Early on in my music career I entered a couple of song competitions but never heard anything back. I stopped entering for many years. Maybe i wasnt good enough?
More often than not, I’d submit work and never get feedback. Sometimes it was accepted- well i figured that was good feedback in itself. But often i never found out if it was used or not, and sometimes projects would just never really finish so the music just was unused in the end and it would disappear into the ether. It was crazy- some people would love the music and then use it — but then go quiet and not tell me that they used it - possibly so they didn’t have to pay anything etc. So many interesting stories!
But i just moved through that all and focussed on keeping it fun and trying to improve and meet cool people that i wanted to collaborate with and quality or interesting projects that looked fun to work on.
I held my work to my own standards (and didn’t enter any competitions!) and I kept raising the bar. I figured if I held myself to account and if I liked what i’d written or produced, well, that was good enough for me.
I worked hard. Like everyone, I had to work through many uncomfortable and difficult challenges including having to learn how to mix… which was not exactly straight forward!.
Time went on and in 2017, someone else entered some music of mine in to a Davey award and it won a silver trophy for best music (For an Expedia Cuba Travel Guide). I couldn’t believe it. So from that moment on I realised that the sky was now the limit!
Keep working hard and holding yourself to account. If you are happy with your work, well, usually you’ll find other people might like it too (which is just a bonus in the end).
