Piano Nuggets for Streaming in the Neoclassical Genre
“…my agenda is to have no agenda...for two main reasons: 1) it makes me truly happy and 2) it opens big doors. It’s that simple. If you can let your art be of service to the world, it will truly shine, and organic doors will open.”
Welcome to some tips I’ve learned along the way during my musical journey since 2019 in getting success and traction in the neoclassical piano genre. This is by means not an exhaustive list, and of course, all written here may not apply. Please take only what is useful. Wishing you all the very best!
Listen to Spotify’s Peaceful Piano and other neoclassical piano playlists; play them in the background, for the style of composition and sound to sink into your subconscious. Note that the pieces are short (approx. 2 minutes), have one or two ideas to a composition, are simple in that they don’t require the listener to go “too deep,” and have a specific sound. More on the sound later. Compositionally, I call it the art of being "unpredictably predictable."
Listeners and editors like something that sticks in their head; things that are familiar, yet fresh. Find an artist in this genre that you love. But DO NOT copy their style. This is the art. Realize that what you like in that artist is something that is there, waiting to develop within yourself. This is the beauty of the art right here; the nugget of potential. Pursue that vein of creativity in yourself, to find your unique compositional “brand” or style, that still fits within the bigger umbrella of the neoclassical style/“rules.”
Above all else, authenticity comes first. Authenticity is of the heart. Art occurs in absence of thought. It is not to be figured out; it just occurs and the beauty is in the artist’s ability to let the art’s purity come through.
This is a different brain pathway than when one is in the searching mode. The correct use of the mind is to surrender and follow; not to be in charge and in control and figure out. The world yearns for and embraces authenticity.
Release a new single every 3 - 4 weeks. This naturally trips the algorithms, giving you that organic global boost. If this sounds daunting, well, it can be when getting started. It took me over a year to get that rhythm of release going.
Returning to "sound,” the bottom line is, it doesn't matter how great the composition is, if the sound isn't there, the track will get a very limited response. What do I mean by sound? First, the quality of recording. I have learned quickly to build a team, so I have IT people, mixing/mastering people, etc.
Realize your limits. Don't be afraid to ask a trusted friend or mentor if your quality of recording needs improvement. It can save you years.
Secondly, in the classical contemporary solo piano world, the felted piano is currently the rage. Who knows how long this will continue, but it has been on the front line for many years. Having an excellent quality felted piano sound either through a felted upright or a VST will open playlist doors. That said, there will always be a solid place for the timeless, traditional grand piano sound.
Join and get involved with Facebook groups like "Piano Promotion" and others that will pop up with your search. Do searches for questions you might have and look through the group's old threads to get information.
Follow individuals and learn from them by the style/composition of music they write, the content of their posts, how often they release, and the team they use, which they will credit in their posts.
As you learn, if and when you reach out for help either privately or in a FB group, do your best to research the question yourself first. Demonstrating maturity in this area early will naturally open more doors for you.
Create a Spotify playlist and do Facebook ads (there are FB groups that go into how to do this) to create a playlist with *real* listeners, NOT bots, so you have something to offer other artists, instead of just wanting to find a way onto their playlists.
Realize that everyone is super busy. Do not take it personally if you do not get an answer. Move on and look for the open doors.
Be grateful. When you find yourself getting frustrated, pause to consider what you are grateful for, the things you might be taking for granted and how much your life would devastatingly change if they were not there, for the perfect reset.
Get out in nature and walk barefoot on the grass to reconnect with the huge grounding force of the Earth (think of how important the ground in a plug is!) to reset.
Be of service. When I was younger, I knew I had a musical gift, and I was looking for the "big deal" to land. Now, many years and life experiences later, my agenda is to have no agenda...for two main reasons: 1) it makes me truly happy and 2) it opens big doors. It's that simple. If you can let your art be of service to the world, it will truly shine, and organic doors will open.
Which takes me to...follow the yellow brick road. Follow the open doors. They are always there, but they won't be right in front of your eyes; once you develop the knack for seeing them and following them, you'll be looking for them and they'll find you. Those open doors are the paths of least resistance.
I find these open doors almost invariably lead to something highly uncomfortable and require a lot of surrender and hard work. They require us to have faith and put faith into action with consistent follow through.
Matthew McConaughey calls these "green lights" and I highly recommend his book!
Realize that more doors are opened when one takes their own initiative, looking things up, vs. just asking someone, even if the latter is easier. As I touched on before, being proactive by looking things up on YouTube or through other research demonstrates a maturity which leads to more open doors.
Don't be precious about your music. Starting out, I would compose a piece and think "this is the one!" And while I've seen initial pieces hit it big, for the most part, it is the law of averages, and one must release excellent quality, and consistently. I released a new single every 2-4 weeks for two years before getting on my first Spotify editorial. Don't be attached to your art. Do it, let it go, and watch it fly. Release and repeat:)
Develop the art of looking within for your answers, instead of outside of yourself. While we learn from others, it is too easy to give away our own inherent intuition and rely on others outside of us to answer the question "what should I do?"
Here's an example of an open door, a lightning bolt in my life if you will, that presented itself after I had been pursuing the yellow brick road:
In 2018, I was a full-time private practice physical therapist. Doing my music on the side, in the evenings and on the weekends, I had completed my third album in 2017 and was convinced that for me to have traction in music, I had to pursue orchestration and instrumentation (one of my favorite stations was and still is Spa XM, and at the time I was listening to a lot of New Age and Windham Hill music).
Well, one day, a musician patient/friend emailed me a Rolling Stone article about solo piano and streaming. As I started reading the first paragraph, I felt my knees go weak; I knew reading this article was going to change my life.
I actually set it aside for about ten days before picking it back up and reading it. It was about Whisperings Solo Piano Radio, and listed several giants in our solo piano industry. Here is a link to the article:
https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/solo-piano-music-pandora-mclaughlin-nevue-749894/
And *that* is how my solo piano career began! I created a new album, entitled “Art On The Piano,” submitted it for consideration to be a Whisperings artist, and this album was actually nominated for that year's Whisperings Album of the Year (2019).
From there, using the principles outlined above, I continue to learn from fellow artists about streaming and releasing, and everything that goes into promotion and the development of our craft, in this ever-changing world of releasing neoclassical piano music in the digital age.