Dear Passengers,

How much effort is enough? How do you know when you’ve given the music business your best shot and it simply wasn’t enough?

I saw this very issue debated on our forum. Somebody was ready to give up on songwriting because he felt that he had given it all he had, and the wall was too high for him to get over. I had three reactions to what he had written.

1) He was frustrated and wanted his friends on the forum to talk him out of quitting.

2) How badly did he really want to be in the music business?

3) How much effort had he really given it?

Showing up is not enough.

Joining TAXI, making a dozen submissions and going home with your tail between your legs is not a path to a music career. Setting up a MySpace page and racking up 2,147 fake friends is not enough. Hanging out on Facebook from your cubicle at work is not enough. Sending out a few Tweets about your show on Friday night is not enough.

Yes, the tools are there for the taking, but it’s relentless effort that wins the day. You already knew that. So did the guy trying to get talked out of quitting the music business.

Yes, Facebook, MySpace, Twitter and all the other tools save you printing and postage costs while building a fan base. But your songs still have to be great. Not good enough, but great! That takes focus, work and time.

Yes, TAXI brings a hundred opportunities for your music right to your computer every month, but your music still has to be great. Not good enough, but great!

Yes, the tools make it easier that it has ever been before, but they don’t mean that you get to become a successful songwriter with less effort. It means you can accomplish more in the same amount of time.

If you use those tools to get more done per hour and treat your music like a full-time job, then you can succeed in the music business. You get to determine your own timeline. You have more control than you might want to admit. If You don’t succeed, you can really only blame yourself.

Want to know how I know that? Read about Diane Warren, then come back and carefully comb through our Music Industry Listings to find a path for your talent.

Talk to you soon,
Michael

Dear Passengers,

Aristotle once said, “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence then, is not an act, but a habit.”

Every year, our members who come to the Road Rally, stop me and tell me how stoked they are that they came. They can’t wait to get home and use all the new songwriting and production tips and techniques they learned at the convention.

Their heads seem as if they are about to explode! It’s incredible to feel their energy. But I often wonder how many of them can sustain that level of energy and commitment once they get home.

For some I would bet that it wears off a week or two after the Rally. For others, it must last for a few months. But the members who amaze me, are the small percentage that make the commitment, make a plan, and stick with it for an entire year.

Those are always the people who start getting deals and begin to build their careers in music. I see them year after year, and I wish I could bottle whatever it is that makes them go home and stick with it. What makes them succeed, where others fall short?

I think that lasting change is brought about by emotion, because we require emotion to stay motivated. A soldier charging into a hail of gunfire to save his buddies is pumped by emotion and adrenaline. But that’s momentary – a transient effect. How can you keep that up for a long period of time?

Practice, practice, practice…

If you keep practicing, there is no question that you will get better. As you get better, the incremental improvements will motivate you to keep practicing. You practice more and more, and you get better and better! It becomes a virtuous cycle. Seems obvious, right?

But there’s another thing that happens with practice. Just like a golfer can train his muscles to repeat great golf swings, a songwriter can actually train him or herself to write better songs! While you brain is not technically a muscle, it is built to adopt to repetitive behaviors. They sink in over time.

Ask any songwriter who has moved to Nashville and become part of the great community of songwriters there. They don’t become better just by living in Nashville. It’s not caused by osmosis.

No, it’s because the people who are surrounded by other great songwriters who live there are motivated on an emotional level and they repeatedly write more songs. Each of them typically better than the last.

You don’t have to move to Nashville. At least not until you start to get some nibbles. There are two very concrete ways to increase your level of excellence in songwriting.

First, join TAXI and come to the Road Rally this coming November 5th-8th. It’s free for TAXI members, so you’ll save HUNDREDS of dollars compared to other music conventions. Our host hotel will soon be offering a special TAXI Road Rally rate of just $109 per night for a limited time (July 6th-20th). That’s $50 per night cheaper than what is was supposed to be, so you’re saving $200 over four nights!

But you’ll need to join TAXI in the next five days to get in under the wire on that deal.

Really Cheap Airfare!

I just found airfare (as I’m writing this) of only $239, roundtrip from New York to LA!

With the room rates and airfare so inexpensive, you could probably do the entire weekend for $800-$1,000 total. A few hundred cheaper STILL, if you join TAXI and use your guest pass and bring a friend or your spouse and split the room cost.

If you’re within driving distance of LA, this will definitely be your year to get the killer deal on coming to the Rally!

The second thing you should do is read two sections of our online forum.

Read this 1st to get motivated!

Read this 2nd to get motivated about the life changing effect the Road Rally has on the people who join us:

Remember what Aristotle said, “Excellence is not an act, but a habit.” You can quite literally train your brain to become excellent at songwriting. Your chances of success in the music business will go up by a factor of ten if you do that. I’ve just given you the tools.

Are you motivated? How badly do you want your music to be your income-generating career? That’s a decision only you can make.

Talk to you soon,
Michael

P.S. Remember, the killer deal on room rates will be offered July 6th-20th, so you’ll need to belong to TAXI to get those rates.

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