Top 10 Tips for Becoming a Successful Music Producer

Grammy Award-winning British songwriter and music producer Eliot Kennedy has worked with many successful artists like Aretha Franklin, Mary J Blige, Spice Girls and Celine Dion.  He has had a lot of success in his music career e.g. he worked closely with Simon Cowell as the X Factor’s creative director, has had a number one hit, currently working on a Broadway musical, and is now sharing his …top 10 tips for becoming a music producer below.

1) Watch and learn

Absorb as much information as you possibly can.  Find a way to be in a recording studio and watch what happens.  Experience the psychology of dealing with artists and the practicalitiesof getting a performance from someone

2) Be good and kind and appreciate others

If you would like to be successful in the music industry, a long line of people need to believe in you .  No one gets there on their own and it doesn’t happen overnight

3)  Try to get an honest performance

If an artists in not behaving well often due to insecurity or a defense mechanism, it’s your job to get them to relax

4) Use your lyrics to tell a story

The more your write songs, the more your broaden your vocabulary and the poet inside you.  Read as much different kinds of literature as you can to broaden your knowledge so you can better tell a story

5) Create the right environment

Your most important job as a producer is creating an environment in which people want to create and express themselves and that isn’t always easy to do.  Try to be a good person, the best that you can be, to help performers feel more comfortable dropping their barrier so they can give an honest performance.

6) Be prepared to work hard and sleep less

You always have to be prepared to work hard 100% of the time.  You must submerge yourself into your work and craft and learn how to swim.

7) Be prepared to make sacrifices

If you want a career in music it is all consuming.  It’s not just something you do, it’s something you are.

8) Have ambition

It’s good to have ambition and keep challenging yourself so you can achieve your goals. Eliot had an ambition to have a number one by the time he was 25, and achieved that goal when “Everything Changes”, a song by Take That, went to number 1.

9) Learn to play an instrument and see the best in people

It’s good to have a working understanding of different instruments because it means you can get a better performance from the instrument and the person playing it.  Also, try to only expect good things, and when they do happen, celebrate them.

10) Maintain a sense of wonder

Maintain a sense of wonder of music to see just how powerful it is.  When music goes out there into the world, it doesn’t belong to you anymore as a songwriter, it belongs to whoever hears it and becomes part of the soundtrack to their lives.  Music transcends race and age and everything else, it’s a truly universal language.

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