If you want to make music II.

What methods are there to earn money? In order to earn money, you need to go through most of the developmental processes listed in my previous article! It used to be that you could sell dew-weak music, but that is no longer the case. Competition is fierce, and technically the final product has to sound good! If that's the case, you've already made a huge step forward!

The big question is, who do you want to sell your music to? If you are into the style of hit songs from abroad, you will have a very difficult time because it will be hard to get royalties for your music. So the first step is to build a system! If you are one of the many, you have to go into mass production, you have to mass produce an untold amount of music. Yes, you read that right: produce. To make a name for yourself, one way is to push out so much music, so many remixes, that people remember your name. Unfortunately that's not enough, you have to promote yourself on all the forums. YouTube is not enough, you also have to put yourself on other video sharing, music sharing sites. You need to make a bulky pack available on torrent sites, You need to get fans on Facebook, you need to post constantly. These side processes alone require a dedicated person. So this method requires an enormous amount of energy, I recommend you don't do it alone!

The other option is to target your style to a narrower audience. With less music, you produce better quality songs and hope that someone will discover you.

Experience has shown that most of the electronic dance music sub-genres are unsuitable for making a living from your work in this country. Hence, it's more worthwhile to direct your releases abroad. You can achieve small successes but don't expect too much money!

Your work will pay off better if you communicate really well in English. Without that, I don't see much point in going abroad. But if you're good, you can get extra work.

In the Hungarian area, you can't make a living writing electronic music alone at the moment. You also need to play in clubs, spread the word and reach many people with your music. For the latter, you also need marketing in the person of a person who prints the songs. Be it a DJ, a marketing buddy, anyone who can contribute to the progress. It makes a big difference not to be dismissive of anything! I've been approached countless times to do music for megastars, factions, but I've always said no. I said that the talent shows have contributed greatly to ruining Hungarian musical opportunities, thank you, I would not take part in that. And that was partly true. But I didn't think that this change was also beneficial for the music industry in many ways. It would have been for me too. I was indoctrinated, I was wearing blinders, I wasn't looking at the positive opportunities, I was looking at the negative. Don't make that mistake yourself! Just because something is negative for you at first, you can still make something good out of it, but only if you leave the opportunity to yourself. There are so many bitter pill swallowed musicians in Hungary today, it's unbelievable. Someone is crying because EDM is a load of rubbish, it's worth nothing, yet it's on the radio. From their point of view it's an understandable problem. I don't like popular music either. However, this expression of opinion is based more on taste than professionalism. It should be borne in mind that people who want to make music and who want to create something will start with music that is easier to copy, and it will certainly not be jazz. So there is a process that cannot be changed and, frankly, should not be changed.

If you're such a crybaby, please think about whether this will make you feel better. Even if you're right, it won't make it better. As a matter of fact, I have a heartache too. There is too much foreign music on the radio, even though a considerable amount of Hungarian music deserves a place in this country. It has to be said, but in such cases I do not think it is the artist's fault.

Coming back to the basic theme, obviously it's not worth raping yourself just to have a job, but it's worth thinking about whether you're rejecting or accepting the opportunity that life brings you. What you have to understand is that there is no embarrassment for a musician if they feel they can bring something special to the job without damaging their ego. Don't dismiss the possibilities, but be gently naive, be alert!

In Hungary, there are currently 6 popular music genres that have a larger space. One of them is precisely the entertainment genre. It has a market that far outstrips all foreign music. In the countryside you can probably make a living out of it, if you keep on playing the gig. If you want to make a royalty from it, this field can still bring in some money, but you have to be very good.

The other area is rap, but that mainly attracts young people and you won't hear much rap music in the country discos, or really on the radio stations. However, this is the stratum that spreads your music almost by word of mouth.

The third area is Dj. Szatmári, Peat Jr. And Fernando, Dred line, which has a modern musical basis and the songs are typically about love for young people. It takes less time investment to make the songs known, but the balloon bursts quickly, so you have to keep working on new songs, in high gear, because they expire quickly.

The fourth area is the pile of foreign knock-offs. These are mainly songs promoted by DJs and the listeners are in the 25-40 age group. Ideal in terms of exposure, but you have to work for further success.

The fifth set is the type of music with some mixes, but mostly pop songs with light or heavy themes. From a royalty point of view, these are the most profitable, but even here you can't avoid going to gigs for haknik. It's lucrative, but you need luck to get into a tight circle alongside the talent scouts.

Sixth is rock. The latter is almost the only way to make a living, either through gigs or if all the members are at the top of their game. The more people working in a band, the greater the margin for error. It only takes one link figure and it can demoralize the others. On the other hand, if everything clicks, the marketing tasks are shared.

I have no insight into other styles of music. As you can see, making a living from music takes a lot of work. Jobs on the periphery of music can be reached on a fading out basis. If you want to be a sound engineer, you have to walk the donkey's ladder. First you'll be a Road, i.e. a cable puller, a rack rack hauler. Then you move on. For other types of sound engineering work, there's radio and TV. Getting into these jobs takes luck, but it's not impossible. A lot of TV channels have been created from scratch recently. So there is still a recruitment market, but don't look too hard for job ads! You might be better off asking a channel yourself if they have any hiring. It is common practice in such places to hire from outside, so you have to work as a contractor.

Money makes money. If you have money and talent, you can achieve much more than starting from scratch. It pains me to say it, but money opens doors. If you have money, VIVA will play, if you have money, Class FM will play, provided you peddle the right style of music. A lot of times, it's all about connections. If you make contacts in the industry, they can help you. Some do it for no money, some for money. At least you know who you can really count on. On the other hand, you have to accept the basic fact that pop music is not just an art, it's an industry, and you can bring art into it, but it's basically a product. Thinking about it like that, if popular music is an industry, we are talking about business, not mutual aid. Some people might disagree with me on that.

Rural radio stations are largely flat-rate, while Class FM pays for specific plays. The question arises, how do you get a song into radio stations so that they play your song? It's easier to get into rural radio stations precisely because they don't pay royalties per song to Artisjus. But even they have a selection system. Once in a while they will play unknown music, but basically they work from an audio library where the songs are copyrighted and have an ISRC code. In the absence of the latter, pay-per-play channels will not even talk to you. There is also a constantly updated list of recommended tracks, to which many radio channels are aligned. If you're not on the list, you're less likely to have as many channels as possible pushing your music. It's not a conspiracy theory based list, it's simply a way of making the music editor's job easier, so that they don't have to search for fresh tracks, they get suggestions for new songs in advance. Precisely in order to get your song on as many radio stations as possible, a radio tour should be organised, where your song will be played in an interview. This is usually easy for the stations to do, and it is not an impractical process to arrange.

If you don't have the right people to organise the side stuff, you have to get them! Again, this requires networking capital. Most managers in Hungary only play it safe. In other words, they manage people who have come from talent scouts, because this is where the publicity and fame value is guaranteed. There is no need to spend money on this. There is another layer that promises to deliver but fails to deliver. And the managers who think in terms of investment and long-term returns have almost completely died out. This is because independence is the guiding principle in today's system. The artist is afraid to sign a contract because he fears the manager is an opportunist, and the manager fears the artist is an opportunist. If he invests his money in the wrong person, he could lose out. On the other hand, someone who has enough money to start a band or orchestra is likely to find a better investment. So the only option is to make yourself known, and then you can decide whether you want a known manager to keep your bandwagon going, or whether you want to continue self-managing.

With all this in mind, it is perhaps understandable why you shouldn't start your career alone, and why it is hard to get going. My short and pithy advice is to work for it, but to do it by spinning like a bus wheel and exploiting all your potential!

2016