How To Become A Professional Musician

Professional musicians that have come before us have provided tips and insight into becoming musicians whether they may realize it or not.  From making mistakes to guitar successes, we can watch and absorb these lessons to use in our own music careers.  This post focuses on taking the right steps to become a musician.  Whether you are starting off in a garage band or taking private music lessons, the advice found in the following articles will help steer you in the right direction to reach your music goals.

Professional musician

This first article analyzes the shortcomings of guitarists that focus only on technical talent.  These words of wisdom can be found at http://www.guitarnoise.com/blog/on-becoming-a-musician/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+GuitarNoiseBlog+%28Guitar+Noise+Blog%29.

There’s a noticeable difference in skill level between the average amateur musician and the average professional. That’s obvious to even the casual listener. But if you’re an aspiring musician, the trouble is getting from here to there – and I’ve seen a lot of musicians waste a great deal of time heading down a path that seems correct: focusing only on technical skills.

Technical skills are important. The average professional musician will make fewer mistakes than the average amateur. The pro will be able to handle more difficult fingerings, play faster, and so on. The pro puts a lot more time into practice and performance rehearsal. These differences are obvious.

This leads the average aspiring musician to focus exclusively on their practice time. Putting in more time (and putting more into your time in terms of focus, practice organization, etc.) will probably make you a better technician. You might even become so good that you can make a living at playing. But that won’t necessarily make you a better musician.

Musicianship is the big picture – the total package, the creation of the entire musical experience. Technical ability is the toolbox we use for creating our big picture. The brush strokes of a sign painter might be just as precise as those of Rembrandt… but that technical ability won’t help the sign painter become a great artist without adding a few extra ingredients. Someone who has the big picture can be a great artist without having extreme technical ability – in the art world, a parallel might be Grandma Moses or Jackson Pollack. Their works don’t show the technical ability of many others, but that didn’t keep their art from rising above the pack.

I’m going to look at three and a half of the non-technical skills that great musical artists develop. Maybe you can use these musings as a road map for your own advancement.

1. Great musicians listen deeply. 

There’s a lot going on in music. There’s the timing, the choice of notes, the relationship of pitches in a melody to each other, the interaction of pitches to create harmony, and the distribution of that harmony across instruments. There are variations in dynamics and phrasing that make each interpretation of a song slightly different from all the others – even if they’re played by the same group. The result is many layers of complexity, even in simple music.

When you’re listening to music, strive to get the most out of it that you can. When you’re practicing, keep those ears working: listen closely to the sounds you’re making, and how they relate to the techniques you’re using. When you’re playing with others, listen to what they’re doing, and how you’re relating to them. Eventually, you want to develop what pros call “big ears”, the ability to take in and process the big picture as it happens.

2. Great musicians categorize sounds in their minds. 

Every rhythm, every scale, every interval, chord voicing, arrangement etc. is different. But they’re made up of the same stuff: sounds happening in time. Great musicians define sound in terms they can use.

For some that means understanding traditional music theory. For others it might be focusing on the ‘color’ they get when tones are distributed in a different way. But no matter how they go about it, great musicians organize their mental toolbox of sounds.
When you hear something that you like, listen to it over and over. Break it down: what makes it different from other things you’ve heard? What makes it similar? Can you apply the difference to another melody, or chord progression?

Great music and great performances break down into the combination of small things that aren’t remarkable in themselves. Becoming a musician isn’t just about adding more tools to your technical toolbox – it’s about taking the tools you already own and understanding exactly what you can do with them.

3. Great musicians use time.

Music is sound occurring as time unfolds. Time is the scaffolding on which we hang everything musical. We can organize everything neatly on that scaffold – with every sound happening in precise, regular time – or we can move those sounds forward or back against the beat.

The beat is the pulse of music. But the beat is not the music. We can divide up beats in different ways, we can play ahead of (or behind) the pulse of a tune. Great musicians ‘feel the beat’ and exploit the relationship between the pulse and what they do over it.

Any rhythm you can play on a guitar has three basic parts: the attack (when the sound begins), the duration (how long it lasts), and what happens in between. Silence is a huge part of rhythm. Listen deeply to the rhythms you hear, both in music and in everyday life, and categorize them in a way that works for you. Sharpen your sense of musical pulse at every opportunity – there is no substitute for an internal sense of rhythm.

3.5. Many great musicians know where they came from musically.

You’ll hear most musicians talk about their “influences.” For some, it’s just a laundry list of artists they like to listen to. And yes, those artists will influence your playing – because they shape the sound you hear inside your head… and great musicians take that sound in their head and put it out through their instrument, duplicating their vision as closely as possible.

But most of the great musicians I’ve known listen widely as well as deeply. I know a brilliant sax player who spends a lot of time listening to Hendrix. I know a punk guitarist who listens to a lot of Stravinsky. And I know classical musicians who spend time with bluegrass – and vice versa.

Listening widely as well as deeply, and categorizing the sounds they hear, allows these musicians to be deliberately influenced by other sources. A great example would be Paul Simon being influenced by African music (especially Mbaqanga) on the album “Graceland.” These musicians continually seek out and experiment with the unfamiliar, keeping what works for them and discarding the rest.

I hope you’ll find these observations useful in your own development as a musician.

Guitar teacher and young students

There are many guitarists that start out as students with private guitar lessons.  But I would like to re purpose the the work "student."  I consider every musician to be a student, since the best musicians always strive to learn for their entire career.  This next article offers three types of guitar practice that should help guitarists of all skill levels with their practice methods.  Find the article here at http://www.guitarnoise.com/lesson/going-for-the-music/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+GuitarNoiseLessons+%28Guitar+Noise+Lessons%29. 

There are three levels of practice that guitar players must know how to use in order to achieve their full potential on guitar. They are Microscopic Practice, Assimilating, and Shaping. I have covered in detail these three levels, or aspects of practice in Chapter 5 of “The Principles Of Correct Practice For Guitar.”

The first two levels are where we use specific procedures for teaching the fingers how to make the movements required to produce the notes we need. All technical problems are worked out in these two levels, and the music is “input” into the mind and body, at least as far as the mechanical process of playing the music goes.

However, the goal of all our practice is to go beyond the mechanical aspect of playing, and to put our mastery of the physical aspect of playing our music at the service of the ultimate goal: making music, real music. That is the purpose of the third level of practice, Shaping.

Imagine you are in a play, and they hand you your lines. You have to read them, and memorize them, and practice saying them. Perhaps you are unfamiliar with some of the words, you would have to learn the pronunciation, and practice saying the word correctly (Microscopic Practice). Perhaps you had a problem remembering all the lines, and saying them at the right time. You would have to work that out as well (Assimilating). Finally, it would be rehearsal time. You would be expected to have your lines down, and as the opening night came nearer, the director would expect you to be pumping blood into that part, and delivering a real flesh and blood character to the audience. He or she would be trying to help you and guide you to an ultimate vision of that character’s essence. The greater the actor and director, the more powerful that final vision and product will be. That final process is Shaping.

This is what we need to do with our music, to the best of our artistic skills, at any point in our development. Interestingly enough, many guitar students avoid this aspect of practice. They actually avoid putting everything together, and doing what guitar players are meant to do: “play” the guitar. This avoidance also prevents them from developing themselves into something that every guitar player should be, something that is actually more important than becoming a guitarist – becoming a musician.

Why do guitar students avoid this?

Many guitar students are afraid of putting everything together! They are always “trying” to learn a song, solo, or piece of music.  They do not know how to do the first  two levels of practice, and because of this they make many mistakes during playing, and breakdown all over the place. If they were to try to put all the music together and play it from beginning to end, they would get so frustrated and depressed at their inability to get through the music that they would feel like they might as well stop fooling themselves, do the world a favor, and give up the guitar!

Every guitar student must learn the first two levels of practice before they are even capable of the third level. We must be able to actually teach our fingers to do what they have to do to make each note we need, and we need to be able to string all those movements together into one continuous flow, so that our music can be given birth.

But like everything other living entity, after being born, our music must be developed. It must “grow,” it must “mature,” and ultimately have a life of its own that nonetheless reflects where it came from. All those who are already musicians know this, and do this.

And so must every guitar student  if they wish to become guitar players and musicians.
How do we develop the music we play after we have given it birth, or the possibility of existing? How do we turn the results of the mechanical process of learning new finger movements into the wonderful emotional phenomenon we call “music?”

Like so many other things in life, there is only one way to do it, and that is to do it!

We must sit down, or stand up with our guitar, and play the music as if we were on stage performing it, or as if we were recording it. We must play the whole thing through, and on top of that, enjoy the music we are making as we do it. We must develop a relationship to the music itself, as if it were a living being we are getting to know. We must let it soak into us and speak to us. We must discover its meaning, for us, and we must let the music tell us how it wishes to be played. I call this process “going for the music.”

You may be thinking, “Well, isn’t that obvious? Do you really have to tell guitar players that they need to play the guitar? You don’t have to tell tennis players they need to play tennis do you?” If you are thinking that, and you are a guitar teacher, I guarantee you have many students who are not doing this. To them, it is not obvious, they need to be told to do it, in fact, they often need to be forced to do it.

I require all may students to do this, perhaps not with everything we work on, but I want to see a “body of work” developing over time, a group of pieces that they can play well, from beginning to end, in other words, a repertoire. To help them do this, to learn the hard work of “refining” a piece to performance level, I have made the “Guitar Principles Guitar Improvement Workshop” open to everyone, my personal students as well as all interested parties.

Getting Started

It can be overwhelming to begin this new, improved relationship to music and the guitar if you are one of the many guitar players who has never really taken command of a group of songs, solos, or pieces, and put them together, refined them, and brought them to “performance level.” Here is how to get started:

1) Pick 3 songs or pieces that you love, and feel are reasonable for you to expect to handle in a technical way.

2) Start with the first one, and begin to practice it with the intention of playing the whole thing from beginning to end.

3) Divide your song or piece into sections. Learn the first section. For a song, you might learn just the intro first, then add the first verse, then the pre-chorus, then chorus. Divide it into sections that make sense to you.

4) Focus on that first section. Do the necessary technical work at the Level 1 & 2 practice. If you use “The Principles,” you will know exactly how to do this. Use “The Basic Practice Approach” to bring the music to a slow but steady tempo.  Usually, half of the performance speed is a good first goal.

5) Video yourself playing it. It will probably have various problems and breakdowns. Do not get upset! Instead, make the decision to find out what is wrong, by educating yourself about how to practice.

Go to my “Guitar Improvement Workshop”. Post the link to your video. You will then be told the nature of your problems and also exactly what you need to do to solve those problems and improve your playing.

You can be a good guitar player, and reach your guitar playing goals. But you have to do what all the rest of us who have become guitar players had to do. You have to “make it real” by going for the music, and when you find that you can’t quite get what you are going for, you have to learn how to remove whatever obstacle stands between you and your vision of the music.

For the ever-evolving guitarist/musician, technical understanding, technical work, and the achievement of greater musical intensity in our playing go hand in hand in each day’s practice.

Guitar lessons

Finally, many musicians have made mistakes in their career.  Fortunately for us, we are able to observe these mistakes through their eyes and make sure to avoid them and reach our music goals.  This last article focuses on 10 mistakes that people make when trying to become professional musicians.  Find the article here at http://www.guitarnoise.com/lesson/professional-musician-mistakes/. 

There many things you need to know and do in order to become successful in the music industry. But even if you learn and do all of those things, you still might prevent yourself from achieving success in the music business by making key mistakes along the way.

There are many pitfalls on the path to success, and that is particularly true in the music industry.

After mentoring many musicians who are developing their own music careers, I see the same false assumptions, problems, and mistakes appear again and again. Here is the list of the Top 10 mistakes that can hold you back:

Mistake #10 – Not having a compelling image that is congruent with your music. Most musicians (and bands) severely underestimate the importance of their image. Yes, music is about “music,” but the music business success is about having a total package that includes music, image, a visual stage show, and many other things that need to be fully developed and integrated in a congruent way.

Mistake #9 – Trying to “get your name out there.” Although this seems to be a main goal of most musicians and bands, it is the wrong approach to start with. Before trying to be seen and heard as much as possible, it is often more important to focus on “converting” the people who hear and see you into becoming actual fans. This “conversion” is the first key to your promotional success, not getting seen or heard as much as possible.

Mistake #8 – Believing that social media websites are the keys to online music promotion for musicians and bands. Social media websites are a tool. They are one piece of the online music marketing puzzle.  Music industry companies (record labels, artist managers, booking agents, etc.) are far more interested in the popularity of your website, not how many friends you have at MySpace, YouTube, Facebook or any other website that you do not own and control. Want to impress the industry with your band’s promotion? Build your own personal website traffic.

Mistake #7 – Not investing enough time into building your music career. Most musicians spend most of their time on music, but put very little effort into the many other critical elements needed to make it in the music business. If you are already a talented musician, you should invest at least 50% of your time into starting or advancing your music career. If you are still developing your musical skills, you should still invest around 25% of your “music” time into building a future music career.

Mistake #6 – Surrounding yourself with people who are negative, lazy and lack ambition. If you are very serious about becoming a professional musician and building a great career in music, then you absolutely must surround yourself with like-minded musicians.

Mistake #5 – Having merely mediocre live performing skills. Many musicians who are not yet in a good band put off developing their live performing and stage presence skills. This is a big reason why talented musicians don’t get into really good bands that they audition for. Your music may be good, but a live show requires more than great music. If people only wanted to hear the music, they would listen to you at home. Both fans and record labels want (and expect) to see a real show. Neglecting live performance skills results in talented musicians and bands becoming quickly forgotten.

Mistake #4 – Focusing on increasing the quantity of fans instead of the intensity of your fans. The number of fans you have should always be your secondary focus (not your primary one) if you want to become successful in the music industry. The fact is, it is not the number of fans that matters most, but rather the number of fanatics which will contribute more directly to your success (or lack of it). This is particularly true in the beginning of a band’s music career. Focus more effort on converting your existing fans into raving fanatics. Learn to do this and the number of your overall fans will increase through powerful word of mouth.
Mistake #3 – Not enough cash flow to support your music career. Like it or not, it takes money to build a music career. Even if other people/companies are paying for your record, tour support, merchandise, etc. you still need to have the freedom to pursue opportunities as they come. Sadly, many musicians miss opportunities because they can’t afford to take advantage of them. In addition to a decent income, you also need the flexibility of being able to take time away from that income source to go into the studio, go on tour, etc. That is why learning how to teach guitar is such a great way to achieve both if you learn how to become a highly successful guitar teacher.

Mistake #2 – Not enough depth in your music relationships. There’s an old expression, “It’s not what you know; it’s who you know.” In music this is often modified to, “It’s not who you know, it’s who knows you.” The truth is it’s not about either. The most important aspect of connections within the music industry is how deep are the current relationships you have now and will develop in the future. You don’t want to simply know people or be known, you want people who know you to have a real deep connection with you so that you are always on the top of their mind when opportunities present themselves. Ask yourself, “What can I do right now to deepen my existing relationships further on an ongoing basis?”

Mistake #1 – Having a fundamental misunderstanding about what record companies look for – and expect – from new bands. This is a huge topic, but in a nutshell it’s very useful to think of record companies like a bank that lends money to people or small businesses. Record companies make most of their decisions about with whom they will work and what the terms will be in much the same way that a bank will determine who they will loan money to and what the terms of the loan will be. Both record companies and banks basically want to know three things:

• How much value do you bring to the deal right now?
• How much risk do you bring with you right now?
• How much potential value and risk might you bring to them in the future after they invest in you?

If you want to buy a house, the bank wants to know a lot about the specific house you want to buy and even more about you. Record companies are the exact same, they want to know about your music, your talent and your band, but they also care as much (or more) about you (and your band mates) as people. What is it about you that will make a record deal a good or bad investment for them?

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Have fun and stay tuned!

Mike