How to promote a musician through "Tik Tok"

It all started in 2018 with poetry. And then it just didn't work out: a test acoustic album, then re-recording it and more and  more new songs . When asked about the pseudonym, Andrei smiles: it does not mean anything, it just sounds nice: salt and wine. Reminiscent of Dandelion Wine and Catcher in the Rye. Only instead of "a" the letter "o" is for beauty.

I have no musical education . I don't think it's necessary: ​​we see a lot of examples of cool artists without it. But when there is a certain foundation, making music is much easier. Without it, you do everything on an impulse, often you perform simple actions through some kind of crutches, because you don't know how to do it easier.

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For example, sometimes I have some kind of melody in my head, but I understand that I do not have enough skills, pretense to reproduce it. I myself mastered my first guitar from the lessons from the Internet. I played for 8-10 hours a day without a break, even forgot to eat.

By evening, the fingers ceased to obey, the calluses were terrible, but I did not notice it. But I learned to play very quickly. At first I played guitar chords, wrote the first lyrics, and that's it. I recorded an acoustic album, then deleted it. Of course, someone later wrote that it was necessary to leave, but I did not like him very much. And in any case, nothing completely disappears from the Internet; you can find these records even now.

Some time after that album, Vanya Perelygin came up to me at the institute , who was just learning to write and mix arrangements, and said: “ Andrey, the songs are good, but the music and recording are terrible, let's redo it? "And we redid it. 

It was such an experience that it is terrible to repeat. Each had their own views, creative claims. Vanya is a graduate course, I have blockages in studies, but there was not enough time, and we skipped school. I remember that the last two weeks before the release, I told my parents that I was going to college, but in fact I was going to Vanya. We did not sleep almost, we were constantly on edge, we were angry with each other. But they managed, and for the first musical experience the album turned out to be quite good.

Then I realized that it was necessary to gather a group and started looking for guys. Now there are four of us. Solo guitarist Daniil Zarubin  is my classmate. The former guitarist of the group introduced us to keyboardist Misha Shkurko . It took a long time to find a drummer, in the end I wrote to Neshkola drums: do they have any students in mind? There they told me to Styopa Lyakhova . We also need to find a guitar bassist, but for now we are doing it.

It's easy and cool to work with this lineup. It's hard when everyone in the project thinks they are right and squabbles over every little thing. And I was lucky with the guys: they help when I ask, accept some of my thoughts, my position, but at the same time they can say if they disagree with something, and we do something. They offer their ideas and help create songs . For example, Styopa recorded the entire drum part for "Eternal Lights", with Misha we prepared a synthesizer and bass for "Put the kettle on". Without them, I simply would not have done it. And in general, it has become easier now: I have gained experience, recently took a course in sound engineering. So all the arrangements , all the voices, the guys and I do ourselves. And third-party sound engineers only mix the song.

I am proud of my lyrics. After all, I started with poetry, with a literary slam. The impetus for a new song can be some bright event or impression. For example, it happened with Eternal Lights - I watched the film several times, noted some significant moments, and then wrote a song. Or it could start with some cool phrase that caught my ear, and I thought: oh, if this is used in a song, it will be cool!

When I understand that something can be made into a song, I sit down and start building a skeleton around this line or idea, even if there is no inspiration. You can't always wait for it. I have a note “rhyme” on my phone, where I write down some words and phrases every day. When there is such a base, it is easy to work. And in any case, I always write with pleasure, I will not say that I force myself.

Of course, there are things about which I understand that this is not a band format, our current audience will not accept it. But maybe someday we will release them as well. In general, I would not say that I am trying to please someone: I write what I would listen to myself.

I live at night. If I feel that it has come, that it has flooded, then I cannot go to bed, even if I get up early tomorrow. Because of this, the schedule always flies off somewhere, and sometimes I can barely survive.

I know my audience for sure: I see who comes to concerts, who writes on social networks. Most often these are teenagers. And I really like that we have just such an audience - teenagers are the most emotional, open and sincere, they will always support. The adult audience is still a bit static. But teenagers are fire.

I used to be skeptical about Tiktok. And last summer I visited the Tavrida festival: a lot of concerts , the sea, hundreds of talented people. When I returned, I felt that I could move mountains, I wanted to do everything and everywhere. I began to notice that there are many guys in Tik Tok who are filming something sensible. I thought: why don't I try it too?

I created an account and started shooting covers. There wasn't much effect, but I kept doing it. And then somehow I uploaded a snippet (a fragment of a song - author's note ) of Eternal Lights. And after a couple of weeks, notifications from Tik Tok poured in one after another. It turned out that my snippet was included in the recommendations. And I continued to shoot on this wave.

Then I got the idea to shoot a business card song. I understood that in "Tik Tok" you need to speak very quickly, immediately interest in something, otherwise you will be scrolled through.

Therefore, I wrote a text in which each line clung to the next: "knock-knock, do you hear, it's me knocking on your Tik Tok ..."

After this song, literally in a week, 50 thousand people subscribed to my account!