The Early Morning Musician
Musicians and artists with day jobs - welcome. This podcast is dedicated to you, and we'll be giving you all the cheat codes we've learned from making art in the margins for the last ten years. We're Ryan and Carisa Downs, independent musicians making everything from home, plus marriage and kids, plus day jobs and side hustles, releasing a new song to our grassroots and growing listeners every month. We'll tell you what to do and what not to do to release your own music consistently, even (especially) if you have a life.
- Update frequency
- every 7 days
- Average duration
- 28 minutes
- Episodes
- 24
- Years Active
- 2024 - 2025
Creatively Stuck? Our 10 Best Practical Tricks To Turning Your Art Back On Immediately
Stuck in a creative rut? We've all been there, but not all of us know how to get out. Here at EMM we're all about making your creativity work for you instead of waiting for inspiration to strike. But…
Practical Ways You Can Say "No" To Protect Your Art
In this episode of The Early Morning Musician, we dive into one of the hardest but most essential skills for independent artists: learning how to say "no." As creators balancing day jobs, personal re…
Doubling Your Art This Year With The AM Creative Sprint
Here at the Early Morning Musician, we believe in the AM hours so much that we named our podcast for them. But you may not be convinced that making 5AM your prime creative time is when the juices wil…
The Top 5 Things We Learned This Year In Music
This year was our first full year as indie artists releasing a song every month. From January until now we released 10 songs and learned a TONNN along the way. Here are the top 5 things we wished we …
We Surpassed 8 Million Other Artists On Spotify! Why Other Independent Musicians Quit Too Soon
We reached our goal this year, guys.
On this episode we're talking about why millions of other artists quit too soon; before they've found their sound, their look, their audience, and how to create …
Playing "Hear Me Out," The Music Version
If you aren't familiar with the internet trend of "Hear Me Out," where people show photos of UNLIKELY characters from movies and tv that they'd consider romantically seeing (or lately, hear-me-out-ca…
We Failed At Our Goal This Year! Processing It Out Loud With You
This year we set a goal to release one song - Every. Single. Month. For a year. We got to September (so close to the end of 2024!) and failed for the first time this month. Tomorrow's October 1st, an…
When Ryan Got Offered To Run His Own Studio While Working At A Restaurant: Story Time
You never know when you're going to have a random opportunity come your way - and this story is our most random. It's also a testament to the reality that no matter how an opportunity pans out, somet…
Tech Week: Everything You Need To Start Your Own Home Studio
This episode is for the nerds who don't want to pay someone else to produce their tunes. Here's everything that DIDN'T work - and everything that has been worth every penny - in our home studios over…
The Meanest Things People Have Ever Said To Us About Our Music
What a fun trip down memory lane. We decided to share with you the meanest (and funniest, by default) things that have been said to us or have happened to us while pursuing music the last 10 years. I…
Quality Vs Quantity: Which Is More Important In Art?
The other day on Tiktok we were talking about how few artists ever post more than 10 songs on Spotify. The VAST majority stop before 10, so we were encouraging our listeners to set a quantity goal: p…
Getting To Know Ryan: Rapid Fire Questions
It's Ryan's turn to be in the question seat! Ryan's usually pretty quiet, but in this episode he has to dig deep to answer questions that he and Carisa have never asked each other before. For those o…
Getting To Know Carisa: Rapid Fire Questions
We've made a lot of new friends in the last six months and wanted to let you get to know a little more about the girl-voice of Geraldene, Carisa. Even if you know her well, these questions and answer…
We Plan To Fail For The Next Five Years: Here's Why
We used to think that if success was "meant to be," that it would come fast and easy. Roadblocks and delayed gratification seemed like signs that we should drop what we were doing, every time. We not…
Why Being A Music Critic Is Killing Your Art
Have you ever found yourself having a very refined musical palate? Us too. When we were younger, we thought this was serving our art - because knowing what good art is should help us make good art, r…
Why We Aren't Making Christian Music As Christian People
This is a personal episode for those of you who have been following along with us for a long time. We've been Christians since we were kids, and have made expressly Christian music all our lives till…
Climbing Cringe Mountain Part 2: How to Show Up On Social Media As An Artist Even If You Hate It
We had so much to say about cringy content that we had to make a part 2. In this episode, we're going over Jojo Siwa, overcoming negative feedback (different from constructive feedback), the importan…
Climbing Cringe Mountain: How To Show Up On Social Media As An Artist Even If You Hate It
This is one of our favorite podcast episodes yet, and we had so much to say that we split it into two parts! This week is Part 1 of "Climbing Cringe Mountain," which is what we affectionately like to…
The Power Of Not Quitting Your Day Job
The temptation for artists and musicians to leave their 9 to 5's for the thing that they're passionate about is strong. Most of us never wanted our day jobs and the thought of doing them forever make…
Realizing You Don't Want Your Dream Anymore
Is realizing you no longer want a dream you've chased and invested in for years terrifying or liberating? Maybe it's both. And maybe giving up on a dream is okay. But how do you know when it's time? …