Like many of you, I've been producing music with Ableton for about 5 years now.
After endless hours and hours of writing, creating, designing, remixing, looping, editing, critiquing, mixing, mastering, deleting, re-trying and trying again... I've only had about 5 completed tracks to show for it.
Like many non-professional producers my age, after I finally have a finalized track, the first thing I do is head over to Soundcloud.com and click upload. I give it an official title, description and cover and click publish. And that's pretty much it. For the most part, a whole lot of nothing follows that.
The viral sensation you hoped for - the one that was supposed to breakthrough and propel your career into stardom - is nothing more than a fleeting one-inch tall rectangle with an orange play button melting backwards into time as the endless stream pushes it down and further away with every refresh.
But then, a notification. A like. A re-post and two more likes. A comment...fire emoji... nice. A handful of brave Soundcloud explorers have found their way to your creation and added it to their approved list of good music they will want to return to in the near future. Approval. Recognition. I'm famous. Wait, no I'm not.
Days pass... more likes. Weeks pass... even more. Eventually, as sure as the changing of the seasons, the likes stop coming. The track is old news. It didn't even break 1,000 plays. What good is a track that peaked around 600 plays and a couple dozen likes?
To many of you, this probably sounds familiar. Aspiring musicians of all kinds who create their own music know this story or have felt this way before. It can be hard to find the motivation to get back into the studio and keep dream alive. But you do. And you should. And here's why...
Recently, I've begun to see those little meaningless track stats in a different way. I've decided they should be celebrated, no matter the scale. Think about it. If your music, your creation, gets 500 plays - then that's at least a few hundred people taking the time to enjoy your music. Would you be stoked to get up and play a song of your own for a few hundred people?
..maybe next time it'll be thousands, or even tens of thousands. And those people who liked or res-posted your track? Well they're really feeling it - front row, hands in the air, singing along to every word. Set a goal. And another one. The amount of time and effort you put into each of your new tracks will be well spent if you consider just how many people are listening. Next thing you know...
...okay, so it's just a metaphor but you get the point. This is what kept me going. I started setting goals for 1,000 plays. 10,000 plays. 100 likes. 1,000 likes...
As of just the other day I achieved my 1,000 like goal with an Astrid S remix that took almost a year to break through...
The point is that while you might not be headlining festivals anytime soon, you can still celebrate the music you made yourself. Celebrate the fact that no matter the number, there are people listening to and enjoying what you made and put out there. You're not an aspiring musician; you're a musician.
So for the time being, I'm as happy as can be with my track that hit 1,000 likes.
(Next up: 100,000 plays??)