I just returned from playing at the excellent Lagoa Guitar Festival in Portugal and have been reflecting on “the music business” and the ingredients that are needed for an artist to actually make a living as a professional musician. “Professional musicians” are of course those who make a living from playing music and that means maintaining consistent predictable income.
My background is in teaching communication skills and each year I run events in Asia, Europe and the USA. Its taken over a decade to build my reputation in this arena and I am discovering that many of the skills from this work are directly applicable to my music initiatives. This is all about “playing the long game” and creating great music is only one aspect of being successful.
Balancing Time and Money
I was taking recently to a great professional musician in Portugal, quizzing him on his own experience of the music business. Often people can forget that any “business” means balancing time and money. Predictable income is essential to maintain any realistic standard of living and that can be quite a challenge. I am fortunate to know a number of professional musicians and all of them are extremely hardworking having built reputations over many years. This is a far cry from the reality show style instant success that is promoted in the media, where artists are manufactured and packaged in a very specific manner. Most of these individuals quickly disappear without trace and are never heard of ever again.
I have blogged previously about artists playing for free or even playing to play at events for “exposure” Yes, I appreciate that there may be instances where it’s worth playing without financial reward, BUT ultimately its unrealistic to work without any kind of financial remuneration. Balancing the books is essential in any business and the music business is no exception. Similarly promoting festivals and other events means paying attention to this aspect. I have also blogged in the past about many such events are based more on idealism and enthusiasm than any sound business sense. In recent times two “music festivals” announced early bird options. The first one announced a long list of artists from all over the globe almost a year before the proposed event. I was amazed at the timing as this defies all conventional marketing wisdom in terms of creating audience interest. Unsurprisingly many months on these early bird discounted tickets have still not sold out. In stark contrast another festival sold out all its early bird tickets in a couple of hours without revealing a single artist! That is a great demonstration of smart strategic thinking and playing the long game which requires having a bigger vision.
The Importance of social media and content online
Whether we like it or not, social media has become a key ingredient in playing the long game in the music business. Mediums like Facebook and Twitter are key platforms for artists to promote their work. The name of a band is also really important. I recently googled an artist name to find the artist’s site and instead found that they had chosen the same name as a well known commercial brand. This creates a confusion of identities online and of course marketing 101 tells us to secure top level domain names to protect the brand name.
Google loves content and even if you have a great band website and band name, it’s important to have good content on your site. Blogging and articles are a great way to do this. That means investment in time. I’m always amazed when artists make the comment “I don’t have time to do social media or to blog” Such folks don’t appreciate the importance of playing the long game. When I was at the Lagoa Guitar Festival I asked the promoter how he came across and why he chose to add us to such a great international lineup of artists. He came across us on social media and had looked at the band presence online.
The image is as important as music
I have also blogged on the importance of image in the music business and in playing the long game. This again means investment of time and money. Its obvious to me that professional photographs and video are a key element to creating a memorable impression. When The Small Change Diaries played Lagoa, I made sure we flew the band photographer Karen Turner out to capture the event. Below are some of the excellent photographs from this event which will be used when seeking out further festival opportunities in 2017.
Conclusion
There’s an old saying “Its takes a decade to become an overnight success” Smart musicians and promoters appreciate the value of playing the long game. This requires have a great work ethic and ensuring that you align with others who have similar values. Personally I love writing and performing with The Small Change Diaries and we are back in the recording studio this month working on the second album. We have also invited a number of guests to play on the album and all such individuals are established musicians with superb creative skills.