North Harford sophomore Ethan Jourdan has been hoping to become a musician for years.

     “[I] got into music five years ago because I got grounded and had nothing to do. Electronics were taken away and the guitar was right there so I figured it would be a decent way to spend my time,” Ethan Jourdan explains. “Little did I know I would later fall in love with the craft.”

     “Music is a way for me to fully express my thoughts. As someone who really struggles with communicating emotions, music and songwriting is my outlet for genuine expression,” Jourdan says.

     According to The Songwriter Music College, less than 0.00001% of musicians make it, mostly due to having the wrong goal or motivation. “For the past year and a half, I have been working on my first big musical project. I have an album I suspect to be done around March and released in the following months,” Jourdan explains. “I dream of making it big and getting the world to hear my music and all the time I put into it. My biggest aspirations are to get over a million total streams on my music,” he elaborates. “That will take a lot of time to get, but still one of my biggest long term goals.”

     Jourdan has a prepared plan to start on a path of success. “I’ve been researching a lot of tactics to get Spotify to recognize you and show you to new listeners. I have made a 3 month plan for myself releasing my album, including pre and post release strategies,” he starts. “My plan is to have about a month to work on promoting the album before release. During this phase, I will mainly be focusing on building a sort of fan base as a platform to get hype and excitement for [my album]. I will be doing livestreams and posts explaining what listeners can expect on [the] release date. The more people I can get to look into my work, the more streaming services will start to promote my art to new listeners,”  he elaborates.

      “After release, I am going to be doing tons of work getting as many people to listen to it as possible. I will be reaching out to bloggers, vloggers, and local radio to consider doing a piece or broadcasting my music. The whole post release phase is made to not only capture new listeners, but make potential fans out of passive listeners,” Jourdan explains. “I hope everyone who listens to this project really connects with it and appreciate[s] it like I do.”

     The style of music Jourdan is creating “would be under the umbrella category of pop, but has many influences in 20th century funk, old school jazz, and 60’s British rock.”

     “There are two things I learned along the way on my journey. First, be patient. No one is going to become a master musician within a week. It takes time. Second, ‘talent’ isn’t real. Talent is a word I see thrown around a lot by people trying to make an excuse to not do something,” Jourdan says, offering his thought process and advice on becoming a musician. “So many people give up because they think they [are not] talented.”

     “Before I started, music was intimidating and the overwhelming thought of it pushed me away from even trying. Even when I did start, progress was slow,” Jourdan explains. “Honestly, I progress[ed] slower than most of the people who get into music. No one is born able to play Mozart. That takes practice and lots of it. Be appreciative for the progress you make and always look for ways to improve.”