My story as a music artist, composer & producer

In this post I will share my story as a music producer - from making melodies in a bedroom to placements, awards and 100k followers.

I will also share the 3 "Inevitable Success Habits" - which is what I owe everything I've ever achieved to - and you can use them, too.

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Phase 1: The First Validations (2007-2012)

From Struggling to Winning Awards

When I was 16 my brother and I decided to learn guitar together.

My parents supported us by hiring a private instructor - we were lucky in that regard.

I remember it was really hard… and I almost quit… but my parents made me keep at it for at least a year.

Right before the year mark I learned the Pentatonic Scale and fell in love with writing melodies, which changed everything.

My brother and I would spend hours playing together, him playing rhythm and me playing melodies. We had natural chemistry as brothers, and we eventually started playing in small venues around town.

This was my first bit of validation that showed me I should continue making music.

Then in 2008 I discovered Logic Pro, and realized I could bring my musical ideas to life, even if I couldn’t play them on the guitar.

This was literally life-changing, because my biggest limitation at the time was simply that I couldn’t make my fingers do what my brain heard.

I was instantly hooked and spent countless nights creating. I didn’t realize I was “producing” - I was just obsessed with making music!

This lead to me starting a YouTube channel called "The Ground Above" in 2011 where I began uploaded the music I was making.

At first I got very little views… but in 2012 I committed to releasing a song every week, and that’s when things changed.

My first “viral moment” was a remix I made of Calvin Harris’s "Feel So Close" that hit 100,000+ views, and my fanbase started to grow from there more rapidly.

My music started reaching online games, fan mail started coming in (including a comic book someone made of me), and a couple even got married to my music! This was so awesome.

Then another artist asked if I could produce for him, and that was my first client.

I also started submitting to radio stations, and eventually became one of the most requested artists on a Hollywood-based station, which this led to winning 2 awards in 2013: Best Electronic Artist and Producer of the Year.

I was riding high, and this brought memories I will savor for life.

But… it wasn’t all roses.

Because despite these successes, I was making barely any money and needed to find a way to sustain my music career.

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Phase 2: The Lucky Break (2013-2015)

Getting My First Placements

Just as I was reaching a breaking point, a music library owner discovered my music on YouTube and offered to pitch my songs for television placements.

I said yes, and my first placement came a few months later on MTV’s “Guy Code” earning me a few hundred dollars and opening my eyes to licensing.

Around the same time I met another talented guitarist who was just as serious as I was about building a life around music, so we partnered up and focused on producing music for placements under the name “Elevate Audio.”

We started churning out tracks... one after the next.

And we had a lot of rejections, until one day we tried uploaded to a stock music website called AudioJungle on recommendation from a friend.

As luck would have it, our song “Rock The Party” blew up, providing enough income to finally start supporting ourselves.

It certainly wasn’t enough to retire on - but it was enough to change our lives.

I was able to double down, and keep working.

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Phase 3: The Working Professional (2015-2020)

Daily Life as a Full-Time Music Producer

The next few years are what I’d call the start of my first true “working professional” years - every day I’d wake up and produce music for clients, libraries or my AudioJungle store.

Over this period I:

Finished hundreds of songs
Sold 10,000+ licenses through AudioJungle
Landed placements with brands like Adidas and WWE
Got music in 100,000+ YouTube videos
Crafted custom music for brands like Volkswagen and one of China’s largest games Mobile Legends Bang Bang.
Ghost-produced tracks for artists & DJs with some hitting 1,000,000+ streams.

Each of these achievements feels incredible as you hit them - but then they fade and you look to the next one.

After all, you’re already working on the next track.

And you have peers who are doing so much more than you, so you just keep your head down…

Keep saying yes to the opportunities.

Keep getting the next track into the store.

In some ways I was living the dream - and I am eternally grateful for the luck and opportunities I’ve been given.

But at the same time, when you constantly create, always juggling others expectations, you begin to miss something…

I now had the opposite problem that I had before with The Ground Above.

I was finally earning money - but I was missing the connection with people and the freedom to create anything I wanted for the simple joy of sharing music.

So on the side, I decided to try something new…

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Phase 4: Rediscovering What Was Lost (2020-Now)

Posting on Social Media & Teaching

To feed this itch, I began posting on social media, sharing clips from projects and melody sketches.

It was slow at first, until I decided to commit to posting 3 times a week - and then eventually every day.

I gradually gained momentum.

Just like when I was doing The Ground Above, I began to get lovely DMs from people who loved the posts, learned from them, and some even wanting to use my ideas in their own songs.

This led to my MIDI & Melody Packs and giving private lessons over Zoom.

The feedback was wonderfully positive, leading me to create a course to reach even more producers.

I kept posting, and eventually my profiles on TikTok and Instagram surpassed 100k followers combined.

This was giving the connection I had been missing.

And if you’re reading this, you probably found me through these profiles - so thank so much, I’m very grateful for you. 🙏

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And that brings us more or less to today.

Takeaway: The 3 Habits That Shaped My Life

If you reflect on my story, you can see that no matter what “phase” of music I was in, I always did the same thing.

I made stuff consistently
I shared it somewhere consistently
I met new people consistently

From playing those small venues as a guitarist for first validations - to winning awards and reaching millions as The Ground Above - to building a portfolio of professional work and placements as Elevate Audio - to building a presence and connecting with people on social media…

It was these 3 habits every single time.

Building something meaningful around your music can be as simple as this.

Follow what you love to create, share it with the world, and meet new people.

The rest is nuance.