The Case for Enlisting a Patron
In What Are You Waiting for? Blake Easter tells musicians that they better be the ones in control of their careers.
“Your manager or producer probably doesn’t wake up thinking about how to make you successful in the morning. They wake up thinking about how to make themselves successful and that may or may not include you. No matter what level you get to, you have to be the one driving your career. I understand that you can’t do everything and you shouldn’t do everything yourself, but you should be the one in the driver’s seat.”
What he’s really telling us is that we need to be out there marketing ourselves like mad.
In my recent post Tinker, Tailor, Businessman, Musician, I addressed a similar topic by Jason Spitz: Are You Building a Band or a Business? (While we’re on the subject, what’s with all the questions as titles? I’ve been guilty of doing the same thing, but it’s kinda tedious, so note to self: do not use questions in the title of upcoming blogs.)
In his blog, Spitz urges musicians to turn fans into customers by creating products fans will value. (At Visual Music Productions, we still consider music a valuable commodity.) He has some mighty fine suggestions about how to create these provided, in addition to being a musician, you’re a graphic artist/printer or are tight with someone who is.
Now in his blog, Blake Easter would have musicians pursuing a parallel career as marketers.
Great advice for those musicians already marketing inclined, but for those who aren’t, it won’t be easy.
Besides, we’re hesitant to encourage musicians to come up with any additional reasons for putting off practicing, composing and rehearsing.
Instead, we suggest you find a patron. Preferably someone with deep pockets. Like Mozart had. But definitely someone who will handle all the more troublesome aspects of a career in music, who will book gigs, pay for new tires for the van, call up radio stations and keep track of the sale of CDs, t-shirts and the like. Oh, and maybe unload some band equipment.
On second thought, it didn’t work out so well for Mozart, so maybe we do need to roll up our sleeves and give this marketing/product development idea a try.
We’re going to start with a limited edition of our laptop keyboard cover with the legend “Yes, we can’t.” For more information, leave us a note.
I’ve got to get back to practicing. Now that’s something I know how to do.