I. Introduction

This blog is meant for amateurs who

·      have had very little formal training in music,

·      want to perform and/or record music, and

·      play song-based music (originals or covers) in popular genres such as rock, folk, blues, r&b, soul, gospel, pop, funk, (light) jazz, indie, etc.

It is not meant for professional musicians who have finished formal training, musicians/DJs who make and/or perform lounge, background music, trance or house, etc., choirs, marching bands and the like, although they might find interesting things here as well.

The goal is to give a general overview of all the things you might want to do or think about if music is currently a serious hobby and you want to take it one step further (see table 1 in Appendix III for more on the various stages). Some issues are so basic and vague that hardly anybody ever thinks about them, such as whether your main focus is on expressing or on entertaining, on you or the audience, and on feeling, thinking or doing, but things become clearer once you turn you focus on the practical issue of how you want to achieve your goals, e.g.

·      by creating (writing original songs) or re-creating (arranging and performing covers),

·      flying solo vs. being in a band, and

·      recording and producing (your own songs or those of others) vs. performing live.

Each of these choices has an impact on what you will need to do or have, and the number of possibilities are almost endless, so I will only explore the most common ones.