There seems to be a large number of musicians lately giving up playing original music live and they decide to play covers only at the gigs instead. This seems to be a new trend in the music scene lately. Why? Because a lot of musicians make assumptions that the Capital Region’s music scene doesn’t have much of an original music scene. Maybe they’re partly right that original music doesn’t get much of an audience. That’s why a lot of bands and solo artists has chosen to play covers instead ’cause covers get more of an audience than original music.

The thing is… you should never be a quitter. You should never doubt yourself. You should never be put down or disappointed ’cause you don’t have much of an audience toward your original songs. Nothing wrong with the switch but you should never stop playing original music live. We could have a bigger and more successful original scene again if musicians were more passionate to songwriting. A lot of musicians prefer to play covers more. I’m not knocking musicians who play covers ’cause I play covers too. I always felt it was pretty important to do both. I always did both covers and original songs. Check my youtube channel for proof.

The thing is, if you want the Capital Region’s original music scene to get big again… we need to get together and try harder. We need to work on this together and try to get people interested in original music. We can try. We can do this. I’ll never give up writing original music or performing original music live on the stage. You may not be getting too many fans with your original songs but keep trying. You just never know.

You should keep writing original songs ’cause you like doing it. If you’re not getting much of an audience, you need to look at the quality and talent of your songs. Ask yourself. Are my songs good enough? What can I do to improve them? I think it’s a proven fact that music fans only support music they like. Maybe your original songs isn’t good enough is why a lot of people don’t come out to your original shows? You need to write songs that will catch a listener’s ear. If they like what they hear, they will come out to your shows to see you perform them live. You can promote your original shows as much as you want to but no matter how much you promote yourself, people are still not gonna come out if they don’t like your music. Period.

With my own songwriting, I think I have a plan that might attract even more listeners to my songs. I’m thinking of changing my songwriting to a different direction some. I’m thinking of writing folk music. Topical/political songs. Write songs in poetic form. The type of folk music I’m planning to write is not what you think it is. Slower songs. Ballads. Singing songs with passion and with a little more heart. People seem to be turned off with my aggressive acoustic rock so I’m thinking of changing my genre around some. I’ll always play original rock n’ roll, I just want to change around some. If I want people to take my music a little more seriously, I figure I would write more serious songs that people of all ages and families can listen to.  I want to write music kind of in the likes of Neil Young, Springsteen and maybe Sharon Van Etten but write folk music in my own style, of course. I’m also thinking of ditching my Kev Brock name and release songs under my birth name ’cause I want the songs to be mine.

Never doubt yourself in original music. I never did. I kept going. Decided to take some time off from songwriting to focus on teaching myself guitar lessons and teaching myself how to sing better. I’m always trying to find ways to get better musically. You can do that too.

You shouldn’t give up playing original music live ’cause it’s good to showcase your talent no matter how many people show up. It’s about the passion and the love for music. Cover bands are still dominating the scene but we can still try and make original music big in this area again. We just need to try to focus on writing songs that you think people will like. People always say things like, “Music should be for you” but not really. If you want to be a respected songwriter, you have to write music that will appeal to listener’s ears. It’s good to switch to a different genre. Neil Young did it all the time. The same with Springsteen. It’s good to be versatile.

Kev