I sent this e-mail to my musicians list:

Hey,

I was thinking the other day… “What does
it really take to be a successful musician or
songwriter, and why do people struggle all the time?”

Here in the UK, we’ve recently been having
some pretty awesome weather (I love the sun).
So cherishing the moment, I went for a
walk round my local park.

I sat on the bench, I got out my notebook, and
I began to doodle about what it really takes.
There were certain things that kept popping
up again and again, and you could divide them
up into… (1) creating a road map of the
things you need to do, and (2) characteristics
that you need to have. I’m going to write
some of them out here.

1) You’ve got to have GREAT song and music.
Without this, of course, you haven’t passed
the first hurdle. I’m including in this point
the recording, production and full preparation
of the music.

2) Then grow a following of people interested
in your music. Sign up with FanBridge or something
similar to get yourself a list. Probably the most
important point too, because it’s these people
that are going to put bread and wine on your table.

It’s these people that will socially share and ‘Like’
your work all over the web. And it’s these
people that will jump up and down (or whatever
they do) at your gigs.

3) Play gigs (for musicians). The more gigs you
play, the more you’re recognized. Sure, it can
be difficult to get paid all the time, but if you’re
starting out, settle for the opportunity alone.

Once you’ve got a paid gig in a location, try
to negotiate a recurring opportunity there…
once a month, once a fortnight, once a quarter.
Become a firm regular there. Learn the Zone
Booking strategy too (more below).

4) Get social, online. Have a site set up. Use
Hostbaby.com (wonderful, easy-to-follow
setup for muso sites). Get to Facebook and
set up your Music page. Sign up and Twitter.

5) Get your music videos online. They don’t have
to be professionally created videos. They just
need to show your music. Get a Flip camera
really cheap from Amazon, and get a friend
to record your practices, gigs, and performances.

Put these up on YouTube, give the videos
related tags and let them go viral. Share them
on your Facebook and Twitter. Email them to
your list. Videos are AWESOME at generating
interest and connection with the artist.

More than the action steps above (and there
are many more you could be doing)… I had
this MAIN point also written in my journal…

PERSEVERANCE.

How important is this?! Pretty much every
musician who has made it successful hasn’t had
it easy – whether they have gone it alone, or
they’ve had huge record deal backing. Sure, things
don’t always go right, but each time it goes
wrong is just a lesson in disguise.

I know musicians that are 57 years old still prodding
along, doing their best, taking their lessons,
making changes and creating results. These are
the same musicians that have “struggled” for the
last 40 years! I salute these people – because it’s
their constant and never-ending persistence
that gets them the result they want.

Successful musicians and songwriters are always
learning – from mentors, from fellow musicians,
managers, record labels, attending conferences
and further training. They’re always trying to
improve. They are doing the best they can at all times.

Another thing that’s really important is
MONEY MANAGEMENT. I used to be poor at
it, until I made a conscious effort to improve
how I treat, manage, save, spend and make
money. A lot of musicians don’t pay any importance
to this… We all hear the stories of those
multi-millionaire artists that go broke, only to
think, where could all that money possibly go!

I have more to say about all of this, but this message
is getting a bit long so I’ll leave it for another
time. I’m quite intrigued about what goes on in the
mind of successful musicians versus the mind
of those so-called “struggling” musicians.

Before I end, I want to let you know about
something very special coming up.

****************
FOUR FREE GIFTS – worth $388

I’m going to be giving away some of
my best training materials for free,
including these four elements:

TRAINING #1 (value: $147)
“How To Make Six Figures With Your Music Business” DVD

TRAINING #2 (value: $147)
“How To Get More Gigs” DVD

TRAINING #3 (value: $47)
“49 Music Promotion Tips” PDF Report

TRAINING #4 (value: $147)
“How To Launch Your Music Record Successfully” PDF Report

****************

I’ll tell you more in another e-mail on Monday 19th.

Keep your eyes open for it

All the best,
Kavit

Leave a comment below on what you think it takes to be a successful musician and songwriter.

I have been speaking to a lot of music teachers recently – some of them are active musicians who also teach to create a side income; others are full-time music teachers. Most of the people I meet are really passionate about what they do. However, many of them struggle.

They struggle to get new students. They struggle to create awareness about their instruments (if it’s rare) or to get the word out about themselves (if it’s a crowded market). Many struggle to generate income from their teaching. Many struggle to use new media to generate more students and revenue. Others just aren’t aware of the best music teaching techniques available today.

I have a question to ask, and I’d really value your input. I am putting the final touches on a free report specifically for music teachers, and I’d like to hear from you before I get it out. It is a high quality report – and has had some great reviews from it’s initial feedback rounds. And if you like my work, and any of my previous free reports/ebooks and paid training, you’ll find this really good for your music teaching business.

As a music teacher, what are your most pressing challenges and struggles? What do you find really difficult – and would like guidance in?

Please let me know by leaving a comment in the box below.  I really appreciate your time.

-Kavit

I’ve released a new 2-page document sharing the seven steps to musopreneurship.

It is a complete game plan to getting your music career to the next level.

Click here to download the Seven Steps to Musopreneurship PDF.

(Sign up on the right if you’re not on the mailing list for a special announcement on Tuesday 20th)

And be sure to leave your thoughts and comments below please.

Last time, I mentioned that the music industry might not actually exist as a separate industry, at least for the purposes of creating a business model that you can use to market your music.

Sometimes, however, it seems like there is a sort of music industry—one that has as its customer base all the musicians, songwriters, composers, and other creative people. Based on the pitches in my inbox, it is akin to the once growing vanity publishing business that made “pay to publish” a terrible phrase (although it came from a noble tradition). And we don’t even have to look as far as “pay to play” to see the demon rear its ugly head.

A quick history (optional)

Actually it has been around for a long time. It’s roots are found in ads in the back of magazines where you could find advertising for “song poems” that could be made into greatest hits, if only you were smart enough to hire this company to put your words to music and create a record that they would then “promote.” (If you aren’t familiar with printed magazines, don’t worry about it. Just bear with me.) Your professionally recorded song would be sent to all the radio stations (which is how it was done). Of course, your song would stand heads and shoulders above the others on the air, because the song would be crafted by a professional songwriter (obviously otherwise currently unemployed for unknown reasons) and professionally recorded.  Well, of course they were professionals—you paid them, which made them professional (i.e., earning money from music).

Back to current events

These folks, because they preyed on songwriters, were called song sharks, and although the magazine ads are mostly gone, and the disguises have changed, the fact that they prey on the desire of creative people to get their music heard hasn’t changed in the least. The internet not only makes it easier for music to get to people, it also makes it easier for the sharks to pitch their latest revolutionary way of getting your music heard.

Unfortunately, it is hard to separate the sharks (some of which seem to have morphed into vampires, in keeping with entertainment trends; so let’s use the term song vampire for them from now on) from legitimate toilers in the vineyards of music. Music is not a single product, nor simple. There are not any canned ways of doing things that produce more than canned results. So there is a great deal of room for hardworking agents, music pitching companies, music libraries, and so on. But there are few rules to help distinguish the revolutionary new idea (excuse me, we call them “platforms” now) from the same old con in new clothing.

It’s all very tiresome. And to add to the confusion, some things work for a while, then succumb to their own popularity.

Conventional wisbits

There are two competing bits of conventional wisdom out there. The first, the older, is that you shouldn’t pay for anything. That was the advice offered in the song shark era. If your music is any good, then people will pay you for it. If there is money to be made from your music, then plenty of talented people will be willing to work with you to get it in the right hands. This seems dated now, but there is a kernel of truth in it still. But it conflicts with conventional wisdom bit #2: If you won’t invest in your career, why should anyone else?

The problem I have with this wisbit (i.e., wisdom bit—it is the moral duty of journalists to corrupt the language with more meaningless jargon) is that first, it doesn’t provide any guide for where to invest. I have untold thousands of dollars invested in musical instruments, training, computers, software, microphones, sheet music, more instruments… I will stop here, having made that point. None of this is what the song vampires are talking about. What they mean is that my not giving them money is proof that I lack confidence in my own ability, music and career. To that I say (along with many things probably left unsaid): “Bullshit!” What I lack, often times, is confidence in their ability to help me in any way. The fact that they got some punk rock group into a club in Des Moines doesn’t mean a thing about what they can do in getting my music to recording artists, placed in films, or even get me more money when I play the local coffee shop (Yankee Creek, every other Sunday morning, 9:30-11:30—hope to see you there) or a regional festival. In fact, many of the “services” make my life harder because it seems to revolve around my running my life in a way they understand.

That isn’t how it works in the corporate world. In that universe (world is too small a word) the PR person goes to the client (hat in hand, dressed up real nice) and gets a spiel on “what we do and how we do it” and then goes back to the office to devise a program that does what the client wants.

But the point here is not to rant about the ineffectiveness of much music marketing; rather I simply want to point out that when it comes to song vampires, you not only don’t necessarily get what you want or need, but that it might soak up time better spent doing something frivolous, say making music.

Soft sell ending

So if you have some ideas of how to tell opportunities apart from the invitations of song vampires, share them. But bear in mind that everyone seeking money from you is not a vampire, unless they work for a government.

Because I have a passion for music, a lot of years dealing with it, and a background in economics, I recently spent time with people who wanted help in designing a new business model for the music industry. I felt I could use the exercise as well, for my own efforts. It is a subject that one of my cowriters and I discuss all the time. We didn’t come up with a good model (let’s get that out of the way right now) but we did come up with insights that I want to share.

Ayn Rand held that the biggest mistake philosophers (and economists) always made was in not checking their premises—the assumptions that you make when you start your thought processes. After rattling our  brains in an unproductive fashion for some time, I realized that we had never checked our premises. So the first question is, what were they? Were we even starting from the same ones?

When  business might not be business

A basic premise for me, in this case, was that we were going to produce a business model. That’s the words we used, at any rate. Immediately we saw difficulties. I understand a business model to be a set of strategies that can be used to produce a consistent profit. Old economics training dies hard, after all. I was looking for ways to, in the vernacular, monetize the music. The people I was talking with were asking the questions: “How can I make a mark on the music industry? How can I get a foot in the door.” And those are quite different. If profit making is not a critical factor, and sustainability of a business enterprise isn’t at stake, the horizons widen considerably. You have many, many more options. Including one I dislike, which is giving music away. (But I digress.)

The next premise was that it is possible to create a viable model for doing business (however you define that) that can accommodate all the facets of “getting music out there.” There are certainly some strategies, but the delivery systems, targets and attitudes of the people using music are in a lot of flux. People are trying all sorts of things to get music into the hands of folks who will listen to it and use it. Anticipating both technology and trends, when taken to extreme, becomes speculation, and can be a distraction from music.

When is an industry not and industry?

The final premise was that it is possible to model the music industry. And why wouldn’t it be? Well, the answer here is when there is no industry to model.  I know, we talk about it all the time, but that doesn’t make it real. And here is why: Music is a piece of several related industries, not one of its own. Music is used in movies and television and in theater. And these are a part of the entertainment industry, which also encompasses a lot more. As such it is subject to the fortunes of those industries. Songwriters are in the recording industry, which sometimes produces product for film and television, and sometimes for the multimedia industry and sometimes for educational purposes. Music teachers are educators and their career fortunes are tied in more to that industry than anything musical.

It is a tangle of economic indicators, fortunes, and requirements.

In major industries, they separate consumer (retail) activities from business to business products. Sometimes the products are the same, and sometimes quite different. In the world of music (as opposed to industry) a master recording is a business to business product and a CD or download is a consumer product. They are marketed quite differently. The investment and rewards are quite different as well.  As you can see then, a musician/songwriter/composer/performer/teacher serves a lot of different (and diverse) client bases. Each has different needs, requirements, and even business cycles. As a session musician or songwriter, the amount of government spending on education probably won’t affect your business significantly; as a teacher, it might. And the opposite is true if there is turndown in consumer spending on entertainment.

Get a handle on the goal

So, the discussion we had should have started with questions that helped defined what we want to do. “Making music” is too vague to mean much to anyone. But defining specific roles within that universe would tell us who and what you want to be, which makes it possible to find a way to get there. And that is a better understanding of the idea of a business model than we used.

A vision of what you would be doing, a clear picture that shows you touring, or sitting home writing music, or doing studio work, is a place to start. Then trust your gut reaction to that picture. Is it cool, or stressful? That will tell you a lot about whether to even bother pursuing it. There is no point in figuring out a way to get more gigs if you hate playing them!

I would like to hear about your business plans and models. How do you segment this fragmented, bit of lots of other industries? How do you plan to make inroads in your specific segment? This is less about trying to be a star than a serious, and business like, approach to doing what you want to do and being successful at it (by your own standards).

It seems that nothing is more important in business these days than being able to adapt quickly to changes in tastes, technology and other influences, such as the economy. And the music business not only is no exception, it is practically the poster child for a business whipped by changing times. Musicians, composers, songwriters, are just cogs in the machinery of the culture, and more things are affecting us everyday.

The delivery is the thing

Soon Apple’s Tablet will probably force us all to rethink music marketing once again (except for those farsighted enough to have been thinking about it for some time now.). The specifics will come out in the wash, but we know now that every new way of providing content, as we are fond of saying in this age, produces new challenges and promises new profits. The challenges are guaranteed, but the profits can be elusive.

It is said in legal circles that a lawyer who defends himself in court has a fool for a lawyer; doctors tell you that it is difficult for the best diagnostician to take care of him or herself. There is truth in this, and it applies to all of us. The issue here is a lack of objectivity. It is easy (relatively) to be objective about someone else. That is why, often as not, someone else can write a better press release about your new CD than you can. By extension, marketing your music, taking a long hard look at it can require another pair of eyes, ears, and with luck, another brain to analyze it all.

What I am getting at is the need for musicians to work together or to work with other people in some fashion. Someone who is dtrong in a field where you are weak can be more important than a collaborator or agent. You trade off work and viewpoints. Sounds downright communal, doesn’t it? But perhaps the day of the rugged individualist going it alone in an era of corporate marketing might be all in the past tense. Certainly there is room for the rugged individualist in music, but only if that person doesn’t might being an outsider in the world of success. Only if being an individual is better than being better known for your music and wealthy (ier) than the other kids on the block.

Knowing the turf

I confess to a bit of confusion about the culture I live in at the moment—the United States. Why anyone would watch reality television is beyond me. (Why anyone would watch television is beyond me, but that is another story.) Why anyone would by a CD by someone who won a staged contest fails me. It is supposed to be about the music.

The important point here is that I don’t know the turf—the rules, the motives of customers for the product. And the fact that I don’t understand it doesn’t mean anything at all, except that it is more of a challenge for me to market into that world than it will be for someone who lives in it. Common wisdom tells you that if you want to sell music to movies, you should be watching lots of them to get to know the trends (and hear mistakes as well). But what if you don’t like movies?

Understanding marketing and understanding how to reach people who live in another universe are quite different things.

Using what you learn

I could whine about fate; say that good music should find a niche, but that is useless and pointless. In this case, the music serves a specific cultural need. And this is a critical bit of information for me. If I attach my concept of success to getting music into reality television that I refuse to watch, then I need to connect and work with someone who does understand the attraction of the medium. Otherwise I just play a huge guessing game. You see, adapting to the environment doesn’t mean finding out how to sell them what I do, so much as figuring out what they want and giving them that with my own spin on it.

Just as I wouldn’t pitch a 15 minute classical price for a film scene in a jazz club, I need to understand how I can apply my skills and talents to what is needed in the market.

Alternatively, I can write and produce whatever I want, and be content with the knowledge that some pieces might find a home eventually, but that my standard for success has to be in the quality of the music I create.

It doesn’t matter much if you are talking about performance or licensing master tracks—the issue is the same. If the music you play doesn’t get people into the club, you will stop getting into the clubs as well (or the clubs will go out of business, which can be even worse).

So, if you are having trouble marketing, check your ability to adapt, whether it is to the new content delivery systems, the trends, or something else. If you can’t fix it yourself, it isn’t the end of the world either. You just have to be flexible.

If you’ve found a better path, I’d love to hear about it.

In my last blog I suggested that this start of a new year is an excellent time for refocusing. You can stop, take a breath, get some perspective on what you are doing and where you are going, and decide where you need to put your best effort right now. To complement that idea I am going to suggest that you learn to narrow your focus. You need to pick one, manageable thing. Success in music is not a focus. Improving your skills at getting bookings, learning to play Thelonius Monk, or finding a way of marketing your songs, are all things that can be focused on. And yes, these can, and probably should be, broken down into even more manageable chunks.

The Multitasking Trap

The fastest path to frustration is to try doing everything at once. One of the shocking truths (for some) is that multitasking does not generally produce very good results. It might produce a lot of results, but little of it is worth much. There is no focus, little ability to follow through, and you come across as distracted—not a good image in business, playing on the bandstand, or listening to a loved one. Success and focus go together. The best negotiators are patient people; some of the best players know when to lay back.

Being focused isn’t easy in a world full of distractions, but I frequently see people fall by the wayside because they don’t understand the need. Here is a case in point. A talented singer I know moved to a town and starting putting a band together, jamming with everyone who would let her join in, and booking gigs, all at once. Because she had a compelling personality and a fine voice, she got several gigs. Unfortunately, her talents did not extend to band management and, as the gigs approached, she was unable to keep her band together. Although they rehearsed a fair amount, progress was slower than she wanted, and tempers flared. The band was fired or quit, depending on the person telling the story, and the gigs were ultimately either cancelled (bad for your reputation) or played with a pickup band, which couldn’t provide the showcase she really wanted. Her intentions were fine—she wanted to take the local musical scene by storm, but she didn’t determine what needed to be done, prioritize, and then focus. Impatience shot down an energized effort.

Although it can seem intolerable to put things we want on hold, it is only sensible to present new material or a performance when it is ready, and not a moment before. The big acts rehearse for a long time, and often use coaches to get the performance to the desired level. Even Michael Jackson worked with dance professionals to hone his skills, back at his peak.
If success is your goal, then hard work should be your mantra. And the focus should be on the thing that is most important to do next. It might be something to do with business, it might be art, it might be personal.

Know What Needs To Be Done

A very good course I took years ago suggested that we should all have a short “to do” list. This list should be of only the things that qualify for the heading “If this was the only thing I got done today, I would have accomplished something important.” You put the most important at the top and do it. You don’t think about #2 until #1 is done, or you find that for some external reason it can’t be done today.

That is one way to learn focus. It is how I got this blog done today, rather than at some future time. It is the way I will finally learn to play Thelonius Monk tunes (or anything else).

So you focus, narrowly, on something to be accomplished, then give it your best shot. Then you move on. You can’t make a mistake by focusing and giving it your best effort. It’s only when your thoughts on unfocused (as in multitasking) that you give less than your best.

Now it is time to find your focus, and go for it. It promise that it will make 2010 the best possible year it can be for you. And who deserves that success more?

Many people view the end of one year and the beginning of another as a time to reflect. As an advocate of the here and now, I suggest that a better idea is to take this opportunity to refocus—your attention, your effort and your intention. I’m not talking New Year’s resolutions or anything so trendy. No, it is time to drag out the thoughts you’ve had on your marketing plan and public relations plan, take a hard look at the current realities of the world of music, and get everything up to date.

Why now?

There is a sense of a fresh start that comes with a new year. That means you could have a little extra energy and enthusiasm to put into it. It also means it can be easier to let go of past mistakes and old habits. Habits might die hard, but it was reputedly Einstein who said: “Repeating an action and expecting a different result is one form of insanity.” If he didn’t say it, he should have. And there was never a better time to change your actions.

Remember that figuring out what doesn’t work is a sign of progress. That is the process of discovery that is essential to scientific discovery. You make some assumptions based on the best information available to you, and try something. If it doesn’t work, the appropriate questions are: “Is my vision inaccurate?” and “Do I understand why it didn’t work?” Looking for blame, or worrying about how that effort looks to other people is wasted effort, and adds stress to your life that is counterproductive (not all stress is bad, but self imposed stress that is strictly negative, is.)

My marketing plan thought for the year

Here is a new thought for a new year. It is reasonable to have a marketing plan that involves not trying to market anything. If that sounds foolish, let me explain. Sometimes the reason marketing efforts don’t work is because the product isn’t ready to market. You might need a fallow period, a time when you develop new skills, learn something, gain some insight, or connect with people who complement your efforts. Any of these, or a combination, might be what it takes to create music that gets noticed.

And it might not just be a creative learning. You might, by biding your time and paying attention, find a new way to package your music or performance. In the heat of battle, when you are performing actively and busting your butt to get noticed, it can be hard to see what others are doing. Taking a breather can let you profit from their brilliance and their mistakes, equally. For instance, if you’ve done all the guerilla marketing stuff (which really is not new, or underground, it is just marketing that was repackaged for a wider audience), and things seem to have peaked, getting out and seeing how things work for other artists might open your eyes to new ideas, or you might figure out why things are going wrong.

Time out to learn

For example, I’ve read that you need to “ask for the sale” at gigs. Common wisdom in certain circles advocates having someone hawking your merchandise. Superficially it makes sense. But if I go to a gig and the emphasis is on the merchandise, if the music isn’t exceptional, I won’t hang around. High pressure sales make a free concert too damn expensive for my tastes. I like the CDs and so on to be available, and often buy one or more at a concert, but I don’t want to feel like I went to the mall (I don’t go to malls willingly). A low pressure approach suits me, and seems to suit the audiences I play for. But for a long time, I had the feeling I was doing something wrong, missing out on something. Taking a break from the hustle and gaining some objectivity, I think I was on the right path. Yes, a hustle might have sold a few more CDs, but simply selling a few more CDs was less important than building a loyal following.

As I took a break, I found many areas in my performance that could be significantly improved. All it took was a clear view of what I wanted to accomplish.

Marketing for the laid back musician

For me, marketing is an interesting and often difficult challenge. I am not a pushy person, in general. Aggressive, but I don’t like to go where I am not welcome. So much of my marketing is trying to find ways to be welcomed to new audiences. Getting gigs in bars and clubs requires a pushy person, which is why everyone wants a booking agent or manager—to do it for them.  In my case, I shifted my focus from bars to festivals for a time. I enjoyed playing blues and folk festivals. Good pay, people sell your CDs for you, you play one set, and the evening is free. Not a bad deal. But they are infrequent, making it hard to make a living that way. But it made me happier, and gave me time to create music for music libraries and improve my music skills and understanding, while still gigging.

I don’t want to suggest with this that all of you should take some time out. I just want you to keep it in mind as a possibility. If you can focus your marketing and pr plans toward a clear vision of a successful 2010, and do it with enthusiasm, then you are on a roll. Jumping off now makes no sense. No, this is the fallback plan for those who feel lost in the woods. And, if you need a break, it doesn’t have to be a long one. You just need the time to sort out your thoughts and vision.

Meantime, if you have some insights into things that the rest of us should be factoring into our marketing for the New Year, whether it is a way to deal with music for phone aps or getting tight fisted drunks to buy CDs or download cards, we’d love to hear it and discuss it.

Press Play To Watch The 2009 Holiday Message From Kavit Haria:

FREE Teleclass With Kavit Haria on Mon 4th January 2010:
Strategies For Kickstarting Your Music Career In 2010.
Click Here To Book Your Place

This post is inspired by a recent post at the CNET blog in which they debate between Myspace and Facebook – the two social networking giants – and which will outperform the other in 2010.

Here are a few of my thoughts:

• I believe Facebook will still be ahead of Myspace in 2010, just as it was this year. Facebook is aesthetically much better, and its clean interface allows users to navigate the website much better. Myspace, on the other hand, needs to clean up and look a bit better.

• Facebook is a community. Myspace still hasn’t thought of itself as a real community; it’s not as easy to discuss, contact your members and communicate with friends as it is on Facebook.

• Facebook opened up its API for developers to create applications. Myspace hasn’t yet, as far as I’m aware. I do believe, however, that Myspace will open up completely in 2010, allowing people to create applications that engage with the website and allow people more chance for interactivity.

Here are some questions to get you thinking:

1. Which do you use more – Myspace or Facebook – and why?
2. What do you think will happen to these two social giants in 2010?

Feel free to share your thoughts with me in the comments below…