Aside from your obvious musical skills, you need to develop and learn various other specialities as a musician. It’s no longer good enough to rely on your talents in the hope of making it; opportunities don’t come along without a lot of work behind the scenes.
While you may look at certain modern musicians and claim they had their big break out of nowhere, what you don’t realize is how hard they work on other skills to give them the edge. On that note, here are some of the most important skills all musicians must learn:
Business & Brand Management
You need to approach your music career as though it’s a business. After all, you’re basically now a brand that needs to be nurtured and managed. All musicians must learn how to do this, which is why it helps to develop business and brand management skills. As tough as this seems, there are ways for you to learn these skills and transfer them directly to a music career.
Enroll in special music institutes or schools that cater to skills like these. The Clive Davis school is one of the most popular for courses like this because a lot of its content focuses on music business and brand management. If you learn how to represent yourself as a brand – and look at your music career from a business perspective, then you’re more likely to succeed in a competitive environment.
Social Media Marketing
You can’t mold a successful music career without a strong social media presence. It’s not even a case of trying to become the most influential artist in the world; social media is your key platform for self-promotion.
Many highly successful artists are discovered via TikTok, Instagram, or YouTube. These platforms give you opportunities to reach wider audiences with your music – it’s just a case of learning how to market yourself on these platforms.
Spend some time understanding social media marketing and what you can do to grow a follower count or spread your content far and wide. If you can gain social media recognition, then you’re one massive step closer to achieving bookings or even getting a song in the charts.
Networking
Lastly, all musicians must learn some basic networking skills. Part of this will involve social media marketing and connecting with other people/brands online. However, another huge part revolves around the “traditional” networking methods of speaking to people in the music industry.
You must develop the skills to find and reach out to people with influence. This could be a content creator who can use your music for their videos, or a local bar with a stage for you to perform on. It’s all about generating a long list of contacts so you get your name out there and remain relevant. That’s how you start getting more gigs because one of your contacts can recommend you to someone else, and then that person recommends you to another person after you gig for them, etc.
Your music talent will only carry you so far in this industry; you need a well-developed set of skills that will help you promote your career and find opportunities. Work on things away from your music to see the real success blossom.
