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In Music You’re Never NOT Marketing

by | Feb 28, 2012 | Blog, Marketing, Music | 3 comments

If you want to build a long-term, healthy, and profitable career in music, you have to recognize that:

You Are

Whether you’re a solo musician, side-man, singer, songwriter or aspiring Mega-Star you are at least half of what you offer your fans, customers, fellow musicians, club owners, supporters, and other people.

  • What and how you do what you do is important of course. For instance, lots of people play drums. A smaller group of drummers play funk and fusion, and fewer still play that kind of music like you.
  • But who you are is the most important for the simple reason that even the busiest musicians spend most of their time not playing music. Touring musicians play 2 to 3 hours a night and live on a bus together the other 21. Session players record for about 20 minutes out of 60. Even club bands only play 4 hours a night and they also have 20 minute breaks every hour!

My point?

Given the choice, people will always work with better people over better musicians. Always.

Never Not

Therefore, people are always checking out:

  • Your words.
  • Your equipment.
  • Your interactions.
  • Your relationships.
  • Your appearance.
  • Your attitude.
  • Your work.
  • Your mannerisms.
  • Your integrity.
  • Your passions.
  • Your interactions.
  • Your self-respect.
  • And oh yeah, your playing.

Marketing

By definition, your fans, customers, fellow musicians, club owners, supporters, and other people are known as your market and therefore your words,equipment, interactions, relationships, appearance, attitude, work, mannerisms, integrity, passions, interactions, self-respect, and playing are by definition, your marketing.

Scary, Huh?

You can have two reactions to this information:

  1. You can become paranoid and self-consciously create a false self that does all these things SPECTACULARLY all the time!
  2. You can develop the confidence and self-worth to offer who you are – your true, deeply passionate and valuable self – to the world.

Many have tried option 1. Few have succeeded and tragically, many have died.

I strongly recommend option 2.

Which are you choosing and how’s it going?