Build your music career even with a day job

photo credit: MicroSoft Word, free clip art

Many musicians split their time between a day job for a steady income and the pursuit of their musical endeavors.  

A common challenge that arises from this sort of dual responsibility is that a certain portion of the day is spent at the day job and only so many hours remain each day to work on one's music career.

This doesn't leave as much time as one would like for rehearsals, marketing, performing and recording music.

Having a sense of urgency to accomplish a lot of business-related tasks toward music business success is admirable, but not beneficial when one gets to the point of being overwhelmed.  Such an overwhelmed feeling can cause paralysis limiting future progress.

It's important for any indie musician who is serious about what they do to remember that success, however one defines it, does not usually happen over night.  Success comes from continuous hard work and determination over time.

Though it sounds simple, the secret is to accomplish something everyday toward progressing one's music career.  The 'something' accomplished each day could be something large or small.  It could be as minor as returning an email or as major as executing a gig contract, but always make sure you have done at least something to push your vision forward everyday.

A great way to help yourself get tasks done each day is to write down one very specific task before you go to bed at night (for example:  call that new coffee shop to find out who does the music booking).

The next day make sure you at least get that one task done.  You've then accomplished your one task for the day, and if you are able to think of a few more that you can complete the same day, well that's just a bonus.  Then at the end of the night write one new task to get done the next day, and so on.

Each small victory strung together over time becomes a measure of your progress.  The culmination of many small victories leads to the eventual accomplishment of achieving your  larger victory--meeting your goals.

Posted by:  Nick Venturella