We’ve all been there, juggling one or two jobs, playing gigs, paying bills and falling in love. It’s a common effort by the passionate, emotional guitarist in all of us. Trying to live the dream. Hoping for some kind of breakthrough. And for most, the breakthrough never seems to come.

It’s like the young, 6’4″ kid who grew up playing basketball. He always had dreams of playing in the NBA, but there were not enough openings and lots of talented kids that were just a little bigger, a little faster and who worked just a little harder.

We can look back and say, if I had done it differently, I could have succeeded — I could have been the Joe Bonamassa or Johnny Lang. For the basketball kid, he usually gives up on the dream and works as a bagger at Walmart. All the while, there exists a world of opportunities he could pursue and still be part of the game. He could pursue international play, or coaching. If he’s not too old, he could work hard and get involved in some college program. He could get involved in recruiting or sports marketing — there’s a whole world of jobs available that are connected with his gift and the love of the game, even if he doesn’t make it to the NBA.

What about you? You didn’t practice hard enough when you were young? Nobody sent you to a music school, you couldn’t get a scholarship? Now what? Insurance or car sales — your choice. But wait a minute, there’s a life that you can have in music if you realize that playing music isn’t all about being famous. Reconcile yourself to being a musician and don’t worry about being a rockstar. Do you realize that 90% of all live music is performed by unsigned artists?

For instance, I’ve carved out a living as a musician by diversifying into several areas. For me I chose music production, session work, live performance, jingles, and I rep and sell music equipment as well. I put the required effort into the things that are paying the bills and place my second emphasis on the things that I want to pan out the most but may not be providing income.

But consider the jobs and opportunities out there. From teaching to jingles, to music production, to live performance, to writing articles for music publications — there are many ways that you can be involved in music for a living and if it’s music that you love, than wouldn’t this be better than selling insurance?

No guarantees you’ll get rich, but if you want to live the music life, choose a path or two and get busy. One of the biggest failures for musicians is that they fail to show up for work every day. You need to treat your music biz as your job. If you’re doing live performance, you’ve got to get on the phone and book gigs. If you’re doing production music or jingles, you need to create the music and then market it to the powers that distribute it.

If you want to be a guitarist full time and you’re not tied down, you might consider hooking up with someone doing cruise ship gigs. If you’re good at music production, consider writing some jingles or production library tracks. You can market them yourself or utilize a service such as Taxi. It may take a while to get going, but once you make connections, you might start to earn a living at it and be able to let go of the less interesting jobs that you’re holding on to as a means to pay the bills.

Today, it is so easy to find the opportunities because you have the internet at your fingertips. Sometimes success is a matter of diversifying and discovering our hidden talents — work hard, develop that talent to a professional level and then make connections. And here’s a chunk of deep philosophical thought to cap it off: life has more to do with the journey than the destination. Doing music at any level always beats the alternative!

May you enjoy the ride!
Michael Lewis
Artist/Producer/Guitarist
Nashville, TN

http://MichaelLewisMusic.com

http://RadicalTone.com

http://myspace.com/sessionguitarist

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