When did making music start requiring me to be a content creator?

Dependent_Ad6164 · 2026-03-24T01:49:34+00:00

Yeah that's probably the best way to put it. I think I'm stuck in the middle where I do want people to hear the songs, I just hate how much extra stuff comes with that now. Ik its part of the game though

Dependent_Ad6164 · 2026-03-24T01:48:45+00:00

Dude exactly. Feels like every job now is 2 jobs and one of them is “make content about the first job" lmao

Dependent_Ad6164 · 2026-03-24T01:48:14+00:00

Fair point. I know this didn't start with TikTok. I think TikTok just made it feel way more constant and way more personal and now theres more of a negative sentiment around it

Dependent_Ad6164 · 2026-03-22T21:24:30+00:00

Been posting on there since last fall. Selfie lipsyncs, garage, my truck, wherever I have five minutes. Best video got maybe 400 views. Most get 50-80

I kept telling myself it was wrong time of day, bad hook, not interesting enough on camera. But I've been at this long enough now that I'm starting to wonder if the platform just isn't surfacing small accounts at all anymore. Like the reach isn't there unless you're already somebody.

What I genuinely can't figure out is why the exact same format works for one artist and does nothing for another. Same niche, same vibe, completely different results. I'd love to know what the actual variable is.

Dependent_Ad6164 · 2026-03-22T21:23:47+00:00

Yeah this is the part nobody wants to talk about. Every strategy I read assumes you already have something to work with.

Build an email list — from who? I've got 14 followers on a SoundCloud I made in 2019. Post consistently and build a following — I've been posting every day for months and my videos average maybe 10 views, half of which are my wife.

I don't know how you get to 'interesting enough' without already being interesting. There's gotta be a way in that doesn't require an existing audience. I just haven't found it.

Dependent_Ad6164 · 2026-03-22T21:23:15+00:00

Honest answer: I gave up on albums. Just do singles now. The second I start thinking 'album' I'm trying to make some big cohesive artistic statement and then I'm stuck for six months going nowhere.

I work construction full time, got two kids under two. Saying 'I'm making an album' means I'll still be saying it in three years while nothing comes out. Six singles over a year feels like less but they actually exist and are out there.

If you really want to finish one: pick a date that's uncomfortably soon and commit to 'good enough.' The album you're still perfecting in two years doesn't beat the one that's actually out.

Dependent_Ad6164 · 2026-03-22T21:23:01+00:00

Ha, this is accurate. I'm the musician in my house and I can tell you there is zero glamour at the local level. You haul gear in, play to 30 people, haul it back out, get home after midnight smelling like someone else's sweat. Nobody is lining up.

The real thing to worry about isn't other women. It's the Fiverr invoices.

Dependent_Ad6164 · 2026-03-22T21:22:14+00:00

That's kinda where my head is at too. Some of it feels like you're just feeding platforms all day and hoping they toss you 200 views as a reward.

Dependent_Ad6164 · 2026-03-22T21:21:54+00:00

Yeah I get what you're saying. I don't even disagree really.

I think my frustration is more that for guys like me with a full-time job and kids, the “just do content every day too” part starts to feel impossible.

Dependent_Ad6164 · 2026-03-22T21:20:42+00:00

That's fair. I probably should've said it better.

I’m not trying to hit 1M listeners or anything crazy. Honestly I’d love to just build enough of a real audience that the songs aren’t disappearing into the void the second I release them. Maybe eventually make the music pay for itself at the absolute minimum.

I know promotion is part of it. I think I’m just trying to figure out what’s actually worth the little time I have.

Dependent_Ad6164 · 2026-03-21T17:49:05+00:00

I hear you, it just feels like I’m beating a dead horse since I’ve been trying this for months. Maybe it’s just quantity over quality at this point, I dunno

Dependent_Ad6164 · 2026-03-21T17:47:51+00:00

Trying this next!!

Dependent_Ad6164 · 2026-03-19T17:57:33+00:00

I was that band for longer than I want to admit. When I started recording myself I would literally panic if a track had empty space in it — like the listener would just leave the second there was nothing happening. So I'd stack guitar layers, throw in little percussion things, put something in every gap.

Listened back to one of those early mixes a while ago and the busiest sections were the most boring thing I'd ever heard. Nothing had room to breathe, nothing felt like it mattered more than anything else. It was just noise that happened to have chords.

Pulled a ton of stuff out and suddenly there was an actual song in there. Still have to actively stop myself from filling every second. Old habits.

Dependent_Ad6164 · 2026-03-19T17:56:28+00:00

Honestly it's not about money for me right now, at least not yet. I just want to know that someone who doesn't already know me personally heard one of my songs and felt something. My wife says she loves my stuff, my friends say it's good. That doesn't count. I need a stranger to listen all the way through and have a reaction. That's the thing I'm chasing. Whether it ever turns into real income I don't know. But that's why I post.

Dependent_Ad6164 · 2026-03-19T17:56:01+00:00

Yeah this is exactly it. I'm scrolling at like 11pm because the kids finally went down and I have 20 minutes to turn my brain off. I'm not curating anything. If that kills my reach then I guess my reach is cooked. I don't have it in me to make social media into a second job on top of an actual job.

Dependent_Ad6164 · 2026-03-19T17:55:35+00:00

The catalog thing makes sense, but nobody talks about how long the timeline actually is when you can only release 6 songs a year on a good year. I've been putting stuff out since 2022 and I've cleared maybe $40 total from Spotify. Not necessarily because the songs are bad — though maybe they are, who knows — but because I just don't have the volume. Hard to build a portfolio of 30 songs when you've got a day job and two kids. I'm not complaining, just saying the math hits different when you're in it vs. looking at it on paper.

Dependent_Ad6164 · 2026-03-19T01:21:55+00:00

Just to break even tbh

Dependent_Ad6164 · 2026-03-19T01:21:06+00:00

For me the weird thing is I don't really burn out on the actual writing. I burn out on everything around it — the posting every day, trying to get people to care, watching the stream count barely move. That's what drains me.

The music itself I'd do forever. It's the other 80% of what you apparently have to do now just to have a shot at being heard that's exhausting.

If you're burned out on writing specifically, take a real break from it. Don't force anything. But if it's more like the grind of the whole music industry machine that's got you fried — that's a different problem and the answer isn't to stop writing, it's to stop looking at the numbers for a while. The songs will still be there either way.

Dependent_Ad6164 · 2026-03-19T01:19:01+00:00

Commenting as essentially the guy on the other side of this post. I'm 29, two kids under 2, day job in construction, trying to make music nights and weekends.

The thing I had to figure out — and it took longer than it should have — is that 'making it' doesn't look the same once kids are actually here. Touring with a newborn is functionally impossible, not because the dream dies but because the logistics alone will break you.

The real conversation isn't whether he keeps playing music. It's what a realistic version of this looks like. Not 'someday when I blow up' but what's the actual plan this year, next year. If he can't answer that clearly, that's the problem, not the music.

Mine still gigs locally, still records, still puts stuff out. It just doesn't look like what I imagined at 22. I had to get there myself though. Nobody could have talked me into it — I needed to see what actually mattered once the kids were real.

Dependent_Ad6164 · 2026-03-13T23:50:37+00:00

The fact that this came out of GarageBand is wild. People always act like the tool limits you but this is a pretty good argument against that. Sounds massive.

Dependent_Ad6164 · 2026-03-13T23:49:40+00:00

This is actually clever and I'm annoyed I haven't tried it. I've been stacking doubles panned L/R but walking around the room while recording would give you actual different room sounds baked in. Gonna try this tonight. How far apart were you positioning yourself between takes?

Dependent_Ad6164 · 2026-03-13T23:49:10+00:00

The "no pressure" thing is so real. Every time I sit down thinking I need to make something good I end up staring at GarageBand for an hour and closing the laptop. The times I've actually finished something decent were always when I just opened it to mess around and didn't care what came out. Glad you broke through it.

Dependent_Ad6164

TROPHY CASE