Nobody’s Buying What They’re Told to Anymore

The Big Labels

The big labels are having a hard time selling CDs. They are panicking because they put a lot of cash into producing, marketing and promoting new releases and the masses aren’t biting. An associate of mine got signed to a record deal last year. The whole package cost the label about six hundred thousand big ones to produce and promote the whole thing and they have only sold about a thousand CDs so far. The music industry is getting nervous. Why do you think this is happening? The answer is simple: the Internet.

The Internet

The Internet has become the greatest sales tool since the radio. It offers you an inexpensive way to promote, distribute and market your own CDs and gives you the opportunity to make much more profit per CD than you ever could any other way. There are millions of music lovers surfing the Web every day searching for music that they want to discover all by themselves. They don’t want to be told what to listen to and buy anymore. There will always be the mainstream market and Tower Records will stay on the street corner. But, let’s face it: the Internet offers consumers many more choices, plus the option of listening before they buy anything. You can also browse for hours in your underwear without a clerk calling the cops.

Choices

A friend of mine who happens to be one of the greatest guitarists around (he’ll get mad at me if I tell you who) and has also been signed to a major label for the last ten years just lost his contract. As I said before, CDs aren’t selling, so artists are losing their contracts right and left. He has the option of shopping around for another contract and could get one without a doubt, but he has decided to do the whole thing himself. His logic is this: he has a big fan base so he can still sell a bunch of CDs without a major label. Granted, he won’t be able to sell as many as he could with a big company promoting every release, but he doesn’t need to.

I’ll tell you why. When he was releasing CDs signed to a major label, he was only making about 6% on every CD he sold. By releasing it himself, he makes more like 80% profit. The more CDs he makes and sells, the higher his profit margin will be. Even if he sells only half of what he has in the past, he’ll still make much more money. A ton more.

Artistic Differences

Prince also did the same thing. The reason I can mention his name is because I don’t personally know him. I never discussed this with him and I don’t know the specific details (so forgive me if I am not completely accurate), but from what I understand the whole thing started because Prince, being the creative genius he is, wanted to release a lot more material on every CD than the record label wanted him to. I guess the record label’s logic is that, the more songs there are on the CD, the more packaging you need: more plastic, more paper. All these things cost more money and cut into their profit margin. Prince probably just wanted to release CDs that suited his artistic needs and at the same time gave his fans what he assumed they wanted, more Prince per CD.

Obviously they couldn’t meet eye to eye. Since he already had an enormous fan base, he decided to do his own releases. Prince is a true pioneer. Record companies aren’t in the game to create art; they are in it for money. They are very particular about what kind of songs you write, how many minutes each song is, and the order of the songs and the mix of the recording. For these reasons, “true artists” have a hard time dealing with producers whom the label decides are best for them. If you don’t want to be told what to do, doing it yourself is a great option. With the advent of the Internet, this is becoming an easier undertaking.

How to Promote Your CD

Gigs

This is an easy way to sell your CDs. Bring ‘em to your gigs, set ‘em up and just take cash on the spot. Or, leave some at the register so people can buy one on the way out. You may want to offer a cut to the club you are playing at. Make sure to mention your CDs during your set, and don’t forget to point people to your site for information on your band and concert schedule.

Marketing

Without a major deal you will have a rough time selling CDs in stores. You won’t have the money for promotion and distributors won’t touch anything under five thousand units. If you want to get your CDs in some stores you will have to think of some different marketing strategies.

This is what I did. I went around to some small music schools. You know, the kind that are inside music stores. I offered them 25% on every sale. All they had to do is play the CD in the waiting room when people where waiting for their lessons. Without a doubt the students would ask whose CD was playing. When they found out they could buy it, a lot of them would. It is a “win win” situation for everyone involved and only sets me back 25% on each sale. To put it in a CD shop would set me back between 50% and 60% for distribution and the cut that the store takes.

I also pay the musicians on my CD a distribution charge of 25% on each CD that they personally sell. I don’t mind letting them make a little money on the deal because, as I said before, I’m making enough profit on the CD to not care too much.

Another thing I did was tie up with an effect maker. HAO, a maker of great stomp boxes, asked me to record a CD demonstrating their distortion boxes. Rather than take money for my studio time, I offered my services for free in exchange for a few hundred CDs that I give away from my site or guitar9.com when anyone buys my new CD, “Prospects.”

Try to figure out whom you can team up with as a marketing partner. How about a restaurant, car wash, veterinarian, or your local church.

Your Site

Important Features

The next thing to do is to get your site up and going. Your site must have three important features: a way to sell your CDs, a way to point people to your gigs where they can buy your CDs, and last but not least, a reason for people to visit your site and leave with a CD ordered or a memo in their schedule book to go to your gig next Friday.

Sell From Your Site

One super easy and cost-effective way of selling from your site is to use PayPal. This system allows visitors to buy from your site using a credit card. PayPal simply charges you a small percentage and credits the rest to your account. You will have to mail each CD out, but can get your girlfriend to do that for you. Another way is to send them to an Internet CD shop that will do everything for you for a slightly larger cut. I’ll get into this a little later on.

Point People to Your Gigs

This is easy. Post your concert schedule. It helps to include the time, door charge, and address and phone number of the club. I would also link to the club’s site if they have one.

Reason to Visit

Since no one is promoting you, you’re going to have to attract visitors to your site. You are going to have to find a way to make people who don’t know anything about you want to become your fan and start a lasting relationship with you through your site. This is what I did: I put my knowledge of the guitar and experience as a teacher to work. I offer free guitar lessons on my site. I cover a bunch of different subjects such as music theory, scale and chord patterns, etc.

This is what usually happens. Someone sitting at home is having trouble sleeping because he is confused about the Phrygian scale. He heard someone say that this scale works nicely over a certain kind of dominant chord and can’t figure out why. He goes over to his trusty computer with his guitar in hand and punches into his favorite search engine, “phrygian scale over dominant chords.”

Low and behold, a link pops up for my website. He visits, finds the information he needs, may even e-mail with a question which I will, without fail, e-mail a reply to. He may even listen to one of my tunes, come to one of my gigs, or even buy one of my CDs. To be honest, I don’t even mind if he doesn’t buy one. I made a friend in the deal and helped an aspiring musician in the process. What could be more rewarding? I have people asking me questions from all over the world, from Russia to Hong Kong and everywhere in between. Spreading knowledge about the guitar is the niche that I fill with my humble site.

Internet CD Shops

If you don’t want to deal with mailing CDs out to different parts of the world you can use an Internet CD store. I use guitar9.com and CDbaby.com. All you have to do is mail a bunch of CDs to them, and they will sell them and send a check to you from time to time. All you have to do is link from your site to your page on their site and the whole thing comes together pretty easily.

The best thing about using a site like one of these is that music lovers browse through, searching for the undiscovered gem and may, by chance, discover you! I can’t tell you how rewarding it is when someone I never met in a country I have never been to, buys one of my CDs because he found me in a Web store, listened to a track or two, found something that connected with him in the music that is very much connected with me, and parted with money that he probably worked very hard for. If I were signed to a major label, the whole thing would probably be a lot less rewarding.

Net Networking

You will want to promote your site by networking. Link from as many sites as you can. I write Articles (just like this one) for different sites from to time to time. No money changes hands but the whole thing works out because the website gets material and I get free promotion. It also helps me get my writing skills in order and organize my ideas on various subjects. Send your CD to Internet radio stations and music review sites.

A Word on Recording

The same computer technology that made the internet possible has also made recording simple and inexpensive. Ten years ago, not only did you have no place to market, promote and sell your CD, you also had no way to record it without spending some real cash. Computer technology has inspired thousands of engineers to open up studios in their houses or in other small spaces and you can get yourself recorded for a fraction of the cost these days because of this. As I said in one of my last Articles; no matter where you decide to record, make sure you are prepared before you go to the studio. The big and small studios both charge by the hour so make sure you have it together. If you want to research this subject a little more, check out my friend David Chambelin’s site: http://www.dbwproductions.com/ He produces and records various artists for a very reasonable price. He’ll even arrange your stuff and play on it for you. His site offers advice on how to prepare for your session.

Have Fun

The whole thing is a blast. You have nobody to blame if you can’t sell any CDs, and that’s part of the adventure. You get a chance to use your head, grow in the process and make friends around the world. What could be better than this?

Reader or Player

The Reader

This is the stereotypical studio player who can read anything upside down and backwards in his sleep. This type of player usually gets calls for TV or movie stuff that has been meticulously arranged and doesn’t call for much interpretation. If you want to become this kind of studio cat, you are going to have to get going on your reading chops. Get as much reading material as you can and get your metronome out and start practicing today.

Also, don’t just read guitar stuff; read as much treble clef stuff as you can get your hands on. Because the guy who arranged the music probably isn’t a guitarist, the part he has written for the guitar probably isn’t guitar-friendly. The arranger is usually a pianist who doesn’t know too much about the limitations of the guitar, so he might write a guitar part that is awkward to play. It’s important to remember this: there aren’t many guitarists who are great readers. For this reason, these guys are really busy. If you want to make a bunch of cash, get your reading chops together.

The Player

This is the other kind of studio cat. The player has decent reading skills but generally is a great improviser and chord player. More so than notation, he reads chord symbols well and can play a guitar solo over anything you throw at him. He has an uncanny ability to come up with the perfect rhythm and solo parts for any tune. He gets in the studio and gets his chart, listens to the track and comes up with a part within a few minutes. Although there are probably guys who can do both, I personally have never met any of them.

The Speed of Light

No matter which player you wish to become, the most important thing besides playing the perfect part is speed. You hear guitarists always talking about speed, about playing lightening fast. But to the studio musician, speed means something else.

Studio time is very expensive. The studio is being rented by the hour and the engineer and assistant are also on the clock, so the producer wants you in and out of the studio as fast as possible. The whole thing is costing somebody a bunch of cash. That’s why if you are late or take too much time to get your part together, you’ll never get a call back. Be there early with your stuff set up, guitar tuned and have your track done in a take or two.

If you can’t get it together or are playing something the producer doesn’t like, he will walk in from the mixing room and give you a pep talk. This is the equivalent of the baseball manager walking out to the mound. Consider yourself in slight trouble. You will usually get paid by the hour for studio work. Where I live, I usually make about two or three hundred dollars per hour whether I use the whole hour or not.

Two Battle Plans

The trick is to make the producer happy, not yourself. On one of my first studio jobs, I was lucky enough to get the backing track for the solo part I was to record a week ahead of time. It was this slow ballad type of tune and I decided to do this crying, emotional type of solo that I was sure would fit the song perfectly. I worked it out and came up with the perfect solo. I got to the studio early, set my stuff up, put the headphones on and the tape started to roll. I played my solo exactly like I planned it. For me, it was perfect! I took off the headphones and walked back to the mixing room with my head held high.

I walked in thinking the producer was going to say he loved me. But instead he said, “I have in mind a different kind of thing, I want you to play a blazing, super high speed, burning solo!” I was at a loss for words; I had to rethink the whole thing from scratch. Needless to say, I ended up playing this super fast, mediocre guitar solo that nobody, including the producer, liked very much. The thing I learned from this experience is to plan two solos, one a complete extreme from the other. I usually end up playing one or the other or a combination of the two. Remember, don’t assume anything, and prepare two battle plans ahead of time.

Details Count

Everything you play counts. You may work out the perfect solo but you’ll ruin the whole thing if your vibrato is out of whack or you bend your notes sharp or flat. Most guitarists are so concerned with chops that they overlook the small details. Make sure your guitar is in tune all over the neck. Have your intonation checked. Or better yet, learn how to set the intonation on your instrument yourself. These days I’ve been using a Suhr guitar set up with the Buzz Feiten tuning system, which ensures the guitar is in perfect tune everywhere on the neck. You also have to be careful with floating bridges because the way you rest your hand on the bridge can cause your guitar to go sharp. These small things may not bug you when you are on a gig or practicing with your band but they will make you cringe when you listen to the playback in the studio.

Start by paying attention to everything, every small detail of what you play, all the time. Whether you are in the studio or not, focus on every single note you play, every time you play your guitar, until perfection becomes a habit. Even if you play everything perfect, it counts for nothing if you are not in tune, so never be without a good tuner.

The Fortune Cookie

When I was about fifteen years old I got this fortune in my fortune cookie: “Simplicity of character is the natural result of profound thought.” This statement has helped guide me through all sorts of musical situations. It is way better to play something you can pull off than struggle with something you can’t. As I said before, speed is the name of the game in the studio. Think simple. You can sometimes say a lot more with something simple than something overly complicated. Technique is only important if it helps you play what you have in your head. Don’t play to show what chops you have. Speed should be used for contrast. A good guitar solo should be a song within a song, with a story all its own. It should have a beginning, a climax and a clear ending.

Where to Stand

There are basically two places to do your tracks. Some guys prefer to sit in the control room and run a line to an amp in the next room. The advantage of this is that you don’t have to wear headphones and you can have your amp up as loud as you want. You don’t need headphones because you can listen to what you play through the studio monitors. You can also talk freely to the engineer or the producer or the pretty girl that may be hanging around. The only disadvantage is that you are completely isolated from your amp. You can’t make your guitar feedback (the good kind) and you tend to lose sustain. Although it is uncomfortable, and the headphones make my ears hurt, I prefer to play in the same room as the amp. Some players may disagree but I think you get a much better tone.

Three Guitars

There are really only three types of electric guitars in my book. A Stratocaster, Telecaster and a Les Paul are pretty much the only kinds of guitars there are. I’m not talking about shapes or brands; I mean sounds. Although I play a Suhr, and a 1960 Strat, I can get a Les Paul type of tone from the Suhr because of the vintage-type humbuckers I use in both the neck and bridge positions. I tend to use the humbuckers for rock and jazz. I use the Strat for blues and classic rock. If I need an even bluesier or country tone I have to bring a Telecaster.

Two Amps

Marshall and Fender are the two basic sounds. I’ve been using a Fender Dual Professional and a fifty-watt Marshall half stack for most of my recording these days. Most other amps are usually based of one of the two sounds. I generally use the Marshall for hard or classic rock and the Fender for the other stuff. If you don’t know what amps the studio has, bring your own. It’s a safe bet to always bring your own amp anyway. Even if the studio has some good amps, you never know what kind of condition they are kept in. The tubes could be five years old.

One more word of advice. It comes in handy to carry around with you some overdrive boxes just in case you can’t get the tone you want from the amps available. I have been using some stomp boxes made by a Japanese maker called HAO. They make handmade units that can duplicate vintage Marshall and Fender amps. I also recorded a CD for them to demonstrate their products. If you are interested, go to: http://www.jes-in.com/hao/index.html. The CD is also available from my website.

Dry As a Desert

The studio is a really dry-sounding room. There are most likely no reflective materials in the room, so the sound from your amp doesn’t bounce around at all. What you get is a super dry sound that makes it hard to play. We guitarists love reverb and delay and anything else we can get our hands on. But unfortunately, when you’re recording it is a better idea to put that on later. One reason is that once you record the track, you can’t change the speed or depth of the effects, so you’re stuck with a sound you may not like. It’s better to put the effects on later and tweak them to your liking.

Another reason is that the stomp boxes we guitarists use are usually cheap and therefore noisy, while the gear in the studio is way more expensive and sounds much better. So, you’re stuck in this dry-sounding room with no reverb or anything else on your guitar and you’re hating life. But the good news is that the engineer can put all the effects you want in your headphone mix. Don’t be afraid to ask.

Get Things Straight Ahead of Time

There are two ways to record your rhythm tracks and it’s best to get this straight ahead of time. The first is pretty simple: you play the rhythm part and you’re done. The other is more difficult: you record one track and the engineer pans it right, then you record the exact same track and pan it left. The engineer may want you to use a different amp and/or guitar for the second track. The thinking is that the two parts are slightly different in tone and will sound super fat. The problem is that the two tracks have to be identical, a mirror image.

I once had the experience of recording my rhythm track only to be asked to play the exact track one more time. I wasn’t prepared to do the same track again because I wasn’t really sure what I had just played. I apologized and started over again. If the tracks don’t match up perfectly, the effect will be lost and you’ll get this cloudy sounding track that will sound terrible. Ask the producer ahead of time how he wants to record the tracks and if he wants them doubled. If he wants them doubled, make sure you play something that you can play twice exactly the same.

Sometimes I record using two amps at the same time. You can get a similar effect this way. The other kind of doubled track is more like what Ron Wood and Keith Richards usually play: intertwined rhythm tracks that are nothing alike. Both the rhythm tracks are tonally and rhythmically completely different. They mesh nicely together. Before you do anything, make sure to get all the information you need before the tape rolls.

I really enjoy the time I spend recording in the studio. It not only keeps me on my toes but also keeps me connected with various people from the biz. It also keeps me prepared for doing my own stuff, which is the most rewarding part of one’s career.

What’s the difference between an artist and a musician?

The Artist

I’ll start with the artist. The artist plays for himself for the most part. His objective as a guitarist is to please his own artistic hunger. He strives for artistic elegance. Don’t get me wrong, this is not necessarily a bad thing for me and you. It’s great. Artists make life for the rest of us better. Artists create art. I have Picasso hanging on my wall, not something a graphic designer drew that I found in a magazine. The problem with being an artist is…it’s rough to make ends meet. Artists are generally only brilliant at their own music or working with artists that fall into the same category as themselves. Artists constantly study art. That’s the reason it’s hard to make a living. The artist is always striving to create better art. He creates art with such high standards, the average Joe has a hard time understanding it. The artist is so involved in creating art that he often creates a gap between himself and the masses. I’m not saying all artists are broke but it’s a gamble.

The Musician

The musician is a different animal all together. The musician is a hired gun. Although he may have musical preferences, he isn’t picky about what he plays to pay the rent. While the artist may be particular about what he has to play to get paid, the musician will play anything. He is well versed in all styles and can mimic various players. These types of players make good studio musicians, session players and teachers. They usually do all these things. Like the artist, the musician is always working on learning new skills. The only problem with the musician is that he tends to find himself artistically frustrated. Let’s face it, deep down inside, we all really want to be the artist. We want our music to live on after we’re gone. We want someone, after we die, to send one of our CDs off into deep space so some alien can find it in a million years and say “them earthlings wrote the most glorious music in the galaxy.”

Balance

Which would you rather be; the artist or the musician? Remember the phrases; “the starving artist” and “the struggling musician.” I personally would rather struggle as a musician while I commit myself to creating art. I think the best way to live a satisfying life as a guitarist is do dedicate your life to both of these ambitions. Most guitarists get themselves in trouble by focusing on only one of the two. Most of the money I have made in the business as a player came from playing other peoples tunes, not from my own CD sales. But to be honest, releasing my own CDs is way more rewarding (mentally, not financially). Doing both makes my career well balanced. One feeds the other.

The rules of making a living as a guitarist

Bite of more than you can chew (almost) – Never turn down a gig. There are two ways to look at doing a gig; first, a way to pay the rent, Second, a chance to learn something. The worst mistake you can make as a guitarist is to turn down work because you think you not good enough yet or you don’t have much experience playing that style. When I was in my twenties, I got a call to do a country gig for about twenty bucks. I had never played country before and I was tempted to tell the guy on the other end of the phone that I was busy on that night. In the end I couldn’t break my own rule so I took the gig. I got the charts and the music, worked out all the tunes, borrowed my roommate’s Telecaster and had one of the best learning experiences I have ever had. Was I scared? You bet I was. That’s exactly what helped me work the tunes out in time, good old fashioned fear. I, of course have my own musical preferences, but I rather play guitar for an hour at a wedding, learn some new tunes in the process and get paid fifty or a hundred bucks than to work at Burger King for minimum wage. My students get to see me real angry when they tell me they turned down a gig for some trivial reason.

Don’t bug anyone – Simplicity will keep you out of trouble. When you’re at home practicing, reach for the unreachable. When you’re on the gig, know your limits. My experience as a studio player has taught me to focus on every single note I play. When you’re recording for another artist, on somebody else’s time, you have to play everything perfect. For every mistake you make, you have to punch-in the part again. The tape rolls and after you record your part; you go back into the room where the engineer and the producer are mixing the recording. They turn down the other parts to check out what you played. Your guitar is really loud in the mix. There is no escape. It’s like looking in the mirror. Every time you play something a little out of time or a little sharp or flat it makes you cringe. My first experience in the studio taught me to listen to every single note I play, all the time, even when I’m not recording. It taught me to know my limits whenever I play, and to stretch those limits by good practice. While in the studio, I try to get the track done on the first or second take with no punch-ins. Next time you are on a gig, pretend you’re in the studio recording for Michael Jackson. See how long you can play without making even a tiny mistake. Let this become a habit.

Love your enemies – When I was learning guitar as a kid, I wanted to crush the neighborhood guitar kids like grapes with my technique! Competitiveness is important; the need to be the best is what drives people to be just that. But don’t let it blind you. Every time Mike Stern or Scott Henderson are in town, I dread going to hear them play. It always depresses me. It forces me to compare myself with them and to truly see what kind of player I am in a true light. I could easily avoid the whole miserable thing and stay home but I force myself to go. After it’s over, I go home, don’t touch my guitar and go to sleep. The next day I force myself to get over it and practice like a maniac. I have had similar experiences all my life. There is always someone who plays better than you. It is important to search them out, make friends with them, pick their brains and learn. It’s okay to secretly hate their guts! Use envy and jealousy to your advantage. The interesting thing is that the guys that I always want to beat in guitar wars, usually become great friends and refer me for gigs from time to time. Players who avoid better players are destined for mediocrity.

Listen to what your mother told you

This is really important. No matter how great a player you are, that is only half the battle in being a successful guitarist. Here are the other things:

Never be late – If you show up late for studio work, you’ll never get called back. Time is money. Get there early, set your equipment up and be ready to go before the session is supposed to begin. The same thing goes for auditions. Even if you are the greatest guitarist to ever walk the face of the earth, you’ll make the producer nervous if you show up late for an audition. He’s running a business so he is going to figure that you’re late all the time and since he’s got enough to worry about he’ll pick someone for the job who is dependable. You won’t get a call back. The same thing is true for rehearsals. A good friend of mine has the touring gig with a super big artist (ain’t gonna tell you who). He was telling me that the keyboardist in the band came to rehearsal and didn’t have all his stuff set up in time. He made the artist wait about a whole minute to get the rehearsal started. Instead of rehearsing he got fired on the spot. He lost a $2,000 dollar a week gig for being a minute late. Don’t make the same mistake.

Appearances count – Before you play your first notes, the audience has already made a decision about you by your appearance. This goes for auditions too. First, go to the magazine stand and get yourself a copy of the newest GQ. I’m not joking. Check the photos and see what guys are wearing these days. Music and fashion walk hand in hand. Dress for success! I know tons of great players who lose out because they wear the same stupid t-shirt everyday. Think of Miles Davis, not only a musical genius but a true fashion plate. The first lesson I learned about this topic was from a band member when I was eighteen. He told me to get some new shoes because mine were dirty. I had figured that nobody looks at a guy’s shoes but when you’re standing on a four foot stage that is the first thing the people in the first row look at. Take pride in your appearance and carry yourself with confidence. Charisma, charm and style carry a lot of weight in the music business.

Wear as many hats as you can – Play as many styles as you can, this will increase the amount or gigs you can do. Also, work on your singing chops. Sometimes this alone will get you the job. A lot of bands are looking for someone who can do both. It saves them the money to hire two guys. If you can sing harmony it’s a plus. If you can sing lead, it’s even better. This is also a good strategy for your band. You can make way more money as a trio than a quartet. Most gigs pay by the band regardless of how many band members in the band.

Education

Get an education – Just like any other kind of job, education is important. Lessons are great but if you have the time and money, enroll yourself in a good music school. I spent a year at Musician’s Institute in Los Angeles where I ended up also being a teacher for six years. The great thing about studying at a big music school is all the students that you also get a chance to learn from. The thing that is great about MI or LAMA in LA or The Collective in NY or the schools that I run in Japan is that they are not art schools as much as they are trade schools. They strive to teach you how to make a living at being a guitarist while also giving you plenty of creative support. They don’t cater to any one particular style of music as an “art” school does. The trade school teaches you a trade rather than an art.

Get in education – A well rounded musical education will also prepare you for education. One of the most rewarding things I have ever done is to get into music education. After I left MI in 1992, I found myself in Japan as the Director of Education at Tokyo School of Music. Teaching will teach you more about music than studying will. When I was teaching at MI, I found myself teaching in the classroom next to Scott Henderson on one side and Paul Gilbert on the other. I would eat lunch with jazz legend Joe Diorio. Just being in the same building as players like these and absorbing what was going on around me was an invaluable experience. Teaching also forced me to organize musical concepts which in turn helped me become a better player. If you are fortunate to get work at a school that also has courses in recording, you may be able to sneak in there and learn a little about the newest technology. One of the biggest advantages of working at a music school is the fact that you can network. I’m always surprised to see how much the teachers at my school end up working together. They refer each other to gigs as subs and even get them on their own gigs. The great thing about teaching is that it is usually a day gig which doesn’t interfere with your night gig; playing. Its extra cash and it’s steady.

Some advice on getting a teaching job

The Interview

Your Manner – A lot of guys ruin the whole thing here. Here is how it usually goes; I get a call from a guy looking for a teaching position. I ask him to come down and he does. I talk to him a while and decide he seems like a decent cat. His eyes aren’t red and he can carry a concise conversation. You may think I’m joking. You would actually be surprised how many guys come to an interview high on something. This is a sure way to not get the job. I don’t care what anybody does in their free time but, anyone who comes to an interview at a school for a teaching job stoned is probably going to come to teach his classes stoned too. Also, like I said before, never, ever show up late for your interview. One of the most important things for a teacher to be is on time.

Passion – I also want a guy who is passionate about teaching. Remember, a school is a business so I want a teacher who is going to teach all the students, not just the gifted ones. Most kids quit school because of discrimination. Not racial, religious or sexual, but talent discrimination. Anyone can teach someone with a ton of talent to be a great player. I’m looking for someone to teach the kids who struggle with the guitar. If you feel that filtering out the students that are not “musically gifted” is a teacher’s job, you won’t be working for me. I want every student who enrolls in my school to graduate. Remember that during your interview too.

Your Profile – Don’t disclose the unnecessary. You will need to give the school your profile. Leave out anything that you may be doing that doesn’t involve music. When I look over profiles for teaching position at my school, I’m looking for someone who is a working player. Anyone who is gigging plus, let’s say, works at the local Kmart is out. I’m looking for guys who are going to teach the students how to work full time as a guitarist so they better be doing so themselves. Don’t lie, but don’t disclose the unnecessary details.

Your Demo – Let’s say the interview and the profile go over. Here is the next thing that a lot of guys screw up. They don’t have anything recorded. I want to hear them play. You’d be surprised how many guys don’t have a decent demo. I generally don’t like cassette tapes. I’m looking for a decently recorded cd. It can be burned at home or at a studio but it needs to showcase what you are good at. This is also true for auditions. A lot of times, before you even get to audition, you first have to send your bio and demo. Be careful not to send a demo of you playing Bebop to a producer looking for a rock guitarist.

Empower Yourself

Don’t wait for a break – This is my advice for those of you who want to satisfy your artistic needs. No matter how much money you make teaching or doing gigs as a hired gun, the truth is, your dream since you started playing probably has been to be rewarded for your playing and your own music. In the past, most artists would make a demo, and shop it around hoping that a record label would pick them up. Those where sad times. Artists had absolutely no power whatsoever. Even today, there are still plenty of artists doing the same thing; they have yet to see what great times we live in. Because of technology today, releasing a CD is a simple thing to do. If you are well rehearsed, you can be in and out of the studio in three days. That includes the mix down. I recorded, mastered and pressed my own CD, “Prospects” for about three-thousand five hundred dollars. That includes the money I paid for the studio musicians to do the session. If you have a band with permanent members you probably don’t have to pay them, so you can do it for less.

Recording tips – Be totally prepared. The trick to getting the session done inexpensively is speed. The misconception that you need a month in the studio to do a good recording is completely false. If you are well rehearsed, you can knock each song out in two takes. After that, you decide which take you like, punch in any parts you don’t like and move on to the next tune. The difference with my newest CD is that we never rehearsed. I hired studio cats who just read the charts. We ran through the tune once, recorded two takes for each song and never did any punch-ins. The musicians where top notch players. If you get in the studio and start rehearsing, you are never going to get done in time.

Selling the thing once you get it done – In the old days, the only way to sell a record was to get a contract with a record company and a distribution deal to get the product in stores, advertise, tour and wait for you measly royalty check. Royalty rates vary slightly from company to company, but I’ll just tell you, you have to sell at least a million records to be able to pay your rent. That’s the sad truth about “a major deal”. But now we live in glorious times thanks to the internet. Once you get your CD done you can sell it from your web site (I’ll get to that after this). You can also send it to cdbaby.com and/or guitar9.com and/or a bunch of other sites that will sell it for you. In the mean time you can send it to some different sites that will review it for you. If you do a good job on your CD, you should be able to get some good reviews from sites that specialize in just that.. Other people looking for new music will go to these sites read your review, go to your site and buy your CD. I used godsofmusic.com, prognosis and some other sites. You just put the link for cdbaby.com or guitar9.com on your site and they will be directed directly to your page on those sites. Guitar9.com, cdbaby.com and most other similar sites such as Amazon.com will sell customers the cds you send them by credit card and they in turn will send you a check from time to time. They take four or five dollars from your sales and everyone walks away happy. You are basically doing your own distribution. With a “major deal” you would make about a dollar on a CD sale, this way you make about ten dollars, about fourteen on the ones you sell at gigs or from your site by personal check. You only have sell ten percent of what you would with a “major deal” to make the same money. But the most important thing as that you are empowered; it’s your own motivation, dedication, footwork that moves your CD. Do it yourself and learn a bunch in the process.

Your Site – If you think putting together a site is way more than you know how to deal with, your wrong. Buy yourself software like Dreamweaver for a few hundred bucks and you are on your way. You don’t have to know anything about code to do it. It’s as easy as “Word” or “Powerpoint”. It’ll take you about half an hour to install it and have your first few pages going. The other thing you need to do is get yourself a domain name and someone to host it. That’s easy too. Just type in “domain names” into your favorite search engine and you are on your way. I think mine costs me about seven or eight bucks a month for 50MB. I need at least 50MB because I have mp3s on my site available for people to download. You may or may not need that much. The only other problem is graphics. Your site will be dull without cool graphics. If you are into that kind of thing you may want to try to do it yourself using “Fireworks” which is included in the “Dreamweaver” package or some other software such as “Adobe Photoshop”. Or, (shameless plug) you can purchase your own custom graphics from a company like ominousgraphics.com for next to nothing. Yes, ominousgraphics.com is my own company that does web graphics for artists for cheap. Once you get your site going, have as many sites as you can add your link and you’ll start getting traffic. Include in your site; audio files, your bio, a cd page with links to cdbaby.com and guitar9.com, a links page, a news page, a schedule page so you can get people to come to your shows (and buy your CD) and photos, etc. It’s important to do it yourself. If you don’t, information will always be slow and your site will be a big bore. Like I said before, do it yourself and learn something in the process. Check out my site if you have a chance. You may get some ideas.

Green

Managing your money – This will probably be the first time you are going to get financial advice from a guitarist. A lot of musicians give up playing as a professional for money reasons. One of the tricks in surviving in the business is to manage your money. No matter what happens, pay yourself first. Before you pay your rent, bills, buy your girl a watch, pay yourself first. Whatever you can swing is okay. Let’s say, two, three, five hundred dollars a month. No matter what happens, every month, you put it away first and you don’t touch it. What if you can’t make ends meet? You make ends meet! If you can’t come up with the car insurance at the end of the month, you’ll work that much harder to find a gig. If I had started doing this when I was eighteen, I would have about a million bucks today. I’m serious. I started doing this in my late twenties; I put the money into a mutual fund that earned me, on average, about twelve percent a year. Here is a rule that you probably never heard before. They never taught me this formula in school.

72 divided by yearly interest earned on any investment = the amount of years it takes the investment to double

Let’s say you are eighteen and invest six thousand dollars ($500 x 12 months) into a mutual fund that earns you ten percent a year. 72 divided by 10 equals 7.2 years for your six-thousand dollars to double. It will double again in another 7.2 years. Let’s just make it an even seven years for demonstrational purposes.

You would retire with three-hundred eighty-four thousand dollars from only one year of properly invested savings. Figure out what you would have if you had done this every year of your life starting form when you where eighteen. You would be a millionaire! You don’t have to believe me, do your own math. Go to yahoo finance and do some mutual fund historical research.

Becoming a guitarist has been one of the greatest joys in my life. I hope that sharing some of the things I learned along the way will help you to be successful in the music business. If you have any questions or comments please feel free to e-mail me anytime. Next time I’ll get into some more specifics about what it takes to be a studio musician. Until then…