Everyone wants to be famous: live in a mansion, drive
a sports car, tour the world in your private plane, date a
model, float around in the pool while collecting royalties
for CD sales, and drink beer right out of your private
tap. But not everyone is aware that, with any career
that has the potential to end in a bounty of riches and
beautiful babes, climbing your way to rock stardom is
very hard work.
So, how does your average musical genius go from
penniless Pop Tart-eater to Lifestyles of the Rich and
Famous? How do you move on up from mom’s garage
to a deluxe apartment in the sky? What’s your first
baby step on the Yellow Brick Road to fame and
fortune? That’s simple…be committed!
It sounds silly, but many a musical boat has sailed
with a crestfallen unsigned artist standing confused
on the dock, for lack of nothing else but follow-
through. Commitment to your deeds and plans is
the single most essential skill towards achieving your
goal of Ultimate Super-stardom. Entertainment is a
fickle business and chances don’t come along every
day. One missed opportunity now could have spiraled
into dozens even hundreds of opportunities down the
line.
It may be true that talent is a gift you carry with you
from birth, but commitment is a learned skill that you
need to hone every day. So, how can you make sure
that you’ve got what it takes to gather up your supreme
musicality and conquer the universe with it continuously?
The following are a few tips that may help you to make
sure that you’re truly committing yourself to your
musical career on a daily basis:
1.) Follow Up On All Leads - No matter how
insignificant they may seem at the time, it’s important
to follow up on every musical lead that’s thrown your
way. Letters, calls and e-mails should be answered
politely and in a timely fashion. New contacts should
be logged in your address book for future
correspondence. Opportunities should be taken,
invites accepted, and chances to network relished.
By starting out with just these simple rules you’ll watch
your resources and mailing list grow. Suddenly you’ll
have music community friends with which to share your
leads and ideas, ask advice, trade experiences, and
combine talent and energies. Through these friends,
you’ll meet new friends and fans and from them even
more new connections. Soon, you’ll have so many
opportunities that your concern will change from lack
of opportunity to lack of time in the day to pursue each
new chance.
2.) Just Show Up - Sounds so simple it’s stupid,
but you’d be surprised how many talented people
have fallen by the wayside because they were unable
to simply show up. Cancelled gigs, forgotten meetings,
and missed auditions say to the Musical Powers That
Be, “I’m a huge flake who doesn’t think your opportunity
is worth a half-hour of my precious time.” This is a
really bad thing. Entertainment is a small town with a
huge memory. Don’t give people any reason to think
that you’re not the person they want to work with, give
the job to, book for the gig, sign to their label, write
about, talk about, and help any way they can.
Remember there are tens of thousands of musicians
waiting to take your place, so step up to the plate and
seize each chance with optimism and enthusiasm.
3.) Take Initiative --Don’t wait for opportunities to
come to you. The world is a virtual cornucopia of
information, so reach out and nab yourself some
chances at stardom. Comb the Internet, join music
communities, visit open mic-nights, take classes and
workshops…put yourself out there where there are
cool musical happenings and let others know that you
can be relied upon and want to be involved. By going
out and seizing your own opportunities, you may
double, triple, etc. your resources and chances,
and expedite your journey to success.
4.) Do The Best Job You Can - As important as it
is to show up, it is also essential that you come off
efficient, talented, and professional when faced with
a new opportunity. Being there is half the battle but
the other half is being the best that you can be and
impressing industry, press, clubs and your fellow
musicians enough to make them want you to be
involved in anything and everything they do. Make a
commitment to put on the best live show possible, to
have a terrific CD, to make a professional press-kit,
and to spread the word about your music. Be
punctual, be courteous, be positive and be fun.
Don’t give anyone any reason not to work with you
again and you’ll see that it becomes easier and
easier to get what you want for your artistic career.
It really is as easy as simply showing up, following
up and giving it your all. Making it in music is not
impossible; it’s just a lot of elbow grease, a little
organization, a bit of strategy, and the simple
sculpting of your talent into a marketable commodity.
There are thousands of chances offered every day to
musicians...reach out and grab them by the handful,
make every opportunity your own, get everything you
want from this business and when you’re richer than
Oprah and more famous than Madonna, remember
that it was you who made it happen. You were a pro.
You showed up. You committed.
a sports car, tour the world in your private plane, date a
model, float around in the pool while collecting royalties
for CD sales, and drink beer right out of your private
tap. But not everyone is aware that, with any career
that has the potential to end in a bounty of riches and
beautiful babes, climbing your way to rock stardom is
very hard work.
So, how does your average musical genius go from
penniless Pop Tart-eater to Lifestyles of the Rich and
Famous? How do you move on up from mom’s garage
to a deluxe apartment in the sky? What’s your first
baby step on the Yellow Brick Road to fame and
fortune? That’s simple…be committed!
It sounds silly, but many a musical boat has sailed
with a crestfallen unsigned artist standing confused
on the dock, for lack of nothing else but follow-
through. Commitment to your deeds and plans is
the single most essential skill towards achieving your
goal of Ultimate Super-stardom. Entertainment is a
fickle business and chances don’t come along every
day. One missed opportunity now could have spiraled
into dozens even hundreds of opportunities down the
line.
It may be true that talent is a gift you carry with you
from birth, but commitment is a learned skill that you
need to hone every day. So, how can you make sure
that you’ve got what it takes to gather up your supreme
musicality and conquer the universe with it continuously?
The following are a few tips that may help you to make
sure that you’re truly committing yourself to your
musical career on a daily basis:
1.) Follow Up On All Leads - No matter how
insignificant they may seem at the time, it’s important
to follow up on every musical lead that’s thrown your
way. Letters, calls and e-mails should be answered
politely and in a timely fashion. New contacts should
be logged in your address book for future
correspondence. Opportunities should be taken,
invites accepted, and chances to network relished.
By starting out with just these simple rules you’ll watch
your resources and mailing list grow. Suddenly you’ll
have music community friends with which to share your
leads and ideas, ask advice, trade experiences, and
combine talent and energies. Through these friends,
you’ll meet new friends and fans and from them even
more new connections. Soon, you’ll have so many
opportunities that your concern will change from lack
of opportunity to lack of time in the day to pursue each
new chance.
2.) Just Show Up - Sounds so simple it’s stupid,
but you’d be surprised how many talented people
have fallen by the wayside because they were unable
to simply show up. Cancelled gigs, forgotten meetings,
and missed auditions say to the Musical Powers That
Be, “I’m a huge flake who doesn’t think your opportunity
is worth a half-hour of my precious time.” This is a
really bad thing. Entertainment is a small town with a
huge memory. Don’t give people any reason to think
that you’re not the person they want to work with, give
the job to, book for the gig, sign to their label, write
about, talk about, and help any way they can.
Remember there are tens of thousands of musicians
waiting to take your place, so step up to the plate and
seize each chance with optimism and enthusiasm.
3.) Take Initiative --Don’t wait for opportunities to
come to you. The world is a virtual cornucopia of
information, so reach out and nab yourself some
chances at stardom. Comb the Internet, join music
communities, visit open mic-nights, take classes and
workshops…put yourself out there where there are
cool musical happenings and let others know that you
can be relied upon and want to be involved. By going
out and seizing your own opportunities, you may
double, triple, etc. your resources and chances,
and expedite your journey to success.
4.) Do The Best Job You Can - As important as it
is to show up, it is also essential that you come off
efficient, talented, and professional when faced with
a new opportunity. Being there is half the battle but
the other half is being the best that you can be and
impressing industry, press, clubs and your fellow
musicians enough to make them want you to be
involved in anything and everything they do. Make a
commitment to put on the best live show possible, to
have a terrific CD, to make a professional press-kit,
and to spread the word about your music. Be
punctual, be courteous, be positive and be fun.
Don’t give anyone any reason not to work with you
again and you’ll see that it becomes easier and
easier to get what you want for your artistic career.
It really is as easy as simply showing up, following
up and giving it your all. Making it in music is not
impossible; it’s just a lot of elbow grease, a little
organization, a bit of strategy, and the simple
sculpting of your talent into a marketable commodity.
There are thousands of chances offered every day to
musicians...reach out and grab them by the handful,
make every opportunity your own, get everything you
want from this business and when you’re richer than
Oprah and more famous than Madonna, remember
that it was you who made it happen. You were a pro.
You showed up. You committed.
| Be Committed!...You’ll Never Be Famous If You Don’t Show Up! By Sheena Metal |
Every musician currently living on the Planet Earth
would love nothing more than to wake up tomorrow
in the midst of their glorious peak of super-stardom.
But, as Rome wasn’t built in a day, neither is the
career of any one musician. A musical career is a
long, some times arduous journey of tiny advances
and minor setbacks filling the fragile shell of big
breaks and huge disappointments. It’s up, it’s down,
it’s all around and hopefully, as time passes, you can
see the course of your career building up slowly
through weeks and months and years of steady
progress.
But how can you tell if your career is actually going
somewhere? How do you know if you’re really
getting closer to your musical dreams? How can
you determine whether or not you’re on the right
path? How do you know what to focus on in the
immediacy and what paths can be left for another
time when you are better equipped to tackle them
creatively and concretely? While there is no one
set way achieve rock super-stardom, the clearest
way to realize musical success is to simply set goals.
As mundane as it may seem, setting goals, both
long and short-term, for your musical project lends
the same kind of structure and discipline to your
career that an athlete would use to train for the
Olympics. Realistic goals enable you to build your
band’s list of accomplishments the way a runner
builds his muscles, pumping up your musical
achievements as you lift off the weight of each
entertainment roadblock. And the good news is
that you can start today. At any time you may put
into effect a list of goals, large or small, aimed at
boosting your career in any given area.
The following are a few tips that will help you to
set some goals so that you may get on your way
to achieving all that you want from your music
and the entertainment industry in general:
1.) Set Goals You Can Achieve - Nothing is more
depressing for an artist than setting lofty goals for
yourself and your music only to bottom out with
hopelessness when none of the goals are achieved
by the deadline. So, much of what keeps artists
plugging away in the industry, against all odds,
is the positive re-enforcement of feelings of
accomplishment. Keep that upbeat Mojo going by
setting goals for your band that you can absolutely
actualize with lots of elbow grease and some good
creative flow. Take a minute to assess each potential
achievement and put a realistic time allotment on it
so that you’re setting yourself up to succeed and
move onto the next musical goal.
2.) Keep Your Eyes On The Prize - It’s all well and
good to set goals just to see if you can do them, but
if your ultimate goal is to be a big ol' humongous rock
star, then try and set goals that will help you on your
way to a Rolls Royce, a Bentley and a 2,000 square
foot infinity swimming pool. Set a goal to get one
article of press each month, to book a decent gig
every two weeks, or to update your website daily.
Give yourself six months to finish your full-length
album, three months to raise the money for your
band’s t-shirts or a year to find a good manager
to pitch you to labels. Each one of these goals is a
great achievement on its own but also an important
piece in getting your band where you eventually
want it to be. So it’s a win/win for your career, any
way you slice it, and the feelings of accomplishment
will certainly empower you to keep pushing on in the
ever-frustrating music business.
3.) One Goal At A Time - It’s okay to have twenty
goals on the table but they should be lined up in
order of immediacy and priority so that each one
is given their own individual time. Trying to work
too many angles at one time may jumble your ability
and focus, and leave you at your deadline with six
or seven goals only partially achieved. In an industry
so dependant on “what have you done lately,” it’s
always a good thing to get a goal completed in a
timely manner and move onto the next so that the out
side world sees a band that is always accomplishing
things, always achieving, and always succeeding.
4.) If At First You Don’t Succeed - No matter how
hard you try, there will always be goals that elude
you past your self-imposed deadline. While it’s good
to discipline yourself into a regiment of goal-setting
/achieving, don’t beat yourself up if circumstances
beyond your control lead you to fall short on a dead
line or two. The most important thing is that you
realize your goal. Secondary to this, is for you to
accomplish your goal in a timely fashion. So, put
your emphasis on the success and the positive
achievement and don’t give up on your music and
your goal if the deadline rolls around prematurely.
Once you set a line of goals in front of you, it’s easy
to focus on achieving rather than worrying about
failing. As you begin to achieve goals, you can rely
on the confidence of all you’ve done and dismiss the
angst of worrying about things that haven’t happened
yet. You’ll never be able to accomplish everything all
at once, so why not relish the successes that you can
manifest immediately whilst dreaming of the goals you
still have yet to achieve. Don’t waste time. Sit down
after you read this and scratch out a list of goals,
each with its own time line. Find something you can
accomplish today for your music, something you can
get done by tomorrow and something terrific you can
nail down by the end of the week. Your band will look
better to industry and fans alike and most importantly,
you’ll look and feel great to yourself and your music.
Rock Super-stardom awaits! Start knocking back
those goals and kick the music biz in the butt, one
positive achievement at a time!
would love nothing more than to wake up tomorrow
in the midst of their glorious peak of super-stardom.
But, as Rome wasn’t built in a day, neither is the
career of any one musician. A musical career is a
long, some times arduous journey of tiny advances
and minor setbacks filling the fragile shell of big
breaks and huge disappointments. It’s up, it’s down,
it’s all around and hopefully, as time passes, you can
see the course of your career building up slowly
through weeks and months and years of steady
progress.
But how can you tell if your career is actually going
somewhere? How do you know if you’re really
getting closer to your musical dreams? How can
you determine whether or not you’re on the right
path? How do you know what to focus on in the
immediacy and what paths can be left for another
time when you are better equipped to tackle them
creatively and concretely? While there is no one
set way achieve rock super-stardom, the clearest
way to realize musical success is to simply set goals.
As mundane as it may seem, setting goals, both
long and short-term, for your musical project lends
the same kind of structure and discipline to your
career that an athlete would use to train for the
Olympics. Realistic goals enable you to build your
band’s list of accomplishments the way a runner
builds his muscles, pumping up your musical
achievements as you lift off the weight of each
entertainment roadblock. And the good news is
that you can start today. At any time you may put
into effect a list of goals, large or small, aimed at
boosting your career in any given area.
The following are a few tips that will help you to
set some goals so that you may get on your way
to achieving all that you want from your music
and the entertainment industry in general:
1.) Set Goals You Can Achieve - Nothing is more
depressing for an artist than setting lofty goals for
yourself and your music only to bottom out with
hopelessness when none of the goals are achieved
by the deadline. So, much of what keeps artists
plugging away in the industry, against all odds,
is the positive re-enforcement of feelings of
accomplishment. Keep that upbeat Mojo going by
setting goals for your band that you can absolutely
actualize with lots of elbow grease and some good
creative flow. Take a minute to assess each potential
achievement and put a realistic time allotment on it
so that you’re setting yourself up to succeed and
move onto the next musical goal.
2.) Keep Your Eyes On The Prize - It’s all well and
good to set goals just to see if you can do them, but
if your ultimate goal is to be a big ol' humongous rock
star, then try and set goals that will help you on your
way to a Rolls Royce, a Bentley and a 2,000 square
foot infinity swimming pool. Set a goal to get one
article of press each month, to book a decent gig
every two weeks, or to update your website daily.
Give yourself six months to finish your full-length
album, three months to raise the money for your
band’s t-shirts or a year to find a good manager
to pitch you to labels. Each one of these goals is a
great achievement on its own but also an important
piece in getting your band where you eventually
want it to be. So it’s a win/win for your career, any
way you slice it, and the feelings of accomplishment
will certainly empower you to keep pushing on in the
ever-frustrating music business.
3.) One Goal At A Time - It’s okay to have twenty
goals on the table but they should be lined up in
order of immediacy and priority so that each one
is given their own individual time. Trying to work
too many angles at one time may jumble your ability
and focus, and leave you at your deadline with six
or seven goals only partially achieved. In an industry
so dependant on “what have you done lately,” it’s
always a good thing to get a goal completed in a
timely manner and move onto the next so that the out
side world sees a band that is always accomplishing
things, always achieving, and always succeeding.
4.) If At First You Don’t Succeed - No matter how
hard you try, there will always be goals that elude
you past your self-imposed deadline. While it’s good
to discipline yourself into a regiment of goal-setting
/achieving, don’t beat yourself up if circumstances
beyond your control lead you to fall short on a dead
line or two. The most important thing is that you
realize your goal. Secondary to this, is for you to
accomplish your goal in a timely fashion. So, put
your emphasis on the success and the positive
achievement and don’t give up on your music and
your goal if the deadline rolls around prematurely.
Once you set a line of goals in front of you, it’s easy
to focus on achieving rather than worrying about
failing. As you begin to achieve goals, you can rely
on the confidence of all you’ve done and dismiss the
angst of worrying about things that haven’t happened
yet. You’ll never be able to accomplish everything all
at once, so why not relish the successes that you can
manifest immediately whilst dreaming of the goals you
still have yet to achieve. Don’t waste time. Sit down
after you read this and scratch out a list of goals,
each with its own time line. Find something you can
accomplish today for your music, something you can
get done by tomorrow and something terrific you can
nail down by the end of the week. Your band will look
better to industry and fans alike and most importantly,
you’ll look and feel great to yourself and your music.
Rock Super-stardom awaits! Start knocking back
those goals and kick the music biz in the butt, one
positive achievement at a time!
| Set Goals: Your Rock stardom Wasn’t Built In A Day! By Sheena Metal |
Sheena Metal is a radio host, producer, promoter, music supervisor, consultant, columnist, journalist and
musician. Her syndicated radio program, Music Highway Radio, airs on over 700 affiliates to more than 126
million listeners. Her musicians’ assistance program, Music Highway, boasts over 10,000 members. She
currently promotes numerous live shows weekly in the Los Angeles Area, where she resides. For more info:
http://www.sheena-metal.com.
musician. Her syndicated radio program, Music Highway Radio, airs on over 700 affiliates to more than 126
million listeners. Her musicians’ assistance program, Music Highway, boasts over 10,000 members. She
currently promotes numerous live shows weekly in the Los Angeles Area, where she resides. For more info:
http://www.sheena-metal.com.
| ©Indietude.com 2008 |
