Angela Myles Beeching has directed the Career Services Center at the New England Conservatory of Music since 1993. A Fulbright Scholar and a Harriet Hale Woolley grant recipient, Beeching holds a doctorate in cello performance. Her book, Beyond Talent: Creating a Successful Career in Music, is filled with practical tips, examples, checklists, sample budgets, goal-setting exercises, and extensive resource listings. In the book excerpt below Beeching gives some basic tips musicians need to follow to have successful careers.
There are many practical steps you can take to advance toward your career goals. In observing musicians make their way in the world, I’ve noticed certain kinds of thinking and behavior that works well. I’ve distilled these habits into the ten principles below. These are lifestyle habits, ways to think about and deal with the world…
1) Know yourself. Know both your strengths and weaknesses. Know what you have to offer the professional world. Get feedback from colleagues, teachers, mentors. Their perspective and advice can help you to formulate the best career path.
2) Know about the music industry. Get savvy: Your research can include talking to colleagues and mentors and reading the arts pages regularly in your local newspapers. Know what other musicians at your career stage are doing, what types of performance work they are finding…
3) Schmooze! (Network): get out and exchange information and ideas with other musicians. When you share career and job information with others, they reciprocate. Networking happens everywhere: at rehearsals, backstage at concerts, in supermarkets, gas stations, and at most social gatherings. Even if you’re shy, you can find a style of networking to suit your personality…
4) Research your options. Start by simply reading other musicians’ bios for ideas about grants, competitions, festivals, and performance opportunities. Bios can be found on musicans’ websites, CD liner notes, and in concert programs. Read local newspapers, check websites. Find out what is playing where, to get ideas on what you can do. Read the relevant music journals, available at your library, bookstore, or music store. Information leads to opportunities. Make it a habit. Set aside time once a week to catch up on what’s going on in your profession.
5) Cultivate an attitude: be positive, resilient, flexible, and professional. Keep your ego in check; you need to be able to deal well with both rejection and acceptance. It’s human nature. People want to work with others who are pleasant, optimistic, and inspiring. Remember: Your attitude is a big part of your professional image.
6) Assess your interpersonal skills. Clean up your act. We’ve all suffered disappointments and difficulties in life. Get whatever kind of help you need but make sure you are not inflicting your personal difficulties on others. The more you can be at ease with yourself and with others, the more you can benefit from and appreciate the world you inhabit. Make sure you are contributing positively to a healthy working and living lifestyle.
The music industry is a very small relationship-driven world. Make sure you are a good colleague, because the person you snub today may be the person who doesn’t hire you tomorrow. Be considerate, polite, and helpful. People will remember your thoughtfulness, your optimism and your enthusiasm, and they will respond in kind.
7) Think like an entrepreneur. Put your imagination and creativity to work in the business side of your music career; spend time brainstorming with friends and colleagues; there may be career opportunities in unexpected places. These days, people are forming partnerships with other individuals and with organizations to utilize diverse skills, conserve resources, and boost creativity. There may be unexpected career opportunities you can create or help develop: concert series, after-school arts programming, or innovative partnerships with other performing, presenting, or educational organizations.
8 ) Have a gimmick, a hook. In order to get bookings and media attention, and an audience, you’ll need to be able to communicate what is distinctive about you and your music-making. What makes you exceptional? Do you perform any specialized or unusual repertoire? Have you given concerts with innovative programming or performed in unusual settings?…
9) Have both short-tern and long-term goals. Articulating your goals is important. You can’t get somewhere if you don’t know where you’re going. Having realistic short-term goals, for this week or month, will help to keep you focused and motivated. Meeting your short-term goals is the best way toward your long-term goals.
10) Feed your soul. How do you recognize and rekindle your inspiration? What inspires you? What helps you recharge your imagination? What helps keep your spirit alive? Make sure you have room in your life for some kind of balance. Whether it’s your spiritual side, your family life, communing with nature, or favorite hobbies, remind yourself of these regularly. Make sure that you are living a full and satisfying life.
Keep in mind why you got involved in music in the first place. Your most basic motivations for being in music are crucial factors in keeping you moving forward in your career. Your motivation-what music means to you-should help sustain you throughout your professional life.
Part of the process of moving forward in your career involves fine-tuning your goals, assessing your strengths and discovering and exploring new opportunities. The kind of musician who puts these principles into action can be described as an entrepreneur. Cultivate your entrepreneurial skills and you’ll be cultivating your career.
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