How to become a professional musician упражнение 5

How to become a professional musician упражнение 5

Choosing a career : generation gap

B4

I decided to become a professional musician. I knew it would be difficult, but I wanted to try. But my father did not like / didn’t like the idea.

NOT LIKE

B5

ONE

B6

NOT UNDERSTAND

B7

But one day my father said he wanted to talk to me. He asked me what I intended to do after leaving school. I told him I wanted to be a musician.

INTEND

B8

He said that a career in music was very risky. He said that I ought to become an accountant, because it was a safe job.

BE

B9

We talked for a long time. The longer we talked the more depressed I got.

LONG

B10

Of course, I could see my father was right in a way.

CAN

B11

I knew it would be more sensible to pass my exams and get a safe job.

EXAM

B12

But I only was interested in playing the guitar. That was what I wanted to do!

INTEREST

How to become a professional musician упражнение 5

Прочитайте текст. Заполните пропуски в предложениях под номерами В4-В12 соответствующими формами слов, напечатанных заглавными буквами справа от каждого предложения. TEST 05 (part1)

Choosing a career : generation gap

B4

I decided to become a professional musician. I knew it would be difficult, but I wanted to try. But my father …………………… the idea.

NOT LIKE

B5

ONE

B6

NOT UNDERSTAND

B7

But one day my father said he wanted to talk to me. He asked me what I …………………… to do after leaving school. I told him I wanted to be a musician.

INTEND

B8

He said that a career in music …………………… very risky. He said that I ought to become an accountant, because it was a safe job.

BE

B9

We talked for a long time. The …………………… we talked the more depressed I got.

LONG

B10

Of course, I …………………… see my father was right in a way.

CAN

B11

I knew it would be more sensible to pass my …………………… and get a safe job.

EXAM

B12

But I only …………………… in playing the guitar. That was what I wanted to do!

Do You Have What The Music

Industry Looks For In You?

What do successful musicians do to become successful (and how can YOU do it too)? To answer this question, you need to look one level deeper and first understand how successful musicians ‘think’. Looking only at the ‘actions’ of musicians you look up to (and trying to blindly copy them) is what most people do and is one of the reasons why they fail. Fact is, the actions that professional musicians take to become successful are the product of how they think and are (in most cases) only relevant to THEIR music career situations, not yours. The true gold is in learning ‘how to think’ like these musicians so that you learn how to design your own path towards music career success.

Do You Have What The Music

Industry Looks For In You?

Understand The Difference Between Tactics And Strategy

To have any chance of a successful music career, you must first establish the goals you want to achieve in the medium and/or long term. Examples of such goals might include getting a record deal, getting into a band you really want to join, touring the world and/or building your financial freedom to allow you to write and record your music without having to work for a living.

To reach such goals, a successful musician will plan out an ‘organized’ and well thought-out series of tactics connected together by an overarching strategy.

A ‘tactic’ refers to an isolated action taken to achieve a short-term result. Playing a gig, seeking reviews for your new record, building a website to promote your music are examples of tactics. Any single action you take could be considered a ‘tactic’.

A ‘strategy’ (in a broad sense) refers to synchronizing many short term tactics in a well thought-out way to achieve a medium or longer term objective.

Of course not all musicians are naturally born strategists when it comes to building their music careers (I wasn’t either), but you need to learn to become one to maximize your chances for success in music. The fastest way to do this is by working with a mentor or a coach to help design your music career success plan.

Have Laser-Like Focus

Successful professional musicians make sure that every action they take is consistent and congruent with the big picture goal(s) they seek to achieve. They are focused like a laser on their long term objective and don’t invest time, money or energy into any other musical activity unless they know with certainty how/why that action will benefit their careers. For example, if you wanted to join a successful touring band, you need to put all your efforts into becoming the most in demand musician for such a band, instead of also (at the same time) working to become a studio musician, a concert promoter or a composer for hire.

In contrast, unsuccessful musicians follow the conventional wisdom of trying to ‘keep their options open’ when building their careers. As a result, they spread themselves too thin and achieve only mediocre (if any) results in all the areas they are involved in. Fact is, to become successful, you must become the BEST at whatever you do and this can only happen when your thoughts, beliefs, desires, strategy and tactics (actions) all line up to take you in the same congruent direction.

Another element of ‘congruency’ has to do with being true to what it is you really want to achieve in your music career. If you ultimately want to be a touring musician but you instead pursue a job as a music producer because you perceive that to be a more ‘secure’ path to take in the industry, it will be extremely difficult for you to line up all of your thoughts, beliefs, strategy and tactics towards the goal that is not in line with your true desires (more on this below).

How can you implement this in your music career? The simplest way is to ask yourself one question about everything you ever do in the music business: “In what ‘specific’ ways is the action I’m about to take helping me reach my ultimate music career goals?” If you cannot answer this question in ‘specific’ terms, that is a clear sign that you are on the wrong track with what you are about to do and need to learn a lot more about how to achieve your goal. Ironically, even if the action you are about to take IS valuable to your music career, it will often not have any positive effect if you do it without an understanding of how to best integrate it into your music business strategy.

In addition, some actions may (on the surface) ‘seem’ unrelated to your big picture goals but in fact are TOTALLY related to them. For example, most musicians who have a goal of playing in a touring band resist the idea of getting into teaching music, fearing that this will distract them from their goal. In reality, building a teaching business is the fastest, most secure and most flexible way to support yourself as a musician while giving yourself plenty of freedom to pursue career opportunities (such as touring) that you would never be able to do if you were working a steady 9-5 day job.

Bottom line is that your understanding of ‘why’ an action is important is just as critical to your success as you actually doing it. To test how prepared you are for success in the music business, take this short music career test.

Forget “Zero-Sum” Thinking

Successful professional musicians think, believe and act upon the following 2 premises:

Premise 1. Money is NOT ‘the root of all evil’ and it is not immoral or unethical for musicians (or music business companies) to seek to make as much money as possible. Unless you fully believe this (and act in congruence with this belief), no music company is going to invest hundreds of thousands of dollars into your (or your band’s) career. Why? Because whether you like it or not, all companies in music exist for only one reason: ‘to make money’. These entities will never put up huge amounts of money at risk for a musician who believes that money is evil and doesn’t intend to help the company make their money back with interest. This is why this industry is called the music ‘business’ and not music ‘charity’. Note: Companies who are considering partnerships with bands and musicians WILL easily sense what your attitude is regarding this issue even if you try to trick them about your true intentions or beliefs. This is another reason why it is so critical that your beliefs, mindset and actions all become congruent with each other (as mentioned above).

Premise 2. The world is filled with abundance and there is no limit to the success you can achieve for yourself and those around you through win-win thinking and mutually beneficial partnerships.

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The above mindsets and beliefs are the foundation from which successful musicians determine the ‘action steps’ to take to reach their goals in the music business.

In contrast, unsuccessful musicians generally believe the opposite to the 2 ideas above. They think that the amount of wealth/money/resources in society is limited and that when someone becomes wealthy or gets a certain opportunity, that only limits the amount of wealth or opportunities available to others. In addition to these beliefs being proven completely false, the actions that will spawn out of this ‘scarcity mindset’ will always lead to lose-lose outcomes in all music career projects you become involved in. No serious company or band wants to work with musicians like this.

This is another reason why copying individual tactics you see other musicians do is a waste of time. In addition to the need for a big-picture strategy, if you lack the matching belief system to support the actions you take, you will never get the results you could and should get in your music career.

Lose The Entitlement Mentality

The unsuccessful musicians erroneously assume that musicians need to ask/beg for opportunities from the gatekeepers in the music business (such as by sending promo packs, demos and press kits to record companies) and the few who ‘get lucky’ receive the big breaks that the majority of musicians miss. When this common approach (predictably) doesn’t work for them, they can only complain and perpetuate the myth about the ‘cutthroat competition’ that makes it hard for the average person to make it in music.

In contrast, successful professional musicians do not hope, wish for or think that someone will ‘give’ them music career opportunities simply because of who they are or because of how great their music is. They know that they need to ‘earn’ the right to be successful.

Doing this requires them to:

The musicians who do the above steps automatically cut to the head of the line ahead of millions of musicians who are left in the dust, wondering when things will ‘start to happen’ to them. To learn more about how you can make this happen in your life, get this free 6 day mini course on how to build a music career.

Become Selective In Who You Associate With

You know that music companies are very selective in who they work with and who they invest money and resources into. All successful professional musicians are this way also…and you should be too.

Here is a simple example of how ‘not’ being extremely selective can cost you your entire music career:

When amateur musicians (who want to become pros) put together a band, they rarely look beyond someone’s musical abilities. No discussion is ever held about how each member’s long term goals and vision fit into the band, and no strategic business plan is ever set into motion for how each member will help the band become successful. Such bands rarely stay together for more than a few months. Worst of all, the risk to record companies now becomes exponentially greater when they have to deal with not just one, but with several individuals who fail to deliver any real value to the music industry. Chances of such a project ever becoming successful is exactly zero.

Successful musicians know how important it is to not simply find musicians who can ‘play their instrument well’ but whose mindsets and beliefs match their own in all the ways I described in this article.

Even if you don’t plan on playing in a band, you still need a network of like-minded musicians, associates and partners who will support you as you will support them in your efforts to build your music career. Just like I wrote above, it’s not enough that these people merely be ‘good musicians’. They need to possess (or be in the process of developing) all the same pieces of the puzzle that successful musicians share.

I have seen firsthand just how valuable such a network is to musicians as the members of my Music Careers Mentoring Program created money-making partnerships, joined successful bands and toured the world (and achieved many other amazing things) all as a result of the relationships they built with each other that were based on the foundation of the success principles laid out in this article.

Now that you understand the main differences between how successful and unsuccessful musicians think, it should be much clearer to you why so few ever truly make it. When it comes to building a music career, your mindset can be your strongest ally or your worst enemy and you must learn how to make it work for you. After you get yourself on the same ‘mental wavelength’ as successful professional musicians, THEN every action you take will bring you so much more benefit than it ever could otherwise.

If you haven’t yet studied the free 6 day mini course on how to make it in the music industry, you should do it right now to learn how to apply the ideas from this article into your musical life.

How to Become a Professional Guitarist & Musician

Do You Have What The Music

Industry Looks For In You?

There are few things more tragic than a musician who has invested all of himself/herself into a life-long dream (such as pursuing a big professional music career) only to fail because of a single bad choice or a single important, but overlooked or underestimated, fact. Sadly it happens all the time.

Imagine investing tens of thousands of hours over many years, studying hard, learning as much as you can, to hone all the various musical skills you want to develop, striving for excellence in everything that you do, strengthening your creativity, investing piles of money on everything from music gear to your music education (music lessons, classes, etc.). Then doing all the necessary non-musical things to position oneself in the music business such as: making key music business contacts, developing a fan base, music promotion, etc. Now imagine that a single, overlooked or underestimated, element was missing. Or maybe a fatal mistake was made inadvertently on your part. Something that seemed so insignificant actually caused you to be seen as “undesirable” or “high risk” in the eyes of record companies, music career managers, producers or publishers.

Do You Have What The Music

Industry Looks For In You?

As an example, I have a friend (who shall remain anonymous in order to not embarrass him or his band), who is extremely talented and one of the best musicians I know. His band, singer and music are all truly world class. The songs are built upon wonderful musical and lyrical depth and integrity. At the same time, their sound is accessible enough to the common person to be on rock radio stations around the world. The band is highly motivated, has an amazing work ethic, and possesses almost everything to be a mega huge band.

On several occasions I’ve offered words of advice on how the band could be seen as significantly more valuable to the record companies and music career managers they were in negotiations with over the last couple of years. I offered to help not only because the leader of the band is my friend, but because I know the band has enormous potential and a real chance of fulfilling their stated goals.

There was no need for this band to try to “be in the right place, at the right time” because they have been in the right place, at the right time, many times. They’ve been in close contact with high level record companies and management firms. In general, these key music business executives liked the band on both a musical level and a personal one. However, time after time no significant deals were offered by any of the people or companies they had been talking directly to. What is frustrating for my friend and his band is that these music business companies and people didn’t spend any of their time telling the band the truth about why they are not interested in taking the next step with the band. If the perceived problem cannot be fixed easily and quickly, they won’t waste their time even discussing the problem. Instead they’ll stop returning phone calls and emails or give the band some superficial bogus reasons why no deal will be offered. Some of these so-called reasons range from, “our company is not looking to sign any new bands this year”, to “we’re having some legal issues on our end and can’t sign you now”. Of course these statements were obviously untrue and only served to get the band to give up and go away by showing that there is no chance to move forward. It is a fact that these lines are merely an excuse, because if any of that were true, the music business companies would never have invested weeks or months into talking to the band before offering a deal.

So what was really happening? Why did the music business executives even bother to talk to the band in the first place if they had no real interest in offering them a real opportunity and contracts.

. well. the answer to the second question is that they DID have serious intentions on signing the band. The answer to the first question is that the music business companies were doing research on the band. They were testing the musicians (especially the leaders) of the band. No I’m not talking about doing research on what the band’s songs sound like, or their style and image. Those things were already clearly known from the press kit (the package the band sent to the music business companies which contained, their CD, photos of the band members, DVD of video footage of the band, website info, their biographies etc.). And it was that press kit (as well as some persistence and lots of emails and phone calls, etc.) that got the music company’s attention – all of that happened before the company ever returned the band’s calls and emails to begin talks about working together.

As you can see, getting in front of some key music business executives wasn’t the problem, the band has done this several times on its own. Their consistent problem was that the band could never seem to close the deal. Every time business people probed deeper and researched more about the band, there was something that kept coming up in each case that killed the deal. To the band, it was not only extremely frustrating to go through this over and over again, but the worst part was that they weren’t ever given the whole story from the record companies and music career managers about what the problem was.

The record company people were also frustrated because they had found yet another great band with great potential but it turned out to be another band who didn’t have the “complete package” together. And what is worse is that during such times, the record companies were losing thousands of dollars and human resources by investing into the initial series of talks, meetings (flying the musicians around the country to make the meetings happen) and on some preproduction work.

What was frustrating to me was to see this great band suffer like this. We had several conversations about what I believed was holding the band’s opportunities back. Yet he (my friend) didn’t seem to believe in what I was advising him to do and change. Instead he went back home, wrote new songs that he thought might be a bit more radio friendly, then rewrote them again to make them heavier, then rewrote them again to make them less progressive. He chose to focus on the band’s sound (which was never the problem). In the end, none of that mattered since the songs (in all their various versions) were truly great marketable songs.

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What the record companies and music career managers were really looking for when talking to the band is a long list of things that make up a complete package. The fundamentals of that longer list were:

As already stated, the complete list is much longer, but the essence of those items lies in the main three points above. What I’ve written here is a broad generalization (and somewhat of an oversimplification) of the situations regarding this band and in how the music business works in dealing with brand new artists in the present day. What is important to notice here is the business’s focus on what values, risks and proof are related to the musicians “as people”. After so many years of doing all the right things, in terms of musical elements and self promotion, where the band continued to fall short was in areas that its leaders overlooked in the beginning, and then underestimated later, even after repeated conversations about these issues.

There are several reasons why I have chosen not to go into the specific details about what (I think) the band was doing wrong. Here are the main reasons:

Okay, now onto some things I can discuss. (these are common within bands). This band had some problems that many other good bands also have.

Although there was a founding member of the band who was the primary composer and labeled “the leader”, there were significant power struggles within the band’s members. Band politics are very common (especially when a band sees big opportunities), people sometimes become greedy and do things to “position themselves” within the band to gain more power in the band and also in negotiating with music business companies. As an example, some people in the band wanted more royalty rights and felt the leader of the band was not being fair. The leader’s position was, “hey I wrote most of the songs, therefore I deserve most of the publishing rights, I’m not going to give that up! That’s potential money that I earned!” Then you have a singer who says, “yeah, well if it wasn’t for my voice, we wouldn’t even be here in this meeting!”

It’s one thing to have differences in a band (it’s going to happen as the band grows), but it doesn’t help when the business people see that. When a power struggle blows out of control, that says “THIS BAND, AS A BAND, IS A BIG RISK, if they are having these types of major fights amongst themselves now, we definitely are not going to put them on tour and stick these 5 people on a tour bus for 3 months!” and without a tour, records don’t sell as well.

This next issue wasn’t the band’s biggest problem, but it was an issue that HAD to be resolved before their “potential” big shot music career manager was going to want to work with them. At least one record company (and probably all of the others they talked to) and the music career manager was prepared to offer deals to the “individuals” but not the band as a whole. They could see who was of most value in the band and who represented the most risk. But due to the unique nature of this band, offering deals to the individuals wasn’t really possible (this falls under both items 1 and 2 above). The singer and the writer (my friend) were the most valuable people in this case, but strangely, their value “apart from each other” was much less than it was as a team and the music business people clearly knew that. The other members could have been replaced if needed, but primary issues were centered around the main two people.

Being an idealist, as a musician, is a great thing in my opinion. And when we are discussing music I’m a total idealist (as many of you probably are). If you want to remain TRULY idealist, then you might seriously consider investing your own money and making, recording, releasing and promoting your records on your own. (this is the path I choose with the HESS band. We sell records around the world, but I did it on my own, by myself, with all of my own resources).

But if you don’t want to do that (which is okay), then you are seeking music business companies to do it for you and pay for it all with their own money and resources. (This is how it was done with my other band, HolyHell). But unless you can command MASSIVE power (that means you have already sold a million records or more) then you usually cannot have your cake and eat it too. My friend, and the rest of his band, wanted to have their cake and eat it too. And now they are simply without cake. Hungry.

The main intent of my original article wasn’t to speak of individual examples of things that went wrong with this band, it was to illustrate a much broader and more important idea which I began in part 1 of this article series. Sure, seeing the examples I just wrote about above may be helpful, but the value you can get from this is limited. Someone reading this might say, “ok good, now I know to beware of power struggles and resolve them BEFORE we sit down to talk to business people. – I’m good to go now.”

Focusing on the “examples” would be a mistake. Focusing on the general principles of the much bigger picture offered in my articles is where all the real potential value lies.

People in general, and musicians in particular, have a habit of focusing on what to do to “make it”. Musicians often neglect to focus equally on what not to do to “make it”. And that was the source (in my opinion) of the band’s problems. They did all the “right things”. But neglected to address the “other things” that were making them a higher risk to the business. Focusing on both sides of the equation (what to do and what ”not” to do) is so important, and that is the reason why we spend so much time and effort to correct this in the Music Careers Mentoring Program.

How To Become A Professional Guitarist & Musician. Part 2

\n There are few things more tragic than a person who has invested all of himself/herself into a life-long dream nly to fail because of a single bad choice or a single important, but overlooked, fact.

\n \n \n \n \n \n \n tomhess \n \n \n \n \n

To get the most out of this article, it is critical that you read Part 1 to this series before reading on

There are few things more tragic than a person who has invested all of himself/herself into a life-long dream (such as pursuing a big professional music career) only to fail because of a single bad choice or a single important, but overlooked or underestimated, fact. Sadly it happens all the time.

Imagine investing tens of thousands of hours over many years, studying hard, learning as much as you can, to hone in on all the various musical skills you’ve developed, striving for excellence in everything that you do, strengthening your creativity, investing piles of money on everything from music gear to your music education (lessons, classes, etc.). Then doing all the necessary non-musical things to position oneself in the music industry such as, making key contacts, developing a fan base, promotion, etc. Now imagine that a single, overlooked or underestimated, element was missing. Or maybe a fatal mistake was made inadvertently on your part. Something that seemed so insignificant actually caused you to be seen as undesirable or high risk in the eyes of record companies, managers, producers or publishers.

From our (us musicians) frame of reference, what appears to be common sense or sound logic to us, may not be congruent with the common sense or sound logic from the music industry’s (record companies, managers, publishers, producers, etc.) frame of reference. I’m referring to the risks that companies have in investing in people as described in Part 1 of this article.

As an example, I have a friend (who shall remain anonymous in order to not embarrass him or his band), who is extremely talented and one of the best musicians I know. His band, singer and music are all truly world class. The songs are built upon wonderful musical and lyrical depth and integrity. Yet their sound is accessible enough to the common person to be on rock radio stations around the world. The band is highly motivated, has an amazing work ethic, and possesses almost everything to be a mega huge band.

On several occasions I’ve offered words of advice on how the band could be seen as significantly more valuable to the record companies and managers they were in negotiations with over the last couple of years. I offered to help not only because the leader of the band is my friend, but because I know the band has enormous potential and a real chance of fulfilling their stated goals.

There was no need for this band to try to be in the right place, at the right time because they have been in the right place, at the right time, many times. They’ve been in close contact with high level record companies and management firms. In general, these key industry people liked the band on both a musical level and a personal one. However, time after time no significant deals were offered by any of the people or companies they had been talking directly to. What is frustrating for my friend and his band is that these industry people aren’t going to spend any of their time telling the band the truth about why they are not interested in taking the next step with the band. If the perceived problem cannot be fixed easily and quickly, the industry people won’t waste their time even discussing the problem. Instead they’ll stop returning phone calls and emails or give the band some superficial bogus reasons why no deal will be offered. Some of these so-called reasons range from, our company is not looking to sign any new bands this year, to we’re having some legal issues on our end and can’t sign you now. Of course these statements were obviously untrue and only served to get the band to give up and go away by showing that there is no chance to move forward. It’s just an excuse because if any of that were true, they would never have invested weeks or months into talking to the band before offering a deal.

So what was really happening? Why did the industry people even bother to talk to the band in the first place if they had no real interest in offering them a real opportunity and contracts.

As you can see, getting in front of some key people wasn’t the problem, the band had done this several times on their own. Their consistent problem was that the band could never seem to close the deal. Every time industry people probed deeper and researched more about the band, there was something that kept coming up in each case that killed the deal. To the band, it was not only extremely frustrating to go through this over and over again, but the worst part was they weren’t ever given the whole story from the record companies and managers about what the problem was.

The record company people were also frustrated because they had found yet another great band with great potential but here was another band that didn’t have the complete package together. And what is worse is that during such times, the record companies were losing thousands of dollars and human resources by investing the initial series of talks, meetings (flying people around the country to make the meetings happen) and on some preproduction work.

What was frustrating to me was to see this great band suffer like this. We had several conversations about what I believed was holding the band’s opportunities back. Yet he (my friend) didn’t seem to believe in what I was advising him to do and change. Instead he went back home wrote new songs that he thought might be a bit more radio friendly, then rewrote them again to make them heavier, then rewrote them again to make them less progressive. Focusing on the band’s sound (which was never the problem). In the end, none of that mattered since the songs (in all their various versions) were truly great marketable songs.

What the record companies and managers were really looking for when talking to the band is a long list of things that make up a complete package. The fundamentals of that longer list was:

01. The level of Overall Potential Value related to both the band as a whole, AND in all of its individual members.

02. The amount of Manageable Risk associated in investing in the band’s short and long-term career, AND in each of its individual members.

03. The Quantity and Quality of Existing Physical Proof regarding the above 2 items.

As already stated, the complete list is much longer, but the essence of those items lies in the main three points above. What I’ve written here is a broad generalization (and somewhat of an oversimplification) of the situations regarding this band and in how the music industry works in dealing with brand new artists in the present day. What is important to notice here is the industry’s focus on what values, risks and proof are related to the musicians as people. After so many years of doing all the right things, in terms of musical elements and self promotion, where the band continued to fall short was in areas that its leaders overlooked in the beginning, and then underestimated later, after repeated conversations about these issues.

People in general, and musicians in particular, have a habit of focusing on what to do to make it. People often neglect to focus equally on what not to do to make it And that was the source (in my opinion) of the band’s problems. They did all the right things. But neglected to address the other things that were making them a higher risk to the industry. Focusing on both sides of the equation (what to do and what not to do) is so important, and that is reason why we spend so much time and effort to correct this in the Music Careers Mentoring Program.

For more information on this topic check out these following resources:

Tom’s other music career development articles:

Copyright 2006 by Tom Hess. All rights reserved. Used by permission.\nTom Hess’s instructional website and world tour dates