May 13, 2021 “The Right Producer Can Make All The Difference!” is an upcoming webinar featuring the co-founders of ItyDity and sponsored by Bree Nobel of Profitable Musician. The Webinar is focused on how songwriters fail to achieve the professional recording sound they want due to three major roadblocks: Working with the wrong producer A lack of knowledge, tools and communication Getting jerked around
May 6, 2021 As of 2019, over 1,500 full-time musicians were working in the U.S. The key word there is “working.” Being a professional musician is, indeed, a job. Some people take different routes to get there. But, we can probably all agree that there’s a big difference between touring the country to play nightly gigs and having jam sessions in your best friend’s garage.
However, that doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with that! Many musicians start as hobbyists. Some have no desire to “make it big” or turn themselves into a money-making music machine.
If you do, though, there are things you need to be aware of as you transition from hobby to business as a musician. You’ve undoubtedly heard stories about how hard it is to make it in the music industry. While those can be intimidating, they shouldn’t stop you from working toward your dreams.
Advice, Career tagged Advice, hobby, music career, professional musician October 19, 2020 Whether you like the fact or not, Instagram and social media as a whole is a huge part of building an online music business in the modern age.
Your ability to utilise social media to get clients and session work as an aspiring professional musician may have a direct correlation to your success (or lack of).
You may have been posting great content on your business Instagram profile for a while but you’re just not landing any clients or even getting a glimpse of interest.
This is frustrating for you because you’re investing all of this time and effort into it but aren’t seeing any rewards for doing so.
November 15, 2017 3 Reasons Why Your Music Career Fails Even When You Have A Lot Of Musical Talent
By Tom Hess
You must build your music career in many areas besides musical talent if you want to succeed. Here are the main reasons why musical talent isn’t enough:
1. You Don’t Know How The Music Industry Really Works
People call the music business a business for a reason. You become successful in your music career when you learn how to make yourself valuable as a potential business partner for others in this industry. This involves learning how to earn a great living from music alone so you don’t need to work full time at a non-music day job just to get by.
2. You Don’t Have A Way To Leave Your Day Job And Earn Money From Music
One of the most common music career traps you need to avoid is getting stuck working 40 hours per week at your day job while your music career slowly fades over time. To avoid the frustration and regret that comes with this, you need to learn how to create multiple sources of music-related income.
You don’t have to rely on a single paycheck to pay your bills when you earn money from many sources at once. When you understand how to make money from many sources in a passive manner, you gain both time AND money. This way you have more time to pursue musical projects and grow your music career.
3. You Take Advice From People Who Are Not Professional Musicians
You’ve no doubt received tons of music career advice from people who never made it in this business. Although these people mean well, it’s a very bad idea to follow the advice they give you. For instance, a lot of people say that working in the music business is a very unstable way to make a living. They tell you that you must go to college to get a degree as a backup plan. Following this advice only leads to you spending less time with music and more time in some other field (with added student loan debt).
Want to reach your music career goals faster? Read the concepts of this music industry article to learn how to stay away from the most common pitfalls that prevent musicians from succeeding.
About The Author:
Tom Hess is an online guitar teacher, recording artist and music career coach. As a music career coach, he helps musicians from many countries break into the music industry. On his music instruction website you can find out how to become a pro musician and learn how the music industry works.
3 Reasons Why Your Music Career Fails Even When You Have A Lot Of Musical Talent
Advice, Career tagged Advice, Career, Industry, Music, music business, professional, professional musician November 10, 2015 No I can’t make you famous. No one can. That’s not how this works. So why do people like me need to explain this to musicians all the time? Fame is a very intangible thing – and in this day and age it’s largely purchased. By hiring a producer, manager or promoter you’re probably not going to get famous right away. In fact, even having rad music and an entire team behind you does not guarantee that you will make it. It’s only one step forward. Here’s the thing – we live in a world where fame is bought – and any one who tells you otherwise, or that it was ‘better back in their day’ is woefully misguided.
Advice tagged money, music career, pprofit, professional, professional musician February 25, 2014 All too often, we get wrapped up in new tactics, new ideas, new plans and new ways of getting bigger and better as musicians. With social media and the internet, there’s so much information that it’s almost become immeasurable.
This is great and all, but maybe we sometimes lose sight of what we shouldn’t be doing.
There’s lots of stupid shit you shouldn’t be doing.
Here’s a quick guide to what you shouldn’t be doing.
September 30, 2013 There is no doubt about it, music is fun- and it should be. For many, however, music is work. For these people music pays the bills, supports their livelihood, and puts food on their table. For these individuals who work in the music industry whether it be as performers, technicians, music teachers, managers, journalists, or marketers maintaining a level of professionalism is essential.
June 26, 2013 “The difference between school and life? In school, you’re taught a lesson and then given a test. In life, you’re given a test that teaches you a lesson.” - Tom Bodett
Music schools might be great for really helping you fine-tune your musicianship skills, but there are some lessons that they don’t cover which you’ll need to know for your career. Here are six things that you should know that aren’t covered in curriculum:
May 4, 2013 March 27, 2013 The major symphony orchestras in the United States are facing an increasingly dire financial situations – not just because of a decrease in consumer demand and a decade of economic recessions – but because of systemic, short-sighted and self-inflicted deficiencies in their current business models. But it doesn’t have to be like this.
February 28, 2013 A musician-for-hire is someone who provides a service to an event coordinator, talent buyer, or group of people that caters to the event’s specific needs and generates a notable yearly income.
You know, the guy that’s singing “Don’t Stop Believing” in the background of a picture-perfect wedding reception, or the guy kicking off “Hava Nagila” at the most anticipated Bar Mitzvah of the year. Even the cover band at the coolest bar in town is an example of musicians-for-hire work. There’s plenty of work like this out there for us to make a living from - but how do you set yourself apart from the rest of the bands trying to compete for these kind of gigs?
Well, although there’s no short answer, there are several steps you can take to set yourself ahead of the competition and create a “wow-factor” for yourself. Indulge:
Musician tagged Gigs, musician, press kit, professional musician January 2, 2013 This is part 1 of a 2 part article I wrote strictly based on my professional experience producing and engineering and managing artists. Since 2006, I’ve been involved as a key member in several music groups, labels, and production teams that despite all their potential to achieve greatness, fail and fall apart, often at critical moments.
November 5, 2012 In tighter financial times everyone would like to save some money on their musical purchases. This guide can help you save some money when shopping for musical equipment. So lets say you are about to buy some new instruments or some studio equipment, that can cost serious money when you opt for the best quality items. We are currently in a recession and it seems that there is some positive economic news of late on both sides of the big pond and that’s great. However most of us still need to watch the pennies and cents and there are ways that you can ensure you are getting the best possible deals on your equipment purchases. We can use the current situation to our advantage, as both musicians and retailers are experiencing the same economic conditions.
Musician tagged money, professional musician October 18, 2012 A session musician typically plays for multiple bands and artists. Many musicians dream of becoming a session musician, sitting in on cool gigs, travelling with different outfits and generally being respected by their peers.
As you can imagine, session musicians need to be able to play many styles of music and need to be proficient in all of them. But what does it take to be a session musician?
