We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Henri Martel a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Hi Henri, thanks for joining us today. Earning a full time living from one’s creative career can be incredibly difficult. Have you been able to do so and if so, can you share some of the key parts of your journey and any important advice or lessons that might help creatives who haven’t been able to yet?
I think a mistake a lot of music creatives make when first starting off in the industry, myself included, is that the only way to make a living from music is to sell records and eventually tour, with a majority of that support coming from loyal fans in the thousands if not millions. I feel like this mentally, while a great goal to have, really becomes an obstacle that prolongs the process of beginning to profit from your creativity; especially if you do not understand how the business end of the music industry functions.
When I first started out, I was making pennies, if even that. I was completely unaware of the marketing and promotion required to sell records and yet was under the impression that by some magic means that if the music was good enough, then eventually things would click. I wasted more time than I’d like to admit thinking this way and hitting a wall for a long time when it came to making money from my creative pursuits.
While I didn’t have access to the resources and freely available information all over the internet now (Tik Tok, Youtube, etc.) I thankfully, after collaborations, research, and learning from trial and error, was able to expand my views and understanding on the different ways to make an income with music.
I learned about sync licensing, music libraries, selling beats, selling my engineering skills; I began to look at all my creative and technical skills as products that can be sold. I began to realize that being a musician/ artist is essentially running a small business. While that’s not a very romanticized or aesthetic view to have, it nonetheless is a critical aspect of the music industry, especially if you are to make an income with it.
The step that really made the biggest difference, and something I wish I had done from the beginning, was to develop a website. Once I had that, all of my business was able to function through it, with the exception of sync licensing. Once that was established, I was able to market all my services as well as have collaborators point their referred clients to one central hub.
Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.
I’m an artist, songwriter, music producer, and audio engineer and my path into my industry was paved in doing lots of collaborations, going to music showcases, as well as marketing. Majority of my products are services, whether that is mixing, mastering, vocal production, music production or songwriting. I’ve also begun creating live shows for artist that encompasses setting up the in-ear monitoring, automating live vocal production, as well as backing tracks all centrally set up in one place. This is of course in addition to the one stop shop of developing a song form start to finish in house as well as graphic and video work to accompany it. Outside of that I license my music out to be used in various film and tv projects.
What I’m most proud of is something actually silly. Some time ago the DJ/ producer Alison Wonderland had jokingly tweeted a “rap” she wrote saying it should be made into a song. So I decided to do just that. I produced, recorded, mixed and mastered it in the span of about 4o minutes and posted it. She reposted and thought it was hilarious. The song blew up in the community and it was just a great laugh.
Finally, the one take away from my work is that my focus and aim is to bring your imagination into reality. I always tell my collaborators and clients that we can do anything they can imagine and that no idea is too experimental or out of bounds musically to try. My philosophy is that music is not written but discovered. We are simply uncovering bits and pieces and fitting them together.
What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?
The most fulfilling part in my particular line of work is seeing the happiness in my clients faces when we take a small idea, a vision and make it a reality. Getting to be creative while helping people realize their dreams is just a bonus.
Is there something you think non-creatives will struggle to understand about your journey as a creative?
I think the biggest misconception that non-creatives have about creatives is that creatives just have to be creative and get to have fun or get to be lazy. In reality, creatives have to be two people: the creative and the businessperson. Not only are we tasked with using out imagination to come up with artistic and creative works, we also have a second job of running our small business; our music. So in essence creatives have to work almost twice as hard to be able to financially stable; being lazy would not cut it.
Contact Info:
- Website: henrimartel.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/henrimartel/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/HenriMartel/
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/henri-martel-3a53a416b
- Twitter: twitter.com/henrimartel
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8CCj-FFdt283CRkYweBG2Q
- Other: https://soundcloud.com/henrimartel
Image Credits
@flaschworld