Justin,
While I am speaking metaphorically of the people who are making inroads into Nashville (this is a new blog post I am doing) it could apply to you. Although I don't really consider Nashville your market. I think you are more in the Texas market and are going to rise and fall based upon Texas rules, there are things that do apply to you. Your first three years have mostly been finding out that even though you thought you had a handle on writing you were actually far behind where you thought, even behind many people younger than you and more ingrained in the market place. You avoided buying LOT of worthless equipment, which is usually one of the biggest mistakes people make in doing this. They are often led to think that a computer, software, mixing boards, effects, microphones, nice guitars and instruments, all will do all the work for them and they really don't have to worry about "talent." Most find that with each successive piece of equipment they get it never gets any better.
One of the reasons all that stuff ends up at yard sales and pawn shops is that people never get past the learning curve and find out they are even farther behind the "TALENT CURVE. " So the equipment soon gets discarded and then all but given away, after serving time as a clothes rack. You also have put less time and faith into the contest route. While Ott and others find that as part of their pathway and that is fine for them, most people desire more and want to actually "hear" their songs "out there." And that is what leads to the "hollow" elements I spoke of that Ott takes issue with. He still wants to hear his songs "out there", and contests, for all their bells and whistles, never really can do that.
So you have been able to avoid most of the pitfalls that get most people. And that is partially what is responsible for such a high attrition rate. One thing that you realize very soon at this is that everything you want to do costs money. If you are trying to learn an instrument, it costs to get that instrument. It costs for lessons or being able to meet and interact with people to learn from. It takes money for conferences or workshops. Once you start getting a feel for what is involved in recording (usually after all that equipment has been purchased and discarded) you find out the different levels of recording. Most people will pay for pretty inexpensive recording, only to find that the higher level they try to get it, the higher the requirements for the recording level.
People start finding out about "pitch services" only to find out that things have to be "radio ready" and they realize, usually far too late that what they have doesn't measure up. They make trips to a music center, thinking what they have is going to blow people away only to find dispassionate people who listen are unimpressed and then only tell them that THEY could make it all sound RIGHT, only if you use THEIR STUDIO. Many people will then go that route, only finding out that even at a higher recording level, the songs they had to begin with are substandard. WE call that "freelance defication dusting. "Polishing a turd." Still a turd.
It usually takes three plus years to get close enough to people who will be friends and tell them their songs are substandard. And that those friends also have THEIR OWN music they are more interested in. For the first few years, people are not going to invest a lot of time in someone until they get to know them. Non-performers are behind the curve because they don't perform and therefore, don't do the same things the performers have to do.
So it takes those first few years just to get "accepted." But being accepted is not being "embraced." So that next three years are about "earning your stripes." And you are hoping that friends of yours work their way up the ladders so that they might be in a position to help you.
That is the THIRD three year period. Artist you have known for a while start inching their way into the ladder. Most of them have "artist amnesia" and forget you very quickly. The songs you wrote with them are jettisend for the newest things they have or in the publishing/record company they are working with. There is the unending "holds" that come around. And then songs that are recorded but then dropped off the record. There are the getting cuts but because they don't have a major deal, they get very minimum radio exposure. There is the unavoidable "artist having a deal and everything laid out in front of them, suddenly being dropped because they said something stupid online or in an interview and the label drops them. Or the label closes or runs out of money. That incredible "investment group" ends up going to jail and you actually find out you were part of a money laundering or drug ring. Or the rich guy who funded the label got bored of getting nothing after five years and bails out on funding.
The higher the level you go, the more disappointments are usually there because there are so many people involved. The bar gets higher. And your own acceptance of what you do gets higher. The circles you run with get tighter. And EVERYTHING is at the whim of someone else's ego.
This is again, what weeds most people out. Most people run out of patience and money long before that. It is rarely the "creative stuff" as it is the "behind the scenes" elements. The rampant egos, behavioral problems, dealing with one train wreck after another, will mostly take a toll on everyone at one place or another. There is a reason they have a term called "THE STARVING ARTIST." And why you find the really successful people, pretty humble, and sometimes shell shocked that they are even still involved. Most will tell you that if they had to do it over they probably wouldn't have done it that way.
So yeah Justin, you are a "Third Year Freshman." Only about nine more years to go till you get up to the top of the class. This is the easy part.
MAB
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