When I talk about building connections, I often mention how important it is to add value to others. But as I continue to watch the emails that roll into my inbox and observe how musicians interact with others, I sense there is still a disconnect as to what this means. Anyone who creates has something…
As a professional musician, I am lucky to be able to work with professional singers quite often. These musicians have a tough job. Using your voice every day is exhausting, and the market for getting gigs as a singer is different than the market for getting gigs as a side musician. That said, it’s absolutely…
Being a session musician can be a lot of fun. You get to perform a lot of genres with different artists. You get to be in different studios and on different stages. You get to learn new songs, spend a lot of time with your instrument, and get paid for your passion work. But session…
Does it seem like you’re never getting around to the one thing that matters most as a musician, namely, making music? I’ve been in your shoes. I used to spend countless hours reading, researching, marketing, blogging, experimenting, connecting with people on social media, sending and answering emails, and mostly just spinning my wheels getting nowhere…
If you want to give yourself the best chance of media outlets randomly covering you, you need an electronic press kit, or a EPK for short. Today I’ll look at what a EPK is, how you make one, what you should put in it, and where to put it. At the end I’ll also give…
Anybody who has ever put on a wedding knows how expensive they are. Any singer who’s ever been hired to play a wedding knows how lucrative they can be. Weddings are super fun to play. Many couples want live music at their wedding. They’ll often want someone playing them down the aisle and then want…
The better you get at your instrument, the more you realize how bad you are at keeping time. Having a great sense of time and feel is one of the most important and deceivingly difficult parts of working on your instrument. Some instruments, like drums and bass, lend themselves towards working on timekeeping a lot….
You make great music. You play live. You connect with your fans using their preferred social media and digital channels. These are all good things to be doing, and you can achieve considerable success just by working hard and making a conscious effort to grow your fan base over time. But if you find making…
Booking and playing shows is often the backbone of an artist’s career. As you may well know, the booking part can be a challenging and tedious process. When you’re an indie artist, you’re always working with promoters who are basically taking a chance on you. Like most artists, indie promoters are not making a lot…
There are many professions in the music industry. That’s why I think it’s funny when people say, “there is no money in music”. If there’s no money in what you’re doing, you should either find a new discipline, or find a different approach! Don’t take this the wrong way – it takes time to build…
It’s one thing to produce music in your spare time – quite another to be doing it full time and get paid for all your work. But we all must start at zero. If you don’t already have a basic home studio setup, and you aren’t practicing on it daily, that would be an excellent…
Music managers tend to be a bit of a mystery to artists. How do you get one? What do they do? How do you know if they’re a good manager? This contract is scary – how do I know I’m getting a good deal? Hiring a manager is not a decision to be taken lightly….
Today we’re going to look at how to make money as a rapper. As strange as it might sound, different rules can apply to different styles of music. For instance, where I live in Calgary, Alberta, country gigs tend to pay a lot more than rock gigs. I know this from personal experience, as well…
When you were in high school, were you in band class? Choir? Did you take music lessons? Many of us did, and many of us found and cemented our love for performing and making music within those halls. That said, high school is kind of a weird place to fall in love with music. For…
Today we’re going to look at how to build a music website that will attract and keep fans. Not only will you make a super attractive website, but it’ll also be fully functional and everything you could want from your band website. You can also use it to get a music download website started. How…