How do you get re-inspired after releasing a CD?

[punkpianist360]

Hello all,

     Back in August, I released my first CD, and practically spent every minute of summer working on it.  If I wasn't at my job, I was practicing, recording, working out finances, arranging for the debut concert, etc, etc, etc.   And now, 2 months later, I am still worn out and have yet to get inspired again.  Do you have any ideas on how to break the post-production lethargy, because I REALLY need to start again.

Thanks much,
Paul

[lostinidlewonder]

Doing concerts is a challenge, even to set up one successful concert let alone doing it multiple times all year. Start to organize your next concert and plan hit the same place you did your debut concert. You should consider what you should have done better in your last concert and work on improving these elements, such as stage presentation or how you address your audience or perhaps what you do after your concert for people who attended etc. It would be useful to search out other opportunities to do concerts, they do not have to be large venues even smaller ones is useful to sharpen your performance sword (you can also repeat repertoire).

CD's really only sell during your concerts, selling them anywhere else is a monumental task these days unless you are recorded by some reputable company (and even then the sales from CDs for pianists is abysmal). And putting your music on the internet is useless with the piracy that runs rampant throughout. If you do not mind your music being copied and people enjoy it for free where you spent hundreds of hours getting to that point then I guess it doesn't matter. As a professional musician I am somewhat annoyed by that though. There is a point to however post your music for free to encourage people to come see you play live (or take lessons from you), that way your music is being used to pay for advertising which is a great idea.

All musicians I hope learn music for themselves first and foremost. Everything else is secondary. If however we start putting things ahead of ourselves we may feel like we are burning out. There are good times when we should put things ahead of ourselves when it comes to music, I have found you should set a deadline for your next concert without any escape from it. Do not say to yourself, I will do this next concert once I finish this work, take a risk and set up a concert pay for the venue, then you have no excuses you must work towards it. The thing is, most people cannot deal with that pressure, it is much easier to work without the pressure of a performance deadline on your back.

If you start to feel burnt out after completing projects then you need to have more of your long term goals in sight. Completing big projects is like completing long term goals, however once these are achieved you need to have vision to where to go next. Do not be afraid to aim for the stars, too many people set their aspirations way too low, it is a fear to fail that makes us be too cautious. You may find that the step of dreaming and envisioning where you want to take your musical profession the most difficult step, in that case I advise reading lots of motivational books, "The Magic of thinking big" by Schwartz is a great book https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Magic_of_Thinking_Big

[franz_]

sorry that i'm not really answerig on your original question, but I'm curious what you recorded and where we can see/listen to your release? How much was the total cost?