Why Only Few People Build A Successful Music Career As A Professional Musician & How You Can Join Them
What makes some musicians extremely successful with a long-term music industry career, while so many others struggle to make ends meet and end up working non-music related day jobs?
In my previous music career articles...
I explained that a huge part of the answer lies in the ability of successful music career professionals to offer “maximum value with minimum risk” to every company, band, person or organization they come into contact with.
(If you haven't read my previous music career articles and aren’t familiar with this music career building concept, take this short music career test to learn more before reading the rest of this article).
Now, obviously...
There is a LOT that goes into this seemingly simple music career concept, but ultimately all things you do must tie into this idea in one way or another if you want to be a professional musician.
However, as you may have already guessed...
There is a big difference between ‘knowing’ a simple idea and actually ‘making it a reality’ in your music career.
As a music career mentor, I spend a great deal of time training musicians how to build maximum value with minimum risk in everything they do in their music career.
I have observed that most people can easily understand the need to minimize their risk in obvious, common-sense ways.
However...
Every professional musician sometimes has a hard time seeing how their positive skillsets and elements of music career value ALSO bring with them some unexpected elements of music career risk.
Not understanding this fact is a crippling flaw in the music career plans of most people, preventing even those with very high potential from becoming a professional musician.
If you want to become a professional musician versus ending up among the majority who fail...
It is critical to learn how to minimize the hidden risks/weaknesses that exist ‘beneath the surface’ of your strengths as a musician.
In this article, I will show you how to dramatically boost your chances of having a thriving music career by getting a much clearer picture of your inner profile of professional musician values and risks.
The Inner Profile Of A Professional Musician
As musicians (and as people), we spend a lot of time developing a variety of skills and areas of expertise that we hope will help us in our chosen field (of having a music career).
However, if you are like most who aspire to become a professional musician, you've never received any music career training.
That means all the skills you have achieved were developed largely ‘at random’ (without clear planning and understanding of how they fit into the big picture of your long-term goals).
Because of this...
Every skill or strength you possess (both as a professional musician on your instrument and in your experience of working in the music industry) contains an ‘opposing’ weakness that can be perceived (by others) as an element of ‘risk’.
This can often overshadow your music industry strengths if left unchecked.
I have seen this happen to musicians VERY frequently (regardless of their work ethic or motivation)… and the worst part is, they are often totally unaware of it.
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To speed up the process of growing your music career, you MUST know how to maximize the strengths you already possess while recognizing (and eliminating) the opposing risks that they bring to your music career plan.
This is done by anyone who became a successful professional musician (whether they consciously realize this or not), while everybody else struggles to understand ‘what they are doing wrong’ in their pursuit of a music industry career.
Fortunately...
This analysis is possible for anybody to do, and I'm going to show you how to begin this process in the rest of this article.
To help you do the above analysis for yourself...
Look at the table below to see several seemingly positive attributes of a professional musician (listed in the left column of the table).
In the right column of the table is an explanation of how that same strength can very often be a risk factor in your music career efforts.
When I train someone to become a professional musician and start a career in music, these are some of the common problems I help them to correct. There are actually DOZENS of examples I could write here, but to avoid making this article too long, I will limit my list to the items you see below.
It's important to recognize that the professional musician traits listed in the left column of the table below ARE of course ‘good’ things to have and in most cases they DO help you in some way to grow your music career.
However, it is critical to recognize how each of these items can ALSO become your weakness UNLESS you find out how to stop this from happening.
You have excellent skills as a musician.
Many high level musicians spend ‘too much’ time continuously trying to improve their musical skills further and far too little time is invested into learning how the ‘music business’ works.
Additionally, too little action is taken to actually grow your CAREER as a professional musician in the music industry.
You have lots of experience playing in many different bands over the years as a professional musician.
Your experience as a professional musician this can be a red flag when trying to join a major band.
That's because the fact that you played in many bands before demonstrates a ‘potential’ lack of loyalty or commitment on your part to any one project.(Even if you've build a successful music career as a professional musician.)
Note: Your ‘actual’ loyalty and commitment may be very high, but unless you are careful, the way this credential is ‘perceived’ by others may often not work in your favor.
You have an advanced music degree.
In 99.9% of music industry cases...
Your time and money can be much better invested into actually growing your music career AND on getting specific ‘music career training’ from a successful musician in the music industry who is already doing the very things you want to achieve (versus a professor who only reads from a book about the music industry).
You play multiple instruments very well.
You must decide for yourself (based on your goals) what kind of music industry reputation you would rather have and position yourself accordingly.
Note: Of course having the general knowledge of more than one instrument IS good for the music industry, but there is a difference between simply playing several instruments and ‘trying to POSITION yourself’ in the music industry as someone who tries to ‘specialize’ in playing lots of instruments.
You play many different styles of music.
Think about the big picture of your professional music career and plan your actions in the music industry accordingly.
You are full of new ideas and enthusiasm about growing your music career in the music industry.
In addition to a high potential for overwhelm and burnout, ‘unrestrained’ enthusiasm often leads to taking actions on random impulse at the expense of planning your music career in a strategic way (and therefore will likely lead to ‘random’ results).
You are good at planning music industry projects and paying attention to details.
While attention to detail and planning are all important, you must be careful to not allow this to stop you from moving forward in the music industry.
You are dependable and rely on yourself to get things done in the music industry.
In addition, relying on yourself for everything can prevent you from asking others for help in your music career when you truly NEED it. To be a successful professional musician, you MUST learn to be a team player.
You are highly determined and persistent.
You are very cooperative and get along well with others.
But remember that you can flip this list the other way.
If you already know that you have a certain personality flaw (or risk) that may hurt your music career...
... you can either lean into its opposite strength, or work hard to make it into a strength.
For example: if you have a hard time focusing on a single project for long periods of time...
Use that part of your personality to do something where this trait works in your music career’s favor.
For example – learn to play multiple styles really well on your instrument.
Because, guess what?
Different music career paths require different skills.
For example:
If you want to play in a progressive rock band, the fact that you happen to know jazz and country styles may hurt your chances of being a serious contender for this role.
But if you want to be a studio musician?
This is a HUGE plus.
(Because to be a studio musician, you have to be good at a lot of things and know at least the basics of many musical styles.)
Or, if you have a hard time asking others for help (due to being too self-reliant)...
Use your self-reliance to achieve a lot in your music career before you apply for a record deal with a record company.
This way, your natural reluctance to ask others for help can work in your favor and help you achieve music industry credentials most musicians will never have.
Point is: it doesn't matter what your specific music career strengths and weaknesses are.
What matters is that you ‘know’ what they are... along with what strengths are needed for the role you want to play in the music industry.
Then, work to eliminate or reduce the weaknesses that can hurt your chances of making it in the music business.
Now that you have seen how any of your music career strengths often can also conceal a significant element of music industry risk...
Here are several important steps you need to take now to get on the right track towards your goals of being a professional musician:
1. Realize and remember that not all of your ‘assets’ (skillsets and elements of value for your music career) are ‘good’ when seen in the perspective of YOUR specific goals and music career situation.
Some things that can appear to be positive on the surface may actually hurt you, often without you realizing it (as described in the table above).
2. Get a more specific picture of your current arsenal of strengths and weaknesses for pursuing a professional music career by taking this music career test.
3. Put together a music career blueprint listing the specific elements of value that you must develop for your music career AND outline the steps you must take to minimize their opposing weaknesses and risks.
If you are unsure of how to do this on your own, find someone who can coach and mentor you through this process.
In addition to helping you understand what elements of value are most applicable to your specific music career...
An experienced music career trainer can help you discover completely new and innovative ways of growing your value to the music industry that you have never realized before.
4. Recognize that putting together all pieces of the puzzle into place for your music industry career requires a clear vision of your goals and lots of effective training.
The reality is that most musicians do not have the patience to plan their music career actions in this way and instead rely mostly on intuition to guide them.
Although listening to your instincts is valuable, guesswork is unlikely to ‘consistently’ give you the results you want in your music career.
If this sounds like you, you will benefit greatly from working with someone who can show you the most effective way to achieve results in the music industry.
Finally, remember that as you go through the process of acquiring skills and ‘doing things’ to grow your music career, your actions will continue to bring limited results until you go through the self-evaluation process described in this article.
Once you learn how to maximize your existing potential, your progress towards becoming a highly successful professional musician will become much faster than ever before.
If you haven’t yet taken the music career test mentioned in this article, I encourage you to do so now.
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