Monday, July 18, 2016

7 Things I Learned from Vlogging Every Day for a Month

I was really hesitant to start vlogging because I'm a little camera shy and was doubtful that I had any useful stuff to show people. I'm still a bit doubtful but it's definitely been interesting and also informative but I've learned quite a bit about myself, my business and what I care about in music along the way. So here's the top things I've discovered in the past month of daily vlogging...


  1. You tell the story you want to tell of your life. There are so many way to interpret the things that happen in your life and the way you interpret them is what comes across on camera when you have a platform to inform your audience of your experience. That's where your outlook on life comes through.
  2. Even people with the most interesting jobs tend to repeat a lot of the same things and fall into some sort of routine. That said I do enjoy my routine for the most part and think it's rather interesting compared to sitting in a cubicle all day. #perspective
  3. The life of modern musicians is completely not scalable and exhaustion ensues. Sure I kind of knew this already but watching myself crash and burn on camera after working my butt off hustling from gig to gig really nailed it in. It just goes to prove that the modern music industry isn't really sustainable and the next business model is way past due. Not that anybody seems to have a clue what that will be/actually cares about the musician's cut....
  4. Technology doesn't need to be an obstacle to getting out content. I literally used my phone's camera and iMovie to get this done and I think I was able to get to the bottom of everything I showed my audience (as small as that audience may have been). Sure my vlog was super low-tech but it didn't hinder me from sharing what I wanted to share. So no excuses, share your content now!
  5. By living your life and then repeating it by watching it you learn a lot about the kind of impressions you give off to others. How nice are you? How interested are you in what you're doing? When you go about your day you probably don't think about how you come off to your peers but when you watch yourself interacting with the camera and other people you realize what kind of person you are and what your peers probably think of you.
  6. Coming up with creative content is hard! Especially when you're really busy working on other projects. I've learned that unless I set more time aside for vlogging and coming up with ideas to talk about the vlog gets dull and repetitive. I'm not sure I'm cut out for investing this kind of time commitment in the vlog but I'm figuring it out as I go along.
  7. I'm working towards a goal and I'm not sure what path will get me where I want to go but it's worth giving things a shot. Even if vlogging was a failure (which I don't think it was) it has helped me learn a lot and learning can only help you succeed in the future. I'm really happy that I put myself out there on the line and I think the content I shared was very real. I hope other people can see what it's like being a musician these days and what that means (non-stop hustle, non scalable existence). At the very least I think this vlog really highlights that: a no frills reality-check/window into the life of working musicians in 2016.