Musician as a career

[Pineapple]

Hey everyone,

I'm wondering if anyone here knows about being a career musician. It's something I've always considered, since the lifestyle appeals to me so much. I love music, performing and travelling and if I could have a career involving all of these things, I'd be pretty content.

Anyone know anything about the highs and lows of this lifestyle?

[Mark]

It's something I thought I was going to do when I was 18-19, but didn't. I have some friends who are professional musicians though. Some things to know:

1) Plan on always being broke. Be OK with it.
2) Making it as a musician is all about networking, networking, networking. You need to always be finding new people to play with and introducing yourself to new people. Check out other acts, jam with people, etc.
3) Take responsibility for a lot of your own promotion and shows. The dream of being picked up by a major label is pretty much dead, so you need to be willing to grind it yourself, create your own webpage, put your stuff on youtube and sound cloud, call up venues and get yourself gigs, etc.
4) Decide what your "sound" is going to be and stick to it. Try to find something unique that will be memorable. I actually think reading up on branding would be very useful for someone trying to start a career in music.

[Pineapple]

Thanks Mark,

I'm a bassist so I'm not sure if that makes it harder or easier for me to promote myself/network. To start off, me and a few friends (also musicians) were planning on talking to owners of local bars and seeing if we could play some gigs to get some experience/make a few extra bucks. Our final year of University together is coming up, so we at least want to try it out. We're still undecided if we're going to play covers or try out some originals we've worked on. Maybe a combination of both.

Do you have any reading recommendations for branding yourself? There's a chapter on it in one of my marketing textbooks, but it's very general.

[Jean DeCuir]

if you play Acid Jazz and Jay Kay related sounds i'm gonna get your album, Bro! You're one of the few arround here with good taste

EDIT: As for promoting yourself... call Pittbull and feature him in one of your musics... lol really i don't know, but from my perspective it's something that looks hard but achievable

[Mark]

Being a bassist actually helps because there are far fewer bassists than guitarists, keyboardists and drummers, a pretty much every band needs a bass player no matter what style you're playing.

As far as branding is concerned... you know how sometimes you hear a new band and you think "Hey, they're pretty good, but they sound exactly like X, Y or Z?" It's a branding problem. I would read "22 Immutable Laws of Branding" and start thinking of music in those terms. WHat is it about your sound that makes you distinct and original? What about it are people going to relate to. Also, focusing on one aspect of your sound rather than trying to be everything to everyone.

These are just all things to think about that if I went back into that world I would take a lot more seriously.

[Pineapple]

Thanks for the support Jean DeCuir and I appreciate the tips Mark. I'll be giving a lot of thought to this over the summer.

[Creatine Dreams]

Coverbands can make decent money.

Learn how to play a lot of different styles of music and you will be able to make some money.

[Zelazny]

Another thing : Be absolutely passionate about playing your instrument. Most musicians get there because they have a lot of intrinsic motivation in wanting to be good and wanting to play that instrument. Expect spending a lot of time and work in trying to actually get money out of playing the instrument.

Your "job" will be mostly about finding gigs and making ends meet, but you'll have the satisfaction of actually being able to play a loved instrument a few hours per day and actually calling it work

[Mark]

Yeah, and whatever you do, DON'T go to music school!

(Still a bit bitter.)

[Creatine Dreams]

Why are you so against music school, Mark?

I almost went to Berklee...

[Mark]

I went for a year. Murdered my passion for it. In hindsight it was a really good experience on a number of levels, but I got so burnt out from playing that I quit and sold my guitars and didn't pick one up again until years later. If I could go back I would have skipped music school and kept playing in bands and enjoying myself.

Music is one of those things, if you're going to make it in the music business, you don't need music school.

[Jean DeCuir]

(07-07-2012 02:30 AM)Mark Wrote:  I went for a year. Murdered my passion for it. In hindsight it was a really good experience on a number of levels, but I got so burnt out from playing that I quit and sold my guitars and didn't pick one up again until years later. If I could go back I would have skipped music school and kept playing in bands and enjoying myself.

Music is one of those things, if you're going to make it in the music business, you don't need music school.

It happened because intrinsic motivation is mined when the task's level of boredom goes up and you don't stop doing it. If you had stopped playing when you started to get bored the reversed would have happened and you would be a rockstar today. Since they probably forced you to play the causal locus became extrinsic, wich didn't fulfilled the need of authonomy, the most important need in instrinsic motivation (Reeve 2005, 2009).

Whith such a level of knowledge in this subject, i have no idea how i'm probably going to fail Motivation&Emotion

[Mark]

You nailed it.

Studies have also found that for CREATIVE activities, creating external incentives actually lowers motivation and satisfaction, whereas for RATIONAL or TECHNICAL activities, creating external incentives raises motivation.

[IdEngager]

I currently gig around 2-3 times a month in bands and as a DJ, and I have a lot of friends I'd consider much better and more successful musicians than me (put out stuff on both major and reputable indie labels, tour regularly, played with some big names, basically scratch out some sort of living from music). If I can sum up my best advice on this, I'd say 1) Don't suck 2) Be well-liked 3) Be prepared to make ends meet. Allow me to elaborate:

- Don't suck: Not saying every bassist needs to play like Victor Wooten or every DJ needs to be Cut Chemist. But whatever you think you do, be good at it. There's only so many ears out there, and we don't have time to waste on shitty music. If you play bass in a punk band, be the best damn punk bassist you can be. If you want to make music that sounds like Ke$ha, be the best damn Ke$ha impersonator you can be. I honestly don't care. There's an audience out there for everything, and I'm no musical elitist. But there is A LOT of music out there, and you're going to have to stand out in some way.

It also helps a lot to be versatile. You're already in a pretty good place as a bassist, cause good bassists and drummers are always in short supply. But if you can play multiple instruments and multiple styles, even better (this especially helps in recording). You're a singer, but you can also play drums and bass? You're an electro DJ, but you can also do 80s? You're a guitarist, but you can also produce? You've just doubled your work opportunities right there. Even if it's not your main thing, it really helps you meet more people who can help you out.

- Be well-liked: not saying there aren't a lot of douchebag musicians out there who've made it, cause if that were the case, Kanye, Axl Rose, and Deadmau5 would be broke, while lots of perfectly nice people who can barely play would make a living at music. If you're really, really good, people will put up with a lot of your shit (this tends to go in any industry, but doubly so in entertainment where premium talent is at a premium). But at some level, someone has to like you, cause like Mark said, there is a lot and lot of networking involved. People tend to hire their friends and people they've heard of and people they know can put in good work and bring an audience, so if you're none of those, you better work at improving it.

- Be prepared to make ends meet: if you take your music seriously at all, there's going to be some level of sacrifice. Maybe it's accepting how broke you are. Maybe it's sleeping in the van or stranger's floors when you tour. Maybe it's forgoing sleep and normal relationships. Maybe it's picking up odd jobs to pay the rent or (gasp) having a day job. I have friends who are signed on an indie that put out records by of Montreal and Neutral Milk Hotel previously, and all of them have day jobs unrelated to music. Girl Talk was a biomedical engineer and John Legend worked in management consulting. If I know anything about musicians, it's that every single one of them has done something you never would have thought they'd do to keep it going. It's not like you just record a song and "musician" is just now your job.

Last piece of advice I can give, is really just to stop thinking and just start doing. What is the worst that can happen if you form a band and play a gig?