In this module I will be looking into how to work professionally in the music industry, building a portfolio of my work and achievements to help increase my understanding of working in this industry, and this will ultimately increase my employability as a musician.
For my presentation, I spoke about building a career around being a live performer. Here is some of the feedback that I was given, and how I can work on these points:
“You talked about an income of £100 to £300 pounds per gig which is, you know, it seems like a lot of money. How sustainable is that in terms of then when you include stuff like petrol, equipment, insurance, rehearsal costs, all those kind of things you know, that quickly drops. If that’s your only income twice a week on a weekend when you get these gigs then how can you sustain that?”
To help sustain an income through the live performance there are a few things that I can do. Firstly I must be as diverse and adaptable as possible. This is because I will then have more performance opportunities available to me. Secondly, I think prioritising function work as much as I can will help as these opportunities pay considerably more than gigs I do in my own band. Thirdly, I would need to think about ways of decreasing my expenditures as much as possible to maximise my income overall, and this could be multiple ways such as working out the most cost effective travel for example. Fourthly, I will be building a portfolio of work that I have done online and start to build a profile for myself as a musician in order to advertise myself towards live opportunities. Finally, I think getting in contact and involved with music studios would be massively beneficial as session work can be done more or less any time of the week, and can be well paying per session, therefore getting my contact details out to studios and meeting the people who work there could increase my income from playing quite drastically.
“You said that you know how venues book acts, how do they book acts?”
From my own personal experience, I have found that most venues book an act via email, particularly the smaller venues, and so far it has been a fairly 50/50 split between us contacting them, and them contacting us. Another way venues book acts is via promoters. A band can often hire the help of a promoter, who will then provide a list of venues available for the group to play in, and then do the work of securing the gig. The downside of this is that the band has to then pay out to do this and this reduces overall income. At higher levels, big bands decide on the venues that they want to play, and then pay to book the place for the evening. This isn’t really all that possible at my level right now, but can work well for big bands who draw a crowd.
Some more things I can work on in regards to maximising my revenue streams as a live performer are things like playing venues further away from home. This can be costly in terms of transport and occasionally accommodation, therefore it is only worth doing as I get more established as a musician and have built up an income to support these gigs. This allows me to reach new audiences and further build up any following I have, and in turn I can start to make more income from ticket and merchandise sales.
As I mentioned earlier, I will need to branch out into as many roles as I can that require my skill set as a musician. This includes function band work, cover band work, session performing, and ‘depping’ for other bands. By taking on some of these roles alongside my own band work I can increase my income by a large amount, provided that I can do these roles effectively and manage them all accordingly. In order to prepare for taking on these roles, I will need to practice various styles of music, and skills such as sight reading.
One final point is that alongside these performance centred job opportunities, I also have the option of tuition on the guitar as I fell my skill set has developed now to a point where I can comfortably pass on my knowledge to others wanting to take up the instrument. This could then become a regular source of income to go alongside my live performance work, and ultimately expand my revenue streams. While this isn’t strictly live performance, it is something I could go into and worth keeping in mind.
Accessibility of Roles:
To access these roles, I can use job listing sites such as indeed.co.uk, and www.music-jobs.com to find job listings, and I can use my networking skills to find work in my area.
For example, here are a couple relevant of job listings I found online:
https://www.depmusicians.com/index.php/musicians-wanted?task=view&id=348
These are just a couple of roles relevant to myself, and there are plenty more online to look through.
Coronavirus Update:
Unfortunately the music industry, and live performance in particular has taken a huge blow due to the Covid-19 outbreak as the UK currently sits in lockdown. This has forced venues to close temporarily, however many of the smaller ones have shut down completely due to a clear lack of help or consideration from the government at this time.
The impact of this situation has been devastating, with performing artists having virtually all of their work cancelled for around the next 6 months. I personally have a musician contact in a touring band who has lost 46 scheduled gigs due to the situation.
Ultimately, this renders live performance work as not being an option for a while, meaning people like myself will have to find other sources of income. I mentioned instrumental tuition earlier on, and currently this is what I am doing via video calls in order to keep some form of income during this time.
Types of Employment:
As with almost any line of work there is the option of being employed or self employed.
Self-employed workers don’t receive the same benefits as someone in employment, such as sick pay, holiday pay, having tax already sorted, and a pension scheme for example.
Being self-employed though can have it’s advantages, such as being your own boss, having a wider range of roles to potentially take on, and you will generally earn more per hour than someone in employment.
Due to the nature of work involved in the creative industries, over a third of people in the industry are self-employed.
The work I hope to be doing in the music industry will generally be self-employed work as I will be hopefully taking on various roles.
Due to the current outbreak situation many self-employed workers across every industry has found themselves out of work, and due to the sloppy and quite frankly idiotic response from the government many people have lost more than just their income.
Self-employed workers can now claim 80% of their annual income based off of their earnings from the previous two years to try and help them stay afloat during this difficult time.
My Career Pathway and Portfolio:
As I said in my career pitch, I am pursuing a career in live performance, particularly band work but I am open to any performance opportunity. My biggest strength in music is my ability when performing live. I have a good understanding of theory and improvisational concepts, and have experience performing in various genres too.
Currently live work is out of the equation due to the pandemic.
I have been putting together a bit of a portfolio of my work though in preparation for the current restrictions being lifted. I have kept various videos and photos of my performances and just music work in general to help try and keep a following online, but also to showcase for any potential job opportunities. I post most of my music related work on my Instagram, as I made the account specifically for this purpose. Here are a few of the pictures I have up, and a link to view all of them:
https://www.instagram.com/dan.greenhalgh.guitar/?hl=en
I have also got some of my music work live and available to listen to online. Firstly here is an EP I wrote and recorded by myself in 2018, and was my debut into the world of original music:
Two years later I released a new EP in my original band INNADAZE, which for me is my proudest work at the time of writing this. This EP did really well, even getting played twice on BBC Radio Leeds Introducing, where presenter Alan Raw described us as a band with “Big fuzzy guitars and big fuzzy tunes.” Here’s a link to give it a listen on Spotify:
Alongside my evidenced music work that I use to showcase myself, I also have a music orientated CV written out for when I may need to apply for any employed music work.
In future I will be continuing my music education by taking part on the top up year at Bradford College starting in September 2020 to finish off my BA Honours Degree in Music. I will then likely take part in a teaching course for music, to open up another pathway for me should I ever need to take it.
Here is a link to the course I will be doing to finish my BA Honours degree:
https://www.bradfordcollege.ac.uk/courses/undergraduate/musicforthecrea-sep-2021-0
I also would like to further my knowledge of guitar playing by taking on one of the guitar specific diplomas at some point, however I am waiting for the right time to do so as I don’t want to take on too much at once.
To summarise:
I feel as though I have increased my understanding of how to go about employment as a musician, and I have a clearer idea of how I will be getting freelance work once the lock-down in the UK has ended.
I am glad to finally have a portfolio of all my work in one place now, and I think this combined with my CV will help increase my chances of obtaining work by a large amount.
I now will be planning a clear path for the future, and at the moment I will be settling on building a list of clients for instrumental and theory lessons to help provide me with some stable income alongside my work as a live musician. I feel this is a sensible move as I am taking advantage of both income sources, and utilising all of my knowledge and skill set as a musician. Live work will remain my focus, but I now will have something to fall back on should the live work dry up at all.
I now feel much more ready to begin work as a self-employed musician, and with a clearer goal than that of when I began this module.
References:
Starnow.co.uk. 2020. Expert Session Guitarist Wanted – Starnow. [online] Available at: <https://www.starnow.co.uk/listing/1058957/expert-session-guitarist-wanted/?utm_campaign=google_jobs_apply&utm_source=google_jobs_apply&utm_medium=organic> [Accessed 16 May 2020].
Green, N., 2020. Employed Or Self-Employed – Which Is Better?. [online] unbiased.co.uk. Available at: <https://www.unbiased.co.uk/news/accountant/employed-or-self-employed> [Accessed 16 May 2020].
Princes-trust.org.uk. n.d. Self Employment Vs. Employment | The Prince’s Trust. [online] Available at: <https://www.princes-trust.org.uk/help-for-young-people/tools-resources/business-tools/self-employment> [Accessed 16 May 2020].