Book Review: The Savvy Musician....

It's been a busy few weeks.  Since I last wrote, my graduate studies have gained momentum, I performed in two concerts and had three new student requests.  I got asked to direct the music for three upcoming musicals (whether or not this is actually possible is irrelevant; at least my name is out there).  I have spent the last two years turning away new students and, I discovered, have quite possibly been de-moting myself by not keeping my website current.   The last two weeks have been revitalizing for me; moving forward with life decisions is exhilarating.  I have actively been promoting myself and my studio, revising my biography, editing my resume, and fine-tuning that pesky thing that all studio owners should have called a business plan.  I feel like I have a new lens in life, and am growing more confident with my decisions.

I started reading this book that is changing my life.  That sounds cliche, but it's true.  It's called The Savvy Musician: Building a Career, Earning a Living, and Making a Difference by David Cutler.

Click for the amazon listing...

I spent a hundred dollars last month on studio development texts: The PracticeSpot to Promoting Your Teaching Studio, The Independent Piano Teacher's Studio Handbook, The Private Music Instruction Manual: a Guide for the Independent Music Educator, and none other than The Complete Idiot's Guide to Teaching Music On Your Own, which I figured was worth the investment of $0.01 (it is surprisingly thorough...even current teachers can garner some good ideas from this resource).

The Savvy Musician kept popping up on the list of recommended materials, but I was more interested in studio business models and pricing strategies, so I put this on my wishlist and decided to wait until February to buy it.

It showed up on my doorstep and I read the whole thing (all 368 pages) within 24 hours.  Now, most people who know me would gather two things from this: 

     1. Most days, I barely have time to remember to put on pants.  So you can guess what I was wearing when I read this.

     2. Graduate school has taught me to be a critical jerk, for lack of better word.  For me to finish something cover-to-cover and barely come up for air, let alone some type of written content analysis, is just blasphemous.

Every musician should read The Savvy Musician.  Are you a musician? Then go read it.  I'm serious.  I wish I had read it after my undergraduate degree, though I'm not confident I would have had the tools, skills, and motivation to follow through on a lot of ideas the author advocates.  This book is about musicians making their own opportunities, finding their niche, marketing themselves, and also contains some invaluable grant and networking resources.  Besides this, the author proposes a lot of difficult questions that musicians often refuse to face.  Reading this book has forced me to look at my own vision: what do I really want to do as a singer and an educator, and why?  The first obstacle to conquer, not unlike writing any well-crafted essay, research paper, or book, is knowing what will realistically work. In a sense, this means choosing the right balance between making music or paying the bills, creating music or living from commission to commission, and performing music you want to perform or doing it because you have to.

Realistically, there aren't a lot of resources out there like this, at least not any that aren't riddled with dry, "intellectual" research.  It's readable, but not watered down, and has lots of project ideas.  Anyone who "diversifies" in the music world needs to invest 15 bucks to read this, and here's why...

In a nutshell, musicians would be better respected if all of them knew how to not be musicians for a bit.  That is, make rational, left-brained decisions about their art.  That's not to say there aren't some awesome performers out there who know how to make a living because they said "no" to doing unpaid gigs (or even that doing this will guarantee your prosperity), but there are plenty of wonderful artists who never feel successful.  Perhaps that's because they are undercharging for lessons, agreeing to take on too many "free" gigs, or don't know how to aggressively pursue and follow up with auditions, interviews, publishers, venues, etc.  It's that consumer mentality: if something costs more than the competition, it must be better.  After all, you get what you pay for.  Musical services are no different.

My disclaimer: I'm no authority on this subject.  I'm by no means a famous teacher or grammy artist,  but I do have eyes and a brain and I know how to observe, and I see a lot of people who undercut themselves for ridiculous excuses. Why can't musicians have a lucrative, successful career? Because they get stuck thinking they need or have to do one thing in life, and usually that involves a coveted orchestra or opera company gig.  When they don't get that one thing, they give up, and that's why so many wonderful singers and actors end up selling insurance or waiting tables.  A true musician will make their own opportunities, come hell or high water, and that's exactly what this book addresses.

The author includes lots of "blurbs": real-life musicians, composers, performers, and their successes and failures.  Imagine my surprise when I ran across a professor's name from my very own school, Dr. Stephen Freund, and the new music ensemble Alarm Will Sound.  It's a small world.