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Introduction: Ampers&d; Mixing Fastlane and Fame

What additional things should I do during the summer?

  • Launch a blog; get some momentum on a website

    Votes: 1 25.0%
  • Teach beginner guitar lessons; learn about my target audience

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Launch a YouTube channel; post video versions of blog posts

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Launch a YouTube channel; post cover videos of difficult songs

    Votes: 1 25.0%
  • Use social media; develop following based on busking

    Votes: 2 50.0%

  • Total voters
    4

AMPerS&d

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Mar 21, 2014
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Hey all,

This is Dan; I'm from the Capital region in Ottawa, Canada. I read "Millionaire Fastlane" a couple of weeks ago, and I began lining up the ideas as a means to become popular and famous. I'm an expert in acoustic guitar, and I've become proficient in singing. My 'forte' is songwriting, so I reasonably believe that I have what it takes to not only become self-sufficient, but thrive in the music world, by creating professional albums and touring with a large following.

I want to reach this goal independant of a record label; it's my belief that they would only constrain, take all my cash, and control my image and destiny. So though doing it independently may sound daunting, it'll likely come down to the quality of my output (talent and skill, created by hard work) and breadth and depth of relationships, with systems in place to make cash very easily.

Here's what I will do this summer; this is non-negotiable:

1) Work full-time; yeah, I know, it's "slowlane" and lame and stuff, but I'm not in the position to refuse this one. At least, the job is face-to-face direct sales, which is why I'm very excited about it. This is probably the best way to get experience, since sales is the number one skill to acquire;

2) Busk in the market of my city; learn to develop flow, learn complete songs, learn how to entertain, get hundreds of hours of practice, develop relationships, and earn some extra cash;

3) Practice both guitar and vocals as much as possible; this is "behind-the-scenes" type of playing, where I learn more complicated stuff, and learn deliberately (see: deliberate practice);

4) Consume as many books/audiobooks related to: business, sales, the music industry, music performance, audio production and general self-improvement as possible. This would be pretty easy to do during the dreaded morning commute;

Though the busking and practicing sound silly, I want to be considered a boda-fide expert in my area of music, so practicing until I reach some comfortable level of mastery is a must. Mastery is leverage, and its Entry is much much lower than a beginner guitar, or someone who simply "loves music".

Now, here are things that I COULD do, where I'd like your opinion;

1) Launch a blog and write on the topic of developping your skills as a musician;
2) Teach beginner guitar lessons and learn the common sticking points which cause my students to become discouraged; create a program that tackles those directly;
3) Launch a YouTube channel to post videos similar to the blogs from Idea #1;
4) Use that same YouTube channel and post covers;
5) Use social media to develop a following;

Right now, I'm in university, and at this very moment, I'm in an exam period, so I may not post for a number of days. I simply wanted to put my intentions out there and get some expert opinions on my approach.

Cheers!
 
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FionaS

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Heya, Dan!

Welcome to the Fastlane forum, hope you enjoy it here.

Looks like you have some really big goals, how are you going to differentiate yourself from all the other people trying to make it in music? There are many musicians, bloggers, Youtubers, music teachers - many of whom are very, very good.

I encourage you to start a progress thread and keep us updated, I'd like to see your progress! I play violin but my brother is very good at guitar, I'm always looking for new products and such to show him.
 

AMPerS&d

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Heya, Dan!

Welcome to the Fastlane forum, hope you enjoy it here.

Looks like you have some really big goals, how are you going to differentiate yourself from all the other people trying to make it in music? There are many musicians, bloggers, Youtubers, music teachers - many of whom are very, very good.

I encourage you to start a progress thread and keep us updated, I'd like to see your progress! I play violin but my brother is very good at guitar, I'm always looking for new products and such to show him.

Thanks Fiona!

What I first have in mind for differenciating myself from other musicians or teachers is to firstly be able to play songs that others cannot. Right now, I'm learning and getting closer to mastering "Gameshow Rag/Cannonball Rag" and "Luttrell", very difficult songs. Once I've learned really hard songs and put them up, I think people will take my words more seriously.
Here's one of the songs:
 

AMPerS&d

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Alright, so 4 months have gone by, and I'm going to reinstate myself back into this forum.

Let's do a point-by-point review of what I've managed to do these past 4 months:

1)Work full-time; I worked that sales job for 5 weeks, and then I had enough and called it quits. I immediately approached my second job and told them I had full availability. I now work 25-30 hours per week, where I was pulling 45-50 hours in April-May. I could say a lot about the sales company (for example, that it's a joke of a company that can't figure out how to pay their employees 2 months later), but I'll hold my tongue ;)

I'm MUCH happier doing things like this;

2) Busking has been a GRAND SLAM; on those days where I busk, I get 3 hours of SOLID practice, make dozens of dollars (often 50-70$), which help me out as a student. I've had nights where I've made 120$+ in a little over an hour, playing outside of my cities' Bluesfest.

The next step is to upgrade my gear, from a little 2 Watt battery Amp, to something like 50 Watts. I've been called the best singer and best guitarist in my busking circle, and I'm constantly told that I need to upgrade my gear so that 100-200$+ evenings are completely within my reach. I actually met a traveling busker who routinely pulls 1,000$ days from working 3-4 hours a day. So there's no limit on this, plus it's so much fun!

3) I've been pretty consistent with both; at least it appears like it; I've improved so drastically in my singing. On the other hand, progress can appear grueling and slow if I become too myopic. But that inner struggle will always exist, and the goal is to have a very functional ability.

4) Not much to say about this, but I always read and re-read books that will advance me.

As the per the business; I've launched a side business with a blog and a future video product that I've completely recorded, edited, and rendered. I'm still encoding the files to a smaller size (i.e., from 13.9 GB, to roughly 1 GB), then I can figure out a digital fulfillment program (probably FastSpring), then create a page, and blogs to promote it.

There's still a lot of work to do. The initial goal is to get to 3,000-5,000$ per month in mostly passive income, so I'm able to create a demo and tour indefinitely without ever dipping into a loss; that involves helpings out a lot of "would-be musicians", like teaching guitar, song writing, and then conquering certain areas of musician money-making tips (ex: busking), and then creating products to help others get ahead.
 
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jon.a

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I voted for five because I would like to see/hear how it works.
It reminded me of food trucks and underground restaurants that market via tweeter in some cities.
 

Lakeview

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I also voted for #5 because I think there is a lot of upside to creating a following.

For example: I always thought a talented songwriter that made his services available for us common untalented people could benefit in providing us a "special song" for that special someone or occasion. I bet people would be willing to pay handsomely for a custom song or video you would produce for their situation. Considering what people pay for wedding flowers, a song would be with them for all their married years and hopefully for life.
 

AMPerS&d

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Thanks everybody for the suggestions; I've actually given the idea of custom songs a go about a year ago for a short while, but I hadn't the patience or business know-how to make it work, so I gave up after what was probably a week. I could probably crank out those bad-boys, and I've seen someone whose made their music very profitable as a career being able to sell original custom songs at 1,800 - 3,000$ per song! And, no offense, he writes pretty terrible songs.

He's also broken into the motivational speaking mixed in with playing original songs at corporate gigs, which pay very well as well.

How should I go about creating a following? Does this take me back to high-quality and well-executed YouTube videos? Because people have to like me enough to follow me (as opposed to buying a product).
 
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