3 Things Every Aspiring Musician Needs

There are thousands of aspiring musicians out there all keen to make it.

Needless to say, only a very small percentage of musicians make it to the absolute top level of recognition and fame. That doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy a long and prosperous career – in fact, some smaller musicians prefer to not be super famous as they can enjoy making music without all the fame!

Regardless of your long-term aims, there are a few things all aspiring musicians need to have. If you’ve got them, they will help you on your journey, making life much easier.

An agent

Ideally, you should have a music agent that can handle many different tasks for you. When you initially start out, you probably book your own gigs. Or, you try to get your name out there as much as possible, ensuring people contact you for bookings. This works for a time, but there reaches a stage where you need to find more work more consistently.

This is where an agent comes in handy, as they can help you find and manage different bookings. Yes, they take a cut of each booking, but the benefits often outweigh the financial costs. Agents can help you find more gigs, meaning more exposure for the musician, leading to more success.

A mentor

Mentors are essential for all musicians as they teach you about the industry. The whole idea of a music mentor is that they have been in your situation and can advise you on what to do and not to do. It should help you avoid common music industry mistakes, making your career more prosperous.

These days, you have musicians like Joey Armstrong that have actually set up websites for aspiring music artists to use as a source of information. This is basically modern-day mentoring as you can get advice and tips on a range of different topics. Don’t assume that your mentor has to be a big-time music celebrity – often, it’s the musicians that don’t make it that can provide the best advice.

Patience

Finally, all musicians need to have patience! Unless you’re a child star, success in the music industry is a long time coming. If you look at some of the biggest artists in the world right now, they took years to see a small level of success. It’s easy to get caught up in the idea of releasing a song and soaring to the top of the charts overnight. It does happen, but it’s very rare.

The chances of carefully creating a viral song are very slim – these things happen at random. Instead, you have to be patient and get used to the idea of playing small gigs, releasing music, and watching your audience slowly grow. Success is never guaranteed, but the longer you stick at it, the more chance there is that people hear your music and start sharing it.

Again, to reiterate that last point, you can never guarantee success in the music industry. However, having all three of the things listed above will put you in a better position to pursue a successful career.