Music Studies: Be the Artist

At the Wisseloord Academy, attention is also paid to the artist. How do you market yourself well? How do you want to profile yourself and how do you put on a good live show?

The music

First of all, the music. Before you start releasing, it must be clear what you want to release. Sounds logical, but many aspiring artists make the mistake of just releasing something without a follow-up plan. Actually, you have to look at least 3 singles ahead. What style will it be, and will it match? What is a good release strategy, which is the first single?

Don’t release too early, if you haven’t figured out what your ‘musical DNA’ is yet, it’s better to wait a little longer and keep writing. The world will wait.

Your brand

In addition to the music, you or the band are ‘the brand’ of your music. Nowadays you as a personality, especially on social media, count very much in the factor of your success. So be present on Instagram, Facebook, Tiktok etc. Make sure you regularly post relevant content. Try different things and see how your audience reacts. If you know what works well, develop it further and take advantage of it.

Also think about your appearance in combination with the music you want to release. If you release very ‘sweet’ and ‘vulnerable’ songs, you can adjust your image accordingly; think of clothing style, the texts you post on social media, the color scheme you use on your website, the filters you throw over your photos. As it were, you must create your own corporate identity. Ideally, people will recognize your branding before they actually see it’s from your page.

Live show

The live show is very important to attract an audience. After all, once you’ve had several (successful) releases and got your fans, they’ll probably come and watch a live show of yours. A live show is a completely different experience for a fan than listening to a tight production on a streaming platform. If the live show is not interesting, tight, and exciting, the fan may even drop out because of the disappointment.

With the live show there are several aspects that you need to think about:

– Live band or tape act?

– Set list, order of the songs

– Light and for example pyrotechnics

– Merchandise

To read more about Music Studies and how to improve the process of developing, creating and refining recorded music visit our knowledge base page about Music Studies Education.