Learning about the music industry - week one

Having bought a copy of 'Music Success in Nine Weeks' on Friday the weather here in the UK this weekend gave me an excellent opportunity to sit down in between rehearsals and start reading Ariel's book.

As with most books I read that aren't fiction the first thing I had to do was to take a look through the whole book and get a clear handle on what the whole course was about before sitting down and carefully reading and actioning the first chapter on goal setting.

This first chapter was actually very comforting. As a band we have always been very comfortable with goal setting - our manager has a written strategic plan for the band that we regularly review - can’t say that we have always met the goals we have set ourselves but sometimes the working towards a goal and then finding it's either not the right goal, or we've set the goal too high or not clearly enough is just as important as reaching the goals.

Goals have to be specific and measurable and they also have to be flexible - if not you run the risk of missing out on great opportunities because you are too focused on your band goals rather than the opportunity that's put in front of you.

Goals also have to be broken down into smaller goals as well. A goal that says 'get a record deal' is never going to get you any where unless you work out what the goals are that you need to achieve in order to 'get that deal' ,and, what the possibilities are for a 'record deal' that isn't about someone coming along and handing you a load of cash to make a record. What we learnt very early on is that no one gets a 'deal' with out a great story and a strong track record to start off with so we broke our goal towards 'getting a deal' down into manageable steps and stayed flexible as well.

These are the goals we set over two years (and achieved) to date around getting a record deal.

Practice songs and rehearse shows.
Record and self-release some stuff and get used to working in a recording studio.
Find a producer who loves our music and spend some time learning how to record with them.
Record some stuff and look for a little label that can distribute our music and help us to learn about the record and distribution side.
Release a single with a little label and learn about PR and Marketing in the UK.
Work with other producers to see how they operate. Learn, learn, and learn about recording.
Record and release a second single and learn about PR and marketing in other countries.
Try out some more producers and learn about working with producer managers.
Set goals for recording and marketing our first two albums.

Which is where we are up to now. Along the way we've remained adaptable flexible and open minded, knowing that it isn't just having great music that makes a band, its great showmanship, great people to work with, great PR and strong never give up work very hard business like attitude to everything we do.

My learning from Chapter One is that we need to keep working hard, keep setting realistic and measurable goals and.... remain Utterey flexible and focus.

Also, remember we may be artists, but we work in an industry and thus we need to work very hard to make sure our fans get to hear us and support us to keep on making great music for them to enjoy.

Time to start reading the next chapter and putting it into action.

Zak