Challenges in the music industry

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Music started off as a hobby. I started off with rap way back in my secondary school days. I remember writing two to four lines of rhymes at the back of my school notes. From two to four lines it gradually grew to 16 bars. As I continued to advance I saw myself composing a complete song. As this time, I began to come to the realization that music was what I meant to do.

I remember recording my first song in the year 2018.

Image is mine

As at that time, recording a quality average song wasn't all that expensive. It was quite affordable and I got what I wanted. Three years later I did another single and I was charged double the amount I used in recording the first one.

This time the song was recorded at a totally different location so I thought this was what contributed to the differences in cost. About last year I went to the last place I had recorded a song and the producer told me an amount that was more than 3x the amount he charged me for the last time. Which brings me to one of the challenges that is being faced in the music industry.

The cost of music production is quite exorbitant and it's really unfavorable especially for up and coming artists. I thought about the possibility of setting up a studio instead and producing music by one's self and then I came across a reel on Facebook by a music producer I follow online where he scorned artists who claim that producers charge excessively high for the producing music and began to break down the things involved in music production.
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When he mentioned the price alone for getting a microphone my heart melted for a minute. He then went on to talk about the subscription for plugins that they make regularly. By the time he was done breaking down everything I just dismissed the idea completely. Maybe later in the future it can be considered.

As much as music production cost is on the high side, sadly that's not where it ends. A song with a high cost of production may not even get anywhere without proper promotion. This is another big challenge faced with when trying to thrive in the music industry.

Most songs that we hear playing on speakers when we walk down the streets or come across on TikTok, Instagram, and Facebook reels or on radio channels were able to get to the listeners not just because they sound great, as a matter of fact, some of them are quite terrible if I'm honest, but due to the effectiveness of the promotion carried out on the song.

Paying for production to yield positive results it's not really easy. As much as music production can help boost the awareness of a song, it can also fail to yield the desired results of the artist, which ends up in a huge loss of money. One of the most ways which can help artists bypass all these challenges is by getting into a record label. And achieving this can also be a challenge.

Getting into an influential label these days may require connections most times which is not easy to come by. And even when you succeed into getting into a record label there can be some drama involved in it. We hear of instances where there arose misunderstanding between the manager and the artists which led to one problem or the other.

To be honest, making in the music industry comes with so many challenges. Even when you do make it there are still a lot of things you are likely to face like critics, the ability to maintain the fan base and trying to live up to there expectations among many others. But I guess what really makes it worth it are these challenges ones face because if it came easy then it disputes the quote that say "good things don't come easy."

This is my entry on the #februaryinleo day 24! Feel free to participate, you can check out the original post by @leogrowth right here

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