So where am I right now in my music career?

I’m young enough to be completely optimistic.

I’m lucky enough to have an incredibly supportive family, a network of fun and creative friends, and fabulous fans.

And I’m crazy (stupid?) enough to head into a career where the odds of success are slim, the pay is minimal (unless you make it big), and the competition is intense.

More specifically, I’ve been working on building a music career for two years. I began by writing a few songs and playing open mics. Now, two years later, I am headlining one of the biggest venues in my county, playing at a large wine festival (on the main stage), and just finished playing at the huge Stagecoach Country Music Festival (in the family and camping areas). I have some fabulous international fans. I am in the process of recording an album. I have two song placements, one in a commercial and one in a T.V. movie; and I have won numerous “Best Song” and “Best Performance” awards in local competitions. I’m having fun and generally pretty happy.

On the other hand, I am doing everything pretty much on my own including; writing and performing music, recording (including engineering, arranging, editing, producing, etc), designing, ordering, and distributing posters and t-shirts, booking gigs, social networking (twitter, Facebook, MySpace, Reverbnation), web design, writing a newsletter and this blog, producing music videos, and even burning my homemade CD’s that are presently for sale. I obviously don’t have a silver spoon or a team of people. It’s very slow going.

Lady Gaga researched fame and does what works in the pop world (extreme costumes, wild behavior, lights, dancers, etc.) It’s a little different in the Americana/folk genre. We all try to write the best songs possible but what else can we do? Chime in. I’d love to hear from you. What works? What doesn’t?

I’ll tell you more of my journey in the next blog.

O.K world… Here I go. I am writing a blog. Who am I and why am I writing a blog? Well, my name is David Luning and I am a 24-year-old aspiring singer/songwriter/artist/guy currently working full-time and super hard to create a career in music. I realize that there are millions of us out there in the same situation and that is exactly why I decided to write this blog. I figure that perhaps we could help each other out. I might be a little further along in my career than some of you and I know that there are tons of people further along than me. Perhaps we could start a dialogue, share connections, ideas, successes, and failures. Find out what works, and what doesn’t in this crazy world of music. So here’s my proposition. I’ll tell you what I have done (and if it has been helpful or not) and I would love to hear from you.

Of course, I do have one other motive and that is to reach a nationwide audience of music lovers and I know that other songwriters and musicians are often the greatest music lovers of all. If a few of you like my music, awesome! If you don’t, that’s O.K., we can still share ideas.

In my next blog I will begin by telling you where I am currently in my musical career, and then in future blogs I will backtrack, telling you what I have done in the past (the good, the bad, and the downright stupid).

I truly hope that you find this blog helpful and I hope to hear what you have to say about your own findings!