I recently received a few general questions regarding music and the music industry.

In this episode of The New Music Industry Podcast, I field four questions that came through my email, and offer my own perspective on the subject matter.

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Podcast Highlights:

00:14 – Listener questions

00:31 – What makes someone a great musician?

02:03 – How can you evoke an emotional response with your singing?

03:37 – What is a music or record producer?

04:43 – What does “networking” mean?

06:04 – Send your questions in

Transcription:

Thanks for joining me. A few of you recently sent some questions through email so I thought I would take this opportunity to answer them. Feel free to send over other questions to [email protected]. It’s d-a-w-c-a-s-t dot com. I’ll be happy to answer them for you if I’m able.

The first question I had is…

What makes someone a great musician?

What makes someone a great musician is highly subjective and often depends on the person being asked. Some might say a great musician is someone who is talented, but even the definition of talent has become elusive and less clear as our attention is dominated by Top 40 music. I know a lot of people that would hear someone on the radio and go, “Wow! They are so talented!” But technically they may not be doing anything impressive. The songwriting may not be inspired in any way.

Some say a great musician is someone who’s original. Someone who can put their own spin on a topic or lyrical idea. Or someone who’s musical ideas are outside the box. Whether it’s a great songwriter like Elvis Costello, or somebody who is always a little bit ahead of the times like David Bowie, some people would point at these types of musicians as being great.

And still, some might say a great musician is someone who’s gained a lot of experience through the years. Someone who’s played on a lot of tours and recorded a lot of albums. Think of Bruce Springsteen for example.

As I was mentioning earlier, a lot of people would say that a great musician is just someone who they enjoy listening to, whether it’s Justin Bieber or Taylor Swift.

Now, ultimately, it’s hard to say what a great musician is. I think I already pointed out the fact that it’s pretty subjective, but I think a few things are clear. One, you must be making and publishing music to be great. Two, you must continually work on your music and strive to improve. Three, you must play to your strengths and identify what’s unique about you and look for ways to emphasize that through your music.

I was also asked:

How can you evoke an emotional response with your singing?

I would suggest starting by developing your vocal ability. You don’t need to be the best vocalist in the world to evoke emotion, but you can’t be a slouch either. So, if you aren’t much of a singer yet, you should probably start there.

Working with a vocal coach could help you find your voice faster and improve as a singer. Then, you’ll either need to write or pick a song that naturally moves people. Writing is obviously the harder alternative here. The song itself should be about a feeling or an experience that many people can easily relate to whether it’s love, heartache, new life, tragedy or something else.

The subject matter is really important, because people will only latch onto what they can relate to. This isn’t to suggest that people can’t find beauty in a song that doesn’t make total sense to them. But usually it’s something about the melody, or the hook, or the chord progression that brings out an emotional response in that situation.

When you go to sing the song, it needs to come from your heart. The better you can relate to the emotion of the song, the better able you will be to deliver it with feeling. That’s really the trick here. You need to deliver with feeling.

If you want to evoke emotion with your singing, deliver the song with feeling.Click To Tweet

Now,