Let there be no mistake—pursuing a career in the music industry in the 2020s may look easy, but it is highly competitive. The successful musicians you see today in the media—getting millions of hits on YouTube, performing in front of large audiences at the coolest music festivals, or getting streamed on popular playlists—represent only a minuscule percentage of all the musicians in, or trying to break into, the music business today. Knowing these odds, why would anyone continue to pursue a career in the music business?
The love of playing music, the tools and technology of the digital age, and the success stories of hardworking artists inspire plenty of people to try. After all, why can’t you be one of the lucky ones who achieves tremendous success, or at least makes ends meet, doing what you love as an independent musician? You’re talented, you’re smart, and you’re reading this book to better understand the inner workings of the music industry. You’ve already got a lot going in your favor!
While there are no rules or set guidelines that can guarantee a prosperous and long-lasting career, I’ve outlined 15 general tips for career success—from visualizing your dreams to being proactive. Whether you are a rapper, DJ, producer, songwriter, solo artist, band, or anyone else wishing for a successful career in music, these useful tips apply to you!
Tip 1
Realize Your Dreams by Visualizing Them First
The first tip for pursuing a successful career in the music business deals with having a clear vision of what you’d like to achieve. You must see, feel, and believe in the potential outcome. If you can clearly hold a picture of success in your mind, your subconscious can bring it to pass.
In the early 1990s, in a small club called the Button South in Fort Lauderdale, FL, I witnessed an unknown artist gaze out into the audience and say, “One day I’m going to be a pop star who shocks the world.” He truly believed this. Friends tell me he even kept drawings in a notebook mapping out precisely what his success would look like. With years of hard work, and one successful album and tour after another, that artist made his vision complete.
In the best-selling book The Power of Your Subconscious Mind, author Joseph Murphy calls this the “mental-movie method.” In his words, “If I act as though I am . . . I will be.”
Tip 2
Analyze Your Career Motivations
Dovetailing nicely from tip number 1, another important tip for career success is to consider just why you are pursuing a career in the music business. Is it for the fun and crazy lifestyle it may offer? Is it for the artistic respect it may earn you among your peers? Or is it for the spiritual satisfaction it may bring, and because there is nothing else in life you would rather do? As you know, fun, artistic respect, and spirituality are not always aligned. Thus, your answers to the above questions are crucial!
By understanding your true motivations and what’s most important, you’ll stand firm about what you are (and are not) willing to give up in order to succeed. You’ll surround yourself with people who share your vision and are willing to pay allegiance to that flag. And you’ll accept the consequences of your actions and not whine and bitch about the results in the end.
Tour manager-agent-promoter Chris Arnstein calls this approach to self-awareness the “decision-making tree.” Your career decisions (or branches) should be based on the core (or root) of who you truly are as a person. Without this level of self-awareness, you can easily go astray in this business. As they say, if you don’t stand for something, you can easily fall for everything..
If you haven’t thought about your real motivation for pursuing music professionally, now is a good time to do so.
Tip 3
Develop a Realistic Outlook by Ignoring the Media Hype
You’ll enter the music business from a much stronger position if you refuse to be blinded by all of the media hype or glamour you see and hear in music videos, magazines, and news shows. The expensive houses and yachts and the carefree attitudes and overnight success stories are often spun to make it look like the music business is an easy path to the good times. The truth is that these “riches” that artists flaunt are often leased, loaned, advanced, or purchased via other businesses and investments just to help a celebrity “look the part.”
By developing a realistic outlook, you’ll be better prepared for what may lie ahead and more accepting of this wonderful and crazy business of music. You’ll understand that it could take a great deal of time and money honing your professional skills, building a fan base, and putting up with a great deal of rejection just to get ahead. But you’ll be okay with that. You’ll know deep down inside that the true talents of music lived and breathed their art with no thoughts of ever turning back, and that this determination and tenacity in regard to your craft and career is precisely what is required of you.
So get your head together! Focus on the realities of the business, not the fairy tales.
Tip 4
Be Ready to Pay Your Dues, But Use Your Head
One of those unavoidable realities of the music business is that pursuing a career will mean paying your dues.
Paying your dues essentially means paying the price for your lack of professional experience. That price is your time and hard work, which may yield little or no compensation (in other words, you work for free).