Musician

I imagine there's a lot of young musicians out there that are wondering if it's possible to make it as a musician, and I know that's a scary thing. A career in anything else seems normal, and the idea of musician is like this big question mark of can I even make money? Like where would I work? What would I do? I'm sure my parents had a panic attack when I told them I was going to major in music and be a musician, but there's lots of things you can do. I paid for all of my college with my music jobs. I was an accompanist. I taught piano lessons. I taught in public schools and in college. I was a tutor and mentor for musicians doing music theory, and I have a lot of musician friends that did a lot of side gigs, and it pays. I feed a family of five as a musician, so just give me some confidence that you can make it work.

I've known a lot of musicians that have struggled, and I figured out now that they're struggling because they're missing one of these three things. Let's talk about knowing. A lot of musicians just practice, practice, practice, and they do a ton of work. They have this great feeling for music. They can sense what makes music good and bad, and they're motivated, and they love people, and they're just missing something, and often it's because there's just a lot they don't know. So there's a lot to know if you're going to be a musician. Music theory, music history, knowing about whatever their instrument is, knowing about other instruments. I could go on for days. All the things you can list that are just knowledge that musicians should know. There's tons of books out there, resources. Go search YouTube and whatever else is online or this app. Just know as much as you can. Gotta know stuff.

A lot of musicians struggle because they lack the feeling. Let me explain that. They practice a lot. They do a lot. They're always trying to hone their skills. They know a lot. They have a lot of knowledge. They know all the theory. They know a lot of history. But sometimes they got to take a minute to just stop and smell the roses. Sometimes you can overwork yourself. Get to your roots. Figure out why you love music. What about music do you love? What's your favorite song or artist? And why are they your favorite? What makes them different than other artists? Why does that song speak to you? Figure out what that feeling is that makes it tick. And figure out what makes other people tick. Why do you not like that music that they like? Figure out the feeling that makes music important.

I've known a lot of musicians that struggled because they didn't do enough, or what they did wasn't the right things to do. You can know so much. You can just have all the knowledge. You can feel it. You can really have that sense of musicality and artistry, and you can be a real artist at heart, and you can just have all the knowledge. But then you gotta do the work. My composer friends that struggled, they were so smart, and they just had a good sense for music. They were great artists. But you gotta put notes on paper. You gotta write the music. Or pianists that just didn't practice enough. You gotta practice more. But also, not just putting in work, but learning what is effective. So practicing the right things. Practicing efficiently and effectively. There's lots of things to do that people just aren't doing. So.

I think it really helps to make some goals, some bigger pie-in-the-sky ones, and then take some time to break it down into smaller things, saying, hey, I want to be a great pianist, you know, and then deciding, okay, you know, what does that look like? Does it look like, you know, getting a teacher, downloading certain apps and using them to practice, devoting this X number of minutes a day to my piano practice, finding ways to actually use that in the community or at your church or wherever, just breaking it down into those more discrete steps and then taking the time to evaluate that periodically so that you can see that, hey, are these still appropriate steps? Am I making progress toward them? But making the steps small enough so that there's something that you can do consistently.

So you're just getting started and want to be a musician. Well, I've been playing piano about 30 years, and I can tell you one of the most important things you're going to want to do is find an in-person piano teacher. I know virtual lessons seem to be all the rage these days, but you're going to want to find someone who can teach you in person because they can teach you the real value, more easily in person, of the idea that practice makes permanent, not just perfect. It's how you practice, and an in-person teacher can more easily spot areas where they can help you understand, oh, you're practicing this the wrong way, because if you're practicing something incorrectly, and you keep doing the same thing, and you're not aware you're doing it, an in-person teacher is going to be able to point that out to you, because practicing bad habits, especially ones you're not aware of, is going to do you a huge disservice in the long run. You can't just practice, practice, practice makes perfect. No, practice makes permanent, and an in-person teacher can help you understand the best practice habits that you'll need to be successful.