I received the second largest royalty payment of my career a couple weeks ago from ASCAP, direct deposited into my checking account.  It couldn’t have come at a better time.  I’m currently on lockdown in the Caribbean with no flights in our out for the time being and although I still have internet access and I’m able to work, as we all know, things are a little uncertain economically at the moment, so this payment was a breath of fresh air and it’s hard to put into words how grateful I was for this particular payment, considering the circumstances.

During this post I want to talk about the long-term nature of music licensing and how the seeds you plant now will come into fruition in the future.  At times, this aspect of licensing can feel very frustrating.  We all want to get paid for our work and it’s nice to have consistent cash flow.  Music licensing, especially when you’re first getting started, is unpredictable and unreliable.  It takes time to build up consistent revenue.  But if you keep putting in the work the money will come in time.

I’ve often used the analogy of music licensing being sort of like a 401k plan for musicians.  It’s something that if you keep feeding and building will grow over time.  The last payment I received was for dozens of placements, mostly in the two to three hundred dollar range.  These were tracks I wrote and recorded over the last several years, dating as far back as 2015.  When I get payments like this it sort of feels like my past self is reaching into the future and lending me a helping hand.  I created the music years ago, but I’m still getting paid in 2020 and beyond.

It can get frustrating when you’re putting in hours and hours of work and not seeing immediate results.  I know because I’ve put in countless hours of work on my music over the years.  There were times when I questioned the logic of spending so much time on something that at the time paid so little, even though I loved it.  But now here I am in 2020 and thanks to my past efforts I’m feeling much more relaxed about things and the crazy circumstances I find myself in, in large part to all the work I put in previously.

This post is just a reminder to not give up when you don’t see results right away.  Most people don’t. It takes time to create a decent size catalog, hone your productions skills and make the necessary connections.  But there is a sort of tipping point where it all starts to feel a lot easier. 

These days I don’t really stress about music as much as I used to. In fact, I don’t really stress about it all.  I still love writing and record music and spend a large portion of my time devoted to writing and making music.  I love it as much as ever.  I know that if I create enough music, a percentage of it will be used and I know the more music I create the more I’ll likely earn back in the long run.  In many ways, it’s really as simple as that.

So, wherever you are in the world, and whatever state of lockdown you find yourself in, use this time wisely and productively.  Music licensing is not going away.  And at some point, when the world goes back to something resembling normal, the money you earn from the work you do now, will be there waiting for you.

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Best,
Aaron Davison