FREE Mini-Course: Album Alchemy

This weekend, we are already one quarter through 2024...

How much music have you made so far?

If your answer is less than:

"What I'd hoped for at the start of the year, Mike!"

...here's a treat for you.

Over this week, I'll post a 5 lesson mini-course on how to get your music on track.

Because I’ve finally found the final piece of the puzzle I’ve been piecing together since 2012:

How to finish quality music in a daily life which isn’t “full-time music”

And it's NOT too late to make 2024 a killer year for your music.

[You might guess I'm doing this because the next Make an Album With Mike group starts this Thursday.

You'd be right. :)

But this email course is not going to be a bunch of hype about the program.

Instead, I will explain step-by-step how to make much more progress on your music without giving up your daily life.

Because then, if you decide the time isn't right for you to make an album with me, you'll still know how to make an album yourself or complete any music project you choose.

Even when you have life commitments that don't support your music.]

The mini-course is called:

Album Alchemy:
How to finish more quality music in 3 months than you usually do in 1 year

Of course, you might not want to make an album...

I get that.

This leads me to the 1st lesson:

Lesson 1: Define a clear project with an achievable but challenging deadline.

Last week, I coached one of my A-list clients.

He aims to release a top-notch single every 2 weeks for the rest of 2024.
But he came into the session stressed and overwhelmed.
He'd made little music since our previous session.

He has 13 tracks in his Music Machine, which are 80% done.

But finishing them is a struggle because his business, family, gigs, and life pull him away from the studio.

So, I suggested he view this collection of tracks as an album project with a deadline.

This has nothing to do with his release strategy.
He's going to release the tracks as singles over a year.|
This is a CREATIVE PROCESS strategy...

Because an album is a project that a musician's brain can immediately understand.

This clarity focuses your mind.
It destroys procrastination.
And creates motivation to get it done.

He left the session excited, energised and with a clear plan of action to complete 13 tracks.

This plan required much less time than when he'd tried to finish them separately.

What's more, thinking of a "collection of tracks" as an album has multiple other benefits:

Making albums takes the pressure off every track needing to be a "hit."

Putting "hit" pressure on every track you make creates incentives to play it safe and boring (at best) or the conditions to get stuck (at worst).

On an album, not everything needs to be a hit.

You want ups and downs.

If you have to make everything a stone-cold banger, you're not incentivised to experiment, play or have fun.

So albums create the conditions for you to best at your creative best.

You create a cohesive body of work.

What will get you further?

A bunch of singles that are all over the place...
Or a succession of cohesive tracks that are uniquely you?

You get a more consistent, distinctive sound when you think of your music in album projects.

You can release the music either way.

I suppose you could assemble several singles and call them an album. But following on from the previous point, if you make your music as an album, it's way more likely to work as an album!

So if you decide you want to, you can release the album.

This doesn't mean you MUST release these tracks as an album.

I'm not.
I will release my albums as 1, 2 or 3-track EPs.
Eventually, I'll probably release them as an album, too!

So, by making your tracks as albums, you're giving yourself more options for your release strategy.

It's practically (and psychologically) easier.

I've tried both.

"I'm going to finish 40 tracks this year."
‍VS
"I'm going to finish 4 albums this year."

...and the latter is easier.

40 tracks and 4 albums are the same amount of music.
But finishing 40 tracks one by one is a constant grind.

Whereas finishing 4 big projects allows for the ebb and flow of life:

You start a new project excited...
Settle into a rhythm as you get into it...
Take your foot off the accelerator at the start of the last 3rd...
Get ready for the big push in the final weeks to the deadline.

So now you're probably thinking:

"4 albums in 1 year? Doable?
How TF is it doable without spewing a bunch of crap music or destroying my daily life?"

First of all, DO NOT start with 4 albums:

Just focus on ONE single project of 10 - 12 songs.
Set an achievable but challenging deadline (e.g. 3 months is a good start!)

Because if you're anything like me, you struggle to keep your music as much of a priority in your daily life as it is in your heart.

But if YOU don't take your music seriously, how are others ever going to?

So let's put the horse (a challenging goal) before the cart (the results of attempting to hit the goal.)

Attempting to make a quality album (or 10 to 12 tracks) in 3 months is how your music will finally be taken seriously by:

Your friends...
Your family...
Other artists...
AND YOURSELF!

So set the goal; even if you're unsure you can hit it.

Then, in tomorrow's lesson, I'll explain how making a quality album (or an album's worth of music) is doable, even if you have little time to make music.

Onwards & upwards,

Mike

"Most people have no idea what they're truly capable of."

‍

P.S. This is lesson 1 of a mini-course called:

Album Alchemy:

How to finish more quality music in 3 months than you usually do in 1 year. Here's all the lessons:

Lesson 1...
Lesson 2...
Lesson 3...‍
Lesson 4...‍
Lesson 5...

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