Letter to New Musicians on Steemit - Lessons learned in 6 months of being here

Hello friend,

you are reading these lines because you have met me previously and I liked your music, and I thought joining steemit (this platform) might bring some value to your musical journey.

I have joined this lovely music community here on steemit in August 2017, and since that it has been a really fun and incredibly rewarding experience. Main things that changed in my life:

1. SONGWRITING, SHARING MUSIC, MAKING VIDEOS
   Couple of years ago, I started to write songs, mostly because some of my friends were "doing it" and I thought maybe I can do it, too. Soon, they became "letters" to my friends that I have met while traveling. Sending an email, just was not enough, to pass on all the emotional depths of "what is new in my life".
   I have always enjoyed writing songs, but I never really felt like there is some "place" (outside of my friends mailboxes) where I feel comfortable to share them with other people. With strangers. (scary:)
   Here, on steemit the community was so supportive of original music, just couple of weeks ago we have finished 8 week-songwriters competition, and I can honestly say I grew a lot as a musician and songwriter thanks to all these lovely guys.

2. NEW MUSIC, NEW FRIENDS
   There are loads of people participating in the open mic every week, and sometimes you just find a diamond of a song, written by someone on the other side of world, somehow sharing very similar struggles and joys just like you :)

3. UKULELE
   Thanks to my guardian angel @meno I won a ukulele! Song coming soon :)

4. MONEY
   So - if you create a post on steemit, you get an upvote. Depending on the power of person who voted for you, you can get a different reward( 10 cents, 50 bucks, you name it). After 7 days, these upvotes get converted in cryptocurrency which you can transfer into real money. In these last 6 months, I have earned somewhere between 1000 - 2000 USD (the value is going up and down every day so it is hard to say exactly how much it is exactly)
   *In reality I have made a bit more, but I did not "cash it out" and decided to keep as something called steem power.
   More on the money topic later on in this article.

5. RADIO SHOW
   I was on my first radio show. Yeeeey! Again thanks to one of the biggest supporters of original music @meno.
   What an exciting experience, that really made something inside of me click, and gave me quite a lot of motivation to go further.

WHAT I GAVE ?
My time mostly. I make on average 4 posts = record 4 songs a month.
I have never really measured it, but I think I have spent somewhere between 2 to 20 hours a week on steemit. Let's say on average 8 hours a week?
Sometimes, I want to write a longer article, or I need to re-record a song many times, at the beginning the editing of my videos took longer, or I just get lost in reading articles and learning about this system, blockchain, cryptocurrency etc.(this is especially important at the beginning)
So, in no way, I am trying to tell you that this is "free money" for not doing very much.
I am sure, there are both better and worse musicians than me - who made both less or more money than me.
I do not know what is a secret formula to getting a lot of steem dollars, but in general some kind of persistence and continuity with a splash of creativity and honesty, might get you far.

HOW TO JOIN?
Ok, so I hope, by this point you are totally sold and want to join. Yey! This is how:

OPEN A STEEMIT ACCOUNT
sign up, you need email and phone to register, and you can do it only once, and do not loose your password

LEARN
about how it works here on steemit - there are plenty of good articles, my favourite people to learn from are
@samstonehill check out his channel(click on the name) or some tutorial videos here
@dan-atstarlite videos here
there are gazzilion tutorials and posts, just search a bit and find the style you like
(also feel free to post below in comments any useful ones)

JOIN OPEN MIC
HERE!!! https://steemit.com/openmic/@luzcypher/steemit-open-mic-week-69-record-your-performance-and-win-steem-sponsored-by-pfunk-and-luzcypher
In case it is not week 69 anymore check out this account for the latest openmic: @luzcypher
follow the rules, you can just record it on your mobile, no big production needed.
The point is to make a song a week - the best you can do this week, do not put some unrealistic expectations on you and pressure, we improve every week, that is the best part :)
Original songs are very welcomed, and also newcomers tend to get a nice push at the beginning as a motivation.
Do not get upset if in your week 3 you do not do so well like in week 1. Just keep on going.

Some of the musicians you might meet there, close to my heart: @melavie @luisferchav @mogatiexperiment

LET ME KNOW YOU ARE HERE
Send me a message, or post a comment below so I know you are here!
If you are in my geographical proximity, we can even do an entry together.

My plan for the future is to make some regular jam sessions, with an interview or so.
1.5 year ago, we started as a joke this fireplace jam radio show -hence my name chaifm here - and It had some good response, nearly 1000 plays on soundcloud, so I want to get back to something similar here on steemit. https://soundcloud.com/dominikamartincov/summer-chai

GET YOUR CASH *** updated info ***
I am no financial advisor, so I am not going to tell you when to trade. This is Updated info (I was using bittrex, however this is not possible for new users anymore)
There is a new solution called blocktrades, meno did tutorial on it here
if you have a better solution post in the comments!

The steem dollar goes up and down, we have seen it go from 1 USD to 10 USD in the peak of December.
So if you get 50 steem dollars, yes that could be 500 USD.
(the only reasonable trading advice I have ever heard - don't sell at the lowest lows. Obviously, it is hard to tell when it is, ha)

The reward from your post actually gets divided into 2 currencies
steem dollar - sbd - you can take it out immediately
steem power - this influences the power of your vote, and you can take it out only over a long period of time (10 weeks or so) I have not really cashed this out, maybe one day, however it is not so adviced if you do not need it
Again, learn, read, think. https://www.coingecko.com/en/price_charts/steem-dollars/usd

This is a long-term thing, not a-get-rich-quick kind of thing.

INVITE YOUR FRIENDS
Also, if you have a friend who is a musician and might find this useful. Send him this article.
Steemit is also for non- musicians, people who create good content, but I feel the music community is one of the strongest ones.

That is it.

Let's fill our world with art and music!
See you around. Walk in beauty :)

@chaifm
(if you click on my name, you will see my previous openmic and songwriters entries, and also things I resteemed)

PS
Last night I joined my first live open mic. What a thrill.
I met some beautiful musicians, and I was like - ok guys, it's time. I need to write this post for all the lovely musicians that are in my life. If you got all the way here - you are one of them.

PS2 First Photo by Malte Wingen on Unsplash