Reader,
Thanks again for signing up to my "creator" newsletter, in which I aim to share the steps and strategies that I am taking to establish myself as a serious artist.
What I mean by "serious" is that I intend to make music more than just a hobby - I do want to grow this into a business that will allow me to pay the professional musicians who play with me and to cover the costs of recording, promotion, touring, etc.
As I see it, there are three important aspects to this:
1) Get good enough as a musician so that professional musicians will enjoy playing with me.
2) Become a dependable and professional partner within the music community.
3) Work on building a fan base that will enthusiastically support the "business" by listening to my music, attending my gigs and perhaps eventually even buying some merchandise.
Each of these efforts requires a different mindset, a different strategy and a different set of activities. The ultimate goal of it all, is to be able to share my music with a wider audience and have fun doing it.
As a latecomer to the game, I have a lot to learn!
However, I am beginning to realize that several aspects of my experience in academic medicine do in fact transfer quite nicely to the music business.
Apart from having to be an expert in my field (i.e. know my stuff), I've also had to build a professional network of friends, colleagues and "followers" who cared about what I had to say. I was an early adopter of social media even before the term was invented. I wrote a daily blog for ten years and ended up (and still have) about 50K "followers" on social media (LinkedIn, Facebook, twitter, etc.). In fact I did manage to establish myself as a recognizable and respected "brand" globally in my are of expertise.
Translating these tactics to the music world is not that far a stretch, once you know how the system works and enjoy doing it.
Although I still see myself as a beginner, I have reached a couple of milestones over the past few years.
1) I have seriously invested in getting better at my instrument by maintaining a fairly rigorous practice routine under the guidance of great teachers. I have also honed by performance skills by playing almost a 1,000 sessions (well over a 100 since arriving in Berlin two years ago) with a wide range of musicians.
2) I have managed to meet and build relationships with most of the active players in the Berlin music scene and have probably shared the stage with most of them by now. I am also making progress with developing and nurturing a small but increasingly enthusiastic and dedicated fanbase.
3) I have just completed recording my first original tracks, which I hope will help open doors to more gigs and more opportunities to share my music with a wider audience.
And, I'm willing to learn and do the work that needs to be done.
I hope this brief summary about where I am and what I intend to do is of interest - I certainly look forward to your feedback and hope to share with you all that I learn on the way.
Sincerely,
Arya
