Music producers can see a 10x improvement in their online presence (and their ability to attract fans) just by learning how to create engaging content and promoting their music using different frameworks such as social media, live streaming, and online collaborations.
But the real growth happens when you learn how to be unique.
Content differentiation is all about one thing and one thing only, and that's mastering the skill of saying what hasn't been said yet. On the surface, this might seem like a daunting task considering how much music content there is online, but we've come up with a fun exercise that immediately reveals just how easy content differentiation can be.
We call it...
"The Contrarian Challenge"
The Holy Grail for music producers is to learn how to create music that stands out from the rest. So, how do you do that?
A fun exercise we like doing with aspiring producers is asking them to think of all the things they might include in a typical tutorial on how to create a beat.
Here are the most popular answers:
Choose a tempo
Create a drum pattern
Add a bassline
Layer melodies
Apply effects
Mix and master
And so on.
When we do this exercise (say with 100 producers), what immediately starts to happen is that people's answers begin to overlap. 27 people all say, "Drum pattern." 24 people all say, "Bassline." 35 people all say, "Melodies." And so on.
As a result, everyone's beats "sound the same."
The idea here is for producers to realize that when they are doing "the same thing(s)" as everyone else, their music isn't actually differentiated. They might tweak the tempo. They might add a unique sample. But the core of what they're doing, their sound, is the same as everyone else's.
So, how do you fix this?
We call it "The Contrarian Challenge" because if everyone else is creating beats with the same elements, your job is to figure out how to create something DIFFERENT. For example, Emily Harpist makes content running her harp through crazy sounding pedals.
That's DIFFERENT.
Because that's not the same thing everyone else is doing.
The way you put The Contrarian Challenge into practice is to start by writing down all the elements most producers would include in their beats. Make a list. What are all the things you've heard people talk about? What's the conventional wisdom? What are the cliché elements? Write them all down.
Now, don't use anything on that list.
What ELSE could you include in your beat.
This is the secret to content differentiation for music producers.
What is the unique “sauce” only you can bring to the table?