Spread too thin

As an indie artist, you get pulled in so many different directions that it sometimes feels like a complicated, 4D game of whack-a-mole.

Writing, producing, gigging, collaborating, networking, practicing, keeping up with new techniques and tech… and that’s before you get to what can often feel like the biggest bit—actively promoting all the stuff you’re creating.

This summer I’ve definitely been feeling stretched. For one thing, I have two young children and a full-time day job in financial publishing (yes, sadly music ain’t paying any bills quite yet).

July through to the end of September, I take part in an online songwriting challenge called 50/90 (50 songs in 90 days—spoiler: I didn’t make it). If you’re a songwriter, I heartily recommend checking it out, along with its big brother, February Album Writing Month (FAWM). It’s a great opportunity to connect and collaborate with likeminded musicians from around the world, and I always go into it hoping that it’ll generate a couple of songs that can be polished and released as singles in the subsequent months. For example, Judy was written as part of this year’s FAWM, and I’ve got a couple of 50/90 tracks (titled The Answer and Little Bird) which I’ve earmarked as future releases.

Then there’s the regular schedule I’ve set for releasing singles on a roughly two-month cycle. I just about managed to hit that with my last single, Never Had A Love Like This Before, but the next target release date is looking a little dicey 😬.

With each single comes an associated mountain of admin—promoting to blogs, playlists, radio and social. I’m particularly bad on the latter. I see so many artists doing cool things on Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, Youtube… but honestly, how do you guys get anything else done?

And then there’s the gigging. Earlier in the summer I signed up to do a live show in central London at the end of September (last Sunday in fact). The gig itself went great, I managed to pressgang enough friends and family into coming along, I felt ok about my performance (despite a bit of a cold), BUT… I massively underestimated the time and energy needed to promote and rehearse.

Ultimately, I’ve come away feeling like I spread myself too thin. I’m not sure I did any of the above particularly well, because I attempted to do all of it at the same time.

I guess, like so much in life, it’s a case of priorities. And I think, for me, it’ll be the live shows that’ll take a back seat, certainly for the foreseeable future. They’re so much fun to do, but the accompanying logistics and stress just felt a bit all-consuming.

I’d love to hear from fellow indie folk about your experiences of this kind of thing. Do you have a different set of priorities? And why? Hit me up on the site or via socials (links below).

(Photo credit: Amy Shamblen, Unsplash)