Artist Development Essentials

The Key to Structuring a Sustainable Profile in the Music Industry

Hristo Penchev

• Publisher: Business Expert Press
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9781948198837
• Topic: Commerce
• Subtopic: Marketing
• Index: Marketing

As a constantly evolving and developing industry, the music business environment continues to establish new standards in terms of operational efficiency, dynamics between the different parties involved in the professional cycles, and constructing and performing methodologies in the process of achieving the desired results that all the participants in the music world have to adapt to in order to establish a sustainable career.

Hence, the main purpose of this book is to provide practical advice suitable to both aspiring music professionals and artists that need detailed guidance in the process of developing the basis of a fruitful, promising, and sustainable profile, not only in terms of business performance, but psychologically as well.

CHAPTER 1

Intentions and Talents

The trouble with too many people is they believe the realm of truth always lies within their vision.

—Abraham Lincoln

Personal Assessment

The self-evaluation process is one of the most crucial, defining, and essential stages of the development process of every artist. The main prerequisite needed for the establishment of a professional profile that has the potential to achieve and generate success in the music business is the ability to truly perceive and acknowledge the features and characteristics of your intentions, goals, and talents. It is a necessity of significant importance a career path not based on genuine understanding of the aforementioned matters to be avoided. Such an approach can only contribute to constructing a misbalanced mechanism and configuration, which eventually might be in a position to generate positive short-term professional gradation but ultimately would always hinder the prospect of creating a sustainable, stable, and well-operating participation in the music industry cycle. Having said that, every single endeavor in the music industry should be pursued with genuine drive and natural passion, but approached with an analytical mindset. A career in entertainment should not be perceived as an occupational option, a source of stable income, and an opportunity for constant professional development, leading to a conventional life, but as a passion project. It is the ultimate mistake to pursue only professional growth and success in your respective endeavors, as an artist should be confident in the desire to get involved in the cycle of developing a profile in the entertainment sphere due to being attracted to participating in the process of achieving it. Chasing evanescent goals does not bring the positive results you want, regardless of their nature.

Talent

Ultimately, success in the music industry is a matter of approach, not practice, and it depends on two incredibly simple and comprehensive components, which—if understood, distinguished, and approached with the correct dose of mentality—can build the fundaments of a stable activity in the entertainment business:

• The talent and the ability to produce a high-quality product
• The talent and the ability to showcase and present the talent and ability to produce a high-quality product

Talent is luck. Skill is a result of talent, and ability is a product of effort, determination, and hard work. People are not capable of creating, a characteristic feature that they do not already possess. But they are in a position to drastically improve, evolve, and modify their existing unique traits. Singing well is not a talent; neither is playing in an exceptional manner. These are skills developed through utilizing a talent. Being able or having the desire to express your feelings through ability is a talent. Having the opportunity to see beauty in negative spaces is one as well. Possessing the relentless desire to tackle obstacles in the process of approaching your desires is one, too. That said, an artist should be aware of the clear meaning and characteristics of their potential talents in order to accurately identify them and carefully direct their development in the right direction. The ability to cherish a talent, understand its strengths, and carefully assess the quality of work and results that it can generate objectively is essential for an artist’s creative state of mind and thus for the long-term performance of their work.

A note that is important to be recognized and realized as early as possible is the fact that, contrary to the majority of people’s expectations and notions, one’s talent might not necessarily be related to what one thinks one’s biggest passion is. Hence, you need to first very well understand and get to know yourself, as a personality, before encouraging professional development in a certain area. Your talent might not be the one you want, initially, and this does not mean that there is a misconnection between what you want to do and what you can do best, but it indicates that you probably have the wrong idea and misconception of what you truly want to do and how you should execute your plans to do it. Remember to always invest your time and efforts in the activities that you are good at. Many people tend to falsely associate their talents with roles that they think are most compatible with them, but that does not correspond with reality. The mere fact that your passion is music does not mean that you are meant to succeed in your endeavor in this field assuming the role of a musician, for example. Your personal traits might be more suitable to the positions of a manager, booking agent, PR consultant, sound engineer, producer, and so on. This is why it is crucial to avoid dedicating yourself to the urge of committing yourself to the first, instinctive impression you get in terms of clarifying your most desired role and goal. Be receptive and cognizant toward your own profile and capabilities and open to the idea of pursuing and approaching their most suitable and rational application, until you find it. Most of the time, people do not succeed in what they do because they have falsely developed an idea for their development that is not related to the reality of their circumstances, which leads to frustration and desperation caused by the investment of a great amount of time, passion, and effort in an activity that is simply not the right one for them and that, fundamentally, does not provide positive final results. So, if you want to utilize your qualities to their full potential, find their best application, and be sure that you are not confusing it with your own perceptions and ideas of it.

Vision

Possessing the vision to picture yourself and your success in a palpable way is the first sign that you actually own the genuine desire to be involved in the entertainment industry and that it already provides you with one of the main things that you would need in order to establish a successful profile in it—a desired final destination. Success is always a result of imagination, as you can never reach a goal that you are not capable of envisioning. Being a visionary and possessing a significant talent, most certainly, are essential and significant qualities for the establishment of a successful career; however, many artists who are, understandably, relying mainly on their excitement and enthusiasm to progress further with their music industry endeavors tend to neglect the importance of the procedure of bringing their ideas, plans, and notions to life through work. The prospect of creating and achieving a high standard of living by exploiting your personal talents is undoubtedly an extremely attractive perception, that is, however, very difficult and challenging to perform and execute properly. Having said that, an artist should know that imagination is just not enough to achieve results; it is pivotal to have the quality and the ability to bring your imagination to life through hard work and determination. Imagining and picturing your progress will not materialize it. Success does not come by objectifying your thoughts and perceptions of it. Rather, it comes once you develop and shape the said notions of the specific goal that will grant you success, upon completion. It is not about picturing and imagining the results and the consequences of your desired success, but the circumstances and the exact activity that will deliver it to you. It is writing, discussing, gathering opinions, researching, developing a strategic plan of action based on information, conclusions, assumptions and knowledge, testing, modifying, performing, failing, pivoting, perfecting, and never quitting that will transform your ideas, eventually, into reality. So do not let yourself minimize the importance and difficulty of the process of pursuing your desired goals and what exactly that entails.

You should very carefully consider and establish the concrete mission and vision of your career and avoid a significant disunion between your music, your general vision, and your overall presence as an artist to the point where there is no intuitive relationship between the different aspects of your brand. The main priority should always be to aim to develop one homogeneous product, containing image and statement that should be standing out to a point where it can embody and showcase the content of your music through your presence. Or, in other words, you should combine your activities, plans, and projects in such a way as to develop your own, distinguishable style. What do you want to do? Why do you want to do it? How do you want to do it? What would you like to achieve with it? Decide for good what sort and genre of music you want to play. What sort of messages would you like your songs to entail? What type of tracks do you want your group to be related with? Do you want to be an underground band? Do you want to be a pop act? What sort of audience you see yourself attracting—teenagers, adults, or both? What sort of outlets would you like your music to be reviewed by? Consider your image. Think about how you would like people to perceive you as a musician. Think about how you see yourself on stage. Is the notion in your mind compatible with the music you want to play? You should ensure that all of the aforementioned topics form a homogeneous, cohesive product so that every part of your activity can logically relate to the others.

Goals Clarification

Career in the music business should not be the main priority and goal to concentrate on in your life—it should be the only one. Prioritizing your professional development above anything else in your life is necessary if you want to progress to the highest level of your professional aims. It is important to possess the tunnel vision for success in the music world and apply an incredible amount of tenacity to it. You always have to ensure that the goals you have in your mind and the operations that are meant to be completed in order to accomplish these goals would require you to constantly improve yourself and, ultimately, be better than you currently are. The process of goal clarification is pivotal not only for the purpose of actually achieving your plans but also because the way you approach your activity would form you as an individual and a professional. This is, to a certain extent, the long-term goal, which exceeds the importance of your short-term ones, and it can actually grant you the success that you doubtlessly want to achieve.

Carefully and precisely consider the approach that you would be utilizing in the process of developing your professional activity and career. Think about concrete goals that you want to achieve, the specific numbers that you want to generate with your sales, the size of the audience that you want to attract to your shows, and the duration of your activity that you would like to reach. Now multiply everything by 10. Set goals that are beyond your imagination and expectations; aim to get the results and the accomplishments that are beyond your wildest thoughts. If you put a limit on what you can do and on your belief in yourself, in general, you are placing a ceiling on your potential success. Do not instill borders for your talent. If you do, destroy them. You should have expectations for yourself if you want to achieve the stature that you are aiming for and take advantage of the power of your intention. Constructing and placing high standards and ambitions is one of the most crucial principles that has a direct and undeniable effect on your mentality and build a creative, unique, and innovative state of mind, which, essentially, shapes your mindset to the level that you need to possess in order to be in a position to pursue sustainable and profitable professional longevity in the entertainment industry. By aiming to accomplish unusually and unexpectedly high goals, you will remove and erase all of the unnecessary psychological limitations that your mind has inserted in your perceptions. Once this happens, you will be able to naturally unlock the full capacity of your potential, talent, and ability in order to meet the objectives you have placed for yourself. Unconventional aims require unconventional methodologies in order to be completed, so by putting yourself in a situation where you have to pursue arduous and demanding projects, you will have to automatically and indisputably change your operational behavior and your way of thinking and strategizing in order to do so. Your results will always be only as good as the standards that you are establishing for yourself and that you are aiming to reach. Everything is possible, until it is not. Placing a limit to your expectations, dreams, and desires, essentially, means that you are putting a limit to your own development and success and removing a significant amount of opportunities for professional growth, which is the opposite of what a formation should be working toward at any point of its career. In an endeavor where success is strongly based on belief and trust in your capabilities and qualities, it is of significant importance to avoid a thought process of mentally undermining and underestimating your chances of succeeding in whatever the situation might be. This mentality and approach is not a momentum solution, not a method to be adopted in certain cases and situations. This has to be a monumental part of your vision, understanding, and philosophy for success that you have to completely dedicate yourself to. You have to genuinely believe in the idea of performing and investing yourself into completing ideas that the majority of the people around you would find ridiculous. You have to reinvent your imagination and mind in order to absolutely and fundamentally change your operational behavior. Essentially, the goals that are in place to establish the highest level of incentive for their respective owners are the ones that possess very clear and specific aims and that can be completed within a conceivable and reasonable period; so an artist liking to be efficient and truly successful should always be able to find the right motivation for performing his or her professional duties, regardless of the specifics of their ideas thereof. Additionally, the process of strategizing the fulfillment of your planned activities should be based on and formulated in accordance with either your personal manner of conducting your actions or the eventual results that you are focusing on. Usually, the majority of people find the former option for the more suitable and the more demanding one, considering the need for the person’s specific traits to be adjusted and exploited to the defined task’s characteristics. Due to this fact, behaviorally formed goals provide the user with a very cohesive methodology and with the opportunity to exercise strong control on the relevant processes, and this produces a more appropriate and convenient environment for approaching long-term goals. Formulating your action plan entirely on the results that you would like to generate is an efficient strategy, which is a very suitable one in the process of completing concrete short-term goals. The exact method of constructing your activity in this area, however, should be based on your personal preferences and unique characteristic qualities. The main thing that should be remembered is that the most crucial and essential part of accomplishing your goals is clearly defining them. Once you have your aims distinctly outlined, you will be able to naturally deduct what the best course of action related to the presented case would be.

Understanding the Music Industry Cycle and Culture

The music industry is not a large amount of money that you would be able to generate while you sleep and spend on fast cars and expensive alcohol. The music industry is not getting attention from all over the world and being recognized as a significant culture figure. The music industry is a narcotic. It is frustration, desperation, devastation. It is an unfair platform that will take your everything and, in exchange, provide you with a minimal chance of achieving your biggest desires, and this is a piece of information that should be properly and very diligently perceived before any activity in this sphere is established, because if you do not think that you are able to not only undergo the said specifics but also overcome the obstacles that they might create, you are not ready and capable of establishing a successful career in this industry. In essence, establishing a professional activity in the music sphere is not something that you necessarily need to want, but rather something that you need to do. An artist would never achieve any level of success if success were the main desired goal.

Arguably, the starting stage for a career in the music industry, where the artist should get familiar and used to the respective working cycle, is one of the most challenging and requiring phases related to the business and marks the first breaking point for many enthusiasts looking to establish activity in this business. Considering the fact that an artist at that early stage of development is still not capable of investing the full potential of their emotional and physical capacity into their professional development, it is of crucial importance for every individual to recognize the significance of being capable of approaching and treating every aspect related to career progress with utmost attention and concentration. In the process of developing a successful product in the music environment, the first point of every aspect of your activity should be related to your approach toward the respective sphere. Hence, an exquisite level of background knowledge about the music industry, the tendencies affecting it, the different roles operating in it, and the dynamics between them is needed before a career in this business is even considered. The correct utilization of your qualities requires strong theoretical and practical knowledge, combined with an intuitive approach to your specific field of action in order to ensure a synchronized attempt for conventional success. Correlation does not imply causation, so you have to be knowledgeable and well informed of the specifics of the operations that you are undertaking and the fixed relationship between them. Natural understanding of the music industry processes is a useful skill to base your professional efforts on at the beginning of your career, but in the long term you cannot afford to rely your activities and career on certain consequences of actions that you have noticed are the source of providing positive results, but you do not know why and how these are actually being generated. You have to understand and know the game that you will need to play. To be aware of the meaning and the structure of the processes that you want to be involved in, include every single detail and characteristic that defines them, since otherwise you will never be able to construct a logical, well-performing activity. You cannot afford to do things without knowing why and how you need to do them or invest yourself in projects and methodologies that you do not understand and just hope for the best results and outcomes. Imagine that you are driving your car and it suddenly breaks down in the middle of the road. You would never just change your tire, get back in it, and try to continue your journey, hoping for the best possible outcome. You would first try to assess and understand the source of the problem, what action would resolve it, and how you should perform that action and then apply all of the acquired knowledge to the situation. Many professionals tend to follow palpable concepts and methodologies for development without being aware of their exact meaning and significance, without having the proper knowledge and experience to do so, and before progressing any further with the establishment of their professional activity—you should be sure that you are not adopting this kind of mentality and approach.

Another big and very naïve misconception among the inexperienced and inept participants in the music industry cycle is the general approach of advancing a career. Such musicians very often and erroneously tend to follow the natural instinct of approaching the procedure of seeking relevant chances and opportunities for brand expansion, without properly understanding the significance of their particular role in this cycle, which is formed around the following three main links and the interconnections between them: industry–artist–audience. The main and general activity frame of the music industry cycle is revolving around these three fundamental components, the relationship between them, and the way that every artist is utilizing their own characteristics in the process of exploiting the already developed tendencies and practices of the said elements to their benefit. The essential notion that should be remembered when it comes to defining your own place and significance in this already established relationship is that—regardless of what part of this professional chain your specific is related to—your main goal with your activity is to create a connection between...