Let’s imagine for a moment that you are a music producer looking to sign the next big artist who will generate substantial financial benefits, let’s say, for you and your record company. As an ambitious producer, your goal is to take this artist and hit markets that you have never reached before. Therefore, considering that recording an album represents a serious investment in time and money, this artist needs to adhere to your criteria.

Now, let’s imagine that you are an editor of a magazine and a website. Would you have the same high expectations? Well, we (Sodade Magazine) also have our own criteria.  As a group, we always take on the responsible to put together a strong, noteworthy editorial content for each issue of Sodade. Knowing that readers value both editorial content and advertising as sources of information, we have to take in consideration feedbacks from professionals, experts in the music business in order to meet everyone high expectations. Good, constructive feedbacks are very crucial in this business because we all realized from the very beginning that the key to our growth is to always provide quality. This is not a popularity contest but rather recognition of special talent.

Becoming an artist, I think, entails more than just recording albums or a description of whatever basic skills one has. There are fundamental characteristics that are important to make someone successful. Like a music producer, we are searching for artists will had a certain pizzazz to our magazine. Therefore, we want them to possess these attributes: TMCI (Talent, Motivation, Confidence, and Image).

If you don’t have talent, it is pretty much impossible for you to build a strong career as a solo artist. If your talent is limited, be honest with yourself and simply reconsider pursuing another career. Like in any other profession, music requires passion or motivation. Your career in the music industry will be cut short unless you put your mind to it and know for sure that this (music) is what you want to do. If you are truly motivated to sing, determination should not be your problem.

Confidence in singing can be developed much like karate, cooking, dancing, and public speaking--by practice. As a performing artist, one needs to have confidence in his/her own singing and musical style before he/she can be confident to perform before others. This is a quality that can be perfected by experience or repetition. When you are thinking about becoming a singer, your image will matter. As any publicist will tell you, image is everything.

We have been receiving some e-mails, mostly from so-called recording artist who are looking for some kind of exposure. One recently offered to send us some of his pictures to be published in the magazine. He added the following message: “I have recorded several albums and would like talk to you about my long career. I am a good singer who has not gotten the opportunity to show my talent.” Well, if you really have a long career, I bet we would have heard all about you. Guess what? The name does not ring any bells. Another went on to offer us money to put him on the cover. We do need money, lots of it but keep your money or just buy yourself some…never mind.

All pleasantries aside, if you have TMCI, not necessarily in that order, it is most likely that we already know or will eventually know who you are. But if you don’t, you have to consider our basic criteria (TMCI) before sending us your e-mails, especially if you are serious about pursuing a professional singing career. Remember, having the figure of a model doesn't equate to talent.