Increase your ideas, increase your traffic, and boost
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Listen. This is vitally important. If you do not
listen then your track will be very poor indeed. Listening
is what most musicians have forgot to do and that is why we do
not hear from them again. They have lost their roots, what
ultimately made them famous. Trying to move away from your
group roots is very risky. The Prodigy made fantastic rave
and deep techno, then starting to go into a rock phase. It
didn't work out too well, now they are trying to get back into
their old territory but its hard. Their fan-base has shrunk as
new groups have come up. The Prodigy are now releasing their
classic hits to try and re-energise themselves to grab back
their old fans, telling them "remember this, you liked it and
now we are going to do the same".
Alot of money spent, alot of marketing time used. With example
2, Elton John has constantly chirped out piano tunes for along
time now, always variation on the same theme and he is still
lasting the time.
Listening to your audience, your dedicated audience (that
will buy from you regularly) is the life-line to your selling.
Go off-track and some will not like it but then again you might
attract some new customers. For me, I would stick to what you
know, you are good at it so why change? Sure re-invent
yourself or adapt to the ever changing music market, but
never change style. Case in point. Kyle, pop queen and the lady
who brought us the Locomotion and I should Be So Lucky. But
instead of keeping with cheesy pop she has slowly re-invented
herself- pinnicling at Can't Get Your Out Of My Head. Same pop,
but with 21st Century twist.
Listening also means you should listen to other tracks,
go to concerts, clubs, wherever they play your music. DJs are
always, and have to be, up-to-date with "whats hot and whats
not". They listen to their audience, and they know sure well
that if they get it wrong they either won't work again or they
will get booed at!
Listen to other peoples comments. I had a real hard time
listening to other people rip my music apart but I realised it
was for the best. You must make sure that the people who listen
to your music is your sudience. If you do Drum and Bass and give
a track to your grandparents to hear they might not like it.
Playing a track to your friends of similar style liking, or a
group of people is much better. A group increases the
reliability of your "little study into your tracks", more
people increases the reliability and gives you a better opinion
of how your tracks will be accepted. If one person says "ohh I
didnt like that sample" keep it in mind, but if alot of people
say the same, change the sample. It is a rare oportuinity to see
how your audience will react to your tracks, in the real world
your sales would reduce, and you would just scratch your head
wondering why.
Listen to the best in the genre. If you want to know what
excellent and top techno tracks sound like ask your target
audience who their top artists are, sometimes you might get
inspiration from artists that you haven't heard from before,
then surround yourself with the tracks. Listen to the tracks and
bathe in their coolness.
Listening can sometimes mean not to listen. Sounds
strange I know. But if you have been listening to your tracks
day in day out, then listen to other peoples tracks, you can get
a bit bored, tired, and to a point the tracks get samey. Have
a day out in the week for a no music day. When you come back
to your work you will be refreshed, your ears will be willing to
take a pounding and you will listen to your music differently,
tagging pieces that don't fit, sounding strange or having a
better idea to implement.
Listen to the worst music. Now this isn't an exercise of
laughing at poor techno, but it is to train you to what is
poor and what is good. For an example, if I sat in any
Ferarri I would think it is pretty cool, but top motor
journalists would always give a downside, will always compare it
to something else. Why? Because they have sat in poor cars and
they have sat in the best, now they have a scale to use to judge
any car. This is what you need to do. How do you know a good
song is a good song? Subliminaly you cross-reference it with
something poor. But instead of doing it in the back of your
mind, dig out the poor songs and (unfortunatley) listen to them.
Another example. I have seen on some websites they give away
cassettes of their work. I know that this is poor practise
because I have seen MP3s being offered for download (quicker,
free and better quality).
Listen to other styles. This may be tringgering the "what
is he talking about" response, but hold with me. On my site I
have demonstrated a fundamental fact through alot of top techno
acts. They all have elements of different styles interwound
within their own. For example, The Shamen and The Prodigy
have most noticable rock influences. The great thing about rock
is that there is only a few things that you can do with an
electic guitar. So their tracks have to be really catchy,
employing good lyrics, cool bass and hookable leads. It is no
wonder then that other artists from other styles look to rock as
an influence. If I was into ambient music, I would listen to
classical music for inspiration. Both are similar to each other
in that they have long sweeps and can go on for a while but
still sound fresh, evolving, and can still use hooks. Classical
music has been an influence for William Orbit (helped Madonna
with her Ray of Light CD, including that cool track Frozen), and
he technoified Barbers Adaigo for Strings, a cool classical
track in itself and was brought into the light when it was
played in Platoon.
Finally Listen to yourself. Why did you make the track in
the first place? Were you going to build it up into a cool
chorus, or was there an idea that you wanted to tinker around
with that sounded really cool? Not knowing where the track is
going, not seeing the light at the end of the tracks tunnel, or
the loops are just not sitting right can have a negative
effect on your confidence and moral. Write down what you
would like to see from this track. Maybe even before you start
get all the basic loops, or downloading website names all
collected before setting off. If the track is just a notepad,
make it so, don't spend too much time on something that is just
a sketch pad. If it doen't work, fine, but why, if you have no
joy, leave it. Go back to it later on, don't make yourself too
angry or involved in something that can have a negative impact
on all your techno making.