My Dearest Tortured Composer,

Gather round, for I must speak of a tragedy.

There is one mistake, dear composer, that has kept more musicians buried in obscurity than any lack of talent ever could.

Upwards of 90 percent of the composers I have spoken with are committing it at this very moment.

It could be the lone obstacle standing between them and any progress whatsoever with their music.

And most shall carry it to the grave, like a locket with the picture of a former lover, never once suspecting its existence.

Allow me to share this grave error with a story. My own.

I was in college, laboring away in a dead end indie rock band.

I wanted desperately to be a musician.

I believed, with the whole of my foolish heart, that the band would work out.

It would not.

So I did what any enterprising young musician would do.

I found another partner and founded a new band, while the old band's corpse slowly rotted beside us.

We committed ourselves to releasing an original album on the winter solstice of that year.

Something entirely new. Experimental. Electronic.

And when I announced this intention to the old band, they mocked me.

Yet lo and behold, we finished the thing. And we released it unto the world.

Now, I must confess something to you about this album.

It was mixed HORRIFICALLY.

It sounded dreadful. The musical ideas were, for the most part, awful.

I posted it on Facebook anyway.

And then, something most peculiar occurred.

A gentleman who ran shows in my city, whom I had met but once in my old band days, reached out from the ether.

"We have a spot to fill in a few weeks. A Thursday night. Do you want it?"

Understand, dear reader: this was a hobby.

A side project.

We had NO intention of ever performing live, and we were utterly, catastrophically unprepared.

We said yes anyway.

We came up with some “rag tag” way to perform the music live.

There were cables, so many cables… a regular Frankenstein set up of gear that was not supposed to work together.

We summoned every friend we had ever made.

Some 80 souls appeared that night.

The venue was delighted, for we had dragged 80 people through their door who were not even music fans.

And so they gave us an opening slot for a bigger act.

Meanwhile, somewhere in that crowd stood a man who knew a man.

A booker of shows. A manager of bands. He went to the next show, and began booking us shows of our own.

We ended up going on some tours and having a jolly good time.

Then a few years later, one perfectly ordinary Tuesday, the telephone rang.

We had done no outreach. We had attempted nothing.

"Can you open for this band?"

It was a room of 1,200 people. The largest crowd we had ever faced was perhaps 100. That single night opened us up to festivals, new tours, new opportunities.

Later still, I committed an act of minor scandal.

This music blog had their official submission channels. We skipped all of it and just DM'd one of their writers on Twitter. A guy with maybe 100 followers. "Hey, thought you might like this."

He posted it.

Twenty minutes later, a world famous celebrity retweeted it.

My phone ERUPTED!

And I started getting texts. People that would not talk to me in the music scene were suddenly like, "oh hey, what's up." Super warm and open. Like they all of a sudden respected me.

It was so stupid. It was so weird.

But that one opportunity opened the door for all these shows.

Because randomly, everyone decided we were legit.

We got posted on the big blog. A celebrity retweeted us.

Overnight, we were anointed.

A horrific mix. Mediocre songs. No strategy. No tactics. Not one shred of a plan.

And so we arrive at the mistake I promised you.

Most composers treat composing as though it were a NURSING degree.

Consider how nursing operates.

One attends school. One obtains the degree. One passes the examinations and secures the position.

Nearly every nurse alive earns within spitting distance of the average nurse's salary, and even the highest paid nurse in the land earns scarcely more than the lowest.

The path is a straight line. Effort in, result out. A vending machine of sorts.

For most careers under heaven, this is how the world works.

And so the composer runs the same play. Takes the courses.

Polishes the portfolio. Submits to the official channels. Attempts a few things.

And when nothing happens?

He concludes that he must not be good enough.

And he falls silent. For years. Sometimes forever.

But composing has NEVER worked like nursing. There is no straight line. There is no ladder. There never was.

It is a snowball. You place yourself out in the world, again and again. You position yourself to be discovered. You share your work and you swear nothing is happening, and indeed, 99 percent of it does very little.

And then one day, without warning, somebody who saw you comes calling.

I have since conversed with musicians at every station of this industry. A brass player for one of the biggest hip hop artists alive. The mix engineer for one of the largest Christian bands on God's green earth. A composer who has written for DreamWorks.

Every single story bears the same strange shape. Some version of "and then this random connection reached back out."

Not one of them climbed a ladder.

But every last one of them did the same three things.

They put themselves out there.

They told the people in their lives what they were truly doing.

And they SHARED their work. Before it felt ready. Before the mix was right. Before anyone asked.

You cannot plan luck. You can only be out in the open when it swings by.

And NOTHING, dear composer, has ever snowballed from a hard drive.

So permit me one question, and I beg of you an honest answer:

What does musical success look like to YOU?

Hit reply and tell me. I read every single one.

And remember...

The world waits for your music...

Luke