Musician Individuality

[Navron]

Alex, Glaze, etc. have the followers they do firstly because they're incredibly talented, but also because they were around at the beginning, where there weren't as many options for people to listen to. Not to mention it's been, what, a year and a half/two years since this site and most of the popular musicians started their careers in the fandom.

You must also look at the talent curve as a result of what effect time in the fandom has. Currently a lot of newer musicians are actually producing the same level of quality (sometimes higher) songs that most of the top musicians were putting out way earlier in the fandom. The big difference, is while you're improving, so our the top musicians.

What this does is create an exponential curve. The top musicians started off at a decently high level of talent, and have improved at a steady rate. The ones shortly thereafter started off at a slightly less level of talent, but have improved at a faster rate due to learning from the top musicians.

The large bulk of new musicians with the announcement of Balloon Party started off at a lower level of talent, so they need to improve at a faster rate to gain visibility.

Lastly, the newest musicians started off at the same level of talent as the above group, yet they have to improve at a much, much higher rate in order to gain visibility.

Best illustrated by a graph:
*Note, this graph is showing the concept, and is not meant to be an accurate representation.*



Based off the graph, it is expected that a few years down the line, every group that encompasses musicians from 2011-2012 will meet at a point, but that's only under the assumption that these groups can consistently improve at a faster than normal rate, which is unlikely to happen, save for a select few.

Long story short, the longer you've been in the brony music scene, the more likely you are to be known, and for the musicians starting today, it's very likely they will always be overshadowed by the other groups before them, unless they can improve at a higher rate.

Groups were based off the Top Brony Musicians list from the Brony Musician Directory: http://bronymusiciandirectory.blogspot. ... cians.html

[Goggles]

A lot of really good stuff.

I meant to imply this, I probably didn't do a great job of getting that across.

[cplbradley]

My music tends to end up sounding like the generic "bass music" everyone else seems to make, but I just make what I enjoy making and hope people like it as well.

[Ed Viper]

aggressive dubstep (my preferred neutral term for brostep)

Aggressive dubstep is called filth, bro.

Also, your higher view count on some videos (or soundcloud plays, whatever) might not be from more people listening to it, but rather from more replays.

More popular genres of music are popular for a reason (i.e. more people listen to it and re-listen to it). Your tracks that fit into the more popular genres are going to be replayed more than those that deviate from that.

Now, that's not true in all cases, but I feel it is true in most.

It's not that people aren't willing to try listening to new things, but rather that more popular stuff is replayed more often because, frankly, people are more familiar with it. The human ear is very trainable, and when it's trained to listen to and accept a certain type of music, it will prefer that over newer, less familiar things.

[topitmunkeydog]

Another thing is, instead of changing your music to please your audience, try changing your audience to suit your music. And this may mean not making pony music, because the majority of brony musicians produce dubstep. Post your music in places where your style is more appreciated and see if you can accumulate a following. My example is my favorite independent Youtube musician, The Royal Rey.His work is very similar to stuff like Sigur Ros so he translated the lyrics and did some covers of their songs. So when one searches something like "Sigur Ros English" his channel is one of the first results. Then people who enjoyed the video listen to more of his songs and discover his original music. Of course it is not as simple in your case, but perhaps making remixes or covers of some famous trance musicians would help. I guess the main point of what I am saying is don't compromise your art to please people.

[Freewave]

Being a non label musician is a big balancing act. It's a smart idea to have a style, IE following a particular genre, for you to build a fanbase for yourself and to generally get better in that genre, but then again that can always cause you to get emotionally bored with making music and with your fanbase getting mad the minute you break away from that. Being wildly diverse can also make people only like part of your material, not have a mental image of who you are, and never hit that subscribe button. If you don't make effort to get good images for your youtubes, don't mention your tracks around, or go for EQD's approval (and their pony requirements) you likely won't get the publicity to get your track noticed. If you only care about getting popular or spamming your track around no one is going to give you 5 min of their time cause you're in it for the wrong reasons and you're likely going to get frustrated really quickly. Likewise if you're adjusting your music to sound like how your friends want it you can be compromising what makes you you and become overly relaint on others, but if you're a lone gun and don't lean on others to check out wip's you may easily miss out on the feedback you need to fix mistakes that you could have cleared up before publishing or to help you when you're at an emotionally low spot.

It's all a matter of balance. "Get the balance right"~DM

[Omnomnomnom]

The sad truth is, there is no way in this point in time that you can make people like your music. What you can do, however, is to find different fans. Ones that aren't restricted to the mainstream, and ones that don't reject you for the music you love.
To quote myself, something I said recently:

I am almost completely sure that everybody here is referring to western music theory, i.e., nothing really ethnic or beyond the norms of today. With its narrow viewpoint, this creates the problem of defining "right" in music. Sure, in western theory, simple progressions, scales, time signatures, and the like, are considered right. But listen to music of other countries, time periods, and cultures, and you will realize that all of these so called "rules" in theory have been "broken". In some music, there is no time signature, no key signature, no concept of rhythm, and much more liberated pitch marking. And it would be interpreted as absolutely correct.

But this is only because there never were any rules to begin with. All of your thoughts about "theory" are actually incredulously restricted. The mainstream today only seeks a primitive, familiar sound, and western theory guides this. Actual WORLD music, and its own true music theory, 99% of which the mainstream ignores, does not. It has no rules, and demonstrates that expression is and has been the only thing that has ever existed in music.
Expand your tastes. Deviate from the mainstream, for it is blind to the music out of their grasp. In music, the only "correction" is the one you perceive. So stop caring about what everybody else thinks. They're blind sheep, walking the only path they can see. There is no right nor wrong; everybody who criticizes based on their narrow view of music is wrong, lesser, and deafened to the true definition of music, and you should not care for their biased opinion. In conclusion, write anything that pleases you.

Tl;dr (I believe it is said), everything you think you know about music, about what you think it means for it to "sound good", how you think it restricts you, and how you think music should be organized, is WRONG. So liberate yourself.

BE ORIGINAL.

In essence, you shouldn't care about what people think, if all they are is blind sheep. Perhaps you'll find people smart enough to tolerate non-mainstream music, and perhaps they will be your fans.

So please, do be yourself. Make music that makes you happy, that YOU love. It's YOUR music. Many people may not like it, and this is a sad truth, but good music often gets ignored because of the degenerate nature/habits of modern mainstream listeners. Despite this, I recommend you to write what you want, no matter what. Do not pursue music that doesn't satisfy you, or you will regret it.

[Patashu]

I have a good instructional video by Vihart on medium, message and audience:


Pro-watch

[Evine]

Let me tell you something Glaze, Tombstone and Replacer is extremely good at. Communicating Context. Think about that for a second -- Does your own viewers properly know what your song means? You know what it means obviously, so you don't have any natural 'mechanisms' to tell whenever your 'idea' is communicated easily.

Kyoga, ever wondered why "Behind You" is your most popular track? despite being far from your most normal and usual sounding track. Slender'mare' is a recognizable character and the dark ambient music reflects Slender'mare' character. Meanwhile most of your other tracks really just have a general theme, where the listener never relates to the music. If I where to judge your as "reflection of ideals", your not very successful, except for the slender track.

Despite the fact that your relatively good at your own genre, doesn't mean your music is good. And the mainstream judges every genre on the same level. Thinking your music is unpopular due to its genre is foolish and stupid.

Sacrifice individuality for what's popular nowadays, which is bass music in general.

My outreach within the brony community is completely accountable to the fact that I have not changed my taste or musical style to reflect the normality

I see these statements to be completely wrong. Meanwhile, yes if you where to change you style to something more EDM in style, you probably would gain subscribers, but you wouldn't be any better in music production. So it would only be those few that subscribe based on potential rather than those whom only subscribe to quality music. In the overall sense you'll want to appeal to those that like quality which is just about everyone.

What I'm saying applies just as to instrumental music as it does vocal music. Or rather every piece of information you present should reflect your intended message. You must consider how listener react to your music, you'll want them to react and search for meaning in your art. "reflection of ideals" You want them to understand your statement. Don't make pretty sounds make reactions. Instill your message, even if you use horrible sounds



On the subject of only making music for yourself. I feel the point is a bit moot, because if the music is only for yourself, wouldn't the idea of a song be good enough to satisfy yourself, i know personally i have tons of projects left undone only because i don't care whether someone will like it. But i would agree that you should trust your own senses when you judge your own music, no-one is here to tell me they wouldn't like a song about twilight having bed time with spike. that's my decision and i feel the statement should be defined as such.

Now I'll admit i have no idea how anyone like repetitive house music. (think Archie) And a lot of people obviously like this house music, whenever i feel it has no right to be popular or not. So there is obviously some aspects of music i don't understand but others do. But if you're crafting a story this post should bring you some value. Communicate Context, Reflect Ideals, Trust Your Senses.

[CommandSpry]

Alex, Glaze, etc. have the followers they do firstly because they're incredibly talented, but also because they were around at the beginning, where there weren't as many options for people to listen to. Not to mention it's been, what, a year and a half/two years since this site and most of the popular musicians started their careers in the fandom.

You must also look at the talent curve as a result of what effect time in the fandom has. Currently a lot of newer musicians are actually producing the same level of quality (sometimes higher) songs that most of the top musicians were putting out way earlier in the fandom. The big difference, is while you're improving, so our the top musicians.

What this does is create an exponential curve. The top musicians started off at a decently high level of talent, and have improved at a steady rate. The ones shortly thereafter started off at a slightly less level of talent, but have improved at a faster rate due to learning from the top musicians.


The large bulk of new musicians with the announcement of Balloon Party started off at a lower level of talent, so they need to improve at a faster rate to gain visibility.

Lastly, the newest musicians started off at the same level of talent as the above group, yet they have to improve at a much, much higher rate in order to gain visibility.

Best illustrated by a graph:
*Note, this graph is showing the concept, and is not meant to be an accurate representation.*



Based off the graph, it is expected that a few years down the line, every group that encompasses musicians from 2011-2012 will meet at a point, but that's only under the assumption that these groups can consistently improve at a faster than normal rate, which is unlikely to happen, save for a select few.

Long story short, the longer you've been in the brony music scene, the more likely you are to be known, and for the musicians starting today, it's very likely they will always be overshadowed by the other groups before them, unless they can improve at a higher rate.

Groups were based off the Top Brony Musicians list from the Brony Musician Directory: http://bronymusiciandirectory.blogspot. ... cians.html

The Chart is flawed, because it assumes that the top three musicians in sub count also have the most talent, against which I can definitely argue, implying that the right time played a huge factor in their success, especially comparing their level of music to some of the guys posted in the Unicorn section, or even Pegasi.

[Freewave]

Well it's flawed in that it simplifies how people are doing to the classes of horses and ignores the people who've been here AS long but don't the same talent or success. I'm not doing awful but I'm on a much smaller rise and there's people out there that are still blank flanks and have been doing it as long as i have but haven't found any success. If it looks like a simplification that's because it is but it's also a good indicator of how starting now vs a year prior is a huge hurdle.

Keep in mind that every musican out there who has Tombstone linked on youtube under their recommended artists automatically recommends him when people subscribe to them. If people don't want to perpetuate the status of people who don't need the help (alicons, unicorns) then they should start recommending people who could use the help and are their friends. Their peers, not their idols.

[Captain Ironhelm]

(don't take this personally, I'm not targeting anybody)
I'm getting tired of the bemoaning of other people's success. Back before everything I bet a track with a simple guitar strum and rewritten lyrics for "Danny Boy" would get a feature simply because it's the only thing there. And then everybody would remember your name. great.

Because the bar has been raised doesn't mean you're doomed for failure. Do what you love, do what you can, and come what be. There's only so much you can do by yourself. People will follow and share with their friends if they love it, and that's something you can't control.

[Freewave]

I agree and i think EQD's music of the day has restored a bit more of a chance FOR people to get on their now, so if people got dismayed in the months before give it another try now. Certainly don't sit around and mope for crissakes.