Why Musicians Listen To Their Own Music

Listening to music as a musician has become increasingly important for various reasons. As a musician myself, I also realised how often I listen to my own music for different reasons, especially when I compare the music I released 10 years ago to releasing music in the modern day.

Musicians listen to their own music because they feel proud of their accomplishments, they psyche themselves up before performances, and they listen to where potential improvements can be made. They also try to create song variations for live performances and carefully listen to which songs could connect well on stage to make their concerts flow.

There are more reasons for musicians to listen to their own music. Besides, they won’t write music that they don’t like themselves. 🙂

Before we start, if you are interested in starting a band, don’t miss The MEGA Starting a Band Checklist to guide you through the process step by step.

Let’s look at the reasons why musicians listen to their own music.

They Feel Proud

It is an achievement for artists of all sorts to have their creations published and adored by others. Including painters, dancers or actors. The same goes for musicians.

The long and enduring process of recording your music from scratch takes a lot of time and money, and each single to be released is something special and should be celebrated.

Sometimes, I even listen to it again to be reminded of what our fans are currently enjoying the most so that we can streamline our songwriting process.

To Psyche Yourself Up

Musicians listen to their own music before a concert to prepare themselves mentally and build confidence for a live performance.

The pre-performance routine is an important one for many artists, especially to build confidence and get your mindset ready to showcase your talent in front of a huge audience.

If you would like to learn more about building confidence for a live performance, check out my article 13 Tips to Build Confidence for a Musical Performance here.

To Warm Up Your Vocals

Musicians listen to their own music to warm up their vocals.

Singing along to your own songs is a useful solution when you don’t have your instrument with you. Especially if you have limited time and you’d like to get into your performance voice.

I would suggest starting with a song that is easily reachable for your vocals before you move over to really sing the higher tones.

I regularly warm up my vocals when driving to shows in my car. This method saved me plenty of time and I could immediately arrive and do my sound check or deliver my performance.

Listen For Improvements

Musicians listen to their music so that they can pay close attention to where they can bring in improvements.

To continue writing music, we want to learn from our previous work. What sounds great on the ear and which sections or song arrangements didn’t go as expected.

During the recording process, we work a lot on song arrangements so that we can please and tease the listener. You want to have that hook to your song, and that feeling at the end of “again, again, again!”

Songs placed on repeat or added to various playlists get a higher rotation on music streaming platforms, so it stays an important factor to pay close attention to.

With technology growing and new trends continuously coming and going, your music should also suit the modern era. There might be new equipment or tracks that you could use on stage and by listening to your songs with an open mind you can make plenty of improvements for future tracks.

Improve Live Performances

By listening to your music you realise how your songs fit together to make your set flow the best.

Not only because of the musical relevance, but the stories around each song could be relevant to each other and they will connect well when interacting with the audience, making your performance tell the story of your life or a journey you walked in your past.

For more info on putting your setlist together, don’t miss the blog post I wrote about Crafting Your Setlist Like This.

Relive Previous Experiences

Artists listen to their music to relive the lives they had when the music was originally produced and released.

We all go through certain phases in our lives and especially musicians, that more than often get inspired to write music driven by emotional happenings in their lives, go back to those times to relive the experiences.

To See Their Growth

Musicians listen to their own music from the past to see the growth that they’ve made through the years.

This is an extremely rewarding experience that can only be reached by the effort and consistency you’ve put into your work.

This article was written and published by De Wet from startingmyband.com on 31.07.2023. The content was stolen from me if this blog post is seen anywhere other than on my website.

A musician practising his music (Photo credit: Canva)

To Practice The Music

Musicians listen to their own music to practice along with it. Very often, artists, and especially bands, get session musicians to do their recordings so that the studio time decreases and the process gets done much quicker.

The advantages are that the song arrangements improve and the session musicians often have great ideas for solos and clever key changes.

The other side of the coin is that the original artist would need to learn how to play his own song again.

To Celebrate Success

Artists listen to their own music when they receive the final mastered version first to check that everything went according to plan in regards to the mids, highs, and bass. Once all the parties are satisfied it’s played on repeat to celebrate the birth of a potential new hit single.

We don’t celebrate the release of new music enough. We often forget that it takes so much work and cooperation for a whole team of people to deliver the birth of a new song.

Today, I want to challenge you to go and listen to your favourite song, either written by yourself or another artist and just be grateful for the journey that this song has made to reach your ears.

That’s it for today folks. I hope you found what you’ve been looking for.

Perhaps you’d be interested in reading one of these latest articles published by me:

Until next time!

De Wet

The dream started during a school tour at the age of 15 years old. One that might take a long time to reach. De Wet was 16 years old when he got his first bass guitar as a gift from his dad. The guitar was found, hidden under boxes. As if it was waiting for its owner to come by and pick him up. He practiced every day to improve and to teach his fingers to dance to the music. After finishing high school, he played in various bands where he collected valuable experience, before being signed by a record label as an upcoming band. He reached success at age 22 when he released two albums with his band, which also included televised music videos for publicity. By age 24, he co-started management, artist promotion, and booking agency for successful and upcoming musical acts.

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