Everything You Need to Know When Starting a Music Career

Have you decided that you want to pursue your passion for music? Are you worried that you have no idea where to start? Don’t just sit around and wait for your music career to happen. Whether you are a total novice in the music industry, or you have been making music as a hobby for a while, this article will help you get started and launch your music career. 

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Treat music career as a business

Being a music artist is equivalent to starting a new business. Part of your artist development process will involve learning how to operate your own business. Hopefully, you will be working towards turning your passion into a viable business you can monetize. Your music is the product that you will be trading in the traditional sense of it. And although that is changing, the new form of business is the music brand that you will commodify and sell tickets to your performance. This means that your music can take various forms while monetizing it. It would be best if you operated as a business entity. 

Some of the things that you will need to do to operate successfully include: 

• Developing a marketing strategy 
• Identifying your target audience
• Copyrighting your music
• Understanding the essence of proper branding. 

These are just but a few nitty-gritties of music in terms of the business and pleasure side of music.

Have goals and pursue them

Having a career in music is one thing and having goals for that career is another. Of course, you want to make it in the music industry. So, you must define what exactly that means and the kind of success that you want to achieve. It would be best if you focused on your short-term goals first. If you wish to take your music career to the fans, you should try getting an opening slot at a local show within the first three months of launching your music career. 

If you want to start your label, you should choose a name and start doing the required paperwork that allows you to start a business within the first few weeks. It does not matter where you are as a musician. Identify all the processes and make them part of your goals to be achieved in various stages of your music career. 

Invest in the right musical instruments

Launching your music career will require you to have a talent. It also helps if you can learn to play some musical instruments. Let us face the facts: successful musicians in the industry are good at pianos, trumpets, flutes, saxophones, guitars and more. It is a plus if you can learn to mix and match them to create beautiful music. It will help give your songs a unique sound, especially in a live setting.

Again, you don’t need to start big. Start by learning to play the guitar as a beginner. You can visit a guitar store to learn more about the available versions, their purpose, and their costs. You can then leverage online tutorials to help you get started. You can also enrol in lessons to fast-track your learning experience. 

Network and be community-oriented 

As a musician, you are not an island. You live in a community, and your prospective fans are out there. You will need to create a network that will be resourceful to you. Isn’t your network your net worth? Quite often, it is about who you know that helps you in your progress. Your first goal should be to develop relationships in your local community and music scenes. You can network by knowing the different music venues and establishing relationships with other local artists and people involved in music. 

Don’t forget to build online networks too. Social media platforms and other internet platforms such as YouTube and Spotify are good platforms for finding fans and getting people to listen to your music. 

Do not hesitate to find the relevant online communities active in and support artists similar to you. Remember that networking is building relationships, meeting artists that you can potentially collaborate with in the future, and learning the trends in music. As a musician and an entrepreneur, you must understand that you cannot do everything yourself. The networks you build will help you scale up your music career. They will hold your hand during tough times and will offer you the required insights to navigate the field of music. 

Sharpen your marketing skill 

As a career musician, you must recognize the existing competition from other artists in the industry. To make a living in the modern music business world, you must have cutting-edge selling skills. Writing and performing great music is one step while getting it to your target audience is another skill. So what do you do? Marketing your music successfully will require you to: 

• Find out who and where your fans are: knowing the details of your audience will help you build a marketing strategy that accurately reaches them. You can take advantage of personalized band websites and music streaming artist accounts which offer precise and detailed analytic information to learn more about your fans.
• Send your music to blogs, playlists, and press outlets: taking advantage of other media outlets will help you distribute your music with ease and make more people know about it. 
• Focus on creating compelling non-musical content: let your fans know you in different ways. You can design flyers, take photos, and share videos and blog posts representing your identity as a musician. These will keep your fan base intact while at the same time increasing their interest in your production. 
• Engage your audience: audience engagement is a critical part of sustaining a meaningful career in music. Focus on doing things that will help you connect more closely to them. 

Tip: You can seek help from experts in marketing your music to the world.

Final Remarks

Creating good music is more of a talent, but building a good career is equivalent to running a business. You must learn the skills needed to start and grow the business into a long-term venture. The good news is that starting your music career in the age of the Internet is far much easier with the talent, business acumen and grit!