Making Electronic Music in 2017 and Beyond - WHY?

y do anything bbcakes? jsut enjoy the process til u dead :)

make baddass tunes for other people to enjoy, it might not happen in your lifetime and they may be discovered by advanced alien race and used in religious ceremonies!

If you're looking to make money then I'd recommend getting out of the arts altogether.

This is honestly the worst thread I've ever seen on here.

Go make some ember breaks and come back after the vibration of time has slowed to a crawl.

here's a 17 second loop

http://picosong.com/Uhf2/

  On 1/3/2017 at 7:40 PM, Brian Dance said:

This is honestly the worst thread I've ever seen on here.

 

Go make some ember breaks and come back after the vibration of time has slowed to a crawl.

No, I've seen worse. You were involved in two of them, times a great healer. Look at that swagger you have now. This is very telling character change. Very telling. Quite the little master of ceremonies now Brian. The hazed becomes the hazer. If only Stephen G was here to see the way you've changed he'd take back that apology.

  On 1/3/2017 at 8:24 PM, Schlitze said:

 

  On 1/3/2017 at 7:40 PM, Brian Dance said:

This is honestly the worst thread I've ever seen on here.

 

Go make some ember breaks and come back after the vibration of time has slowed to a crawl.

 

If only Stephen G was here to see the way you've changed he'd take back that apology.

 

I'm here  

Aw shit, I knew you you'd be back. you look different, been working out?

Gettin' swole af m8

swigs protein shake*

'protein' 

olo

sureeeeee the semen wasn't harvested from a dumpster?

also lol. The Omax 40x Microscope was supposed to be good dammit.

Shipping to/from china takes forever >=(

Whoops really side-railed the thread didn't I?

Anyways, I'd like to whey in on the topic. Just make music if you have a love for listening to music and making music. I'm not sure it needs to be any more complex than that. I'd like to think if someone is getting involved in any of the arts (but most specifically music) for anything other than the love of the art itself that they wouldn't be successful. =/

i'm making some electronic music right now.. not sure why though. think i'll go flush my studio down the toilet. 

  On 1/3/2017 at 8:24 PM, Schlitze said:

 

  On 1/3/2017 at 7:40 PM, Brian Dance said:

This is honestly the worst thread I've ever seen on here.

 

Go make some ember breaks and come back after the vibration of time has slowed to a crawl.

 

No, I've seen worse. You were involved in two of them, times a great healer. Look at that swagger you have now. This is very telling character change. Very telling. Quite the little master of ceremonies now Brian. The hazed becomes the hazer. If only Stephen G was here to see the way you've changed he'd take back that apology.

 

I'm still confused as to why you love me so much but I guess I'll never know.

We've never even smelt each other.

  On 1/4/2017 at 12:26 AM, ignatius said:

i'm making some electronic music right now.. not sure why though. think i'll go flush my studio down the toilet.

We're gonna need a bigger potty

  On 1/4/2017 at 2:33 AM, ladalaika said:

 

  On 1/4/2017 at 12:26 AM, ignatius said:

i'm making some electronic music right now.. not sure why though. think i'll go flush my studio down the toilet.

We're gonna need a bigger potty

 

finished flushing it all down their a while ago but it's making music on its own now.. just my gear down there and a bunch of shit.. once it's done with some tunes i'll let you know if they're better than mine. 

Because I like the way it makes my brain and body feel to make music. If I wanted to make money off music, I damn sure wouldn't be on WATMM

  On 1/4/2017 at 3:30 AM, Audioblysk said:

Because I like the way it makes my brain and body feel to make music. If I wanted to make money off music, I damn sure wouldn't be on WATMM

and it's a great way to ignore people which even that french sartre knew is what hell is... 

  On 1/4/2017 at 3:07 AM, ignatius said:

 

  On 1/4/2017 at 2:33 AM, ladalaika said:

 

  On 1/4/2017 at 12:26 AM, ignatius said:

i'm making some electronic music right now.. not sure why though. think i'll go flush my studio down the toilet.

We're gonna need a bigger potty

 

finished flushing it all down their a while ago but it's making music on its own now.. just my gear down there and a bunch of shit.. once it's done with some tunes i'll let you know if they're better than mine.

Sounds like a load of crap to me ohohohohoho

  On 1/4/2017 at 5:37 AM, ladalaika said:

 

  On 1/4/2017 at 3:07 AM, ignatius said:

 

  On 1/4/2017 at 2:33 AM, ladalaika said:

 

  On 1/4/2017 at 12:26 AM, ignatius said:

i'm making some electronic music right now.. not sure why though. think i'll go flush my studio down the toilet.

We're gonna need a bigger potty

 

finished flushing it all down their a while ago but it's making music on its own now.. just my gear down there and a bunch of shit.. once it's done with some tunes i'll let you know if they're better than mine.

Sounds like a load of crap to me ohohohohoho

 

so, same as ever..  ;)

Deep interest and drive always comes before money in any creative field.  Creating feels good-- but people only pay you when you're good at it.  I used to fuck around and draw all day long throughout school, and I was 100% just having fun.  And now I'm creative director and running my own projects, and I have near-100% creative control of what I do.  I'm living the artist freedom dream, which took ages to get to, but I only get paid cuz I spent my whole life getting good by fucking around.  Music is the same.  It's about having fun; money, if it comes, is always later.

A friend in high school also wrote electronic music- we used to write similar electronica-esque choonage- and he also used to send demos to Warp, Astralwerks, Rephlex, etc. in the late 90's.  After years of keeping at it and sending demos out and meeting people, he finally got signed to a major label as a solo artist, as well as signing for two bands.  So now he's playing shows with his new band with fucking Cornelius and Towa Tei and shit, all because he kept at it and didn't listen to the bullshit notion that it's impossible to live off art.

I know many successful visual artists and musicians.  It's not easy (because you can't be a lazy piece of shit), but it's 100% possible.  A lot of underground folk be all like, "It's a rigged game, you gotta have the right connections, etc."-- well, then fucking stop being a hermit and go out and meet the right people.

I make music (electronic and all) as therapy. I've been writing my own music since I was a freshman in high school and didn't actually start letting anyone other than myself hear any of it till I was a senior - I was genuinely afraid of anybody, including my family, discovering that I made music for whatever reason. Ever since I started I've tried to at least work on a song or two every single day that I can (and not becoming organized about it till a few years, and thousands of audio files, later- creating an archival nightmare for future me). When I hear songs I made in high school it brings back the emotions, thoughts, dreams, and states of mind I felt when making them (now also for college since I'm entering my final semester). Through them I can revisit how I felt and relive memories I had forgotten - and, like others have mentioned in this thread, when writing music I can turn it into a meditative process. If I never make money from any of it (and I most likely won't) I won't be too bothered because I never intended to become famous through it. It was always about having something to provide some balance & easing to the mind and soul that I otherwise would have never been able to provide otherwise. If others can also enjoy my music that's just an added bonus and something I'm really grateful for, even if it doesn't bring home the bread and butter. 

I just read an article on Bloomberg about SoundCloud facing tough times competing with Spotify & Apple. It mostly talks about implications for the big labels & investors while hardly mentioning the little guys who actually make the music - the main image (attached) kinda says it all...

lol troll confirmed.

you are just here to prod our soundcloud angst

  On 1/1/2017 at 11:26 PM, Ralph Nolte said:

 

Hey everyone, greetings from Southern Africa and Happy 2017!

But enough with the pleasantries, let me get to the point...

 

Serious musicians, studio owners, established artists, bedroom producers, hobbyists, enthusiasts, freelancers, pro, amateur - whatever you call yourself, how do you see ANY kind of future creating electronic music for anything else than "for the love of it" going forward?

 

CDs are dead, digital (paid) downloads are dying, streaming is paying less than peanuts, vinyl is just a fad and "going on tour / playing live" is not a practical option for everyone. Maybe if you've been working in a field like TV, film or advertising you might make some money - but for everyone else, especially those starting out from scratch? What's the point - except to be able to say "I've made some tracks and they're available on the interwebs"...?

 

Let's assume you're fine with not actually earning anything from your work - what would be the rewards, the payoff for you? And how do you go about just establishing an appreciative audience for your music? I know this has been discussed previously here at WATMM and on other forums, but what still worked a couple of years ago might no longer be feasible right now. I know the mantras of putting your stuff on SoundCloud, Bandcamp, YouTube, etc. and working social media to grow your supposed fanbase - but in the end it seems only luck really determines if any significant number of people find (let alone "support") your music... I know, I know, there have always been struggling musicians who couldn't make a living with their art and still toiled in obscurity - but is this where we are basically still stuck in this day and age? Are the only people making money in music today those who run the music schools, produce DAW tutorials/courses, program plugins or presets, compile "sound packs", write/produce for mainstream mass-media, work for / are shareholders in one of the big labels or who specialize in copyright lawsuits - with actual creatives existing on the fringes of all this.

 

It's obviously the best of times to be a consumer of music - as you can get basically everything for free with just a bit of googling or youtubing. But even so, how is the current situation sustainable? People still enjoy the experience of music, but mostly won't pay for it. And many (possibly crazy) people still love creating music - maybe getting an upvote or nice comment here & there - but have no realistic hope of ever making a cent out of it all...

 

Thoughts?

 

*chucks computers out the window*

*reads a book on accounting*