what's up guys it's Tom welcome back to the lab welcome back to another video
welcome back to my life today I want to come at you guys with some information
that I have gleaned from years of experience being a remote session
drummer specifically but also a remote producer remote mix engineer basically
just a remote musician I have been doing this for five years now full-time I've
been doing it for longer than that part-time I have been at this for a
while I want to share with you some of the things that I have learned that have
allowed me to succeed in this format because I think that in 2020 with social
distancing with quarantine with isolating ourselves the opportunity and
the necessity for remote work and the remote making of music is higher than
ever I really think that there's plenty of opportunity in the marketplace
and in the field for tons of people to be doing this and tons of people to be
doing it really well and I'm really excited to see that there are a lot of
people that I know who have long been there like tried and true have to be in
the same room style people transitioning into working more remotely pretty
effortlessly so I think that the opportunity is really there I think that
there is plenty of space for everybody and I want to share what I have learned
through my experience doing this that I think can help you be successful as a
remote musician now before we get into it I want to remind you as always to
please subscribe to my channel hit that little bell icon and like this video if
you dig it in if you dig it really really a whole whole lot then you can
share it with your friends too and I would be super grateful for that so
moving on I want to give you three what I consider to be must-haves to be a
successful remote musician now whether you are a session player a producer a
mix engineer a mastering engineer whatever this applies across the board
no matter your specialty so three things that I think are must-haves to be a
successful remote musician number one you need to have existing work now if
you're starting from zero this is tough fortunately I've made some
other videos on how to get started from zero as a remote musician so you can
check out my channel and go watch those and then come back to this one so what
you need is existing work you need songs you have played on songs you have
produced songs you have mixed again whatever your specialty is you need a
body of work that you can show to people that says here's what I do and here's
what I do well if you don't have something that
someone can listen to when they don't know anything about you they're not
going to know if you're any good or not and even if you are good they're not
going to know if you're the right fit to work with them if a producer is looking
for a guitar player and you shred metal great if they need somebody who plays
blues well and that's not you they're not gonna know that unless you
can show them something you've worked on or conversely if they need a classical
guitar player and you are awesome at that but you don't have any evidence of
your playing it's gonna be a lot more difficult to get them to hire you
because they don't know if you're being honest about your talent level and
ability so make sure that you are cultivating existing work because that's
the number one thing people look for and listen for when they come to you in the
first place number two you need good enough gear I
will go on record I have before and I'm gonna go on record again and say I'm not
a gear nut I'm not a gear guy I subscribe to a very minimalist
philosophy when it comes to gear I just don't like clutter and I don't like
collecting a bunch of stuff just to have it laying around just in case it's not
my bag I know a lot of musicians are the opposite of me and that's totally cool
go get your gear man have fun what I'm not saying is you need all of the gear
so don't hear that and I'm not saying you need the very top of the line gear
out of the gate either so don't hear that but what I am saying is that your
gear has to be good enough don't go out and buy the hundred dollar mic pack and
the starter drum kit and say I'm a remote session drummer because your
sound is just not going to compete on the other side of things I'm not saying
go out and buy an SSL console and stick it in your basement either there is a
middle ground there what you want to do is just
make sure that your gear is up to snuff and then figure out how to be the best
at using it that's a part B to this number to be good at using the gear you
have if you have great gear it doesn't matter if you don't know how to use it
so get good enough gear and then learn how to be great with it number three
this is so hugely important it should be number three and number four be good at
communicating when you are separated by distance communication becomes even more
valuable and necessary ask anybody who has gone remote for their job whether or
not they communicate more or less with the people they work with you have to
have you ever been in a long-distance relationship you have to communicate
more you have to text more talk on the phone more you have to make sure that
that dialogue is open and ongoing so if you suck at communication but you want
to be a remote musician I would HIGHLY advise you to get better at
communication set times that you check your email and text messages set times
that you check your DMS on all various social media outlets make sure that you
have a strategy in place to hold yourself accountable so that you're
constantly staying up to date with the people you're working with
whether it's clients or collaborators or whatever you want to make sure that
whoever you're working with knows they have an open line directly to you and
you to them great communication skills are such an asset and remote work and
especially in remote music so if you want to be successful as a remote music
provider and creator I'm begging you get really really good at communication
communication via text email phone I love using text over voice to
communicate when I'm making music with others because talking on the phone
pulls me out of my flow state I have to take a break to make a call but a text
you can fire off really quick or an email or a message or a DM these things
can happen really quick and it doesn't have to pull me out of what I'm doing
when the flow state is so important to creating if you're a creator you know
that the flow state is important so very concise messaging via text and
email and DM and stuff is really really good so if you don't have the skill of
being good with your words typing I would recommend to try to work on that
because that's a huge plus that has been one of the reasons I have been able to
win at this game for so long is because I got good at that and then number four
I know I said I was gonna give you three but I'm gonna give you a bonus be
organized if you don't have good organization skills then you don't have
a way of holding yourself accountable when you're working by yourself I'm in
this room by myself ten hours a day doing my work there is no one to make
sure I stay on task except for me and to do that have to be organized I have to
manage my time very very effectively so time management and organization are
huge huge bonuses to being good at making music with others remotely again
create systems put things in place I burn up my reminders app on my phone in
my computer I burn up my calendar I mean I put everything on the calendar so I
don't forget it I write everything down so I don't
forget it because I know that if I don't the million other things going on will
take my focus away and I will forget about that thing I flag emails that I
need to respond to I make sure that I check my messages on my phone and diems
certain times of the day in fact I have reminders set on my phone that says it
pops up and it says communicate that's all it says communicate I go through my
list I check everything make sure I've replied to everybody and then I hop back
into work so be organized it will be a hugely hugely useful tool for you if you
are trying to create music remotely and that's it these are the things that have
helped me succeed as a remote musician and I think that they will genuinely
help you too if you start to implement some of these things if you're not good
at them or haven't thought about them and if you do have something that you
have used it I didn't mention in this video please let me know in the comments
or hit me up on Twitter DM on Instagram whatever let me know I would love to
maybe make a follow-up video to this if there's enough stuff that I just haven't
considered that people are doing really well that I can learn from I'm a
constant student so if you tell me something in the comments that I'm not
doing I think is a value I will totally give
it a shot so that's it for this video thank you for being here thank you for
watching and I will catch you on the next one peace
you