Many artists nowadays lack information about what their daily schedule should look like and what they can do to make their careers move forward by doing the minimum amount of work needed. The competition is getting higher day by day and many musicians are getting ahead by doing what’s necessary to make it. In this article, we are going to discuss the day-to-day essentials that guarantee a successful career in music.
Be Open To Anything
Sometimes it’s hard to see the value in certain collaborations or events as an artist when the format or genre doesn’t parallel your own agenda. So, most of the time when an artist is offered a collaboration or performs somewhere they don’t find appealing, they reject it, which is a huge mistake for them. As a starting artist, you should be trying to put your name out there as much as possible and compromising for lesser gigs is what you should be looking to do anyways. Yes, getting paid is important and needed, but you can’t expect to be paid what you think you’re worth when no one in the crowd knows who you are. Just like any other artistic medium, they all start by making little to nothing before building a repertoire for themselves and have people buying tickets just to see them.
Be Active In Your Community
Building relationships with fellow artists, bar owners, producers, sound engineers and more is one of the most important steps to being a professional musician. Even if you don’t have much recognition yet, it’s valuable to have peers who regard you as a fellow musician and that has a lot of benefits. For instance, when you respect an artist you know for their music and they have the same respect for you, this leaves no doubts in your mind that what you’re doing is worth it and I’m not wasting my time pursuing music. Another great factor is of course getting work through friends and acquaintances, which is the most common way of getting paid. Your reputation will spread quickly when people know who you are and that will give your career a much-needed boost.
Legitimate Online Presence
With new artists, it’s very common to have little to no information about them; how they started, their story, style, and ambitions. This lazy behavior creates an obstacle for the media and scouts who are always on the lookout for young talent, and when they don’t have enough background information on themselves, the content creator will hesitate to write about an artist whom they know nothing about. Therefore, we advise every artist to have everything they have on multiple platforms and use all of their features. For example, on Spotify profiles, there’s an area with pictures and social links. Make sure to have a concise bio with all of your social media links and even add a few cool pictures so that the listener can have more relatable information about the artist and their brand. Most importantly, make sure that every social media platform you’re on (be on every platform) is very active, very professional and very engaging.
Take Care Of Contacts
For starters, always have your contact information available. This leads to people contacting you and becoming musical acquaintances, a needed asset as we discussed earlier. After accumulating many contacts, introduce the relevant contact to the other, as a means of being nice and trying to help both parties in their ventures. These gestures will more often than not pay back in the future as those contacts will want to repay the favor with something maybe even bigger so you never know what comes out of a small gesture. It’s important to keep all the contacts as some will disappear for a while and pop back years later and you might need them later in life. Nevertheless, it’s always advised to keep in touch with your contacts throughout the year.
In the end, be authentic and original no matter what people advise you to be. When you’re passionate about your music and music in general, these steps will come naturally to you and a habit after being in the industry for a while. Remember to be open, ready to help others, don’t be lazy with your online presence and make some lifelong friends who are as passionate about music as you are.
