Want to make a living as a musician? Treat it like it’s your job.

Blair Clark
Nov 5 · 4 min read
Ron Pope at a festival in Sweden. Photo by Pao Duell

Ahh, a day in the life of a musician. Sleep until noon, drink 10 cups of coffee. Switch to whiskey around 4pm. Shower infrequently. Forget email exists. Rely on someone else to make shit happen for you. Isn’t it nice?

Unfortunately, unless your name is KEITH RICHARDS, that sort of day isn’t happening (and probably isn’t for him either because he’s still alive somehow).

One of the first pieces of advice I give to musicians just starting out is this: Treat it like your job even when it isn’t your job. You know that old adage “Dress for the job you want, not the job you have” — it’s sort of like that.

Even if you have a manager, you always need to stay on top of what’s going on with your career. If you’re just starting out, your manager will have a very limited reach in terms of what they can do for you — you need to help them out and play your part. If you don’t have a manager, you need to self-manage and work on making it worthwhile for someone to manage you. I’ll talk about scheduling your day in a future post, but the overall concept is that if you’re sitting around waiting for stuff to just fall into place, it probably never will. Don’t be afraid of email. Email is your friend. It’s time to quit thinking that getting a manager is the end goal and that everything after that will just sort of magically happen. It won’t.

This is a hard one for newbies (and sometimes vets) to grasp. It’s TOUGH. For a long time you’re probably going to feel like you’re working three jobs. You’ll have your job that pays the bills, then your budding music career in the works (which will take hours of focus each day), and you’ll either be gigging or going to gigs whenever you can. This is not for the faint of heart, but it’s the only way to turn this thing into the only thing.

For all of the managers (or want-to-be-managers out there) — this applies to you too! Speaking from my own experience, I didn’t start managing my first artist full time until I’d been working with him for 2 years as a “side project” (ha). I had a full-time corporate job in advertising and then I’d come home and send emails, create the brand, work on pitches, and go meet people at shows until I’d crash sometime around 1:00AM… and then get up for work again at 7:00AM the next day. Finally, one day it make financial sense to take the plunge and go at it full time.

Bottom line — this is YOUR career. Until you’ve built up a strong team that you can trust, you absolutely have to treat this like it’s one of the most important things going on in your life.

Finally — here are 10 helpful tips for treating this like your job:

  1. Wake up at a reasonable hour even if your day job doesn’t call for it. Labels, managers, and agents all try to keep normal business hours and that’s the only acceptable time to email them if you’re looking to partner up. If you have to work during the day there are some nifty email schedulers out there that will send then during appropriate hours. Gmail now has a “send later” integration, but you can also use Boomerang.
  2. Know what’s going on in the world of music. Carve out time each day to research people in the industry, other musician’s brands, listen to new music, and read up on music news (“research” essentially means spend time on the internet looking at stuff you already love!).
  3. Check your damn email daily.
  4. Respond to your damn email daily.
  5. Set actionable goals with deadlines.
  6. Be professional over email and in all in-person interactions. You don’t have to be incredibly formal (hey, it’s the music industry), but you do have to be professional.
  7. Practice! Establish a daily routine that incorporates time to practice
  8. Find your “co-workers.” Obviously this job doesn’t force you to show up at an office, but find people that are in a similar stage of career as you and build a community that you can rant and rave with.
  9. Find a mentor. Who do you look up to? Seek out someone that motivates you and follow their path and advice.
  10. Save your pennies. Unfortunately, this job requires that you fund its growth. Now is not the time for a treat yo-self lunch. Now is the time for dollar beer night and saving money to record & promote your music.

I’d love to hear from you. In terms of treating this like your job, before it’s actually your job — what else do you do? Any other tips for budding artists?

Blair Clark

Written by

I talk about the music industry from an independent, DIY perspective. I run Brooklyn Basement — an independent label and marketing agency — and manage Ron Pope.

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