Tag: how to get a job in music

How to Get A Job in the Music Business

Post author By James Shotwell
Post date June 24, 2019

The music industry is growing, and it needs hardworking professionals to build the future of entertainment.

Do you want to live the dream? Do you want to wake up every day to find you’re required to spend the majority of your waking time thinking about, working on, listening to, or otherwise indulging in music? That may seem out of reach, but it’s not.

Landing a job in music is not easy, but it is entirely doable. The digital age has made it possible for more people than ever to find work in the industry, with new jobs being created virtually every week, and that means your chances of landing the career you’re seeking have never been better.

But how do you do it? How do you rise above the competition and excel, especially when you don’t live in a coastal city or another music hub (Chicago, Nashville, etc.)?

In this episode of Music Biz 101, host James Shotwell breaks down the information you need to know to land a career in the music business. James explains his own path to success and offers many alternatives as well because no two people have the same “making it” story. Check it out:

Tags How to Get a Job, how to get a job in music, Jobs, jobs in music, Music Jobs, Music Jobs Hiring

News

Post author By James Shotwell
Post date July 18, 2017

So you want to work in the music business…

Here’s something you don’t want to read: Your dreams might not come true. In fact, it has famously been said that many live lives of quiet desperation, longing to be the things they never got the chance to be. I have tried and tried to understand why things don’t always work out, but the reasons many fall short of their goals are as varied as the people themselves. There is no one way to find success, just like there is no one way to fail.

If everyone got their way all the time the music industry would look nothing like it does today, and I mean that both for better and worse. Those who find success are able to shape the industry for future generations. Those who do not are left to attend shows, stream music, and remain lifelong fans. What separates those two groups is often their willingness to fight, and make no mistake – if you want a career in this industry you will have to fight for it.

People often ask me what it takes to make it. I often respond by saying it’s as simple and as difficult as being yourself. You never know for sure how others will react, but you have to believe in yourself before you can expect anyone else to do the same. After the person talking to me replies that such a vague response does not offer much help, I follow-up my thoughts with these words:

Everyone is fighting this battle in their own way.

Everyone hoping to do anything in this business wakes up with the prospects of going to war. It doesn’t matter whether it should or shouldn’t be like this because the fact of the matter is it is the way things are at this point in time. The boom of access through technology and the internet happened much faster than the music industry was able to adapt. Even if the industry were able to see the changes the internet would present in advance and had ample time to prepare it’s hard to imagine a world where there are anywhere near enough reliable full-time jobs in the creative area you want to work in to allow everyone a place of there own guaranteed. That’s not how life works and it’s not how music works.

The best you can do is to wake up every day and put action to your dreams. Start today. If you want to write the next song that is going to change the world, it’s probably time to take mastering your instrument and songwriting seriously. If you want to manage the next big band, find a band you give a damn about and do whatever it takes to make sure me and everyone else feels the same way this time next year. If you want to pitch Rolling Stone, Alternative Press, XXL, or anyone else, learn how to form a good pitch and start sending emails. If you want to be a publicist, find an artist you believe in and make the rest of us feel the same through any means necessary. I could go on and on, but I think you get the point.

You’re going to fail, but there’s another upside: Everyone Fails.

Everyone fails a lot, in fact. More bad songs are written every day than future classics, just like more bad press releases are sent than those that make people who receive hundreds of press releases a week actually read what they wrote. It’s not about a single try and it’s not about a single day, week, or month. Building a career of any kind in any field in the music business is an ongoing series of trial and error where you and everyone you know hopes to succeed in some way more often than not. We take our chances and we take our bruises. We complain about the way corporations have devalued music while making billions of the art that musicians create while hoping streaming payouts really do lead to the bright future we were told would come. We claim we found the next best band in the world when we really just heard a good song on the internet. We put our faith in people that turn out to be nothing like we expected and we in turn sometimes surprise ourselves.

Some failures hurt more than others, but that’s okay. You learn to take the good with the bad because you remember that hope only gets you as far as you’re willing to fight in this business and that everyone else has ups and downs too.

Be honest with yourself and others. You cannot do everything. In fact, some things you probably shouldn’t do, and that’s perfectly okay.

To attempt anything is to accept the fact you may fail. Everyone fails, as we mentioned above, but if you find yourself failing again and again without ever finding a sliver of success you may need to take a hard look at your goal and ask yourself whether or not they can be achieved. The hard truth of the matter is that only a very small amount of those who dream and strive to work in music every actually make a career for themselves in this business. If you are not one of them it does not mean you are a failure. You rose above being a failure the moment you decided to try and chase your dreams. You wouldn’t believe how many people never even take the first step towards getting what they want. If things are not working out after a long enough period of time you need to consider the possibility that there may be other fields and areas of expertise where your particular set of skills could be of value. The world needs motivated souls, and you are one. Find a way to make existence a bit better for others and do that thing. Music will always be here, and you will always have it in your life, even if it isn’t what pays the bills.

You are never alone, though it’s going to feel like that sometimes.

When you’re working with others in any capacity you begin to realize your individual performance really does influence their ability to pay their student loans and cover their share of rent in the apartments they more than likely share with anywhere from one to six, seven, or even eight people depending on the metropolis they were forced to move to in order to take their time in this business ‘seriously.’ (You don’t have to do that, by the way. Be the biggest thing you come out of your spot on the map, and don’t forget to thank the internet – and this author – for your success down the line.) You, like them, were once just a kid who really loved a particular band or sound and that somehow turned into a career where you’re now responsible for doing something (or more than likely, many things) in exchange for money. Compared to the way most people approach finding a career in something, that’s crazy! We’re all a little crazy and we many of us deal with the same stresses and bouts of self doubt that you may experience from time to time. We’re strongest when we work together, and that means being open and honest with one another. Recognize that we are all crazy fans deep down inside and we all know of the power music has to impact lives. We are all working toward the same thing, and that is to lift up the art that gives us the ability to wake up every day and fight.

There is power in numbers. Work together.

As much as my individual drive and talent has helped me make a way in this industry, all my greatest accomplishments were the direct result of projects I worked on with people I believed in. Surround yourself with like-minded people who fight for the things they want and understand that real work that lies ahead. This may be the friends you know now or it may be a group of strangers you meet only after you take it upon yourself to start chasing whatever it is you want to do. The bonds you form with these people will last a lifetime, and they will come to mean more than any paycheck possibly could.

Commit.

There is no denying that finding a career in music is often driven by networking, but even the best connections still require commitment. Music is considered one of the easiest industries to get your foot in, but no one ever stops to tell you everyone and their brother currently has a foot in the door of this business. It takes nothing to do the bare necessities required to claim to have a presence in music and that is a beautiful thing. It’s also a litmus test of sorts to separate the truly driven from those who will eventually turn to a more reliable and suitable (and arguably sane) career. If you want to do anything you have to make yourself known, and it’s both as easy and as hard as committing to working towards your goals every single day. To borrow from Nike, “just do it,” and soon things will begin to fall into place.

James Shotwell is the Digital Marketing Coordinator for Haulix. He is also the Film Editor for Substream Magazine and a 10-year veteran of the entertainment business. James has spoken about careers in entertainment and how to achieve them at festivals, conferences, and college campuses across the United States, and he is currently working on his first book on that very topic at this moment. If you like what you have read here, please make it a point to follow him on Twitter. If you have questions about this or anything else related to working in the entertainment business, please email him: james@haulix.com.

Tags 2017, advice, confidence, editorial, how to get a job in music, how to work in music, Marketing, Music Business, Music Jobs

Job Board News

Your to-do list is killing you. Long live to-do lists.

Post author By James Shotwell
Post date April 28, 2016

There was a time in music when being really good at one thing was enough to secure some form of employment. If you could talk to people in radio about new music and sound convincing, you could get a job. If you could hustle merchandise at shows and keep good records, you could get a job. If you understood how to find and contact music writers about new artists, you could get a job. As long as there was one thing you could show others you understood how to do better than they themselves could do it, you could find a job somewhere in music.

For better and worse, those days are now long gone.

In today’s music business, having a plethora of skills is key to securing employment more often than not. The budget for staffing is tight across the board in music, so employers are actively seeking individuals they believe can fulfill the needs usually met by a team of people. As a result, simply knowing how to do one or two things really well is no longer enough to justify the need for someone to give you a job. Aspiring professionals today need one or two strong skills, as well as several other skills or talents that can be applied to whatever role they seek. If you’re looking to do publicity for example, writing and sending clever emails is no longer enough. Those competing for publicity roles today are good at emails, cold calling, social media outreach, and they have a good ear for finding new talent because, more often than not, they started their own PR firm and have already worked with several small time artists they know through school or friends. These people are essentially unpaid professionals, and they have already worked on everything that a paying role would ask of them and then some. That is what you have to assume anyone competition with you for a job has already accomplished, and you need to make sure you do some of those things yourself if you want to even be considered for a role in this industry.

It wouldn’t be possible for me to outline everything you need to do in order to make yourself appear as a strong candidate for any job in the industry as the needs for each individual role will vary greatly from job to job. I can, however, help you make one change to your current behavior that will enable you to expand your skill set while still refining the skills you’ve already developed. To do this, you need to recognize that your current to-do list is a mess, and you should also understand most other people have horrible to-do lists as well because they, like you, expect to much. They seek to ensure they do everything they can to position themselves for employment, and through doing so create a list of tasks so daunting that completing the tasks can feel next to impossible. The reminder of how much remains undone eats away at you in time and, slowly but surely, you begin to doubt your ability to reach the next level of this business.

To fix this, not to mention simplify your life as a whole, throw out whatever to-do list you currently maintain and start creating today lists instead. By this, I mean creating a new list of goals each and every morning that outlines everything you need to do that particular day in order to be ready for the next morning. The amount of things you need to do in a week or month will not change, but the feeling you have toward what is left unaccomplished will because you won’t be looking at several days or weeks worth of work at once. Instead, your brain will see 5-10 things that, with hard work, can most likely be accomplished between sunrise and sunset on a single day. With each completed task, that already small list shrinks, and as you near the end of your daily to-dos your confidence in your ability to maintain this level of output over the long haul will grow.

But how does this help me find employment in the music industry?

Good question. Employers at every level are going to expect you to tackle multiple projects at once, and each of those projects will have their target completion date. If you tell yourself you can do it all at once you’re only going to end up frustrated and exhausted, but if you break down your longterm goals into manageable daily chores your ability to progress on each item from day-to-day will flourish. Your brain will stop worrying about the overall deadline and start concerning itself more with tasks at hand, which in turn will relax your mind enough so that you are able to think clearly and creatively amidst the chaos of this business.

I’m not going to lie to you: Finding steady employment of any kind in music today is next to impossible, especially if you’re just starting out. The competition for any job, big or small, is fiercer now than at any other point in the history of the entertainment business. This frustrates job seekers and complicates the selection process for most business owner, but at the end of the day it’s actually a blessing because it means only the truly talented and hardworking individuals end up working full-time. The people who find themselves in a position to influence real change not only know how to make change happen, but they possess the organizational skills needed to make the most of the opportunity they have been given.