How about you? I ask this question because the why of it all is important. I think it’s important to be who we really are. We’re not going to kid anyone if we assume the wrong role while we’re on this planet. I think that in the case of recording artists… we’re going to stand out even more than most when things are mismatched… we do our work on the world’s stage and there’s nowhere to hide.

Singer‐Songwriters have to know who they are. Johnny Cash could not have gotten on stage at Folsom Prison and sang to those inmates if he didn’t honestly feel a kinship with them. Taylor Swift obviously loves her young fans enough to help them articulate meaningful words that they would like to be able to say, but can’t yet. She validates her fan’s feelings through her remarkable songs. Johnny did the same thing. Johnny Cash was, and Taylor Swift is transparent, at ease and delighted to be singing. I dig that.

The juice of this whole star business magically switches on when fans love you and you love them back just as much. The power of this reciprocal relationship transcends any artistic limitations too. Quality of voice, depth of musicianship and perfection mean little when stars and their fans unite. All that really matters is the connection, and the rest is as natural as an evening stroll.

So back to you… why do you want to be a star? This is a tough field we’ve chosen. Writing songs that stand up to the competition is hard. Singing beautifully night after night is hard. Keeping a band together is hard. Why do we do this? It’s personal for all of us and I’m really looking forward to seeing your replies on our blog. I do know this much… the friends, clients and prospective clients of Artist Development Network are a devoted and serious group. I’ve been here for a year and a half now and I’ve enjoyed every single minute of my time co‐writing beautiful music and getting to know many of you well. I am energized by your motivation and you keep me young. I feel your musical desires and make it a point to help you co‐write the most original music possible. Our whole songwriting team feels the same way. Cathy Lemmon has that same force about her as well. She’s been steering the ship here for 16 years in Nashville. Our dream is to help you with your dreams. We love our work. And there’s that reciprocal‐relationship thing popping up again ☺

I’m not a big Nascar guy. I’ve watched a few (yawn) and made some observations that relate to the music business. In particular, I’ve witnessed the smallest mechanical part take down a million dollar racing car. The same thing can happen in the arts. A single, unforeseen disaster can trigger a series of events that can pull an artist of his or her path permanently. It’s a bad day when this happens. The genetically hard wired singer/songwriter does not have a personality or temperament that will be well suited for a stock and standard 40 hour per week job. So let’s examine the things I consider to be the most important for keeping your singing career on track:

1) Relationships
I could write a book on this particular subject. In the interest of time, I’ll keep this one short. Healthy, give and take relationships require time, attention, commitment. Generally speaking, artist types tend to be what non-artistic types label as selfish. It’s true. If you take a poll of all your artistic friends; you’re going to find that they have quite a history of being labeled as “selfish” by their mates. Is this true? Probably, but mostly because their mates don’t understand artists. Our first love was probably music. It will always be our first love and our mates can’t change or compete with that. So the thing about relationships is: try to avoid the wrong ones with people who don’t understand your artistic personality. Don’t confuse horny with love.

Avoid relationships with serious commitments as long as you can. When you find that person that you really can’t live without… that’s the Come To Jesus Moment where you’re going to have to really assess this person and how compatible he/she is with your artist personality. Guess what score this potential mate needs to score in the compatibility department? 50%? 60%? Personally speaking, I’d say they’d better score 99‐100%. If they’re not completely comfortable with your career and personality type, you’re putting yourself on a path of pure agony. Music will win. The relationship will fail and you’ll be dealing with the fallout, which will lead to depression and take you further away from your music.

2) Nutrition‐Drugs‐Addictions
This one is going to sting a bit. When you were 16, you could’ve eaten at Taco Bell seven days a week and looked great. Flat out, straight up, this will not be the case in your mid 20s, 30s and beyond when you really need to look great in front of a camera. Pretty people become stars. And even if you’re not drop dead gorgeous or on the mainstream star path, you still have to look as good as you can. Looks start within. Junk in junk out. We’re just like cars in that respect. If you put sugar in your gas tank your car will run like crap. If you constantly fuel yourself on Grand Slam breakfasts you will wind up old before your time. Read. Learn. Consult nutritional experts, not Jenny Craig. Jenny sells food. Nutritional experts aren’t selling anything but life skills and knowledge. Big difference.

I think it’s pretty much common knowledge that alcohol and tobacco will make it that much harder to maintain good health. You can’t smoke and expect to sing beautifully, breath efficiently and have the high range you’ll need to deliver most pop songs. You can’t drink and expect your body to deliver the hydration needed for healthy vocal cords. This is all common sense stuff. Life is demanding enough anyway. Why increase the probability of failure with bad foods, alcohol, drugs, energy drinks, cigarettes, pot, spice, pulse, weight loss supplements or any other addiction, legal or not? This is not rocket science, folks. If you’re sleepy, don’t drink coffee… take a freekin’ nap. Exercise is one of the greatest natural drugs ever. Partake in that one with a clean conscience. That’s the real deal, and it will improve your sex life dramatically. Hmm… Tough choice.

3) Professional Improvement
Never, ever stop learning. You might be a kick‐ass singer with a 3 octave range, but you won’t keep that range unless you exercise that voice and check in with a respected vocal coach every once in a while. This is hard to explain in a short paper, but singing is all about muscles. Muscles, as we’re learning, have their own memory. If we begin to develop bad habits in singing, it will take a LOT of time and effort to re‐teach the muscles how to do things right again. You will not be able to cruise on auto pilot if you’re trying to break bad habits. And when you have to start nitpicking the details of your creative process, you will lose something. You can get over this in time, but you can’t be 100% creative and monitoring your actions. That means you can’t be a great singer if you’re “thinking” about singing. You have to be able to sing as easily as you breathe. So the moral of this lesson is: regular checkups in the
voice department will keep bad habits away.

4) Debt
As of this writing, 2010, credit is hard to obtain. If you’re not already in debt, it will be easy to stay debt free for a year or two. But this will not always be the case. Years ago, department stores, home improvement companies and big business figured out that the real profit in business is in the sale of MONEY. They can sell you things for almost no profit if they’re making 20% on that revolving charge card. Learn to live within your means and without the credit cards and high interest rates. If that means postponing that new car or a living room furniture set purchase, by all means… postpone it until you have the cash. Owing money to credit companies means you’ll make decisions about your career and your art based on having to pay these companies back. Not good. Don’t go there. Stay debt free…100% debt free. Rent, food, utilities, gasoline, those will be hard enough to tackle. Don’t pile on any more.

5) Routines
Exercising, practicing, songwriting, rehearsing have to be done. If you’re reading this you are hopeful singer or singer/songwriter. All of the above tasks have to be done and you might just as well set aside time right now to insure that they happen, every day, every week. This is your passion, right? Treat your passion with the ultimate respect… put it on the calendar and make certain you do what you need to do to make your dreams come true.

Contact David Harper at musicbydavid@gmail.com

 My musical friends… this is where we need to head back to if our real desire is to make music. I’d love to be able to honestly tell you that the machinery of the corporate music industry could make mega star careers for all of you. I know better. That will only happen for a select few. There are simply too many musicians, singers and talented folks all clamoring for their shot at the big time. But think for a second… is this the only option on your dream? Does it begin and end with making a great demo, shopping it to the labels and then calling it quits when you don’t get a big recording contract? I sure hope not. Besides, you might not fit the usual superstar mold. If you still want to sing… I believe you have an audience out there.

Today, we need to forge our own careers. We need to think small, mobile, and no further than the next couple of house concerts. You’ve heard of house concerts, right? With facebook, Youtube and Myspace, your fans can be geared up for house concerts on a moment’s notice. Find your die‐hard fans in the next city; simply ping them and let them know you’re coming to town. Put them in charge of making sure friends come to see and hear you play in their family rooms or back yards. It works. People come WITH MONEY! This is especially true in the smaller towns.

So how do you make this happen for you? I would say you need great songs to begin with.  Artist Development Network can help you with co‐writing and recording if you want a professional touch. Then you need to learn to play and sing those songs on a single guitar. This is not difficult if the songs are great in the first place. Next, you’ll have to make some fans. Go to the social networks. It helps to have some great photography and great demos up too.

Again, A.D.N. can help you there as well. Next, you just announce that you’re coming to town and you want to do a house concert. I would work outward in a radius, branching further and further from home over time. And for those of you that don’t have relationships and commitments…put your stuff in storage and tool around the United States for a few years doing this. You will have a huge fan base if you stay with it. All you need to do is make enough money to get to the next gig. Not too hard. You’ll get fed at the houses where you play. Your fans will probably be eager to let you spend the night too. You get to meet people. You get to listen to your fans tell you stories, you get to be a full time performing artist. Praise the Lord. Can I get an Amen? Pass the peas. 

At first when I started wondering if a person in their 30s, 40s or 50s could do this, I was taken back by the idea. Since then it’s really grown on me. Why not? I don’t think you’ll be any worse off if you take a few years off and go for it. If you’ve got kids you’ll need to limit this work, of course. But if you’re free, really free… why not go for it!

I talk with artists all day long who really want a career in music. They don’t necessarily want to be rich; they just want to make a living doing their music. House concerts are a realistic way of doing this. You don’t need a band. You don’t need anything but great songs, some CDs, a car, a portable laptop, a guitar (or keyboard) your sweet voice and a cell phone. 

Artist Development Network can be a big help in getting your singing career together quickly. Come to Nashville and co‐write some amazing songs. We’ll get you recorded just right and give you the tools you’ll need to start this ball rolling. From that point on, it’s up to you and your adoring fans. I’m betting you can do this. ☺

Here’s a little ditty… about Jack and Diane. What a great song. What’s the message of the Jack & Diane story? I think it goes way deeper than just small town football stars and their girlfriends. Scratch and dig deeper; it’s a multi-layer lyric. It’s also a story about self-made obstacles. We’ve all seen these mini series play out in our hometowns. Take a snapshot in time and someone owns the world; then fast forward two years later and they’re not even on the radar. The usual culprit is an abrupt change of direction. Enter drama.

I’ve seen the routine over and over. The promising star or starlet gets the industry machinery going, camps get set up, big plans get made, label deals get inked and lots of money gets spent. And then, out of nowhere, the next big thing pulls the plug. Sometimes they don’t even know they’ve pulled it and it’s over. Doesn’t matter though. The end result is the same.

I have a lifelong relationship with a very talented guitarist friend. She’s not only a brilliant player, but an excellent singer/songwriter as well. I’ve watched her systematically destruct label deals and almost everything good in her life for over two decades now. I’ve been in many bands with this talented woman. They all implode in short order. Once the perfect combination of excellent players is found, we’ll have a brief moment where everything’s coming up roses. Then, like clockwork, she’ll begin to have huge mood swings, her personal life will begin to fall apart, she’ll get short and disrespectful with her band members, and then one-by-one, the supporting talent bails. Ultimately, the labels and the agents get nervous and her phone stops ringing. She will then go through a period of depression, usually a couple years. She might even move hundreds of miles away. Then, one day, like the sunrise, she reappears and the cycle begins a new. Unfortunately for her, she’s now in a position where her looks are slipping, she’s tired and too old to really set the world on fire. This routine has been going on since she was a kid.

What’s the deal? Is this chance? I don’t think so. Maybe once or twice might make it chance. This is a simple case of destructive behavior (the symptom) coupled with insecurity (the real problem). Yeah. I bet if we could get a little sodium pentathol in her (the truth drug) we’d get to the bottom of things. I honestly think she’s scared of success. She’s scared of competing. Real competition seems to be the great leveler. I don’t care how big you are in your small town, things will be different out in the real world. You won’t be the one and only and the focus of everybody’s attention on the world’s stage. All your little insecurities are going to come back to haunt you if you’re lucky enough to make it that far.

There’s always something about ourselves that we don’t particularly like. It might be our nose, our vibrato, bingo arms (that flappy part of the upper arm skin that is all too noticeable when someone stands up and yells BINGO!) or our butts or even the sound of our own voice. Whatever it is, it becomes the focus, our obsession, and given the right set of circumstances (the prospect of real fame), these obsessions can become overpowering. We develop temporary OCD and focus on things that don’t matter while ignoring all of our positive attributes. Then when it’s all too much to handle, we’ll set fire to our careers so we’ll have a good story down the road as to how and why we’re a victim of circumstance. Oh the drama.

Victim? Yeah…we’re the victims of our own self-made dramatic circumstance all right. Cathy Lemmon recently pinged her email list letting everybody know that we have a reality show in the works at Artist Development Network. She asked for real-life stories from people. And you wouldn’t believe how many amazing stories we’ve received or the depths of despair people have plunged into. This is all good stuff for reality television, and we can use these stories! But let me assure you… you’ll need to get past all of it if you really want to do something with your own musical career.

No drama boys & girls. That’s got to be the rule when it comes to the stage. The old saying the show must go on is the main rule the pros live by. Drama might keep people glued to a reality show, but when it comes time to perform on stage there had better be no excuses. And believe me, as the ringleader of your own career, you’ll need to have emotional headroom and compassion to help those in your crew through their own nightmares. Disasters happen. You have to be available to help key band members and personnel through difficult times. Straight up: the last person that can afford the luxury of chronic self-made drama is the star of the show.

Contact David Harper at:

musicbydavid@gmail.com

It seems today’s music programming for FM radio is entirely different. All it takes is a day or two of careful listening to see that the simple objective of radio programming is: don’t touch that dial. Corporate-based radio doesn’t really want anything all that great or over the top. This explains, by the way, precisely why alternative isn’t alternative anymore, and, why “Sounds like…” syndrome rules the airwaves.

Most of us are not privy to what goes on behind the scenes of big corporate entities. But it would seem that they hold tight to tradition, as do their counterparts: the recording companies. Artists complain and gripe about how things ought to change. But do nothing. Why? Well, for those of you who are regular churchgoers, you can get a first hand view of imbedded tradition every Sunday, and how brutal a fight you’re in for if you’d like to shake up the status quo. You won’t have to go far to hear stuff like “that’s the way we’ve always done it” or “that’s our tradition, and we’re stickin’ with it.” Oh, yes, the semi-comatose pastor is probably preaching out to a sea of blue hair from the pulpit. The board of directors probably has an average age of 55+. The church is, no doubt, in a huge decline. The kids don’t want to come anymore and there are fewer young families every year. This church will be up for lease in the future. It’s only a matter of…time.

Seems like the bigger the entity, the slower the change. Thankfully, we live in a capitalist democracy (sort of) where the ultimate acid test is the bottom line. Radio stations, churches, magazines, newspapers and the like are all experiencing the financial reprimands of boring the crap out of people for years now. A few embrace change and actually survive. But most do not and will not, and I am beginning to see, first hand, exactly how well the expression “Real change happens one funeral at a time” applies in today’s world.

As artists, we have a responsibility to feed others and ourselves. It’s about money and art. The line separating the two can be a little fuzzy and in constant motion. But the difference between a number five hit on the top 40 charts and a number one hit is usually originality. The number one hit most often employs ideas that are unique, fresh and new.

Now, I would never suggest to you that you go the starving artist route and recreate the wheel. I would, however, strongly advise you to learn the rules, and then break them often. When you can do this successfully, you really have the makings of a music career. Getting above the media smog and the noise requires a lot more than a pretty face and a nice song. You’ve got to have a #1 attitude and something unique to back it up. This means doing it in a fresh new way with conviction and enough momentum to bulldoze straight through the traditionalists.

Those that can pull this off will thrive. I don’t know what the magic formula is for you, but there has to be a bit of tradition and a bit of new. Introduce new ideas gradually. Taking your time and testing ideas out in front of live audiences along the way is the realist’s key to success. You don’t want to spend an entire year writing left field songs and rehearsing a band only to find out a year later that your audience won’t embrace it. You want to pepper new ideas in the familiar landscape and keep adding to it until you either cross the line successfully, or drop off the edge. If the worst happens and you find yourself free falling, it was only a performance or two and you can backtrack to where you know the line is. Also, along the way, you’ll build a reputation as a very creative person. Artists that are known to be genuinely creative can cross lines without too much damage to their careers.

And once you’ve come up with something that is truly unique, you’ll find a lot more cars in the parking lots where you play. Everybody is hungry for something that is traditional and unique and fresh.

Go forth with gusto, dear young’ns.

Contact David Harper at:

musicbydavid@gmail.com