with other artists?
1. Afraid of showing their work: Some artists are not really secure with their current work, and working with another artist could ‘expose’ a flaw in their production. Instead, be open about it and use it as an opportunity to learn
2. Don’t know how to approach other artists: You might have the skill, but you just don’t know who or how to approach another artist. List artists that you like and that you feel are at the same level as you and just email them.
3. Don’t want to share their techniques: I’ve avoided collabs because I didn’t want people to learn ‘my secrets’. I learned, however, I was losing more knowledge than what I could share. Don’t make the same mistake I did, this mentality will take you nowhere, so drop it if that’s your case.
