this week I've made a shift
This wasn't easy to get out of my cave
Before I go into the sync & music sauce, there is a little realization I had this week I would like to share with you (you can scroll down for the sync gems)
2 years ago I have accomplished a few major things: after 10 years of living month to month in different places all around the world, I finally made enough money, and paid for 2 years upfront to rent a place.
I also made another dream come true- I built acoustics, bought monitors and a keyboard & guitar, and built my own studio space. I had only my portable travel setup to this point.
This was huge for me, but with it came a price: I was a 1 hr drive to where my community was, my friends were on the west coast of bali while I was on the east. I thought that would be fine, and that it would be easy to link with friends once in 1-2 weeks.
that proved to be very wrong and isolating because something in the area I lived in didn’t click for me. A few months ago I realized I no longer feel connected, even though I am doing everything right. The moment that feeling started to become vivid, it was like life saw I was aware of what was happening and suddenly my momentum stopped. There were less music jobs for me, less paid opportunities.
So in that chaos and confusion I decided to do something I don’t normally do. I decided to ask myself “what do I need?” instead of “what’s wrong with me?”. The answer was: nature, good air, and friends. I moved to the west a few days later and that lead me to realize what I was missing this entire time. I was missing fresh air, I was missing surfing, I was missing people holding me accountable on a day to day basis and I was missing the notion of being observed in real life. Because y’all are reading this and you imagine my life as one thing, but I promise you you don’t have the whole picture unless you’re here with me.
And this leads me to this weeks episode and my big takeaways from it:
Michael Elsner is no stranger to the upsides of community and the power of moving around.
Michael shares his remarkable journey from guitar player to successful music licensing professional, revealing invaluable insights about the sync licensing business. Starting in Woodstock, NY, Elsner's path led him through Nashville's studio scene to Los Angeles, where he discovered the lucrative world of music licensing. And all this wouldn’t happen without him moving to new places and “branding himself differently”
His experience spans from American Idol to international touring, highlighting how diversification in the music industry can lead to sustainable success. The conversation explores the business of music licensing, including detailed insights about payment timelines, royalty structures, and the importance of building a quality catalog. Elsner's story demonstrates how musicians can build passive income through sync licensing while maintaining their performance careers.
A quote I loved from Michael:
"If you wanted to get into licensing because you're hard up for money, then you should have gotten into it a couple of years ago"
this episode is absolutely gold, and gives really deep insights into things like:
how sync income can be predicted
what royalties pay the most
how you can guarantee repeated success
Why his friends were too late to get into sync