How
to Become a Professional Guitarist & Musician ~ Acquire an
Accurate Map* – Part 3


By Tom Hess

To
get the most out of this article, it is critical that you read
Parts 1 and 2 to this series before reading on…

(*The basic
map analogy used this article was inspired and adapted from
author Steven Covey’s book, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective
People.)


Imagine you are taking a trip to an important destination inside
an unfamiliar city without an accurate map? Now imagine the
city is filled with hundreds of thousands of other people, 99.8%
are also lost and without an accurate map. Asking people for
directions would seem rather hopeless. If you tried asking other
people in the city for advice, the result would be “The
blind leading the blind”. To make matters worse, imagine
that reading and understanding a map of this city is very different
from all other maps you may have seen. It seems obvious that
in order to arrive at the correct destination, one should first
acquire an accurate map.

Yet, most
people seeking to “make it” to a professional level
in the music business, wander around the proverbial city without
an accurate map. (It’s no wonder most parents don’t
approve of their kid’s desire to pursue a music career.)
With an incorrect map, your skills, talents, attitude, and determination
won’t help you reach your destination. Without a correct
map, nothing else matters. You may try harder to improve your
musical skills, expand your network of industry contacts, have
a great band with great songs, but if the map is inaccurate
none of these things matter. You could try to improve your positive
mental attitude, your faith, your determination and perseverance,
though you will only arrive at the wrong place faster.


If you do have a correct map, THEN your musical knowledge, skills
and talents matter. A positive attitude and a focused mindset,
backed by determination now can make a significant difference,
but only if you have an accurate map. Such a map can not only
show what and where things are, but how things work. Fortunately,
there are several good books written about the music business
(see my recommended reading list at the end of this article).
Colleges and universities, which have music business programs,
can be of value. These resources are generally a good place
to begin in your understanding. But it is important to realize
that they too are limited in scope (for reasons which I will
write about in a future article), and can become out of date
rather quickly.

To know
how things work can lead you to see the conventional routes
others have taken to succeed…this is generally good…
but not the complete range of possibilities of routes to take.
In addition to having an accurate map, one needs to know how
to read it. This goes beyond simply having an understanding
of how things work. Reading the map means understanding why
things really are as they really are (beyond the obvious things
on the surface).

Learning
the How (how things work) is much easier than learning the Why
(Why things are as they are). Lets further define the differences:

The How
= the current processes, practices, methods and systems typically
used in the music industry (record companies, managers, producers,
publishers, promoters, other successful musicians, etc.).

The Why
= the reasons which drive the how. It is the reasons which are
most important to study (after you know the how). The reasons
are what is driving the way the current systems work and will
dictate how they will continue to evolve (and in which direction).

If you know
why things are the way they are, you will know what motivates
record companies, publishers, producers and managers to do or
not do something, to act or not act, to choose to work with
you or someone else. Then you begin to understand what they
REALLY want from musicians like you and me. (I’ve given
some fundamental examples of this in articles such as: How To
Become a Professional Musician Part 1 and Part 2.) What the
industry looks for in musicians now has changed over the last
several years.

It doesn’t
make a lot of sense to travel into an unfamiliar city with a
bad map, or no map at all. It’s sad to see good people
with good intentions (many of whom also possess a lot of musical
talent) aimlessly search for a way to “make it”
without an accurate map. I’m not convinced that “guessing”
or “assuming” are the best ways to achieve a life’s
dream. This is consistent with the story I wrote about here
in Part 2. Yes, this article was filled with metaphors and an
analogy that may seem a bit strange. The bottom line is: if
you want to be a pro, the paths become much easier to navigate
when you seek first to understand through accurate knowledge
and then to take consistent-focused-effective actions. (Yes
this is common sense, but we all know, common sense is not always
common practice.)

Skeptics
might argue that there is no such thing as “an accurate
map”. Others may argue there does not exist only one way
to sell lots records and tour around the world, etc. –
and to a certain extent, they are right. As with real accurate
maps of real cities, there is often more than one route to reach
any destination. Of course none of that matters if one is trying
to find a destination in New York, while looking at a map which
was created 275 years ago. The accuracy of the map, and one’s
ability to understand it, is key.

Postscript:

Thank you to everyone who sent email of great positive feedback.
A few people asked similar questions, which I suspect may be
on the minds of a others reading this now, so I’m going
to address these here:

Questions:
“Where are the tips in your articles?” and “Why
don’t you tell me something specific that I can do today
to become a professional musician?”

Sometimes
people read articles in search of some specific tip, little
secret, or short cut that can be stated in a few words – something
that will bring massive results to anyone who reads it with
very little effort. I think we all know, that one cannot achieve
big results simply from reading a few tips. Of course I believe
that some articles do contain great information (whether general
or specific) that can be of significant value (if the reader
chooses to embrace and apply that information). If I didn’t
believe in that, I wouldn’t write articles. However, even
a whole series of articles probably won’t make huge differences
alone. Articles, such as this one, are simply a place to begin….
not the place to search for the ultimate final answers in music
or in life. The greater value is in what lies beyond. What you
do with these starting points of insight will determine the
ultimate value you will receive. We all want to discover life’s
little short-cuts to success. If one wants a short-cut, perhaps
auditioning for something like “American Idol” is
the way to go.

It is amazing
to see how two different people reading, learning and studying
the same information can receive very different results. The
differences in the each person’s outcome are typically
NOT related to their intelligence or talents. What makes one
musician excel more than another is usually a fundamental difference
in their mindset. This simple truth is more relevant today than
when Dr. Napoleon Hill first wrote about it extensively in his
book THINK AND GROW RICH published in the 1937!


Music Biz Recommended Reading List:

The Business
of Music Marketing & Promotion by Tad Lathrop & Jim
Pettigrew Jr.

All
You Need to Know About the Music Business by Donald S. Passman


Copyright
2006 by Tom Hess. All rights reserved. Used by permission.