Difficulty Level: ? / Time Required: ?
You Will Need:
- Practice
- Persistence
- Patience
Here’s how:
- Get your chops into shape. Learn how read music, play the rudiments, practice 4-way coordination, and learn all of the dance rhythms or, at least, learn all you can about the style of music you’re interested in.
- Go out and listen to live music. Check out the drummers and remember you can learn from the best and the worst, even if you learn how NOT to play.
- Listen to recorded music and practice playing along with it.
- Once you’ve got your chops together, you’ll need a business card. Either get one from your local printer or buy business card blanks and make them on your computer.
- Set up a Web page for yourself and put your Web site and email address on your business card along with your telephone number.
- Set up a business style message on your cell phone or look into using Google Voice as an answer machine.
- Use the Web to search your local area for “Open Mic” sessions. These are places where you can go to sit-in with other musicians.
- No, you won’t get paid for playing at “Open Mic” sessions but you’ll get valuable exposure, and you’ll meet other musicians too.
- At your “Open Mic” sessions, give your business card to everyone you meet and get one from them.
- In addition to the “freelance” approach, which you’ve just learned, try putting your own band together.
- You can find musicians for your band from the business cards you’ve collected at your “Open Mic” sessions.
- You can also post flyers looking for musicians at your local music stores, local colleges (music department), library, Laundromat, and grocery stores.
- It takes time to become established and there’s no easy way to do it unless you get really lucky.
- If you expect to play music for a living, you have to treat music like a business. And networking is a huge part of the music business.
- In addition to networking, grab a free site on all the popular social media sites. Anytime you play with anyone, providing the performances are good, get a video clip of it and post it on all of your web presences along with your name and contact info.
- There are several sites that offer listings to musicians looking for work and bands looking for musicians. Be sure to check them out and put up a listing, which is usually free.
- Don’t limit yourself only to what I’ve recommended. Think about it and I’m sure you’ll come up with other ways to get your name out there.
Tiger Tips:
- Take some drum lessons and practice playing to canned music to become a good player before you perform in public.
- Then, get out and play everywhere and with everyone you can.
- Be persistent and never give up.
- You’ll meet people along the way who will say you’re great and others who’ll say you stink. Take both with a grain of salt.
- And, if you find you’re not making enough money in music, there’s no shame in taking work in a different field on the side. There are many opportunities to make money on the web for example, but there are just as many scams so beware! I suggest you check out the following legit sites that can actually help you with this. I can vouch for them because I own and them myself and they allow me to make money working from home or wherever I happen to be, as long as I have an Internet connection: TigerMixSolutions.com (DIY and DFY).
