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By T. Hess
Are you ready to begin pursuing your dream of becoming a professional musician?
Do you look forward to the day when you can finally leave your trivial day job
to work full time in the music industry writing songs, putting out albums and
touring with your band? I totally understand, because I was once in the same
exact place you are in right now!
The first thing you need to realize is that you CAN overcome any of the current
obstacles that are standing in the way of you and your music career success.
Don't allow yourself to 'become the victim' and blame others for your lack of
progress.
Get your music career going on the right track by following the same approach
used by Olympic competitors who succeed on the highest platform in the world
for their respective sports. If you have been keeping up with the events of
the Olympics, you've seen how evenly matched the athletes seem to be from event
to event. However, there are always winners and losers... no matter how good
an athlete is, they will either get a medal or miss the podium altogether. The
margin for error in these events is extremely thin - one athlete may miss out
on a medal when they only performed 'slightly' underneath the level of another
athlete (such as losing a race by fractions of a second, or failing to lift
a weight for a single rep less).
For the athletes who come away with a medal, they gain massive popularity amongst
their fans/countrymen and end up getting tons of opportunities to sign deals
for endorsements or make big money in other ways. For the athletes who do NOT
get a medal (for example, someone who misses getting 3rd place by 1/100 of a
second in the 100 meter dash), they remain unknown to the general population
and lose out on all the opportunities of those who place above them. This can
cause them to feel a lot of frustration due to the amount of hard work and effort
they put into their training only to come up with nothing.
Just like these Olympic athletes, you have invested TONS of time into your
music career. After spending so much time and effort to build your music career,
you do NOT want to come away empty-handed because you did not fully prepare
yourself for maximum success. If you want to get all the greatest music industry
opportunities such as recording contracts, the ability to tour internationally,
lucrative endorsements, etc., you need to make 100% sure that YOU are the absolute
most prepared for success because you have trained harder than everyone else
to get it. Reality of the music industry: NO ONE will come looking for you until
and unless you are the #1 choice among all other musicians.
What is the action you must take to make yourself head and shoulders above
the rest of the musicians out there who are also trying to do the same things
you want to do in the music industry? You must figure exactly what 'risks' and
'values' you offer to anyone in the music business who is thinking about working
with you.
All musicians (whether they know it or not) bring various levels of 'risk'
and 'reward' to the other people they work with in the music industry. It is
absolutely imperative that you learn your own negative risks and positive assets
so you can make yourself into the best candidate whenever a music company (or
band) is looking for someone to work with. Hint: this kind of stuff goes far
beyond just writing or playing good music.
If you don't already understand what makes working with you 'risky' or 'valuable',
don't feel so bad. Most musicians never think about these things because there
are no resources you can find anywhere that address these topics specifically.
There simply isn't a list of risks and values in the music business that you
can just look up online. Why is this? The values and risks that will lead you
to becoming a successful musician are specific to your personality, situation
and musical goals. You need to look into what your personal value and risk is
in any given scenario. This is why I haven't merely written down a big list
of risks and values here in this article.
To illustrate this point, let's return to Olympic athletes for a moment.
As I was talking about in the paragraphs above, the difference
between a gold medal finish and a 'no' medal finish is very
small. If an athlete has missed out on even the smallest of
details in his/her mental preparation or training, this person
will drastically increase the chances of not coming away with
a medal. In order to ensure that no stone is left unturned,
the athlete hires a coach to train them and keep their mindset
in top shape to keep them from committing any errors when
the day of competition comes. After getting help from an experienced
coach, the athlete will improve on the areas that keep him/her
from performing at the highest level possible. Not only does
this keep the athlete from making crucial mistakes, but it
also helps the person make improvements in much less time
than they could without someone there to guide them.
Just like these athletes, successful musicians also use coaches to build their
music careers and achieve their highest musical goals. Musicians who work hard
only to fall short of their musical dreams do so because they try to build their
music careers on their own. The worst part is, most of these musicians are usually
on the brink of 'breaking through' but due to some unseen flaw, are never able
to take the next step. Only those who work with music career coaches are the
ones who spot these crucial flaws and overcome them to advance to the highest
levels in the industry.
Moral of the story: if you are serious about becoming a professional musician
and succeeding in the music industry, don't take the same approach as most musicians
by trying to do it alone. Locate a music industry mentor who has tons of experience
helping musicians succeed in their careers. Don't be content with merely 'participating'
in your music career, find a coach and get the gold medal!
Tom Hess is a music career mentor, touring musician and guitarist. He teaches
online guitar lessons to musicians all over the world and mentors musicians
on how to build a successful music career. Visit his website to take a free
music business assessments to see how working with a mentor can help you reach
your musical goals.
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