Take Control of Your Career!

The music business has changed quite a bit in the past few years. I don’t think that’s news anymore. What amazes me though is when I talk to bands and musicians is that so many of them still want only one thing, the big record deal. I know because I was once one of them. I was in a band signed to Universal Records (unfortunately not one of the successful bands) so I understand how exciting it can be and how awful it can be (and feel) when it doesn’t work out. At the time I thought there was no tomorrow when that band ended but once I got over that I realized how much I had learned about the business.

The biggest lesson I learned is that there are too many avenues out there for bands and musicians to limit yourself to just one (and old) way of thinking about your career. I’m not saying you shouldn’t have lofty goals. It’s not that at all. I just think you need to take the time to prioritize and focus your energy on specific goals that will not only benefit you in the short term but in the long term as well. In other words take control of your future, your career.

Don’t be afraid to try something new, something different. Be a “doer” and and finish what you start. To quote a wise man: “Do or do not, there is no try”. Ok so that was said by Yoda and he wasn’t exactly a man but he’s still right. Sometimes you’ll succeed and sometimes you won’t but you’ll never know if you don’t take action in the first place.

As a drummer I saw my career very one dimensional for many years. Simply put I saw myself as a drummer and only a drummer. It was necessary for a while since that was my greatest passion and that is true to this day. Only now it’s not the only thing I do and it’s not the only thing that I love to do. Most of my work still revolves around drums but because I wasn’t afraid (ok I was a little afraid at first) to try new things I have found an entirely new career path. I own and operate a studio where I do recording, drums, vocals, bass, etc.., I do video production, I teach at Musicians Institute, I release educational materials based on ideas and concepts that have helped me in my career, I do mixing and editing and composing just to name a few of the things I do all the time.

I have found all of these new paths to be very rewarding. I have also found that a lot of these things overlap and all of them happened because of my drumming career. I haven’t abandoned being a drummer, I’ve just added some new skills to my bag of tricks.

If you are one of the few who get a record deal (that actually works out) great but if you don’t it’s not the end of the world. In fact it might just be the beginning of a very successful and rewarding career. I can state for a fact that there is nothing quite like taking full control over your career, band or individual musician, and creating something all your own. It is very empowering!

I’ll give more thought to this in a later post but I would like to point you at a great post from Bob Baker on his Buzz Factor Blog.

Recalibrate Your Music Career

Bob always has some goods thoughts and ideas on furthering your music career. Take some time to look around his blog and I’m sure you’ll find some very helpful tips.