Incentives of turning music into a career

[BandofWolves]

So something dawned on me and I've been wanting to hear some other opinions.

If I try to make music as a professional and have a career from music, I will inevitably on some level be making music for the money. I know that sounds kind of weird because I know that I make music because I love creating music.

I feel like I need to focus on making money from other places outside of music while I'm building my music career. They always say it takes 10 years to become an overnight success, right? So I figured I'd start at a job for easy income, build up a little side hustle, etc.

That way when I'm focusing on my music, there's no incentives interfering with my creativity. I know some people say money doesn't play a role in creativity but I see a lot of my musician friends compromising to catch trends & appease labels all the time.

Are there any courses for musicians about being more financially educated or "business savvy"? Has anyone tried anything like that?

[Arpangel]

I think it depends on what type of musician you intend to be, I personally believe that you should immerse yourself in the music "world" or business, if that’s what you want to call it, there’s no time for other activities, Brian Eno said that being on the dole was a government grant for artists, you have devote your entire time to what you are doing.
The members of my band, their day jobs were playing studio sessions, orchestra pit work, at the weekends they played what they really loved, in my free-improv band.
We all have to make money to live, of course, but money shouldn’t be the focus, it’s the icing on the cake, as I said, it depends what you want to do, "conventional" musicians, trained ones, stand a better chance of making money doing what they like, rather than having to work in an office, or a factory.

[RichardT]

Ari Herstand has written a book that might help you,

https://www.amazon.co.uk/How-Make-Ne ... &sr=8-1

At the most basic level, he says if you want to make it, you need to spend the same amount of time on promotion / management as you do on creating music.

[The Elf]

If you need to make money you do what is required. There's music I work on that I absolutely cannot stand, but when the energy bills come in I will be glad I did it.

If you want to follow your creative muse then you will need another way to pay the bills, at least until the world sees things your way.

Don't mistake one for the other.

[Arpangel]

If you need to make money you do what is required. There's music I work on that I absolutely cannot stand, but when the energy bills come in I will be glad I did it.

If you want to follow your creative muse then you will need another way to pay the bills, at least until the world sees things your way.

Don't mistake one for the other.

Elf is correct, but he says "there’s music I work on" as I said, it’s better than driving a cab or working in Tescos, even music you don’t like is good experience. If I had my life over, I’d make sure I had a marketable skill, as a trained musician, you can do anything you want and make money at the same time, doing something that is at least related to what you like.

[Sam Spoons]

Same opinion as Arpy and The Elf (disclaimer, both of them have been there and done it while I have always had a day job) almost all the professional musicians I know make their money by sessions, teaching, pit work, orchestral playing. Even the ones who gain an income from their own music do other things to supplement that income.

[Humf]

Self-employed musician here. I agree with all that has been said already. Spreading myself quite widely is the only way I can make it work. Each little bit I do adds up to equal a living wage. Not huge £ but all very rewarding. Of course I’d love to be sat in the studio everyday writing film scores but that’s not where the secure £ is right now to pay the bills. But I don’t lose that passion (somewhat distracted from it maybe!). It’s hard work on the admin front, spinning lots of plates, but I’d say it’s being versatile which has kept me going. This inevitably means I’m learning new skills all the time. A good example being the past 2 years with video becoming just as important as audio. But underpinning all of the new stuff are my solid skills, quals and experience in performance and to a lesser extent, audio production. I’d say it’s been vital to stay within music in some capacity, no matter how minor the role, mainly because you are meeting people who are likely at some point in the future to reappear. This happens all the time. I’d like to think it’s because I did my best to work hard at each stage of my career and left positive impressions. Also, you can learn a great deal from doing something outside your ideal musical goal, and this will make you better equipped to deal with whatever comes your way in the future. Teaching is a good example of that, both in terms of musical knowledge and experience but perhaps more so in working with people.

So in summary I’d say do something associated in preference to something entirely unrelated simply for the £.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[MOF]

Donald S Passman’s book ‘All You Need to Know about the Music Business’ is a good starting point.
Then I would advise setting up your own website, YouTube channel etc so that you can sell to and communicate with your audience.

[Drew Stephenson]

I have a few full-time musician friends, but as with most of the experiences shared above, 'full-time musician' means teacher, performer-of-covers, promoter, manager, recorder of karaoke songs, videographer, recording and mixing engineer, and, occasionally, writer and producer of original music.
You could probably add 'professional driver' in there as well when you factor that in.

One angle I would suggest is to look at roles where there might be the possibility for some hybrid work. For example, I've worked my day job in financial services for the last 20 years. But I now work in a communications team, where at least some of my time is spent producing company podcasts and videos. There's even the occasional bit of music creation for events or video background stuff.
Is it as fun as working on my music for a living? Of course not. But does it beat filling in spreadsheets and writing reports? Damn straight. It also pays better than most music industry jobs.

So have a think about what other transferrable (or non-music) skills you have and have a dig around to see if there's some cross-over opportunities around.

[Albatross]

I'm beginning to wonder if music is far too important to be left in the hands of middlemen, gatekeepers and robots to decide what we hear... might be better to look at using it in healing and similar ways.

There's a series on the iPlayer by Prof Robert Winston that really started to make me think that perhaps we all took a wrong turn somewhere in our motivations...

Anyway, ignore me but that series is really worth a listen. Its here...

[Sam Spoons]

A different profession but still valid. Mrs S teaches kids to dance, quite a number of her ex pupils have gone on into the profession (including #1 son) and many have made a good living at it. They all have to make a decision at around GCSE level what they want to do as a career and Mrs S tells them that it's not enough to want to be a dancer, they need to need to be a dancer with every fibre of their being or they'll be much better off doing their A levels and going on to uni or WHY. Same applies to musicians, wanting to be a musician is not enough, it has to be much more than that if you hope to be successful at it.

[Albatross]

Indeed. If you have to ask you're in the wrong game. You'll soon be trampled , chewed up and spat out by those who never gave it a second thought.

[shufflebeat]

Stepping back a bit - the world of music is not unique.

The food market has room for Spudulike and Heston Blumenthal, industrialised bakers and cake designers.

Same, no?

[Sam Spoons]

Not entirely sure, would have to think about it, certainly most dancers are the equivalent of covers/tribute band musos (or spud-u-like) performing other peoples choreography and they, like tribute bands, can make a good living but it's not remotely secure, most have to come home between jobs and work in Tesco stacking shelves. The few who 'do a Heston' and start their own dance company start small and, mostly, stay that way without ever gaining a reputation and a living. I guess it's a bit the same with original music, only a few 'make it' and become well known enough to make a good living out of it without having to take on other work during the breaks between tours/gigs.

[Eddy Deegan]

The food market has room for Spudulike and Heston Blumenthal, industrialised bakers and cake designers.

Same, no?

I think there are a couple of missing pieces in your logic, sound though it is as far as you take it.

Cost and satisfaction.

You can eat at a greasy spoon, subway, spudulike etc. for an awful lot less than you can at a 'proper' restaurant. And once you've eaten, your hunger is satisfied even if you didn't enjoy the food much so it's served the purpose it was intended for.

Music is, I think, different in that you can buy tracks from the best artists in the industry for about the same price you'll find amateurs selling their stuff at.

As such, given someone has 10-15 quid to spend they're more likely to buy an album from an established artist, or at least one with a large following who produces high quality material, than they are to take a punt on a cheaper lesser known artist unless the latter really rings their bell in some way based on demos.

I spend a lot of time trawling the likes of bandcamp to buy music from people who are not in the public eye at large but who produce material I really like. I've discovered some real gems in the process but it's my taste I'm catering for and I'd say many of the things I buy through this process aren't as popular with other people I know.

Some of us on the forum do the same, trawling independent artists for good discoveries, but the brutal truth is that when it comes to my wife and children, they go for what they know and I'd say that's more typical.

It's my wife and children who represent the market and much as I think they'd get a lot out of my approach they simply don't have the time or inclination to go through the process of mining for ore, so to speak. They just want instant gratification and the 'big names' serve it to them such that they aren't hungry.

[Drew Stephenson]

I'm beginning to wonder if music is far too important to be left in the hands of middlemen, gatekeepers and robots to decide what we hear...

But for most people it's not the least bit important; it's just background noise.

[Sam Spoons]

You can eat at a greasy spoon, subway, spudulike etc. for an awful lot less than you can at a 'proper' restaurant. And once you've eaten, your hunger is satisfied even if you didn't enjoy the food much so it's served the purpose it was intended for.

I'm not sure I don't enjoy a MacDonalds as much as I enjoy a decent restaurant meal, it's definitely more than just filling the corner.

[Watchmaker]

I have a theory that most people's musical taste atrophies at the age of 16 and I think there's a link to how adolescence informs ones self image. How many of the people that you know listen to the same thing they did when they were first getting laid?

Also, more complex music, according to an article I'll never be able to cite, takes getting used to, so trained musicians have the ability, trained or innate, to experience a broader range of music positively.

As far as a career in music goes, the only way to do it, is to do it. No matter what course in life you take there will be sacrifices, and options foreclosed as a result of decisions made today. I played in many, many bands until I was about 35, got pretty far along the college circuit but was never able to really focus on it. I studied other things, became a carpenter, then an auditor, then an accounting manager, and many other things. Looking back on it, if I had stuck with music only, god only knows where it may have gone (nowhere), but I wanted to have nice things and a pension. Now I have a killer studio, a nice house, a pension and a humble band so, all in all, I feel incredibly fortunate.

Don't worry about what might or might not be, follow your heart, trust your luck, be nice, be humble and above all, be honest and no matter what happens, you'll be able to look at yourself in the mirror without ducking your eyes.

*edit: and don't be afraid of being wrong! success teaches nothing.

[awjoe]

So something dawned on me and I've been wanting to hear some other opinions.

If I try to make music as a professional and have a career from music, I will inevitably on some level be making music for the money.

I'm not pro, so I don't know what I'm talking about really, but if I *were* pro, I wouldn't be doing it for the money. I'd be grateful that the money allowed me to do it full-time. But I'd be doing it because I love making music. The money (and the girls and the fame) would just be a happy add-on.

[shufflebeat]

You're probably right, awjoe, but the novelty will wear off.

...eventually

...I suppose.

Back in the good old days of Tony Blair's "cool, let's all be rock stars" period (which I heartily approve of - if you're gonna do it, do it right) I did some music tech teaching which involved career advice (from me? - ha!) for would-be musos. It was very clear to me that there was a huge divide between the management, who assumed everyone was in it for the money and thought they would just teach them how to do that, and the clientele, who were working out their adolescent crises by way of musical expression and had no idea or intention of building a business platform.

I ended up having a long conversation with the various groups about the very fundamentals of economic life and how and why money is the supportive framework to, not the antithesis of, art.

I had to go back to the management and explain that there were a few steps to take for many of those folks before they even knew what a path was, let alone which one they should choose and much of the money and effort out in to support them would be wasted otherwise.

I got a generally blank response which was a shame both because it seemed they saw the whole setup a job creation scheme for them rather than an intervention and also because some of the kids had a lot to say and an impressive talent for saying it which could have been nurtured had a few more questions been asked.

I suspect for a lot of people there will be a lot of truth in this:

As far as a career in music goes, the only way to do it, is to do it.

Work out the answers to the questions when you've figured out what questions are relevant to you.