Think a Career in Music is Impossible? Think again…

marshallsoundz
Jun 29, 2015
2 min read

Sometimes you just have to ‘get ‘er done’.

Sounds simple, but creative people (myself included) often – don’t.

Big ideas are meaningless if you can’t follow through, especially when it comes to licensing your tracks for Film, TV and commercials.

Meet John Parsons, a DIY producer and partner in Soundnoodle, another DIY production studio playing with the big boys. Check out this spot Soundnoodle did for Nike – mastered by LANDR of course :)

Aside from getting things done, John’s biggest realization was that he could actually build a career in music.

“It always seemed to be the unattainable job. And now that I get to do it, it’s everything I hoped it would be.”

Here are 3 lessons he’s learned in building a career as a DIY producer:

Make music you believe in, songs you want to listen to

Authentic and genuine are advertising buzzwords for a reason. Whether you’re selling your tracks for commercials or films, you’re ultimately creating an experience; a living, breathing slice of humanity. If you don’t believe it, your listeners won’t either.

Build relationships with people you want to work with

KANYE WEST and NO I.D. in the studio by Angel Laws / CC BY 2.0

John and his partners – who also happen to be his long-time friends – don’t have a formal promotion strategy, they found gigs through people they liked, people in their existing networks.

No one really knows what they’re doing, we’re all just experimenting and trying to figure it out.

And because they had good working relationships from the outset, their network keeps growing.

Follow through—and for the love of God—finish your tunes

John gradually realized everyone is riffing, even the pros, so it’s essential to get over that I don’t want to screw up feeling. Second guessing leads to inaction and inaction is creative death.

“LANDR was an exciting thing for me; it gives me confidence that I’m going to get a more professional sounding mix. And I’ve always been impressed – right from the beginning – with how much of an impact it made on my tracks.”

“Following through on an idea that might seem silly at the time can actually snowball into a project that you’d never anticipated, which is exactly how we got started with Nike.”

John uses LANDR for the majority of his projects, and even though he went to school for music engineering:

1- He found mastering took too much time.

2- Mastering was the part of the process he was least excited about.