Congratulations on your successful completion of our Certificate in Music Production! We trust you have learned some invaluable lessons and tools to help you on your journey to becoming a successful Music Producer!
To outline our 5 step ‘Roadmap for Success’ as described by Producer Joel Dowling;
1) Start Practising!
‘The long cuts end up being the short cuts!’
Nothing can replace the simplicity of hard work. Practise for producers is the bulk of that work. Take what you’ve learned in this course and begin to practise it, ideally on a daily basis. This will help the information become part of your habitual workflow and methodology as you refine your skills. Go back over the course work as needed, replay videos and don’t be afraid to reach out with questions you may have. Our professional music producer instructor team is also available by appointment (charges may apply) for special one-on-one sessions with you to further progress your skills and help guide your work as you grow. Alongside we also recommend collaborating with other artists and producers as much as possible. You will learn further practical tips and tricks as others also learn from you whilst building music together. And you never know where those songs may end up!
2) Organise the right gear/equipment
Do your research and decide on a budget. It may not mean you are working on the very best equipment to begin with but that’s ok! Hardly any producers start out using the very best gear. It is a process of learning and acquiring that will see your gear and equipment increase in quantity and quality over time. Starting out however, it’s important you at least have the basics that you need in order to capture and create. Again – refer to earlier parts of the course (for example Unit 3 – Recording Equipment) to revise ideas on what you may need according to what style of music you are/will be working on.
3) Make a strict practise/work routine
Once you’ve started practising and you have the gear you need for now, get tough on yourself and make a strict schedule of practise and work. Remember – everything that has value requires some level of sacrifice and/or effort. No one gets to experience the grand rewards without putting in the elbow grease and music production is no different. The commitment you make and fulfill towards your practise/work routine will directly affect your success as a Music Producer. So get smart, get strategic and make a plan to succeed by putting aside time throughout your week as much as you can. We want to see you succeed, we want to hear your music! What are you waiting for?
4) Complete your first project
Whether you are working with someone else trading your time or just on your own – get your first project completed! Sure – in years to come you may look back and think to yourself ‘but I can do so much better now!’ – and that would be completely normal! But it’s no reason not to get it done! It doesn’t need to be the very best production in the world, it just needs to be YOUR best! Another tip here is to realise that every song can be improved upon endlessly. One of the keys you will need to learn is that whilst tweaking and improving your song is super important to increase the quality of the sound, it shouldn’t mean that you spend needless hours of improvement over and above its eventual completion. A healthy timeline for now would be to complete a song (if working full time) somewhere between 3 days and 3 weeks. If you are spending much more time than this on your track, it could be that you are focussing on the ‘1%’ details rather than just putting out the ‘99%’ completed track.
This isn’t something we can objectively set a rule on as a ‘too much’ or ‘too little’ as much as it is a skill you will need to learn ie. how to sit back from your project and ask yourself, ‘do these tweaks really make a difference to my song? Will anyone else notice the tweaks I’m working on right now? Or will most people still enjoy the song as it was a few days ago?’
If the answer is generally ‘yes’ to that last question and ‘no’ to the first two, then chances are that you need to tick off that song and move on to the next. The main thing to remember is that there is always the next song. Don’t let one song be a hangup for you in your momentum or it can hold you back from what could be your actual best!
5) Commit to a 12 month set of goals
Simply put – this is a way of keeping you on track. If you write down on paper exactly what it is you wish to achieve in 12 months, this will help you navigate towards that goal as you make many hundreds or thousands of decisions throughout the next year. Let your goal be the lens through which you see and determine what choices you make to get there. This may affect which artists you say ‘yes’ to working with, what kind of value you place on your time, which songs to work on, which gear to purchase etc.
Furthermore your 12 month goal will give you enormous amounts of energy and drive! This is direct fuel to power your efforts towards success. So be specific in your goals that you write down. Then put your goals on a wall in your bedroom or fridge – maybe even take a photo and post it on our facebook page to get others inspired to do the same! The more active you are in writing down your goals and being accountable to them, the greater the chances of you achieving them.
‘Aim for the moon and even if you only get halfway, you’ve still passed the stratosphere!’ – Josh Needham
____
In closing, thank you for choosing this course and being a part of our College! We feel privileged to be able to provide aspiring artists and producers the opportunity to learn industry-based skills learning online and hearing about your success means the world to us. As does connecting you with other like-minded aspiring and passionate creative people in your field.
To help us do what we do and to help us continue to support like-minded creatives in the community, please take 5 mins to leave a review of this course on our Facebook page and let us know what has really stood out to you during this course and how this has helped you!
https://www.facebook.com/talent.college.fb/reviews/?ref=page_internal
We look forward to hearing the music that you produce!
Sincerely –
Josh Needham
Founder (Talent College)