Making music can be an extremely rewarding and extremely frustrating process, especially if you’re just starting out and don’t have any guidance from experienced professionals.

Luckily, there are many resources available for aspiring and practising musicians to help them make some music and reach/grow their target audience. There are some valuable tips available online by UK Music experts.

Below, we go over a few essential questions to ask yourself before creating your first album.

1.) What Sort of Music Do You Want to Make?

What sort of musician do you want to be and what sort of music are you going to make? First, take a look at your inspirations. Consider the music that has spoken to you over the years. Try to aim for achieving a musical style that is uniquely your own. If you can develop some sort of signature, this will set you apart from the pack and let listeners know it's you who made the track.

2.) What’s Your Equipment Situation?

Whether you have some equipment on hand to get you started or not, you’ll end up needing to invest some capital into your equipment and recording space. Try to look for deals and see if you can pick up gently used musical equipment. You might want to mix in organic instruments with samples and extensive production. Whatever you choose, research the best quality brands and try not to pay top dollar for anything.

3.) What Sort of Supplemental Tools Do You Need to Create Your Style of Music?

Most musicians take advantage of innovative technology that helps the music production process along. Nowadays, home producers can gain access to the same high-quality tools that major labels use. Software options like Logic Pro X (from Apple) and Mixcraft 8 Pro studio generally make the multi-tasking process of making music much easier.

Using Tools Like Splice and Producer Confidential

Musicians can even find pre-engineered production stacks and handcrafted drum samples by joining service at a monthly rate from services like Producer Confidential and Splice. These same tools have options that help musicians get noticed down the road.

4.) How Committed Are You Going to Be?

Try to practice your craft each day -- at the very least, aim to get 1% better each time you set out to play your instrument and create music.

It’s going to be both a learning process and a creative process. It’s important to embrace every aspect instead of just having some sort of vague end goal in mind.

5.) Now that You’re Making Music, where is Your Music Going to Go?

Since musicians essentially create a product (songs, albums, mixtapes, etc.), it’s important to have a way of attracting recognition, letting your existing fans know when your music drops as well as helping you attract new listeners. You’ll want to set up social media accounts to find new listeners and build your audience.

First, it might seem slow-going but stick with it. Try to make the best music to your ability. Just because your efforts aren’t being recognized now doesn’t mean they won’t be later. Once you have a song ready you should consider it a message in a bottle that might reach the right ears sometime down the road.