I have to be honest with you. The music industry is hard to get into. Sure, you can upload a video to Youtube like Justin Bieber and suddenly you’re famous. In case you’re not one of the lucky ones, you can still have a career. You just need to know what and what not to do. Here is the path to earning a living as a musician.
You Must Have Talent
This is pretty much obvious, but don’t think you have to sing to make it big. You can play an instrument, or become a master at being a music producer. You can tell if your music is good when you receive positive comments, or you have thousands, or perhaps millions of page views, downloads and most importantly, sales. There’s no better way to attract attention of the music industry pros than to get popular on your own. When that happens, beware of the bad eggs.
Stay Away From The Sharks
Anyone who promises to make you a star for a “price” stay away from. If you send a demo to a record label and they send you back a contract which expects you to pay to get your songs recorded, rip it up and throw it away. It’s not legit. If you are good enough to make a company money, they will give you an advance. You are never to pay them anything upfront.
Copyright Your Songs
There is nothing more frightening than to have a song everyone loves that you wrote, and someone else uses it without permission, or worse, claims it’s theirs. To avoid that, register each and every song you write with the Copyright Office, you can go online at copyright.gov.
Learn the Business
When you’re talking money, the money you’ve worked hard for, you don’t want people cheating you out of it. Know how the music industry works, don’t put your life in another persons hands. Knowledge puts you in a better position to get the best out of your record contract.
Stay Away From Really Bad People
There are bad people in the world, and there is no exception in the music industry. I’m talking about people who will supply you with drugs, and happy to spend all your money, and bring you down. To avoid these people, you need to have a good team in place. A manager, lawyer, etc. Be careful of who you make friends with. The fastest way to lose it all is being around the wrong people. Bad publicity is not always good for your image, either. If you do something really wrong, your fans will drop like flies. They may forgive you, after a really long time.
Have A Back-Up
One day you’re not going to be in the spotlight anymore. You’ll still have your loyal fans, but you’re just not seen as much in the public eye. Before your record sales start to decline, it’s best to have other income streams in support your current lifestyle. You can start your own record label, a clothing line, a new fragrance, write books or whatever else you are interested in. So, think before you leap. Having this knowledge will insure that you will have a successful music career.