Working in the advertising business

As a musician you have many different options of what you can do to make a living. Last week two men came in (Brian and Danny) who are composers for a music house, a company that sells  music to advertisers and for film and t.v. It used to be a very lucrative business for studio musicians. Nowadays it isn't. You can still make money doing it but I wouldn't bank your career on it unless you are a composer, which most musicians do now anyway.  I plan on bringing a demo to them next fall. 

check out the website for the music  house they work for: In the Groove Music

Money Talk

About a week ago Damon Schuler came in to talk about finances and such. Saying that your profession is musician on your taxes isn't all you have to do. We have so many different things we can write off. For instance myself being a horn player can write off reeds.   Instrument Repair, clothing, mileage to and from gigs and rehearsals, can all be written off. There is a downside however. If your totals after all the write offs is a negative number for a certain number of years (3) the IRS will think that your career is just a hobby and they will come audit you. The most important thing I learned that day was  hire an accountant!

John Snyder: Finding Your Place in the Industry

John Snyder came to McNally Smith last week and spoke to my Creating a Life in Music class. what he had to say was so inspiring. He told stories of working with huge names in the industry as well as giving great advice on building your own business. (as a musician you yourself are a business and you should run it as such). He gave some great suggestions for books that we should read. They are:

The Art of the Start by Guy Kawasaki

The Cluetrain Manifesto

The Business of Art

All of these books talk about how to run your own business, including business plans, and where the industry is heading. I plan on picking up all of these books in the near future.

Johns background is also very interesting. He was a trumpet player who went to music school and then to law school. He got into the industry not for his performance degree but for his law degree. From there he went on to be a producer and worked with some of the best in the business (i.e. Stevie Wonder, Etta James).

His talk was very motivating and informational.

Here is a link to a youtube video of Guy Kawasaki talking about business

Ron Sobel a snapshot of reality for musicians

Ron Sobel, the new chair of the music business at McNally Smith College of music came to one of the college's classes, CaLM (Creating a Life in Music). The class consists of students who want to be musicians and performers of their various instruments. Ron basically shed light into the business world of music. He hit the nail on the head by saying that as musicians all we want to do is play music, but if that's all we actually do we will be setting ourselves up for trouble. So many artists get taken advantage of and end up losing money because they say "Oh my manager can take care of that" or "My attorney can take a look at that" when in reality you don't even know if you can trust your manager and attorney. Ron made it very clear that musicians need to know about the business they want to get into. They need to know the dirty gritty stuff that goes on behind the scenes. If not, your career is not in your own hands.

Here is the website for Ron Sobel's company North Star Media. its very fascinating. Northstarmedia

Dessa Darling in CaLM (Creating a Life in Music)

OMG...what  a class last Thursday. Dessa Darling, MC of Doomtree came in to talk about the underground industry and marketing yourself. Or as Dessa said, get a bigger piece of the pie. 

I especially liked what she had to say about marketing yourself. find things about yourself that are interesting and unique. For her it is being a female academic rapper. I thought about my own aspects that made me interesting and unique and what I came up with was short female saxophone player. I think it'll work. 

Dessa Really inspired me to just go out there and network, put your name out there any way you can but do it with business in mind. 

She talked about how the big four (record labels) can be a good thing for some artists, but today big labels won't even look at you if you don't have a cd completed yet or a music video or any kind of credentials that show you are a performer. This is why its soo important for musicians and artists today to learn about the business side and take things into their own hands. some would call this making your own luck.

After Dessa's talk in class I am excited about where I can take my career and what I can do with it.

Social Media

I recently had the chance to learn about the different ways a musician can use social media as a way to market themselves. Myspace being the best and most effective in terms of getting your stuff out into the world. Just as I got used to Myspace and Facebook, new sites such as twitter and blogs have popped up. As you can see I can now utilize a blog but Twitter is another media I have yet to conquer. It's like a conversation basically, just not like instant messaging. although you can do that on Twitter too. It amazes me that there are all these different options out there in cyber-space that musicians didn't have even seven to ten years ago. Some would say that these social media sites make marketing and selling yourself easier, but I beg to differ. You have to edit each page on each site, and continue to do so as things in your life/career change. You have to monitor your name online and make sure what kind of 'press' you're getting. Don't get me wrong, these sites are super helpful. The hard part is getting off your butt to do it and keep up with it. As of right now I have a Facebook page and a music myspace page in the works as well as a regular type account. I think that once I have "mastered" these social media networks that promoting myself and my music will be very easy. I just have to get started on that "mastering" part.

Reading Reflections: A Career in the Arts

After Reading Johnny Bunko: The Last Career Guide You Will Ever Need and Art and Fear, many realizations about my career choice have come to the surface. Johnny Bunko especially hit me hard, in a sense. The comic/book tells of a young college graduate who is working in accounting. He is good at his work but gets no enjoyment from it. He runs into a character named Diana who gives him invaluable career advice in the form of six tips. The tip that had the biggest impact on me was number 5: make excellent mistakes. all performers have nerves at some point in their career. In fact some musicians say that if you don't get nervous at all that there's something wrong. Nerves can easily overcome you, causing doubts about your talents, about the material you're performing, whether or not the audience will like you. Daniel Pink is saying that its okay to make mistakes and in fact those mistakes will help you in the long run.

Practice makes perfect...seriously.

Which brings me to the next reading which was from the book Art and Fear.
This book really just tells it like it is. Many statements in here have been thought of by artists for years and years, they just haven't been written down until now. The Chapter that spoke to me was chapter 3 titled "Fears About Yourself". I related to this chapter more than any due to the fact that I've dealt with many fears about myself, pertaining to my abilities and future.

certain lines just spoke to me like "Fears about artmaking fall into two families: fears about yourself, and fears about your reception by others." In my opinion this statement is absolutely true. As an up and coming musician I am without a doubt going to care about my reception by others. Being an artist also brings many fears about yourself to light. 'Am I good enough?' 'Can I really make it?' "These fears keep you from doing your best work says authors of Art and Fear David Bayles and Ted Orland. While "Fears about your reception by others keeps you from doing your best work." These are common fears for artists to have but they can be overcome by determination and confidence in yourself and your abilities.

Overall, I really feel that these two books are going to help shape my thoughts and ideas on my career in music.

Here is a link to the author of Johnny Bunko http://www.blogger.com/www.danpink.com where you can find more info on him and his other books on careers.