Now that I have identified the various skills and attributes that I will need in order to make myself the best equipped for the job roles I am looking to get into, I can start addressing the skills that need developing and act on improving them as much as possible. I will be constructing and then undertaking a development plan to ensure that I am making myself as employable and professional as I can be.
First of all, I want to address the skills that I have already, and the skills/attributes that I have yet to develop both as an instrumentalist, but also as a freelance musician:
Confidence – This isn’t always the easiest thing to develop, but a good level of confidence allows you to come across much more professionally, and helps you make a good impression. I think im alreay have a good level of confidence in what I do, but this can still be improved upon.
Organisation and Planning – An essential skill that I have is the ability to plan ahead of time. This is absoloutly crucial, particularly for freelance work as time management is a part of your job automatically. I feel as though I’m already on a good level with this, but there is always room to improve.
Personal Conduct – While this may be an obviouse point, it is still worth noting that looking after yourself and your appearance goes a long way when developing your image. I feel as though I conduct myself in a proffesional manner, and try to giv off the most positiv image as I can.
Webpage – Firstly, I have been working on gettng a website for myself up and running, and I aim to have this finished off in the coming weeks. While this isn’t the most effective way to advertise to a new audience, I feel as though having a professional looking webpage for potential clients/employers to veiw can go a long way in how professional you look as a person. This also gives me a space to list out things like upcoming events, and updates on the work I have in progress.
Social Media Presence – While I already do advertise on social media platforms (mainly Instagram) I really need to increase my level of activity on them so that I can keep my audience more engaged. I also need to branch out onto more social media platforms, such as Twitter, as the majority of my uploads go on one or two platforms at most.
Networking and Communication – Something that I already have improved upon greatly in the last year is my communicational and networking skills. I feel as though having good communication skills allows you to get in touch with more and more people, and therfore increase the ammount of networking you’re doing. So far this has been one of the most effective ways for me to get work in music recently, and is something I want to improve upon.
These are some of the skills that I feel I am already either confident in, or am already developing at a good rate. Here are some of the skills that I am weaker in, and I want to focus on developing as my main priority:
- Time Management
- Versatility
- Image
- Branding
Time management mainly fits under organisational skills, however this is one of the things I am least proficient in. Balancing the time I spend on various activities around things like work, college, and events can prove difficult for me, so this is something I will be focusing on developing over the next few weeks.
Your level of versatility as a musician has a huge impact on the amount of work you can find as there are so many genres of music, and so many varieties of music roles. For me, my focus here is my profficiency playing both the guitar and bass in various styles. While I am already at a good level of playing in a variety of genres, I need to be playing them much more often in order for me to get to a level where I am totally comfortable performing regradless of the style.
My image as a musician is something I feel needs some tweaking as of right now. I currently have this image of someone who plays Rock/Metal, which is my forte of course. This image can be a hinderance however, as for example someone looking for a funk guitarist may disregard me due to my image and appearance. I need to work on this in future and develop an image where I could fit into any style of band in order to increase the ammount of job opportunities that are available to me.
Finally, I need to develop some level of coherent branding where these is an apparent theme across everything from my website to buissiness cards. This I feel makes a big impact on how professional someone looks, and this can also go towards a person’s image in a way.
How to develop these skills:
I plan on working on these skills regularly as I progress in my career as a musician. I practice my guitar for a minimum of an hour a day in order to improve my instrumental technique and develop stylistic skills. This will further increase my versatility as a guitarist. I will be balancing my time more appropriately alongside this and eventually get into a set routine. My Image is something that I can work on in regards to how varied it is. I just need to bare in mind the audience I am performing to, and the style of band I am in when I am choosing how I am going to appear when doing so. As for my branding, I have now already come up with a coherent theme across all my marketing devices such as business cards and my website for example, and now it all look much more professional, and much neater in general than before.
After working on these skills for a few weeks, I have greatly improved upon my versatility as a guitarist, and I feel much more comfortable playing in various styles such as Funk or Jazz for example.
My branding is now fully finished, and I have a coherent style across all of my advertising platforms and method. My website is updated with up to date with relevant content and I plan on keeping this up as much a s possible.
I feel much more conscious of my image now, and feel capable of appearing appropriately in regards to the style of music that I am playing. Something that helped me along with that was joining a function band in the last couple of weeks. This made me more aware of what to improve upon in regards to my image
Lastly, I have a regular plan written down which has been helping me manage my time during the week. I feel much more on top of the tasks ahead of me, and still have some time left over for myself.
While these are the few skills that I have been focusing my development on, there are always more thing to improve upon, such as my problem solving for example, and I plan on moving my focus onto these other skills in the next few weeks in order to develop my professionalism further.
The Importance of Feedback:
Feedback for me is one of the best ways for me to assess myself as a musician, and turn my attention towards the things that still need development. I often ask people for feedback in what I do, especially in regards to my live performance as it’s probably one of the best ways for me to understand what I’m doing right, and what I can work on. I find audience feedback some of the most useful in general. This is because at the end of the day I am here to entertain a live audience, therefore It’s always good to know what the audience thought. I often ask professional feedback from like-minded musicians, as these are the people who can give an opinion on my technicality as a guitarist, and a good example of this is the feedback I got from one of my guitarist friends on my EP launch last year.
I always try to act upon feedback in my work where appropriate, as I truly believe its one of the best ways to improve.