Any career development person worth their salt, wants you to have a career that is constantly rising. Hence, that is why you should have three CDs worth of material already written when you approach your career development person or music industry executive. (For those of you who don’t know what I am talking about, see my last article entitled “The Music Industry- Here is what a young artist needs to know to be a star.”)

A good career development person will survey your material, ask you to throw away the songs that didn’t survey well, then ask you to write some more songs, survey again, etc. until they can finally place your songs in an order that results in your first CD being good, your second CD better, and your third CD best of the three. They will do all of this by surveying your material. Some survey techniques are so accurate that they can even tell you where your song will place in the top 40-number 15 or number 35.

Why does your career development person do this? Because you can actually lose money and ruin your career with a poorly planned number one hit.

Now remember, rankings in the top 40 are determined by air play, not sales. So, here is how it works.

If you are an unknown artist, and you release your best song first, and your agents and managers and executives at the music companies are good salesmen, you might start getting airplay. If you get enough airplay you might break into the charts at say number 35. Music stores and major download services, however, probably won’t carry it right away, because 1) there are lots of people vying for “shelf” space, so to speak and the music stores are going to wait and see how this new artist does before they commit to giving you any space. (After all you might break in at number 35 and be gone from the charts the very next week.) So let us just say there is not necessarily a mad dash to get your number 35 hit into the stores and onto the shelves; and 2) even if there is a huge demand (maybe you broke into the charts at number 15 your very first week, it is still going to take awhile for the music company to press the CDs and ship them to the stores. (often weeks).

It has happened numerous times in the past that a song will zoom from say the number 35 to the top number 1 spot BEFORE any CDs can be shipped to the music stores. By the time the stores do get the CDs, the song has fallen down the charts and is no longer getting the airplay on its way out (at say number 38) that it got on its way up to number 1. Let ’s say the music executives representing you zealously pressed 500,000 CDs when your song was number one, but now that it has finally arrived at the stores it is not getting airplay anymore. People start forgetting about it and the actual sales only amount to say 50,000 units.

The music company loses money on this scenario because the cost to manufacture and ship the 500,000 CDs exceeds what they made on the 50,000 actual unit sales. Now, internet distribution and sales have made it a lot easier to counter this kind of scenario, but it still can happen with inexperienced, and inept music executive making the wrong decisions.

Now here is what an experience career development executive would do. Again they would survey your material and your first release would be a song that they know will break into the top 40 at about 39, rise to number 30 than fizzle out after that. No one worries very much about getting CDs into stores or anything like that. What this accomplishes, however, is everyone becomes aware of you. The stores are aware of you, the internet downloading services are aware of you, and fans in general are aware of you. After all, a number 30 hit on your first release is not too shabby.

Now your second release is going to be a surveyed song that your career development person knows will place in the low 20s or high teens on the charts. So now all the people that were made aware of you by your first release realize that this is even a better song, that there really is something to you, and the mad dash to get you on the shelf DOES begin. Everyone knows you are not a one hit wonder and that this second release is going to make every one money.

Now imagine what happens when your third release does even better and makes it to number 10 on the charts. Then imagine what happens when your second album comes out. Well the people are lined up to buy it, and when they hear it and it is even a better album, when you have three top ten and one number one hits off of it, you career is well on its way to being established forever.

When your third album comes out with your three number one hits. You are pretty much guaranteed to be in the music business as long as you want.

Now imagine the opposite. Suppose you released your best song first and every thing got progressively worse from there. Does a “one hit wonder” ring a bell. Does anyone even remember the names of the numerous groups who have done just that? NO.

So a word to the wise: Use experienced career development people. Survey your material. Do it smart. Do it right. Be successful.

About the Author: Stan Medley is the CEO of Viscount Productions, Inc. which specializes in career development. Additional information on this topic is at http://www.viscountproductions.com (c) 2007 Stan Medley

For more education on careers in the music industry, check out: http://www.music-career-guide.com

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You want to “make it” in the music business, right? Does it seem almost impossible to make it happen? The perceived realities of the music industry seem too harsh, too risky, too difficult and too unstable to pursue a lucrative long term music career.

The Myth:

Most people believe there are only two possible outcomes when trying to become a professional musician:

You either “make it” … or you don’t.

In other words, you either become a successful “star” by making a lot of money touring and selling records around the world (this is what most people refer to as “making it”). Or you are doomed to become a “starving artist” by trying to eek out enough money per month just to pay the rent and in the process you must live a hard life.

This way of thinking (believing in the false myth) is exactly the same as believing that in our society there are only rich people and poor people (and nothing in between). Yes it was once that way in the past but we all know that today there exists a huge “middle class” in our society. And most people fall into this middle class.

What does it mean to “make it”?

Let me answer with a series of questions to you.

1. Does making it mean one must become very rich and famous? If so, how rich and how famous must one become to have “made it”?
2. Or does “making it” mean having enough money from music to pay for all the gear you want?
3. Or does it mean earning enough money from music so that you can quit your day job (and still maintain the life style you currently have)?

The reality:

The truth is the make up of the music industry is very similar to our modern society:

1. There are wealthy people (which includes, but is not limited to, successful musicians who tour the world and have very significant national or international record sales, etc.)
2. There are people without much money and struggle financially to get by in life (these are the “starving artists”). These are the people who go into music having no idea what they are doing.Now for the truth…
3. There is a MASSIVE middle class in the music industry. Most professional musicians are NOT super stars and most are also NOT starving artists. Most professionals have relatively safe and secure careers in the business.

Yes, that is not a misprint. The majority of professional musicians fall right in the middle. Most professionals do not have gold or platinum records on their walls. Most do not tour all over the world. But most of them also do not play at shady bars in the worst part of town for 20 people. Most of them do not eek out a minimal living just to pay the rent.

Wait a minute, I have never heard that before!

Why haven’t most people heard of this before? Because most do not fully understand the BIGGER PICTURE of music business and all the ways people can (and do) make a really good living as a musician who are not famous. You are not likely to hear of success stories of middle class (or even upper middle class) professionals for two main reasons:

1. The music press is not interested in writing about such people (featuring famous people sells more magazines). Who would most people care to read about, Steve Vai who made 4.5 million dollars from a series of smart choices he made early in his career? Or John Doe who earns $90,000 a year as a musician?
2. Middle class professionals are typically not interested in telling the rest of the world (which includes “would-be” competitors) how they earn a good and secure amount of money and live the life they desire.

The Silent Majority:

The middle class professionals making a good and secure living as musicians are the silent majority in the industry. They are hiding just under the radar, almost invisible to the masses (who instead read about the rich and famous super stars). In many cases these people also understand that ideas used to create such a good, rewarding and comfortable life (including making good cash) are not that complicated. They also realize that if more people understood how it’s done, that may encourage more competition and therefore many of the pros are a bit secretive regarding exactly what and how they do things. And this is somewhat understandable since (at least some of) these people need to keep their livelihoods secure.

What to do next?

Obviously, all that is needed to do goes far beyond the list below. This article (and the list below) is merely a place to begin. This is what I recommend to do next…

1. Realize that there is a large middle class of musicians who do earn safe and secure incomes as musicians (and music related occupations).
2. Realize that the industry itself has both stable an unstable components. There are risky aspects of the industry and relatively safe aspects of it. It is possible to be a part of both of course, it’s not all risky or unstable.
3. Begin with yourself. For more on this check out my previous articles on this topic: Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3
4. Begin at the End
5. Become totally committed to your goal to make it (whatever “making it” means to you.)
6. Exercise that commitment in all that you do. Take the actions you must take, if you don’t know what all of those things are, find someone who does and learn from them in as much detail as possible.

In the next part of this series, I’ll talk more specifically on who and what your competition actually is. It’s probably not who and what you think may be. It is critical to understand this…. Because in order to “play the game to win” you must know who (and what) the players are…

Written by Tom Hess

For more information on this topic check out: http://www.tomhess.net

For more education on careers in the music industry, check out: http://www.music-career-guide.com

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