[musictlk] turning my music into a career

[Sheri Beth Wells-Jensen]

Hi, Tyler,

If by, Career, you mean fulltime work as a gigging musician, you've asked the million dollar question! There is lots of associated (and sort of dull) work that goes into promoting yourself and your band.  I am not a fulltime musician, but I'd guess I spend as much time with organizational and follow up work as I do with practicing and rehearsing.  

There are some folks who have done well starting via some high-quality YouTube posts with links to paid downloads.  This requires some steady attention to your websites, your YouTube channel(s)  and some search engine optimization: it's extremely rare for someone to post a YouTube video and have it go viral.  Even if it does, you then have to be ready to react to that event and actually sell something.  There are some thoughtful commentaries on making your living online written (interestingly enough) by people who draw comics.
It requires some savvy and lots of time.
Try googling around for those folks and their advice: if you can't find them readily, then perhaps the online route isn't for you.


The standard way would be to start a systematic advance on all the open Mics in your area: be patient.  Set up a schedule for yourself of what bars, coffee houses or other places in your area have open Mics.  Go to each one to check them out and ask how one signs up.  Make sure you follow the rules for each: if they say 'ten minutes' be prepared to get on and off the stage in ten minutes precisely.  If they say 'family friendly' then keep it rated G.  
Know your equipment and be prepared to hand the sound guy the business end of your guitar cable (if you're a guitarist with a pick up) and be tuned and ready to start the instant s/he says 'go'!

And, be delighted with anything that comes your way!
Most musicians never make enough money to be fulltime, but we're out there having fun and spreading the joy.

Peace,

sheri











-----Original Message-----
From: musictlk [mailto:musictlk-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Tyler
Sent: Saturday, May 18, 2013 12:52 PM
To: musictlk at nfbnet.org
Subject: [musictlk] turning my music into a career

Hello! How can I start as far as turning my music into a career? How can I find gigs in the local area? How can I find indie record deals? I've done Soundcloud, and I've even written songs for the online show Song Fight. Would Youtube help a lot more than either one of those?
Tyler Z

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