The Art (or Act) of Doing
Brooklyn, NY
The purpose of this website is to provide sound, pragmatic advice about making a living as a musician, written by people that have hands on experience. My experience has been as a freelance musician playing my own music, booking my own gigs, producing my own albums, and anything else that falls under the realm of Do It Yourself. I’ve also done my share of gigs as a sideman, accompanist, or ensemble musician. I also have a few years experience on the business side of the industry. What I haven’t done myself, I’ve learned about by reading other musicians’ contributions to this site and talking with friends of various musical backgrounds. I’m still trying to figure this out a little more each day.
My goal is to somehow magically sum up the secret formula on how to make it. I’m looking for the musician’s EASY button. What are the steps to being a successful musician? How many steps are there? Based on some of the things I’ve read in other blogs, it seems like nobody can agree on the answer, and I finally figured out why–the answer will kill your blog. The answer is only one sentence long. How do you keep writing a blog after you’ve revealed the secret?
The answer has been with you all along, but maybe you just didn’t realize it. Amongst the various blogs I read and forums I follow, the answer started to make sense. I’d like to share just a few articles or posts that helped put two and two together.
For starters, CD Baby released their sales stats from 2008. I sell my music via CD Baby, so I find these reports interesting. The company is one of those Long Tail successes thanks to their huge, niche catalog. And even within their clientele lies a steep drop from a few top earners to what must be a massive amount of albums that sold next to nothing. Of the 150,000 artists with active albums in their system, close to 4,000 were paid over $1,000. That’s less than 3%. About 0.1% made over $10,000. This would skew the average so greatly that a great many artists selling their music on CD Baby sold very little.
A lot of the musicians not selling much probably want to sell more, and so they turn to the internet for answers. They find the 947 steps to a successful career in music. You can spend days reading advice from all sorts of people and never actually do anything. I had a former sales manager use the phrase “paralysis by analysis” religiously, and I see that happening to musicians all the time. We get overwhelmed and start complaining about how unfair the world is, or we start spending money out of desperation.
But wait! Before you get desperate and spend your hard earned cash, Heather McDonald over at the Musician Careers section of About.com wrote a nice piece on what NOT to pay for in your music career. This is a must read. The article reminded me that there are is no EASY button. It’s really just a matter of doing your homework. If there is one thing I hope to accomplish with my blogging, it’s to provide practical ideas to help you create some revenue with your music so you don’t have to turn to these scams.
And from a slightly more philosophical angle, Seth Godin’s blog always gets me thinking, but his posts What Are You Good At? and Creativity offered some very relevant points for musicians. Whenever I feel like I’m just following the status quo or I need some clarity about my goals as a musician, Seth’s blog magically pulls me out of the rut. His blog is practical, it focuses on your attitude more than giving you answers. When I run into problem, his writing reminds me that sometimes I am the problem. Every problem has a solution, it’s usually just a matter of perspective.
So what are some career perspectives of independent musician? The musician selling music on CD Baby, for example, might view his or her career from one of these three perspectives:
- I make music for the simple joy of making music. I do not worry about making a career or living as a musician.
- I am a musician, not a business person. I only focus on the music, and need other people to handle the marketing, promoting, and selling.
- I am a musician with unique skills and something to say. I actively create revenue opportunities for myself.
The first perspective is everything that the next options are not. Trying to make a career as a musician is tough, and for some people it sucks the joy out of the music. Remember that making music for the sake of making music is a completely valid reason to do it. You need no other excuse to be happy. The world could use more people like this. It is reasonable to assume that many of the albums available on CD Baby were created by people with this perspective. That would explain the great number of albums with a very few sales. If we removed these musicians from the data, perhaps we’d see the 80/20 Pareto principle take shape. But we really have no way of knowing how many musicians on CD Baby are hobbyists and how many have aspirations of becoming full time musicians, or how many are happy somewhere in between.
The second perspective sounds like a musician waiting to get signed. Landing a record contract is one way to do it, the other is to have enough money to hire a team of people to do this other work for you. However, as the industry changes, and as individuals are able to use the internet to compete with large corporations, I view this as a passive approach to success, and therefore success becomes much more difficult to attain. I believe this passive attitude is usually due to a lack of knowledge, and not a lack of drive. We can also reasonably assume that there are a number of musicians selling their music on CD Baby waiting to be “discovered” by a record label or management company.
The top earners at CD Baby have likely all adopted the third perspective at some point in their career. They are actively looking for more opportunities for their music. They are always trying to grow their audience, broaden their reach. What can we learn from these musicians? How did the top earners make their money? What did they do to connect to the right audience and sell music?
The secret is not something they did, but that they did something. In most cases, I bet they just followed their intuition. They got an idea, acted upon it, and followed through until they got results. They are motivated to take action.
But there is no formula. If you or I were to copy their idea, it might not work for us. There are too many factors. The differences in our audience, our music, or our style of interacting with people can all affect the outcome. Or sometimes it doesn’t work because the method becomes diluted. For example, remember the first time a band sent you a MySpace message that said, “Hey, if you like ____ then you might like our music. Will you come check it out and tell us what you think?” It probably caught your attention. It worked for these guys. But after a while every band started doing that, and you couldn’t tell if it was coming from a person or automated software, and you stopped paying attention.
Once I began finding strategies that brought in more revenue from my music, I debated whether or not I should share the information. I was worried it would become diluted. A few of the people who I told wanted to horde the information and begged me not to tell anyone else. But I did. And that’s when I discovered that most people, even when given a sure fire way to make some money with their talents, fail to act. They simply don’t do it. If most musicians are simply failing to act, then those that do anything positive are at an advantage. Similarly, if all it takes to increase your sales or getting a better draw for your gigs is taking action, then isn’t that an easier solution than following a 12 quasi-solution?
The musicians that want the easy way out are the reason the software that automates MySpace messages exists. They wanted an easier way of doing the things that work. This is also why there are so many scams in the music business. Heather’s article reminds us to do the work ourselves first. Take matters into your own hands before paying for answers. You can’t pay for your break. If you are waiting to be discovered, then you are the target of these scams. People will try to sell you anything from contact lists to opportunities to advice. But at the end of the day, if you can’t take action, you’ve wasted your money. And if you’re good at taking action, if you’re good at the doing part, people will gravitate towards you. The people in those contact lists that can help you will want to help you, those opportunities will take shape, and people will be asking you for advice.
Seth’s post, What Are You Good At? differentiates process and content, and Creativity And Stretching The Sweatshirt does a tidy job of describing the creative process. Both of these articles resonated with me. My parents are creative, but in completely different ways. My mom taught dance for many years, and I remember watching her get ideas for choreography in church and writing the steps down on an offering envelope during the sermon. My dad is an environmental engineer, and works through problems in very organized, seemingly calculated steps. In both cases a certain learned skill set (content) is applied (process) to achieve an end. This is how the creative process works. People who specialize in things like setting movement to music or leading a team of engineers in the design of a waste water treatment solution are valuable because of their process ability. Knowing the content is one thing, but being able to do something with it creates worth.
Making music is clearly a creative process, but some people will have you believe it has been devalued because of the internet. Albums are being sold at less than half the rate they were pre-Napster. Is the music industry dead? Of course not, but the value no longer resides in the content alone. The value is in the actions of the artists. It’s in amount of content you create, or the quality of the music. Or perhaps it’s in the uniqueness of your approach.
Every musician has a different background, a different skill set. Imagine a Venn Diagram with each circle being another musician similar to you. Being unique means occupying the areas of your circle that don’t overlap with other circles. Nobody has the exact same skills or experiences as you, so the trick is finding the uncommon ground and excelling in those areas. As Seth mentions in his post on creativity, this is at the edges of your territory. Work at the edges and create more individual space. Eventually you will own your niche and that is priceless.
Perhaps this article won’t kill the blog. The answer, as accurate as I believe it to be, is still too vague. While myself and the other authors at Musician Wages can’t tell you exactly what to do, we can share our experiences to give you some places to start. Borrow our ideas and make them your own. Just like I learned how to play jazz by transcribing Dexter Gordon and Bill Evans, I learned how to use strategic marketing by imitating the New Media department at Verve Records. But in the same way my guitar would never sound like a saxophone or piano, I knew I couldn’t market my music as if it were Diana Krall’s. So I adapted, and eventually started figuring out my own methods.
Some of the methods I use to get the word out about my music seem simple on the surface. I’m active on Twitter. I blog. I’m on Last.fm. I make iMixes. I recorded an album of cover songs and a couple Christmas albums. And I do much more offline. But there’s no simple way to explain how all these things work together to achieve my end goal of increasing sales and broadening my reach. And the most important lesson I’ve learned is that nobody can sell you this kind of knowledge and nobody can do it for you.
The answer is simple, now go do it.
About the author
I’ve come to believe there are no secrets or formulas for financial success in the music business and that there really is an element of “magic” to it.
This magic can’t be bought but it does sometimes find the artists who work extremely hard at their craft and make a real effort to connect with fans.
2/2/2009
Love it, Cameron. This is great. “You can’t pay for your break” – genius, I tell you. Genius! Everyone should read this.
And a Pareto reference? Excellent.
2/2/2009
Ah, the Venn diagram. My favorite mathematical concept, followed quickly by inflection points and parabolas. :)
Great article… and in fact, I’m going to log off right now and do some of the items on my list of things that will have an impact on getting my music further into the world.
2/2/2009
I’m all about opportunity and exposure. If you are good enough and get some good visability, eventually it all comes together because people like to talk and want quality. Go out there and make your mark bro! Great article!
2/2/2009
Cameron, my hat’s off to you. This is one of the best articles I’ve read on this site, and that’s saying something, because this is one of the best sites on the whole ‘net.
This article is also very timely, as well. My most recent band ended, or should I say, the time for everyone in it except the lead singer was booted, by certain individuals with one idea of “success” and how to achieve it. I’ve been thinking and blogging about what I want to do with music now, and then BAM! I read this article. You make excellent points, and link to some great articles, that I think will really help me navigate this somewhat painful chapter in my musical life. My (imaginary) hat is off to you.
Keep up the great articles! I’m off to DO SOMETHING.
-Alex
2/2/2009
Cam, great article. True – there really isn’t a simple, catch-all way to explain one’s methods to get more fans and/or increase sales. And what may work for some, may not work for others.
And especially true is another part in that last paragraph: no one’s gonna have an ultimate answer for you at any price tag, and no one’s gonna do it for you…gotta get out there and make it happen yourself!
I appreciate the time you – and the others here at MusicianWages – put into each article you put up, sharing whatever you can to help everyone out.
Thanks,
KevOz
2/2/2009
I think you nailed it. I went to a fancy business seminar a couple of years back (paid for by my day job, thankfully) where Seth Godin was speaking. Later in the seminar, Tom Peters had a session with what has become my all time favorite business quote:
“We have a ‘strategic’ plan. It’s called doing things.” — Herb Kelleher
Everyone’s situation is subtly different and the only way to find out what works for you is do so something and see what happens. That’s true in the software business (I can’t tell you what a waste of time focus groups are) and I really think it’s true of life in general.
Also the difference between success and failure is so small. I’ve gotten so many gigs just by being the first one to respond to an ad. One tiny action that took no money and hardly any time was the difference between sitting at home over the weekend or playing a great show, earning a few dollars, and meeting new musicians who might become friends or have extra work.
If you like reading about this kind of stuff, I highly recommend Dan Gilbert’s Stumbling on Happiness or Nicholas Taleb’s The Black Swan.
Thanks for the post. I’d link to my web site, but I need to get off my backside and go build it…
Mark
2/3/2009
very good. congrats for the good job.
yours,
f
2/3/2009
Hi Cameron great article thanks.
On other “blogs” the following has been offered, you may have seen it on DEREK Sivers’s site and this is offered here as a view for those Musicians,/people who play music or ANYONE else who may have a problem defining “SUCCESS” This for most means making BIG $$££..[no matter how for some] being famous, on tv, radio etc..heard of by millions etc.. ABSOLUTELY NOTHING WRONG WITH THIS in my view if this is what THEY THEMSELVES have sat down deliberately and worked out for THEMSELVES. To do this is NOT EASY with the many external pressures of today etc.. So here’s a TRUE STORY.
A friend of mine on visiting a friend of his saw this friend in a dreadful tearful state of anguish. When asked what was wrong, he kept muttering “They made me do it” DO what said my friend. Become a “BIOLOGY PROFFESSOR” was the reply [ he was a retired or thereabouts University Proffessor] SO? said my friend. The PROFF. muttered, “All I ever wanted to do was play the VIOLIN” … He had become everybody else’s idea of success, Parents, Teachers, Peers etc..etc.. and now too late to pursue his.
Food for thought here.
Respectfully,
OZ
2/4/2009
There’s a fine line between visualizing your success and daydreaming.
How do you go about becoming a rich and famous musician? I don’t have the answer, and I don’t believe anybody that says they do. The only thing we can control is whether or not we’re happy on the journey, otherwise we run the risk of hating the destination. So if you want to be a famous musician, the first step is to make your practice time enjoyable.
Derek has a lot of great advice for musicians, and it’s not great because it tells you HOW to do something, but because it makes sure you know WHY you’re doing it. It’s all about the attitude.
2/5/2009
This is amazing just finished a song called “dreams comes true” which hints at the uselessness of daydreaming.
Cameron, myself would say you know how, but your standards, integrity etc.. like most of us would not allow that particular easy way, or else payola etc.would still rule the roost. Aron Russo says what it was like just being “successful” in CHICAGO in the 70’s running just a night club now most of us have had to deal even at fringe level with at least some attachment to this system. Theres evidence of the drug rings etc..people getting shot blahss… The boon of being independent allows a greater freedom of choice with its inherent difficulties.
Why should a person want to be “famous” anyway, having thought about that it really has’nt in my view got anything to do with music, its a useful tool for the financial aspects and or the suicidal aspects, it just depends on the individual involved. There are many musicians especially in the “classical” genre who have made very good money, live well and has never been heard of.
The point made of enjoying your work, practice, life must be the making of this elusive “IT” whatever it is.
OZ
2/5/2009
This whole article reminds me of a phrase they’ve coined at saxontheweb.net as a response to a lot of hypothesizing, gear-obsessing, over-analyzing. They say “SUAP”: “shut up and practice.”
3/1/2009
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