Beyound Talent PDF

Praise for the first edition of Beyond Talent
“Beyond Talent: Creating a Successful Career in Music provides practical ad-

vice to budding musicians in an easy-to-follow format.”—Arts Management
“Real-life experience is reflected here, not just from the author but from
the numerous examples provided by real musicians, from résumés and
Web pages to anecdotes and sample contract. . . . This book will help peo-
ple create more opportunities for themselves, and provide guidance for
people to shape their musical careers in more realistic and successful
ways.”—Jeffrey Snedeker, The Horn Call
“Beyond Talent is full of valuable information for students as well as pro-

fessionals . . . Many compliments to Angela Beeching and to Oxford Uni-
versity Press for publishing this fine book.”—Kathleen Chastain, Clinical
Assistant Professor of Flute and Wind Chamber Music, Oberlin Conserva-
tory of Music
“I recommend this book highly to anyone who wants to give a young artist
a fighting chance to build a career.”—Keith Hatschek, Director, Music
Management Program, Conservatory of Music, University of the Pacific
“This is a terrific book for college-age and other young musicians who are
serious about their careers. It is the best resource I’ve seen for young and
developing musicians!”—Harriet Schwartz, College of Fine Arts Career
Consultant, Carnegie Mellon University
“Beyond Talent supports the dream of a career in music while laying out
the nuts and bolts of what it takes to make that happen. That’s a delicate
line that we walk—how to support students’ passions and commitment
to music but also prepare them for the substantial non-musical elements
in career development. This book offers a refreshing and direct approach.”
—Janis Weller, Chair, Liberal Arts, McNally Smith College of Music
“The students were truly inspired by it . . . They told me on a regular basis

that it was one of the best books they had ever read. . . . I would highly rec-
ommend Beyond Talent to anyone teaching a course that deals with life in
the real world for music majors after they graduate.”—Diane Roscetti,
Professor of Music, California State University, Northridge
“The title of this book gives just a glimpse of the breadth of information
that is actually included. Author Angela Myles Beeching is director of the
Career Services Center at the New England Conservatory, and it is clear
that she draws from her personal experience advising hundreds of musi-
cians in all aspects of their careers. Although the book is written primarily
for musicians aspiring for full-time professional performing careers, the
chapters include practical tips and guidelines that can also be applied to
music teachers, composers, and freelancers. . . . This book could easily be
used as a textbook for a group of musicians to discuss, ponder, and cre-
atively experiment with promoting their own music making and creating
their own ‘career paths.’ ”—American Music Teacher
“Beyond Talent is a wonderfully helpful book for the professional future of

any young musician. Beeching writes clearly and comprehensively. Her
book is a must for the library of any professional musician.”—Robert Free-
man, former Dean, College of Fine Arts, the University of Texas at Austin
“Career specialists and students are hungry for this information. When it
is packaged as clearly, concisely, and entertainingly as this book is, it is
easy to imagine its addition to the shelves.”—Simone Himbeault Taylor,
Director, Career Center, University of Michigan
“An excellent manual for musicians at all levels. Full of practical advice
and important information, simply presented, easily understood and ready
to use.”—Janet Bookspan, Stage Director and Performance Coach
B E Y O N D
T A L E N T
Creating a Successful Career in Music
Second Edition
Angela Myles Beeching
1
2010
1
Oxford University Press, Inc., publishes works that further
Oxford University’s objective of excellence
in research, scholarship, and education.
Oxford New York

Auckland Cape Town Dar es Salaam Hong Kong Karachi
Kuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Nairobi
New Delhi Shanghai Taipei Toronto
With offices in
Argentina Austria Brazil Chile Czech Republic France Greece
Guatemala Hungary Italy Japan Poland Portugal Singapore
South Korea Switzerland Thailand Turkey Ukraine Vietnam
Copyright © 2010 by Angela Myles Beeching
Published by Oxford University Press, Inc.

198 Madison Avenue, New York, New York 10016
www.oup.com
Oxford is a registered trademark of Oxford University Press.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,
stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means,
electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise,
without the prior permission of Oxford University Press.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Beeching, Angela Myles.
Beyond talent : creating a successful career in music / by Angela Myles Beeching. — Rev. 2nd ed.
p. cm.
Includes index.
ISBN 978-0-19-538259-4
1. Music—Vocational guidance. I. Title.
ML3795.B42 2010
780.23—dc22 2009019134
Resources are available online at www.oup.com/us/beyondtalent

Oxford Web Music
For more information on Oxford Web Music, visit www.oxfordwebmusic.com
9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Printed in the United States of America
on acid-free paper
Prelude to the
Second Edition
This expanded edition is packed with new musician profiles, fresh perspec-
tives, and updated, streamlined information. Special emphasis is placed on
music entrepreneurship, audience engagement, and the use of online tools.
To address these issues and more, this new edition of Beyond Talent offers
scores of new resources and ideas plus a comprehensive online companion
guide with video clips, articles, and hyperlinks connecting readers to a sam-
pling of the best online music resources; see http://www.oup.com/us/
beyondtalent.
This page intentionally left blank
Preface
It takes more than talent to succeed in music. Maybe it always has, but to-
day’s musicians need to be more creative than ever when it comes to their
careers, cultivating an entrepreneurial approach to connecting with audi-
ences and creating value in their communities. Musicians need to use the
full range of their skills in making a place for themselves in the changing
profession. This book is designed to show you how to take charge of your
future; it’s all about putting you in the driver’s seat.
As director of the Career Services Center at New England Conservatory,
one of the world’s top music schools, I’ve advised hundreds of talented music
students, alumni, staff, and faculty. In addition, I have worked with scores
of other professional musicians at national arts conferences and workshops.
I have counseled classical, jazz, world, and some pop musicians on a range
of career issues.
The work is fascinating: consulting with musicians on everything from
recording, commissioning, and online promotional projects to launching
performance series and new ensembles. I’ve advised musicians whose goals
were to become orchestral players, college music faculty, general managers
of opera companies, studio musicians, film composers, and more.
In doing this work, I’ve found that even established artists find it diffi-
cult to get practical information on the business side of the profession. Many
musicians need guidance on managing their careers, on how to promote
themselves and turn dreams into reality. Mostly, people need help thinking
through their goals and coming up with workable action plans. Unfortu-
nately, many musicians don’t get the advice and information they need to
succeed, and consequently, they fail to establish themselves professionally.
This doesn’t have to happen to you.
viii Preface
Is This Book for You? X
Are you curious about creating a niche for yourself in the music profession?
Are you interested in how other musicians have found their paths? Would
you like to set goals and accomplish them? If so, this book is for you.
Successful musicians tailor-make their own career paths, and these
paths typically require an entrepreneurial and individual approach. There’s
no one-size-fits-all formula for success: each musician makes his or her own
way. This book includes a wide range of ideas, suggestions, and examples to
help you create your own path to success.
What This Book Includes X
Drawing on my years of experience as a music career counselor, educator,

and cellist, this book offers concrete, detailed information to help musicians
make their way in the professional marketplace. It is seasoned with the ac-
cumulated wisdom of clients, colleagues, and mentors: the musicians, artist
managers, concert presenters, and music educators with whom I have con-
sulted over the years.
Each chapter contains background information, specific how-to direc-
tions, and real-life stories. All the examples are real, although in some cases
I’ve changed the names and a few of the details to safeguard people’s privacy.
There are exercises for creating long-term and short-term goals and sug-
gested practical steps for achieving them.
Some of the information and suggestions may be new to you. The more
familiar material may help you evaluate your strategies, or confirm your
good habits. Some of the information may seem like rocket science, whereas
other sections cover commonsense approaches and good manners—the
kinds of things we can all use an occasional reminder about.
This book explains how to do the following:
• Find and create performance opportunities
• Produce professional-quality promotional materials
• Attract media attention to build your reputation and audience
• Raise funds for your music projects
• Enhance your performance work as needed with supplementary,
satisfying employment
• Design your own career success plan to reach your long-term goals
How Is This Book Organized? X
As much as possible, topics are presented in a first-things-first, step-by-step

basis. For instance, how to create promotional materials is discussed before
Preface ix
how to book performances. So, although chapters can certainly be read on

their own or out of order, the book is designed to take the reader through a
linear, career-mapping process. Taking the journey from chapter 1 to the
end should help you develop perspective and a more holistic approach to
advancing your career.
Where Do the Musician Examples Come From? X
This book is full of examples of real musicians solving real issues in their
careers. For the examples that come from confidential career advising, I’ve
altered names but left the stories in tact. You will also find other examples,
not requiring anonymity, in which musicians’ stories include their actual
names.
These “example” musicians work in a range of genres and serve to illus-
trate an array of career challenges and solutions. There is much that musi-
cians can learn from the innovation and creativity of artists outside their
genre, and often the best ideas are generated by examining an issue from al-
ternative vantage points.
Bonus Item: The Dirty Secret about Career Planning X
Before proceeding further, I want to come clean about a problem with the
concept of career planning. It’s a problem inherent to books such as this and
to the profession of career counseling. It’s blasphemous for me to admit, but
the real way people go through life is not with a handy map and directions.
They don’t usually set goals and plan carefully and work systematically to-
ward success. Why? Because there’s so much in life that we cannot control
and so much of our career direction depends on exploration. Life is fluid,
and so are careers.
In reality, we go through life as though there were no path, as though we
were in a dense forest and simply making our way as best we can. An idea
leads to a conversation, a connection, a project, and through the course of
these projects our career path emerges. It’s often only in looking back over
years that we can fashion a story line out of our own history. In hindsight, we
can see how the projects connected, and how our goals and interests drove us
to various choices and opportunities. But in the present, the path is all too
often impossible to discern. It’s impossible to see clearly the cause and effect
of all the choices we make, small and large, each day. But our choices are the
essential “stuff” of which our projects, career paths, and lives are made.
Career counselors advocate making plans, writing down goals, explor-
ing opportunities, and taking practical steps toward completing projects. I
say and write these things and I believe them . . . to a degree.
x Preface
We pretend that life will work logically, that action A will lead to out-
come B. But everyone knows that life almost never works according to plan.
You can’t account for luck or for being in the right or wrong place and time.
There’s also your personal life and your health—these in many ways deter-
mine the course of a career. And there’s the fact that any one of our projects
can take us away from our original plan, take us off course, and lead us to a
new goal, a new path. That’s what makes life fascinating—you don’t get to
know in advance how things will turn out. It’s all a big gamble.
Here’s my own story: I started playing the cello at age 8 and was hooked.
I wanted nothing more than to play music. I won scholarships throughout
school and as a graduate student thought that the be-all and end-all would
be to get a tenure track college teaching job so I could teach and perform. I
got a doctorate, won several fellowships, and had two different tenure track
positions teaching cello, first in California and then in New York. But I
found that once I’d reached my goal—to get one of these jobs—that my life
wasn’t quite as I’d imagined it. I found I needed to do something else. If
someone had told me at age 20 or age 30 that I would end up running a
music career center and publishing a career guide—and that I’d love this
work—I would have called that person crazy. But life throws surprises at us,
and this keeps things interesting. If life went according to plan, we’d all be
bored.
So yes, I advise musicians to set goals and make plans, because there are
practical ways to get from point A to point B in your career. But realize that
your life—the good stuff—is all about the journey. Stay flexible because
your goals and plans will change as you explore your options.
Tricks of the Trade X
On my desk at work I have a useful tool for career counseling. It’s a magic
wand. And, sitting on top of my computer monitor, there’s a plastic tiara for
the really tough days. With my magic wand I wish I could make people’s
dreams come true, give them the lucky break they need, and create the life
work they want. But the reality is that we each have to find our own way. At
least we don’t have to do it alone. In life, we all get to learn from our mistakes
and we get many opportunities to both learn from and help one another.
In a sense, this book is my magic wand to you: my best advice and per-
spective. The world needs music and musicians, and it’s your responsibility
to find a way to put your talents to good use.
Acknowledgments
First, I want to thank my agent Ann Rittenberg and my editor Suzanne Ryan
for their much appreciated guidance and patience. And I especially want to
thank this constellation of terrific readers, friends, and quoted advisors, ap-
pearing here in alphabetical splendor.
Liam Abramson Jack Garrity Eric Platz
Andy Appel Ellen Goldensohn Gwen Powell
Stephen Beaudoin John Greer Steve Procter
Robert Besen Kevin Harris Barbara Raney
John Blanchard Freddie Hart Jean Rife
Howard Block Josh Hoekwater Omar Roca
Sarah Bob Pat Hollenbeck Sebastian Ruth
Janet Bookspan The JP Prose Writers’ Chokdee Rutirisari
Eric Booth Group! Nancy Shear
Josh and Donna Jeffrey James Laurie Shulman
Brietzer Rani Katsenelenbogen Toni Sikes
Mark Broschinsky Sarah Lee Pamela Slim
Kathy Canfield Tanya Maggi Peter Spellman
Claire Chase Patrick Maxfield John Steinmetz
Carrie Cheron Michael McGrade Dan Swenson
Nancy Christensen Rick McLaughlin Kelland Thomas
Afton Cotton Tom Meglioranza Brenda Ulrich
Susan Dadian Derek Mithaug Ginevra Ventre
Adrian Daly Casey Molino Dunn Steve Wogaman
Katie DeBonvillle Jennifer Morris Judith Ciampa Wright
Ed Donahue Lior Navok Jacob Yarrow
Eric Edberg Lisa Nigris Phillip Ying
James Falzone Deborah Obalil
Catherine Fitterman Barbara Owens
Contents
1 Mapping Success 1
Today’s Musicians Profi led: Success Redefined 2
What Does It Take? Part 1 4
The Big Picture 6
Ten Success Principles 9
The Entrepreneurial You 13
Project-Based Career Advancement 16
Self-Assessment: Where Are You Now? 17
Achieving Goals: Getting from Point A to Point B 18
2 Cultivating Your Support Network:

Making Connections, Building Community 21
What IS Networking? 21
Check Your Attitude and Intent 22
Mapping Your Network 24
Mailing Lists 26
Performance Invitations 28
Elevator Speech 33
Good Phone 35
Backstage Dos and Don’ts 36
How to Work a Room 38
Hosting a Brainstorming Party 40
Bonus Section: Interpersonal Skills for Ensembles 41
xiv Contents
3 Developing Your Image:

Creating Promotional Materials that Work 45
Who Are You? 45
Why Promote Yourself? 45
Brand YOU 46
What’s Your Type? 47
Bio Basics 49
Photos 67
Promo Kits 74
4 Expanding Your Impact: Making Recordings 85

Why Record? 86
The Recording Industry and You 87
The Entrepreneurial Solution 90
Legally Yours: Copyright Issues 91
Licensing Issues 92
What to Record 95
How and Where to Record 98
Artwork and Graphics 102
How Much? Financing Your Recording 105
Sales: How to Turn a Profit 111
Selling Your Music Online 112
Promoting Your Recording 116
Getting Reviewed 120
5 Building Your Online Community:

Social Networking, the Web, and You 123
Social Media and You 124
Website Overview 128
Site Analysis 129
Website Building Basics 130
Cultivating Your Fan Base 133
Newsletters 133
Website Design Tips 134
What’s on the Menu 135
Contents xv
Interlude: Five Fundamental Questions 141

Why Are You in Music? 141
How Do You Define Success? 142
Is Your Thinking Getting in Your Way? 144
What Kind of Partnerships Are You Creating? 145
How Meaningful Is Your Work? 147
Plus: 21 Questions for Young Performers 149
6 Booking Concerts: Artist Management

and Self-Management 152
The Big Question 152
Myths about Artist Management 153
How Artist Management Works 155
How Not to Get Artist Management 157
The Truth about Competitions 158
Self-Management: Your Best Bet 159
Alternatives to Traditional Management 160
Where to Perform 161
Effective Programming 164
Booking Your Own Concerts 165
Negotiating Fees 169
Confirmations/Contracts 171
Booking a Regional Tour 172
7 Telling Your Story: Attracting Media Attention

and Building Audiences 177
What Is Newsworthy? 177
Attracting an Audience 179
Do You Need a Publicist? 182
Types of Media Coverage 183
Press Releases 185
Compiling Your Media List 191
Tips on Being Interviewed 197
Timeline for Publicizing Your Next Concert 199
How to Grow a Career 200
xvi Contents
8 Connecting with Audiences:

Reaching Out and Reaching In 202
What Is Residency Work? 202
What Is a Teaching Artist? 203
What’s in It for You? 203
Why Bother? 205
What Does Residency Work Encompass? 206
Talking to Audiences 208
Finding the Right Entry Point 210
Structuring Programs 211
Designing Programs for Adults, Seniors, and K–12 Audiences 213
Getting Hired 217
Marketing Your Programs 219
Quality Control: Evaluating Programs 220
9 Performing at Your Best 224

What Is Peak Performance? 224
What Is Stage Presence? 226
Managing Performance Anxiety 232
Treatment Starts with Self-Assessment 235
Interventions and Treatment Methods 237
Goal Setting 244
Performance Health 246
10 Freelancing for Success 253

To Specialize or Not? 254
Networking for Referrals 255
Researching to Get Work 256
Marketing for Freelancers 258
Musician Unions: Strength in Numbers 261
Contracts 270
11 Balancing Life: Managing Time and Money 274

Time Management 274
Managing Projects 280
Contents xvii
Effective Practice 282

Financial Management 283
Taxes 101 287
Special Issues for Ensembles 293
12 Funding for Music Projects 295

Mapping Your Project 296
Researching Grant Opportunities 298
Grant Applications 300
Fundraising 101 304
The Development Continuum 307
Making the Ask 310
Fundraising Letters 314
Commissioning New Work 316
Corporate Sponsorship 318
13 Getting It Together: Your Career, Your Life 321

Portfolio Careers 321
Transferable Skills: What Musicians Have to Offer 324
The Day Job Dilemma: Five Key Considerations 325
Teaching Opportunities 328
Arts Administration Opportunities and Music Industry Jobs 336
Long-Distance Job Search 344
Postlude: 5 Career Counseling Secrets Revealed 346
Notes 349
Index 353
B E Y O N D
T A L E N T
1
Mapping Success
W
In this chapter:
Today’s Musicians Profiled: Success Redefined
What Does It Take? Part 1
The Big Picture
What Does It Take? Part 2
Ten Success Principles
The Entrepreneurial You
Project-Based Career Advancement
Self-Assessment: Where Are You Now?
Achieving Goals: Getting from Point A to Point B
V
“This is such an exciting time in the world of music—musicians and

institutions are re-examining and redefining who they are, what they do, what they
want to do, and what is important in their lives.”—Adrian Daly, Dean, Cleveland
Institute of Music
What is it you dream of? For some musicians, it’s performing with the
world’s best orchestras or with great opera companies. Some musicians want
to record and tour with their own ensembles; some wish to create multime-
dia works involving music, dance, theater, and technology. Others dream of
directing major arts institutions, writing music for fi lm and video games,
performing on Broadway, or teaching music at the college level. As you read
this, you’re probably reflecting on your own particular dream career. Hav-
ing the dream is great, but what comes next?
Musicians often attribute career success to fate or destiny. They say it’s
a matter of being in the right place at the right time, getting “discovered,” or
just being lucky. Unfortunately, this kind of thinking leads to a passive ap-
proach: to simply letting things happen as they will. My goal is to funda-
mentally change this thinking and promote the idea that you are the person
1
2 Mapping Success
in charge. You are the architect of your future. Through your attitude and
actions, you can determine your luck and success.
Today’s Musicians Profiled: Success Redefined X
What characterizes the newest generation of musicians? What kinds of suc-

cessful careers are they creating for themselves? Here are a few examples of
not-so-traditional approaches.
Cellist Matt Haimovitz garnered national media attention several years
ago when the New York Times ran a piece about his unorthodox national
tour—solo cello recitals played in rock clubs, coffeehouses, and even a pizza
parlor. He had become frustrated with the traditional concert experience
and missed seeing his generation in the audience. He wanted to reach out to
new audiences with the music he was passionate about—from J. S. Bach to
living composers to his own arrangements of rock standards. He has cham-
pioned performing in nontraditional venues; for his “Anthem” tour of
American works, Haimovitz performed Jimi Hendrix’s improvisational ver-
sion of The Star-Spangled Banner and recorded it live at former New York
City’s punk palace CBGB. Shortly after his initial forays into alternative
spaces, Haimovitz hired a former singer-songwriter to fi nd and book ap-
propriate clubs for more extensive tours in support of his latest projects.
In 2000 he and composer Luna Pearl Woolf founded an indie classical
label, Oxingale Records, and since then have released over 15 albums en-
compassing a wide range of artists and genre-blending collaborative works.
Recent projects include After Reading Shakespeare, featuring literary-themed
solo cello suites by three Pulitzer Prize–winning American composers.
Haimovitz has toured the album in over forty cities, including exclusive ap-
pearances at Borders bookstores as part of “Borders on the Road.” Oxingale
has also launched a YouTube channel featuring his performances and on the
label’s website (http://www.oxingale.com), fans can download free ring-
tones of Matt’s signature cellistic pyrotechnics.1
Here is an example of another music career path with a different focus:
ICE, the International Contemporary Ensemble (http://www.iceorg.org), is
a flexible group of thirty musicians who play everything from duos to cham-
ber orchestra works, multimedia pieces using extended techniques, non-
Western instruments, as well as improvisatory and electroacoustic works.
Claire Chase, flutist and cofounder of ICE, wrote about her experience
as a musician-entrepreneur in 2008:
When I formed ICE in Chicago the summer after I graduated from
Oberlin, I had no money, no business experience, very few contacts in
Today’s Musicians Profiled: Success Redefined 3
the area. I produced our first concert on a budget of $605, which was
exactly the amount of my first check working for Wolfgang Puck
Catering Company.
Seven years later, we have given more than 250 concerts, including
the world premieres of over 400 new works, and we have two solvent
companies in Chicago and New York (with California coming soon),
four albums on the way this season, and upcoming tours in three
continents.
Our generation of young musicians, despite the economic challenges
that we face, is experiencing an unprecedented freedom. We can do
anything we want to do. We can produce our own concerts, release
our own albums, create our own communities and our own move-
ments, and we don’t need a lot of money to do this. We just need great
ideas, we need a spirit of adventure, and we need each other (thick skin
is good to have, too).
ICE is an outgrowth of this early 21st century trend of the musician
as entrepreneur, the artist as the producer. Although it might be too
early to make this prediction, it is my hope that this spirit of entrepre-
neurship in the arts will be one of the defining characteristics and
contributions of my generation of artists.2
And here is a third example and another ensemble demonstrating an al-
ternative career path: the Providence String Quartet developed its innovative
urban residency, Community MusicWorks (http:// www.communitymusic
works.org), over ten years ago in Providence, Rhode Island. Violinist/violist
Sebastian Ruth founded Community MusicWorks on the conviction that
musicians have an important public role to play in creating and transforming
communities. Lauded by Alex Ross in the New Yorker as a “revolutionary or-
ganization,” the quartet lives, rehearses, and teaches in an underserved urban
neighborhood. Ruth, a Brown University graduate, started the project with a
$10,000 grant from the university’s Swearer Center for Public Service. Com-
munity MusicWorks is now funded through grants and private donations. By
2009, their budget had grown to $630,000. The organization provides 100
neighborhood children with lessons, the use of instruments, and transporta-
tion to performances throughout the region. A substantial waiting list of stu-
dents is evidence of the program’s popularity with young people and their
families.
In terms of having an impact beyond their immediate community, in
2006, the organization started a two-year fellowship program that trains
young professional musicians in the methodology of community-based per-
formance and teaching careers. Fellows teach, perform, and design programs
4 Mapping Success
alongside the members of the Providence String Quartet. The idea is that
with this training, the fellows can go out and start their own community-
based programs in other parts of the United States and the world.
A common mission runs through the stories of this new generation of
musicians: they are finding new ways to connect music with audiences. Mu-
sicians are no longer content to perform only in traditional, formal venues,
disconnected from audiences and from communities. Musicians today ex-
plore ways to find a sense of immediacy, connection, and relevance.
What Does It Take? Part 1 X
Keep in mind that careers are developed over years, not hatched overnight.
The overnight success story is a media myth: when musicians are inter-
viewed in depth, the overnight success invariably turns out to have been ten
or twenty years in the making. There are substantial data that show that it
takes 10,000 hours, or roughly ten years of study, work, and experience, to
become an expert in any field. As detailed in the recommended Musical Ex-
cellence: Strategies and Techniques to Enhance Performance, “The ten year
minimum has been documented in every field of human endeavor that has
been examined . . . This rule holds for musicians, novelists, poets, mathema-
ticians, chess players, tennis players, swimmers, long distance runners, live-
stock judges, radiologists, and doctors . . .”3
Though this should come as no surprise to musicians, it is comforting
to realize that everyone—genius or not—needs the ten years or 10,000 hours
of hard work. Malcolm Gladwell, in his excellent book Outliers: The Story of
Success, offers examples of Bill Gates and others, detailing how their early
years provided them the crucial 10,000 hours of exposure and training nec-
essary to their later success. Mozart, though a prodigy and a genius, had
been composing for ten years before he wrote his first “important” work.
The point is that genius and talent are not enough. Hard work is essential;
there are no shortcuts.
Gladwell also details the experience of the Beatles. As teenagers, when
they were just getting started as a band in Liverpool, they hooked up with a
local promoter, a fellow with connections in Hamburg, Germany, where
they could get ongoing work. In Hamburg back then, Gladwell explains,
strip clubs hired rock bands to play exceptionally long sets: five or more
hours each night, seven days a week, for continuous shows. The Beatles ended
up traveling to Hamburg five times between 1960 and 1962, Gladwell ex-
plains, “performing for 270 nights in just over a year and a half. By the time
they had their first burst of success in 1964, in fact, they had performed live
an estimated twelve hundred times. Do you know how extraordinary that
is? Most bands today don’t perform twelve hundred times in their entire
careers.”4
They had to hone their performance skills, learn a huge number of
songs, and figure out how to capture and maintain an audience’s attention
(not easy when you’re a competing with strippers). Gladwell quotes Philip
Norman, who wrote the Beatles’ biography, Shout!:
“They learned not only stamina. They had to learn an enormous amount
of numbers—cover versions of everything you can think of, not just rock
and roll, a bit of jazz too. They weren’t disciplined onstage at all before that.
But when they came back, they sounded like no one else. It was the making
of them.”5
Success is a process. As a music career counselor, my job is to help peo-
ple articulate their dreams, clarify their goals, and determine their next
steps. Long-term career goals are realized through everyday choices about
the use of time, energy, and money. Whether you’re just starting out or are
in midstream, these everyday choices are critical. Confucius had it right: the
journey of a thousand steps really does begin with just one.
Defining the Profession: What’s a Musician’s “Job”?

In thinking about your dream, it may be useful to reflect on what it actually
means to be a musician. The job of “musician” involves far more than per-
forming. Musicians’ careers are multidimensional. Working musicians typ-
ically “wear different hats” over the course of their workweek and over the
course of their working lives. In talking with most active professional musi-
cians, you will find they have multiple ongoing projects that involve per-
forming, composing, recording, teaching, or other arts-related activities.
What’s more, musicians are often involved in handling performance con-
tracts, publicity, and fundraising for their projects. Most musicians spend a
portion of their work lives teaching—not just for the income but because
they find it challenging and satisfying. Musicians advocate for arts educa-
tion and public funding for the arts, and serve their communities on advi-
sory boards and as consultants. So my first tip is this: ask professional
musicians about their work lives. You will find there are very few who make
a living solely from performing. Musicians’ “jobs” encompass a wide variety
of fascinating and rewarding work.
Debunking the Myth of Music Career Success

The myth that fuels many young musicians’ dreams goes like this: “If I prac-
tice really, really, REALLY hard, do everything my teacher tells me, go to the
best school, and win competitions, then with luck (and maybe the connec-
tions my teacher has), I will ‘make it.’ ” For many, making it means becoming
6 Mapping Success
an international “star,” making a living as a soloist, and performing with

orchestras and in recitals worldwide.
This is a very narrow view of success. In the protective bubble of a
music degree program, students can be oblivious to the difficult realities of
the “real world.” Unfortunately, the bubble also keeps musicians unin-
formed about the many other nontraditional and entrepreneurial music
career success paths.
Only a fraction of the total number of musicians actually makes their
living strictly as performers. And only a handful of those musicians are so-
loists. So, although there’s nothing wrong with “going for gold,” it can be a
problem if a musician views anything short of this as failure. With a narrow
view of success, musicians unconsciously limit their careers, their satisfac-
tion, and their professional fulfillment.
“When musicians have a narrow view of the profession, they limit
themselves in finding their own best career path,” says bassoonist Ben Ka-
mins, faculty at Rice University, former principal with the Houston Sym-
phony, and active freelance chamber player. “There is a misconception
amongst music students that you get a job in an orchestra and you live hap-
pily ever after. It’s incredible to get and keep that job, but it doesn’t guaran-
tee artistic satisfaction.”
If these are myths, then what can musicians actually do to be success-
ful? When they don’t find ready-made work opportunities, or when they
simply want something other than what’s available, they create their own
opportunities. The history of the arts, after all, is a testament to the human
drive to create. Musicians compose new works, invent new instruments, and
develop music software. They launch new ensembles and performance se-
ries, and, in the process, they build audiences and transform communities.
The essential challenge for today’s musician is to create a meaningful life’s
work and a livable income in a highly competitive, evolving marketplace.
The Big Picture X
The Higher Education Arts Data Service tracks information for the National
Association of Schools of Music (NASM). Of the 606 institutions re-
porting, the findings for 2007–2008 included these: more than 110,000 stu-
dents were enrolled in NASM-member college-level music programs in the
United States. And in that year over 20,000 people graduated with music de-
grees.6 Therefore, competition for “traditional” jobs, such as full-time or-
chestra positions and college-level music teaching, is exceedingly high.
Unfortunately, most graduating musicians have their sights set on these
types of traditional opportunities.
The Big Picture 7
To put supply and demand in context, though there are over 1,800 or-
chestras in the United States, the majority of these are volunteer and educa-
tional ensembles. The 52 largest budgeted professional American orchestras
have roughly 4,200 total positions for players. In 2003, there were just 159
openings in these orchestras.7 And the number of applicants requesting an
audition for any one of these positions is typically 100 to 200.
As for college-level music teaching jobs, the majority of full-time posi-
tions require doctorates and prior college teaching experience. Here, too,
the market is flooded with qualified applicants. A single full-time opening
can attract more than 100 candidates. In 2008, the Career Services Center at
New England Conservatory tracked the numbers of U.S. college music
teaching opportunities for specific instruments and found the total number
of full-time openings for cello faculty was thirteen; for clarinet, eleven. Ac-
cording to the Higher Education Arts Data Service, the total number of cel-
lists enrolled in doctoral programs for 2008 was 155, and the total number
of clarinetists was 138.8
However, these highly competitive traditional jobs are only a fraction of
the work actually available to musicians. The U.S. music industry is vast and
includes a huge variety of work opportunities. And because musicians are
generally multi-talented, they often have marketable skills in more than one
area. The majority of today’s professional musicians create satisfying “port-
folio” careers, braiding together part-time work and entrepreneurial ven-
tures to capitalize on their talents, interests, and experience.
W
“Realize there are many different ways to make a living in music,” says Boston-
based freelance clarinetist Michael Norsworthy. “Remain flexible, look for opportu-
nities at every turn, and be ready to adjust your viewpoint. There’s no ONE way,
there are MANY ways.”
V
The U.S. music industry employs roughly 295,000 people in the core music
industries, which include performers, ensembles, those working for publishers
and record labels, and those doing studio and radio work, music instrument
manufacturing, and retail. Another 899,000 people are employed in the pe-
ripheral music industries: those at music schools and recording reproduction
companies, and those working as agents, promoters, and venue managers. The
total annual revenue for the music industry includes $3.1 billion from the core
industries, and another $23.5 billion from the peripheral ones.9
What do all these numbers mean for individual musicians? However
you slice it, there’s a huge range of opportunities for people with music skills
8 Mapping Success
and a passion to share music with others. Musicians generally have market-
able skills in more than one area, leading to multifaceted careers. If you are
creative and open-minded, there are dozens of ways to put your music train-
ing and talent to work.
What Does It Take? Part 2 X
Winning and keeping an orchestra job demands skills and talents different
from those needed to lead a jazz ensemble, write film scores, launch a music
software company, or teach at a conservatory. Though there’s no formula,
there are six important qualities that are critical to all music careers. Do a
little self-assessment: do you have some or many of these?
Talent plus hard work are necessary but are not sufficient by them-
selves. You need more:
Winning attitude: You are motivated, focused, and resilient; you can
handle rejection.
Sales skills: You communicate and present yourself well; your enthu-
siasm is contagious. You can articulate your strengths to prospective
collaborators, clients, and employers.
Support system: You have emotional support and encouragement
from a group of friends and mentors. And your goals and plans do
not cause conflict in your close relationships.
Strategy: You have plans for how to reach both your short- and long-
term goals; you have the skills and experience necessary to imple-
ment your plan.
If some areas need work, consider yourself in good company. No one
has the “perfect package.” But knowing what needs improving is the first
step to making positive change. The following chapters detail practical ways
to enhance and develop these qualities.
Musicians who do well professionally and have the least trouble with
the realities of the music profession are those who have most of these six
qualities or who have an overabundance in one area that may compensate
for a lack in another.
W
Case Study
Helen O., a talented pianist, has built a good local reputation as a chamber
musician/accompanist and has received a number of favorable reviews. However,
she is passive in her approach to her career: she does not seek out opportunities
but relies on her reputation to generate them. Helen shies away from dealing di-
rectly with the business side of her career. She does not actively seek advice from
colleagues or networking contacts. She is frustrated that she’s not getting more
concert dates, doesn’t have a manager, and is not commanding the fees she thinks
she deserves.
Helen blames the unfair music industry, the competitive market, and the dwin-
dling audience for classical music. She does not see how her own behavior and atti-
tude may actually be holding her back.
V
Musicians, like most people, are fond of complaining. It is easier to

gripe about a lack of opportunities than to take control of your life. What
could Helen O. do differently? Like most of us, Helen could make better use
of her existing support system, cultivate new collaborators, and improve her
self-management (until she can attract a manager). Identifying our short-
comings is essential to making improvements. Talking to others can be a
great way to gain perspective. You may recognize a bit of Helen in you be-
cause there is probably a bit of her in all of us.
To help Helen and others, here are ten basic principles for advancing
music careers. I call these the “Success Principles.” See how many of these
you use now, and consider adopting the others. They do not necessarily de-
mand a lot of time or effort, but they do require adjusting your attitude,
modifying habits, and venturing beyond your comfort zone.
Ten Success Principles X
There are many practical steps you can take to advance toward your career
goals. But over the years, by 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 principles below. These are lifestyle rec-
ommendations, ways to think about and deal with the world. Many of these
principles are developed further in subsequent chapters.
1. Know yourself. Know both your strengths and weaknesses. Know
what you have to offer the professional world. Get feedback from colleagues,
teachers, and mentors. Their suggestions and advice can help you chart the
path that’s best for you.
2. Get to know your industry. Get savvy. Your research should include
both talking to colleagues and mentors as well as reading about the arts and
the music profession. Stay current by reading relevant music trade journals,
blogs, and websites specific to your particular areas of interest. Reading this
book is a great start!
10 Mapping Success
3. Schmooze. Network; get out and exchange information and ideas with
others. When you share career and job information with colleagues, they
reciprocate. Networking happens everywhere: at rehearsals, backstage at
concerts, in supermarkets, at gas stations, and at most social gatherings.
Even if you are shy, you can find a style of networking to suit your personal-
ity. Chapter 2 examines networking in depth.
4. Research your options. Information leads to opportunities. Read other
musicians’ bios for ideas about grants, competitions, festivals, and perfor-
mance possibilities. You can find bios on musicians’ websites, blogs, CD
liner notes, and in concert programs. Check online for local arts calendar
listings to find out what other musicians at your career stage are doing. Make
research a habit: schedule time each week to catch up on what’s going on in
the profession.
W
As graduate students, two composers—Koji Nakano from Japan and Lior Navok
from Israel—both made time to regularly research and follow up on opportunities.
Koji researched competitions open to international students. Applying and win-
ning a few of these led to commissions, summer seminars, and premiers of his works.
His pieces have since been performed at the Tanglewood, Aspen, and Bowdoin music
festivals, and at Carnegie and Merkin Halls in New York City. And he has had residen-
cies at the MacDowell, Yaddo, Millay, Djerassi, and Ragdale artist colonies.
While still in school, Lior Navok produced a CD of his own works. He then re-
searched where to send it (which radio stations and reviewers). The CD got radio
airplay and was reviewed favorably in several publications, and this led to commis-
sions for new works and plans for the next CD. Lior has gone on to receive commis-
sions from the Koussevitzky Music Foundation, the Fromm Music Foundation, the
National Endowment for the Arts, and the Jerome Foundation.
It’s never possible in life to know how any one project, contact, or opportunity
will lead to the next. But in hindsight, we can see how these two musicians’ efforts
as students served them well in their unfolding careers.
V
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. People want to work with those who are pleasant, optimis-
tic, and inspiring. Remember that your attitude is a big part of your profes-
sional 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. Be-
cause the music industry is a very small, relationship-driven world, we need
to be good colleagues to each other (because the person you snub today may
be the person who doesn’t hire you tomorrow).
Musicians spend an inordinate amount of time alone in practice rooms.
The solitary and demanding work can contribute to a lack of interpersonal
skills and overall self-centeredness. This is how some musicians end up
being considered “high maintenance” or “divas.” So, be considerate. People
will remember your thoughtfulness and optimism, and they will respond in
kind. The more you can be at ease with yourself and with others, the more
you can benefit from and appreciate the world you inhabit. Do your best to
contribute positive energy to all of your life and work situations because
what goes around comes around.
W
Tips on Tuning Up Your Interpersonal Skills
• Before going to sleep each night, think back over the day. Review your
behavior and interactions with others. Ask yourself what you would choose
to do differently. Be honest. Envisioning new patterns of behavior is the first
step to making positive change.
• Ask for feedback from trusted colleagues and friends. If you are unsure of
how you are coming across or about how you handled a particular situation,
ask a colleague for objective feedback.
V
7. Think like an entrepreneur. This means thinking creatively about what

you have to offer and how you can put your musical skills and experience to
work, creating opportunities for yourself. Spend time brainstorming with
friends and colleagues.
Conductor and vocal coach John Greer, when asked what career advice
he had for musicians, described the three keys to success he gleaned from
the Canadian entrepreneur Edward Mirvish. These were to “fulfi ll a need;
go against the trend; and keep it simple.” John Greer translates these tips for
musician entrepreneurs: fulfi lling a need means offering something that
others want and will value enough to pay you for. Your music needs an audi-
ence; think about what you have to offer and who might want this in your
community. Think creatively about where in your community you can per-
form, use your musical skills, and be paid for it. As for Ed Mirvish’s second
tip, “going against the trend,” John reminds musicians to offer something
distinctive. Think about specific repertoire and projects that especially suit
your abilities and interests. Do you have other special skills? And fi nally, as
12 Mapping Success
for keeping it simple, John says, make sure you keep in mind why you are in
music. “Don’t be distracted from the big idea—keep your artistic goals front
and center. And make sure nothing extraneous or unessential distracts your
audience from your mission.” Make sure the projects and work you take on
reflect your values.
W
Many musicians create their own performance opportunities and develop their
own audiences. Wordless Music Series (WMS) in New York City is a great example.
The brainchild of Ronen Givoney, the series presents innovative postrock and elec-
tronica acts with classical musicians at a number of venues, notably Le Poisson
Rouge, an intimate flexible-seat venue multimedia art cabaret.
A rocker who got turned on to classical, Givoney created a series to “demon-
strate that the various boundaries and genre distinctions segregating music today—
popular and classical; uptown and downtown; high art and low—are artificial
constructions in need of dismantling.”10
The series’ first concert brought two musicians from the group Wilco together
with the pianist Jenny Lin, who played works by Ligeti, Shostakovich, and Elliott
Sharp. Lauded in the press, the series has garnered a strong following, introducing
listeners from both rock and the classical worlds to composers that they might not
otherwise encounter. In 2008, the series presented the first American performance
of Radiohead-fame Jonny Greenwood’s “Popcorn Superhet Receiver,” for string
orchestra, on a program with music by John Adams and Gavin Bryars.
V
8. Communicate what makes you distinctive. In order to get bookings,

media attention, and an audience, you will need to be able to communicate
what is special about you and your music making. What is your singular view-
point? Do you perform any specialized or unusual repertoire? Have you given
concerts in unusual settings? This topic is covered in depth in chapter 3.
W
Cellist Reinmar Seidler had given a few concerts in South America and wanted
to follow up on these opportunities. In order to increase his marketability and ex-
pand the scope of his touring, he put together a promotional kit to send to pro-
spective concert presenters and music schools. The kit included detailed descriptions
of lecture demonstrations and clinics he could offer on early music performance
practices for string players and healthy physical approaches to performing (exam-
ple shown in chapter 3). He offered a distinctive package and it resulted in more
bookings as well as more college-level teaching experience for his résumé.
V
9. Have both short-term 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 each month or each week, will help keep
you focused and motivated. Meeting short-term goals is the best way to work
toward your long-term dream. At the end of each chapter there are practical
prompts to help you determine your next short-term goals and action steps.
10. Feed your soul. How do you recharge and renew your creativity?
What inspires you? Pay attention to what helps recharge your imagination
and what helps keep your spirit alive. Whether you rebalance by attending
to your spirituality, your family life, favorite hobbies, or by communing
with nature, make sure that you are taking good care of your spirit.
Remind yourself of why you got involved in music in the first place.
Your most basic reasons for being in music are crucial factors to keep you
moving forward in your career. Keeping tabs on your motivation—on the
essence of what music means to you—should help sustain you throughout
your career.
W
On Inspiration
Israeli composer Lior Navok gave a presentation at New England Conserva-
tory several years ago and spoke about creativity and motivation. In his talk, Lior
described the drive that musicians have—the creative internal fire—and he likened
it to a small gold box. It’s something absolutely personal and irreplaceable in each
of us, a precious gift that we need to safeguard. Lior’s image of the gold box is
powerful—it can serve as a reminder of our mission. His metaphor itself is a gift:
when you conjure it, you may also find it has a centering and motivating effect.
V
Advancing in your career involves fine-tuning your goals, assessing

your strengths, and discovering and exploring new opportunities. The kind
of musician who puts these success principles into action can be described
as an entrepreneur. Cultivate your entrepreneurial skills, and you cultivate
your career.
The Entrepreneurial You X
Musicians do not usually view themselves as entrepreneurs, even though

they are the quintessential “multi-preneurs.” Musicians regularly launch new
ensembles, start their own teaching studios, create record labels, and publish
their own works. A satisfying work life for a successful musician often in-
14 Mapping Success
cludes concurrent start-up ventures. This is just one benefit to being a musi-
cian: the diversity of ways you can contribute to society.
Musicians create their own start-up projects for a variety of reasons.
They may catch the entrepreneurial bug because of frustration with limited
traditional opportunities or because they seek the satisfaction of being in
charge of their own project. They may want additional income or the op-
portunity to perform certain repertoire with particular colleagues. Some-
times entrepreneurship begins with identifying a specific community need
and seeing how a musician’s skills would meet that need.
Boston-based pianist and entrepreneur Sarah Bob had always been inter-
ested in the connections between contemporary visual art and music. In 2000,
she founded the New Gallery Concert Series to present the two arts in dia-
logue. Each concert is presented in collaboration with a corresponding visual
art exhibition at the Community Music Center of Boston, where Sarah is on
faculty. She selects the visual artwork and commissions composers to write
musical responses to it. As of 2008, the series had hosted 26 concerts with over
123 musical compositions, 30 premieres, and hundreds of works by over two
dozen visual artists from around the world. The series includes works that
span the spectrum from classical-contemporary, improvisation, electronic,
jazz, and avant-garde music, paired with sculpture, painting, indoor installa-
tions, photography, and film. (See http://www.newgalleryconcertseries.org.)
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, in 2005, on average, 2,356 people
each day launched their own businesses. Individual proprietorships or busi-
nesses without employees, also known as “lone wolves,” had receipts of $951
billion and made up approximately 78% of the nation’s 26 million-plus
firms.11 Whether you are starting your own ensemble, establishing a private
teaching studio, contracting other musicians for gigs, or marketing and sell-
ing your own CD, you too are being entrepreneurial.
In addition to their musical ability, successful musicians tend to possess
certain entrepreneurial characteristics, personality traits, and other skills.
Not every successful musician has them all, but they often have a high per-
centage. See how many you possess now; subsequent chapters detail how to
develop these skills and cultivate these traits.
Entrepreneurial Checklist
Skills to Manage Your Music Career Personal Qualities for Success
R Interpersonal R Determination
R Writing R Ability to handle rejection
R Public speaking/presentation R Imagination, creativity
R Negotiation R Flexibility, openness to new
ideas
R Budget/finance R Personal integrity

R Teaching R Intellectual curiosity
R Research R Ability to learn from one’s
mistakes
R Publicity R Conscientiousness,
reliability
R Computer R Good follow-through,
detail-oriented
R Grant writing R Interest in others,
willingness to contribute
R Fundraising R Optimism
W
Oboist Jennifer Montbach started Radius Ensemble—a mixed chamber group
with its own concert series—so that she could program the music she wanted and
experiment with reaching a broader audience.
While she was a grad student, Jennifer gained valuable arts administration ex-
perience helping in the start-up of the Boston Modern Orchestra Project, and later
took on a job working in the publicity department for the Boston Symphony Or-
chestra. Through this work, she acquired the necessary skills and professional con-
tacts to launch Radius.
Within its first two seasons, Radius had already received great reviews, created
an impressive website and fan list, and was playing to full houses. In addition to all
the practice and rehearsals, the work involved forming a nonprofit organization,
fundraising, and writing program notes and press releases. The payoff for Jennifer
was seeing her vision realized. (See http://www.radiusensemble.org.)
V
Toni Sikes is the founder of “the Guild,” a company that markets and
sells online original artwork by thousands of artists. For an Arts Enterprise
talk at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, Toni explained that being an
entrepreneur is “not a job title: it’s a state of mind.” And in terms of what’s
necessary to move forward as an entrepreneur, she said people need to be
adept at the following:
1. Dreaming. Do you have a vision? In business schools budding entre-
preneurs are asked, “What’s your ‘BHAG’? The acronym stands for
your Big, Hairy, Audacious Goal.
2. Bootstrapping. Can you take your vision and break it down into
manageable pieces, starting small and working long and hard to bring
your idea to life?
16 Mapping Success
3. Networking. You need to get out and meet people, to gather ideas and
suggestions for your work. Toni says, “Schmoozing is a contact sport: you
need to rub up against others.” (Networking is covered in chapter 2.)
4. The art of pitching. You must be able to communicate an engaging and
concise “pitch” of what you have to offer others.
5. The art of doing. Entrepreneurs have a bias toward action; it’s no good
having great ideas if you don’t act on them. Toni says, “The hardest
thing about starting is starting.”
Project-Based Career Advancement X
Through advising over the years, I have found that musicians often have an
idea in the back of their minds for a special project, something they’ve al-
ways wanted to do, create, or help make happen. What I mean by project
here is a music career-related venture that is concrete and specific. (This is
not a project: “to become the best jazz ukulele player in the Southwest”! That
may be a goal, but it’s not a project.) Projects are focused on doing as op-
posed to being: they have timelines and are task-oriented. Projects can be
anything from researching and applying for grants to study abroad, to start-
ing a reed-making business, writing a teaching methods book, launching a
concert series, or raising money to buy an instrument. Music career projects
demand a range of musical and non-musical skills, and they can be tremen-
dously satisfying to work on and complete.
Unfortunately, musicians often keep their project ideas to themselves.
Worse, they often talk themselves out of pursuing these projects, thinking
they’re too ambitious or too time-consuming. The usual reasons given are a
lack of time, collaborators, and/or funding. This is a shame, because it is
usually these creative project ideas that lead musicians to rewarding and
satisfying career paths.
In fact, most music careers are project-driven. A musician’s contacts and
interests generally lead to a series of short- or longer term projects (such as
commissions, recordings, tours, teaching studios, and ensembles). These
projects, in turn, make up the fabric of most musicians’ artistic careers,
much more than any particular “job.” So learning to manage a project is a
great way to learn to manage your career.
To get started, think about what you’ve been dreaming about doing.
Seek out advice and feedback on the projects you have imagined. If you don’t
at least talk about your project, ask questions, and explore, you’ll never have
the satisfaction of knowing whether it was actually possible. Ask current or
former teachers, alumni, or your music school’s career development staff.
Ask friends and family if they know anyone who has done something simi-
Self-Assessment: Where Are You Now? 17
lar. People realize their dreams by talking about them with others and shar-
ing their enthusiasm—which often leads to more ideas, collaborators, plans,
and action. Do not underestimate the importance of other people; projects
require collaboration, they take a team, if not a village.
Self-Assessment: Where Are You Now? X
In order to map your future, you will need to first orient yourself. Career
advancement involves two kinds of work: the internal and the external. The
internal work involves self-reflection and assessment. The external work in-
volves research and networking. To help with the internal work, here are two
essential questions and some help with finding answers:
What Are Your Strengths?

It can help to write all this down as a list. In what areas do you excel? Be spe-
cific. Think about all aspects of your musicianship in relation to the career
you desire. Performers need to consider their technical performance abilities
and levels, interpretive skills, range and repertoire, and performance experi-
ence. What is your reputation? How would your colleagues and mentors de-
scribe your abilities now? If you teach, what are your specific strengths as an
educator? If you are interested in arts administration and music industry
jobs, what relevant skills and experience do you have at this point? Everybody
should consider their professionalism. Are you known as someone who is
easy to work with, who shows up on time and is well prepared?
What Needs Improving?

We all have weaknesses. Write them down: be specific and honest. If you are
serious about moving ahead in your career, you need to be willing to con-
front what needs changing and then work on making improvements.
Because we are not usually our own best judges, it’s important to get
objective feedback. Make individual appointments with three or four trusted
mentors who know your work well. Ask people whose professional opinions
you value, such as coaches or former teachers. Do not ask loved ones or close
friends—they are biased, and for this you need objectivity. When you make
these appointments, be clear that you are asking for unvarnished feedback
on both your strengths and your weaknesses.
Be prepared for honesty. I recommend writing down everything you
hear in these consultations—both the good and the bad—so you can sort
it all out later. Listen calmly, do not get defensive, and do not make excuses.
In meeting with different people, you may get contradicting input. Take
time to think it all over carefully. It takes maturity to ask for and to process
18 Mapping Success
this kind of critical feedback. Be humble and astute enough to ask for input,
and then use it to improve your work—these are the hallmarks of a com-
mitted professional.
Clarifying Your Intent: What Is It You Want?

So, what exactly is your dream? What is your desired future? I like to ask the
question this way: “If a fairy godmother were to appear suddenly and bonk you
on the head with her magic wand, what would you ask for?” Write down your
answers. What is the life you hope to be living ten years from now? Where
and with whom would you like to be living? Do you see a house, pets, and/or
children in the picture? Detail what you plan to be doing professionally.
Consider how you want to be involved musically in your immediate com-
munity. Be specific and concrete about your future goals because you will
need to think strategically about how to reach them.
Achieving Goals: Getting from Point A to Point B X
Career concerns and questions are essentially about choices: how to spend
time and how to focus one’s energy. Many musicians have difficulty figuring
out the action steps to take to advance their careers. It can be difficult to see
a clear path toward that long-term dream. In order to succeed, musicians
need to break down big goals into manageable smaller pieces.
Backward planning is the secret weapon of wedding planners, corporate
executives, and savvy musicians. The idea is to work in reverse from your de-
sired outcome, making sure you have a manageable timeline with bench-
marking goals along the way to help keep you on track. By breaking down a
big list of responsibilities into manageable weekly tasks, the work is doable
and the stress is minimized. The trick in managing any project is to think
strategically and realistically about what needs to be done and when. It’s great
to have the satisfaction of crossing off tasks on your to-do list at the end of
each week, knowing that you’re that much closer to reaching your goal.
W
Case Study: Determining Short-Term Goals
Suppose that your long-term career goal is to lead your own jazz quartet ten
years from now, playing international tours and releasing your own recordings. You
have started your own band and have played a few local jazz clubs, thanks to con-
tacts through friends.
The question now is, what would help you move forward, toward your long-
term goal? You realize you need to gain more performance experience. So what is
Achieving Goals: Getting from Point A to Point B 19
an appropriate goal to set for the next six months? And what specific action steps
should you take this next week?
A reasonable six-month goal might be to arrange a small regional tour to gain
performance, promotion, and booking experience. How should you get started?
Week 1: First things first. You will need to find where your band could play,
right? This is basic research. You need to find performance venues in nearby cities
that will be appropriate for your music. You can look on the web and talk to other
musicians. You’ll need to keep track of the information you gather—the names, lo-
cations, and contacts of the performance venues. Depending on how busy you are,
this research might be a reasonable task for your first week, because it will involve
both detailed web searching and connecting with colleagues and mentors.
Week 2: Once you have a list of target performance venues, you need to have
promotional materials and a practiced telephone pitch before making calls or send-
ing e-mails.
If the band needs to update its bio, sound clips, or website, this may be an-
other week’s to-do list. These kinds of action steps are described in detail in later
chapters. But for now, we are focusing on how to break down a large goal into
manageable pieces. And the most important piece of any plan is choosing the tasks
you will complete this week: it’s all about getting the work done.
V
Devising Your Career Plan

Goals are dreams with deadlines. Planning ahead drives you toward your
goal. Without long-term goals and the concrete plans to achieve these, we
are at the mercy of all the distractions and immediate concerns of life around
us. The only one who can prioritize your time and energy to meet your
needs is you.
W
“Ever hear about the Harvard study of business school grads? The study moni-
tored graduates of an MBA program from 1979 to 1989. Researchers found that
ten years after graduation the three percent who had written goals were making
10 times as much money as the other 97 percent combined.”
—Annette Richmond, “How to Develop More Effective Short-Term Goals,” on
http://www.career-intelligence.com
Even if financial success is not your top priority, writing down your goals is im-
portant. It serves to help you consciously commit to your goals. It is a powerful
method that focuses your thoughts and energy.
V
20 Mapping Success
Start with writing down your long-term and short-term goals. You can
revise them as you gain more experience. People change, so their goals and
plans need to change with them. You may even find yourself revising your
plan as you read this book and discover more about yourself and the music
industry. That’s fine, because researching and assessing your options is an
important part of career exploration. The next chapters are all designed to
help you fine-tune your career plan, to make it work for you.
Summary
Ultimately, success is about creating a life path that is meaningful. From a
holistic viewpoint, lives and careers are all about process—experimentation
and discovery. It’s up to each individual to make the journey satisfying and
rewarding.
W
Career Forward
Working through these questions will help you move ahead. Writing out your
answers will help with thinking through and committing to your goals.
1. How do you define success?

2. What specifically do you love about music?
3. What specifically do you love about being a musician? (This is not the same as
question 2.)
4. What is your long-term goal? Describe in detail the life you’d like to be leading
ten years from now. Where do you see yourself living? What kinds of work are
you doing? Is there a family or significant other involved? A garden? Pets?
5. What is your short-term goal? To progress toward your long-term goal, what
do you realistically want to accomplish one year from now?
6. What do you want to accomplish this month that will advance you toward
your short-term goal?
7. What’s on your to-do list for this week?
V
2
Cultivating Your
Support Network:
Making Connections,
Building Community
W
In this chapter:
What IS Networking?
Check Your Attitude and Intent
Mapping Your Network
Mailing Lists
Performance Invitations
Elevator Speech
Good Phone
Backstage Dos and Don’ts
How to Work a Room
Hosting a Brainstorming Party
Bonus Section: Interpersonal Skills for Ensembles
V
What IS Networking? X
Musicians commonly have the wrong idea about networking. They mistak-
enly believe that it’s all about self-interest: the “What can you do for me?”
approach, sucking up to important or influential individuals. Unfortunately,
many equate networking with being manipulative or ingratiating. When
viewed this way, most musicians find the idea of networking distasteful.
But networking is actually about creating and nurturing relationships.
It’s developing relationships over time with mutual friends, trusted col-
leagues, fans, and supporters. Some of these relationships are closer than
21
22 Cultivating Your Support Network
others, but we are still talking about real relationships with real people.
Think of your network as your community and your support system.
Most networking happens on a very casual basis. People meet each other
at concerts, schools, town meetings, grocery stores, restaurants, and churches.
We bump into old friends and colleagues, and often get introduced to new
acquaintances. Networking is about being neighborly, interested in others,
and open to making new friends. It’s about connecting with others: sharing
ideas, resources, and experience.
Check Your Attitude and Intent X
“The most important rule of a healthy network is reciprocity,” writes entre-

preneur consultant Pamela Slim, “If you only interact with people in your
network when you want something (a job, leads for your business, help get-
ting out of a jam) you will destroy it faster than you can build it. Healthy
networks are made up of people who truly like and respect each other and
help each other willingly without expecting anything in return. To have
great resources at your disposal, be a great resource!” (See http://www
.escapefromcubiclenation.com)
Having good networking skills means having good interpersonal skills.
We are not born with these; we need to learn them and work at them. Busi-
ness schools provide courses and seminars for students to practice network-
ing, pitching business ideas to investors and “working a room.” Interpersonal
skills are necessary in all fields, but especially in music. Improving your
“people” skills simply starts with becoming more aware of how you interact
with others.
I cannot emphasize this enough: the way you approach someone new—
your words and actions, and the agenda behind these—will determine the out-
come of your networking efforts. Don’t be a taker—the kind of person who is
thinking only of his or her own interests, needs, and ambitions. Be a giver—
the kind of person attuned to the interests of others and who demonstrates a
kindness of spirit and a genuine personal concern for others. Adrian Daly,
Dean of the Cleveland Institute of Music, in an e-mail conversation on this
topic, wrote about “the psychology of our interactions with people.” He recom-
mends “thinking about how our interactions can help us get what we want from
people, by working to give them what they want.” This isn’t a manipulative
game; it’s simply acknowledging the fact that we connect better with others if
we focus on their interests and concerns. After all, it’s very clear to others when
we are being self-serving, ingenuous, or when we have an “agenda.” The best
agenda or mission to adopt is that of contributing positively to your community
and the world. Be a good person: treat everyone with kindness and respect.
Check Your Attitude and Intent 23
Why Do It?
Is getting along with others necessary for success? That depends on how you
define success. We all know of well-paid, acclaimed musicians and great art-
ists whose interpersonal skills leave something to be desired and whose per-
sonal lives are in shambles. Maybe fame and fortune are enough, but most
of us want more: a life that is enriched by good relationships and positive in-
teractions with people. Networking is investing in our own artistic commu-
nity. If it takes a village to raise a child, it takes a community to build a
music career. Nobody does it alone.
On the most practical level, networking is how musicians typically fi nd
out about auditions, jobs, and performance opportunities: it’s word-of-
mouth. In the deceptively small music world, it is especially important to be
a good colleague, to have a good reputation, and to have a network of friends
and contacts. It really is all about the golden rule: if you share useful infor-
mation and leads with others, they will likely return the favor.
W
Guitarist Bob Sullivan has been freelancing since his teens. He estimates that
99 percent of the gigs he is offered come from referrals and networking. Bob has
played everything from pit orchestra gigs to new music premieres and weddings.
His referrals come from colleagues, contractors, conductors, former students, pre-
vious clientele, and personal acquaintances. When Bob gets a call for a gig or
teaching opportunity and he’s overbooked or not interested, he in turn refers this
work to colleagues and qualified students. What goes around comes around.
V
A further reason to network is the simple fact that you need a fan base,
people who will come to your concerts, buy your recordings, contribute to
your projects, introduce you to other influential contacts, and either hire you
or refer you to those who can. But on a more philosophical level, the best rea-
son for networking is to help build a community of supportive friends and
colleagues. Your network should include people who inspire and challenge
you, not just artistically, but as a citizen and a member of a community.
“It is virtually impossible to create forward momentum in your career
without a supportive network of colleagues and friends,” writes Pamela Slim
in her Shortcuts to Rekindle the Fire in Your Career. She goes on to detail the
full value of a network: “The purpose of having a deep and supportive net-
work is to take new, positive steps in your life, broaden your awareness of
opportunities, and provide objective and critical feedback for your ideas
and goals. It is not the volume of people you know that is important; it is the
quality of your relationships.”
W
Networking “No-Nos”
1. “Sucking up”
2. Being pushy
3. Being self-involved
4. Failing to follow up and follow through on leads
5. Having unrealistic expectations
V
Mapping Your Network X
Studies have shown that people “know” between 100 and 1,000 other indi-
viduals, with differing degrees of closeness. If you don’t keep track of these
contacts, or have no organized way to reach these people, you are wasting
one of your most valuable assets: your support system.
To help make the most of your existing network, put it on paper. These
levels of relationship can be represented graphically: draw a set of four con-
centric circles, like the rings of a tree, with you at the center. Consider your
existing relationships, the people in your life. Where would you place them
on the chart?
• Inner circle: approximately five to ten people. These are your closest
mentors, trusted colleagues, and friends, the people you turn to for
career advice. This is your “personal advisory board.”
• Intermediate circle: who else do you know? Include your colleagues,
former teachers, classmates, family friends, neighbors, and maybe
your doctor, dentist, chiropractor, accountant, mechanic, fellow
book club members, or basketball buddies. Be as complete as
possible.
• Outermost circle: these are more casual acquaintances, people who
have “friended” you on a social networking site, those who may have
attended your concerts.
Write the names of the people in your inner circle and as many as you
can think of that belong to your intermediate ring. Here are some questions
to consider:
1. How do you stay in touch with these people?
2. How might you reconnect with those with whom you have lost touch?
3. When was the last time you spoke with the people in your inner circle?
4. What would you like to consult with them about?
Mapping Your Network 25
Outermost Circle
Intermediate Circle
Inner Circle
You
W
Staying in Touch
To stay connected with their network, the Miró Quartet mails out a colorful
holiday newsletter with photos and updates about the group. These include the
latest news about recording and commissioning projects, plus personal milestones:
weddings, birth announcements, baby pictures. The newsletter is fun to read and
helped readers feel personally connected with the group.
Composer Lior Novok is very good at keeping in touch with friends and col-
leagues. When he is planning a visit or concert in their area, he sends an e-mail in-
viting them to his concert or suggesting a get together. Though these e-mails are
targeted to a geographic group in his e-mail address book, the message conveys a
personal invitation. “I’m writing to let you know I’ll be back in Boston next month
and it would be great to see you!” This is how Lior maintains contacts and friend-
ships with people he met ten years ago, though he now lives 3,000 miles away.
V
Reconnecting with Former Colleagues:

Getting Back in Touch
Have you lost track of some people over the years? Thanks to Google and
social media, almost anyone can be found online, and most people like to
reconnect with friends from the past. Reconnecting may lead to new collab-
orations and mutually helpful suggestions and ideas. At the very least, ex-
changing fond memories with old friends is good for the soul.
Check in regularly with your network contacts; send congratulatory

notes, holiday cards, or copies of articles that would interest them. Sarah M.
(below) keeps in touch with many people by e-mail, and when a friend has
gone out of the way to help, she mails cards and, when appropriate, small
gifts or CDs.
W
Sarah M.’s Story (Part 1)
Sarah M., a vocalist who performs contemporary classical music, made an ap-
pointment with me to discuss her wish to find a better teaching position. We dis-
cussed places to look for job openings and ways she might collaborate with other
musicians at various schools for performances and master classes. When we dis-
cussed networking, though, she said she knew no one who could offer her work
and did not see how talking to her friends could help.
I asked Sarah whether she had any friends who taught at colleges in other cit-
ies, and about the possibilities of them inviting her to give master classes, or lecture-
demonstrations at their schools or summer programs. Sarah’s current teaching
position allows her to do occasional exchange concerts or master classes with other
vocalist colleagues at other schools. And these kinds of small-scale initial collabora-
tions may eventually develop into larger opportunities, such as a joint festival or a
teacher exchange. These collaborations can help Sarah build her résumé and repu-
tation. By calling her contacts, reconnecting, finding out what old friends are up to,
and telling people she’s looking for more opportunities, Sarah will not only boost
her morale, but also expand her options.
Networking takes time, but it’s worth it. Sarah is now planning a summer
music institute and collaborating with new colleagues from other schools. This proj-
ect, and her expanding network, may eventually lead to the new position she seeks.
In the meantime, she’s energized and fully engaged, making the most of her per-
forming and teaching opportunities.
V
Mailing Lists X
A mailing list is simply your network put to practical use: to send out invita-
tions and notices about upcoming performances, recordings, or any other
news worth sharing. You need to have an organized way to reach people in
your network and an easy to way to add new contacts. It has never been eas-
ier: social media platforms such as Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, and many
others help people make connections and develop relationships. These sites
can be terrific for inviting people to upcoming shows and announcing news
Mailing Lists 27
about recordings. But using these sites is not enough: musicians need to
have their own mailing list system.
Jazz musicians seeking bookings in clubs are often asked about the size
of their mailing list. A club manager wants to know how many local people
a band can likely draw. A large mailing list is a powerful incentive for a club
manager to book a new group. Whatever the genre, the person organizing
the performance cannot guarantee you an audience. It is part of the musi-
cian’s job to build a fan base. Posters, calendar listings, and season brochures
are not enough. Think about it: you are much more likely to attend a concert
if you know the performer and if you have received a personal invitation.
And concert presenters are much more inclined to invite you back if you
perform well and draw a sizable crowd. So, for purposes of invitations to
performances, it’s important to be able to sort your list by geographic
region.
Having a database of contacts makes it easy to print out labels for concert
invitations and postcard mailings, and for sending out e-newsletters and
fundraising appeals to targeted segments of your network. To build your
mailing list, you need a database program, such as FileMaker Pro or Excel,
and you may want to use an e-mail management system such as those found
on http://www.reverbnation.com, http://mailchimp.com, or http://www
.constantcontact.com. Ask your musician friends for recommendations and
demonstrations of their programs. For your mailing list database, the search-
able fields you want to set up are: first name, last name, e-mail address, street
address, city, state, zip code, country, website, and cell phone. With these
fields, you can search by geographic location, print out mailing labels, and
send e-mail or text invites to either the whole list or any segment as needed.
By having a first and last name field, you can send messages that begin with a
personalized greeting (such as “Dear Tim” or “Dear Christine”). Go through
your current and old address books and your e-mail address lists. You will
want to include everyone in the three concentric circles of your network map.
Make the list as complete as possible.
Also, make sure to add a field for keyword search. By adding a descrip-
tive keyword tag for each entry, you can sort your contacts by who they are
and what they do (your keyword categories might include: festival contacts,
club managers, concert presenters, media professionals, friends, family, and
fans). This allows you to tailor your communications to various segments of
your list.
To enlarge your mailing list, provide a guestbook at your performances
and offer a small thank you gift for anyone who signs up (perhaps a refriger-
ator magnet with your ensemble’s logo or a free download of your music).
Tell people who give you their e-mail addresses that they will receive your
e-newsletter about future performances.
Your mailing list should be opt-in—don’t ever use anyone else’s e-mail
list as your own or add people to your newsletter who haven’t expressly said
they wanted this. Instead, send an invitation to join. Always include an un-
subscribe option. Don’t spam!
W
Sarah M.’s Story (Part 2)
Vocalist Sarah M. started networking: she called three friends with whom she
had previously performed. They were living in three different regions of the coun-
try. They were glad to reconnect with her and were interested in what she was up
to. They had no job leads to offer, but they were very interested in collaborating on
her summer institute project and had ideas for Sarah about finding grant money
and commissions for composers to invite to the institute. Sarah’s friends also had
suggestions for additional people she could contact for more help. So Sarah was
off and running.
V
Performance Invitations X
Once you have a mailing list, you can invite people to your performances.
What do you write? We all are bombarded daily with ads, offers, and invita-
tions. Why are some more effective than others? Think about an upcoming
performance. Imagine inviting someone who is not a musician and who is
unfamiliar with your repertoire. Perhaps this is your local barista, hairstyl-
ist, your landlord, postal worker, or mechanic. You talk fairly regularly, and
they have asked you about your work.
How would you invite this person to the concert? Think about what you
would say in person, and then write it down. Make sure you have the impor-
tant facts about the performance: who, what, when, where, and especially
why! Why are you excited about this particular concert, and why should this
person come to it? Your enthusiasm can be contagious, but you also need to
convey specific details of interest to your prospective audience. The chal-
lenge is to make your invitations engaging and personable.
When you write an e-mail invitation to a segment or all of your mailing
list, write as you would to an individual. Don’t send an impersonal-sound-
ing generic performance announcement, such as “Monthly Performance
Schedule for the 123 Jazz Trio,” with a list of dates. This is not a way to culti-
vate a relationship! If recipients feel “marketed at” or spammed, then you

are doing more harm than good.
Instead, write something more engaging:
Dear Jane: [your segmented mailing list allows you to personalize
the mailings]
We’d love to have you join us next Thursday night, May 2, for the 123
Jazz Trio band debut performance at the Spilled Milk Coffee House in
Woodstock. We’re all fired up to be playing great tunes by Monk and
Charlie Parker, plus new originals from our upcoming CD. We’d love
to see you there! Below are details about the show and directions to
the venue. Let me know if you have any questions.
Your friend,
Tillie Smith
Expanding Your Network: Making New Friends

Networking is about more than cultivating existing relationships—it’s im-
portant to create new ones as well. In discussing with musicians the idea of
making new contacts, I sometimes hear, “I can’t do that, I’m too shy,” or “I
hate making small talk.” But networking is not about being extroverted. You
simply need to be interested in other people, able to talk one-on-one, and
willing to say a bit about yourself and either your project or an upcoming
performance.
Most people do this naturally. Notice your conversation when a friend
introduces you to someone new. You probably ask the new person about
their work, their interests, and where they’re from. And you reciprocate by
sharing something about yourself. If, in the course of the conversation, you
“click,” you can ask to exchange e-mail addresses to arrange a follow-up
contact. This way, a stranger or acquaintance may become, over time, a
trusted colleague, friend, or mentor.
W
Tool for Success: Your Business Card
Professionals carry business cards because they are a simple, inexpensive tool
to make networking easier. Handing someone your business card is a great alterna-
tive to handing out your cell phone number on a soggy cocktail napkin. And a busi-
ness card works much better than trying to memorize an e-mail address that
someone tells you in passing. You can exchange business cards with new contacts
in order to build your mailing list and network.
What goes on your business card? Your name and what you do (e.g., pianist/
teacher, baritone, jazz trumpeter), plus your phone number, e-mail address, and
website. Your postal address is optional. Choose an attractive layout and typeface.
Check for online sources for inexpensive business cards such as http://www.vista
print.com and http://www.iprint.com.
Make sure that your e-mail, website, and any other contact addresses are ap-
propriately professional. Use internet addresses with your name, and stay away
from those that are potentially embarrassing, such as “WorldsBestTenor.com” or
“[email protected].” What you may think of as fun and full of personality
may come across as immature or worse. Ultimately, people need e-mail addresses
that are easy to find and remember, so your first and last name is best.
V
Tip: Ask for Advice

If you are working on a particular project and are looking for contacts with
a particular expertise, don’t overlook the obvious: start with your friends
and colleagues. Ask members of your inner circle for suggestions of people
to contact about your project. Some musicians feel embarrassed at being di-
rect with others about their goals. But if no one knows what you want, or
what you are working toward, how can they help you?
Emerging artists often think that people in positions of power are not
interested in speaking with them. Not true. If they have the time, estab-
lished professionals often enjoy sharing their insights and advice with
emerging artists. And, on the other hand, don’t overlook the people around
you who may have great leads and advice to offer. Also, the alumni office at
your university or conservatory may be a great source for networking
contacts.
Your approach needs to fit the situation. If you’ve just met someone of
influence or who has substantial experience and perspective in the profes-
sion, it is not appropriate to ask right away for an audition, lesson, perfor-
mance opportunity, or job. It’s like asking someone to marry you on a first
date: it’s not advisable. Networking is about developing relationships over
time, not about quickie, one-time transactions.
Informational Interviewing
The method to use for cultivating contacts with people in influential posi-
tions is called informational interviewing. These are appointments you can
set up for the purpose of gaining information and perspective from an indi-
vidual. This is a structured form of networking as a way to make an initial
contact, not to ask for an audition, performance opportunity, or job. How-
ever, this personal contact may eventually lead to a job, audition, or perfor-
mance. So it can be very worthwhile to invest your time in doing informational
interviews.
For those just leaving school, making a career transition, or moving to
a new city, informational interviews can be especially helpful. They are a
tool to expand your professional network, to help you connect with people
who can refer you to resources, ideas, and other contacts.
Start your informational interviewing with the people you already
know: current or former teachers and experienced colleagues. Although
you may see these people often, if you have not had a conversation about
advancing your music career, now’s a great time to start. Make an appoint-
ment to meet and tell your contact in advance that you’d like to get his or
her perspective and advice on your career. The meeting can be done over
coffee or lunch (you pick up the tab). Prepare beforehand the particular
questions you want to ask, tailoring your questions to each individual’s ex-
pertise. Think of this as practice for future meetings with people you do
not already know.
At the very least, the meeting should yield two or three new contacts.
Ask if you can use your colleague’s name when calling or e-mailing these
people. Request a brief appointment (20–30 minutes) in order to ask ques-
tions and gather information about a specific area of interest. I would rec-
ommend making the initial contact (to someone you’ve never met) by
e-mail.
Take care in writing any professional correspondence, even when it is a
quick e-mail. Nothing says “unprofessional” louder than spelling or gram-
matical errors. Proofread carefully. Take the same care with those details as
you do with your music, because your correspondence represents you and
your music. The subject line is important. If you are writing to someone
new who won’t recognize your e-mail address, what you write in the subject
line will often determine whether or not the e-mail is read. Try “Request for
appointment with you to discuss . . . ,” or better yet, use the referring con-
tact’s name “Larry Scripp at NEC suggested I contact you.”
Below is a sample e-mail request for an informational interview. Jane
Smith is an oboist interested in performing with her quintet at local elemen-
tary schools. She is contacting the Massachusetts chapter of the national or-
ganization Young Audiences because they hire musicians for in-school
performances and they have an excellent reputation. Note that Jane is not
asking to be hired (although, eventually, that may be what she wants). She
knows that for now, she needs more experience and wants to develop her
presentation skills. She is requesting an informational interview with the
program officer, Ms. Borg, in order to gain perspective and advice on how to
proceed. Note that each paragraph has a specific purpose, as explained in

the bracketed italics at the start of each paragraph.
W
Subject line: Request for meeting; Larry Scripp referred me to you!
Dear Ms. Borg:
[The first paragraph should establish a connection to the reader by

naming your mutual contact or referral, if you have one, and should estab-
lish why you are writing—to set up a brief meeting in order to gain infor-
mation:] Larry Scripp at New England Conservatory suggested I contact you for
advice and information regarding arts education performance opportunities in K–
12 schools. I would like to arrange a brief informational interview meeting at your
convenience to gain from your knowledge and experience in the field. I read with
interest the information on the Young Audiences website and am impressed with
the range of programs and the artists you make available to schools.
[The second paragraph should establish your credentials: highlight
your most impressive, relevant experience and skills so that the reader will
think it worthwhile to spend time speaking with you.] I am an oboist, and I
teach at the Brookline Music School. My quintet has performed for after-school
programs in Jamaica Plain and West Roxbury, as well as at two community music
schools. I would welcome the opportunity to find out what you feel makes a great
K–12 program and how you’d recommend we work on designing and improving
our school presentations.
[The third paragraph should reassure the reader that you are not look-
ing for work, just feedback, that you will call next week, and that you ap-
preciate the help—be enthusiastic.] I would like to see if we can arrange a brief
meeting at your convenience. Again, I would appreciate any advice you have to
offer, and I look forward to speaking with you.
Sincerely,
Jane Smith
V
Although this may seem very formal, especially for an e-mail, the idea
is that if you are approaching a busy professional and asking for some of
their time and expertise, you need to come across as interested, respectful,
and professional.
Once you have your informational interview scheduled, a little prepara-
tion will help you get the most out of your appointment. For any profes-
sional occasion, you should dress cleanly and neatly. You need not wear a
suit, but you need to be taken seriously as a professional, so look the part
Elevator Speech 33
(jeans and a T-shirt is probably inappropriate). The next section describes

how you might handle the appointment itself.
How should Jane handle her meeting with Liz? She knows she needs to be
conscious of time because Liz is busy. So Jane writes out her key questions in
advance:
What makes a great K–12 performance presentation?
Are there any Young Audiences artists I could meet with or observe?
Do you have any suggestions of resources or organizations that would
help my quintet improve its K–12 presentations?
Everyone in our quintet has private teaching experience, but we have
no classroom experience. Can you suggest any reading materials on
gearing our presentations toward specific curricula and age groups?
The result was Jane had the meeting with Liz and it went great. At the
end of it, Jane made sure she thanked Liz for her time and information. And
when Jane got home, she wrote and mailed a handwritten thank you card.
This is a crucial piece of networking—people need to hear and receive thank
yous. And handwritten ones are especially rare and welcome these days.
Elevator Speech X
When meeting new people more casually, outside of any appointment, it’s
very helpful to have a concise way to introduce yourself and convey what
you do and what you are interested in. Just as Jane did in written form above,
you need to be able to introduce yourself in person. The handy introductory
statement is sometimes referred to as an “elevator speech.”
Imagine this: you walk through an office building lobby and step onto
an elevator. You look over and find you are standing next to a musician or
arts administrator, someone you recognize but have never had the chance to
meet. Now is your chance. As you watch the elevator floor numbers tick by,
you need to figure out what to say!
Instead of panicking and saying nothing, or saying something you later
regret, it’s best to have something you have thought about and practiced. An
elevator speech is not something formal or memorized. Instead, it should be
a set of phrases and content you can use flexibly and comfortably to intro-
duce yourself to others. If you have an elevator speech at the ready, it makes
it much easier to meet people. It should be short: about 30 seconds and no
more than four sentences. It should be conversational and personal, not a
sales pitch. And it should give your conversation partner something to talk
with you about—it should have conversation “openings.”
To break it down, here is what you need to include:

1. Your name and what you do (instrument/voice type, genre).
2. A credential to establish your most relevant background. This might
be a recent performance credit, an ensemble with which you perform,
the recent degree you received, or your teaching or arts administration
position.
3. Next, briefly state your current project or topic area you are exploring.
The person you meet must have a reason to connect with you. You
want them to be able to give you an idea or a contact, so you create a
conversational “volley” to which your partner can respond. You, in
turn, need to be finding out from your companion what she or he is
interested in and what points of interest you may share.
If the conversation is going well and your companion seems inter-
ested, you can carry on with:
4. A specific request, such as to contact this person in the future to set up
a meeting.
Here’s an example of an elevator speech I’ve used: “Hi, I’m Angela
Beeching; I run the Career Services Center at New England Conservatory of
Music [1 and 2 above]. I just wanted to introduce myself because I heard
your performance last month at the X club and I’m a big admirer of your
work!”
[The other person responds favorably, so I go on with:]
“I write on musicians’ career issues and am working on an article about
music entrepreneurs for ABC publication. I’d love to do a short phone inter-
view with you about your XYZ project. Do you think I could e-mail you and
set up a time to talk? [3–4].”
Look again at Jane’s letter above. Her second paragraph was a concise
“elevator speech” in written form that she could easily adapt for an elevator
meeting with Liz:
Hi—I’m Jane Smith, an oboist, and I teach at the Brookline Music
School. I wanted to introduce myself to you, Ms. Borg. I recognize
you from the Young Audiences website—I’m so glad for this chance to
meet you! I have a woodwind quintet and we’ve performed for after-
school programs in Jamaica Plain and West Roxbury, and we love this
kind of work. We’re interested in learning how to improve our educa-
tional programs. Do you think I could arrange to meet with you in the
coming weeks to hear your thoughts and advice?
To put the elevator speech into everyday context, in networking conver-
sations, when you’re asked, “So what are you up to these days?” you should
Good Phone 35
be ready to concisely describe either a project you’re working on or an up-

coming performance.
Good Phone X
For musicians, a surprising amount of work is taken care of by phone: book-

ing calls, negotiating fees, arranging rehearsals, and screening prospective
students. In many cases, musicians make initial contacts with contractors,
conductors, and presenters by phone. Your phone manner and habits are a
critical part of your professional image. Here are some tips for phone success.
Your own voicemail message should sound professional. Some perfor-
mance contractors won’t leave messages offering work unless the recorded
greeting appropriately identifies the musician.
W
Craig T.—a young musician—had a recorded voicemail greeting with loud,
unidentifiable and distorted music that went on far too long before you heard
Craig’s recorded shouting, “WASSUP, WASSUP!?” Although his friends enjoyed
the message, anyone calling Craig with a possible gig or teaching opportunity
would probably hang up, assuming his performing and teaching would be as un-
professional as his voicemail message.
V
When leaving outgoing messages, identify yourself, speak slowly and

clearly, state your purpose for calling, and be concise. Leave your number
twice to make sure the listener can get it; it’s a common courtesy and a big
help to those you call. If you tend to ramble, jot down a few notes before
making the call. “Hello, this is Jane Smith, and I e-mailed you last week to
request an appointment. I will try you again but here’s my number: 617–
555–1212. Again, it’s Jane Smith and I look forward to speaking with you!
617–555–1212.” Even if you’re the one returning a call, leave your phone
number (and don’t rattle it off quickly). Make it easy for people to return
your call.
Courtesy and respect go a long way. Especially if you are calling some-
one at home, ask, “Is this a convenient time to talk?” Offer to call back at
another time if they sound harried or under pressure. And always thank
people for returning your calls, answering your questions, or giving you
contacts. When playing “phone tag” becomes frustrating, do not leave a
testy-sounding message.
Check your phone voice—call into your own voicemail and leave a
message for yourself. Listen back for volume, pitch, and articulation. You
may have a habit of speaking too loudly or of mumbling. Ask a colleague for
honest feedback and modulate your speaking voice as needed.
Mind Your Manners

When placing a call, first greet the person, then immediately identify your-
self: “Hello [or Good afternoon], this is [your name]. I’m trying to reach
Ms. Smith.” Telemarketers often use the enthusiastic, “Hi Jane! How are you
today?” before identifying themselves. It is a ploy to get the unsuspecting
engaged in the conversation with a stranger, and it puts people on guard, so
don’t do it.
Here are some more common sense phone reminders:
• Do not chew gum, eat, or drink while on the phone.
• Turn off your radio, stereo, and television.
• Do not use slang or “colorful” language in business conversations.
• Do not work on the computer while you talk to someone.
• Do not talk on the phone while in a restroom.
• Never check messages, text, or take a call while in a face-to-face
meeting with another person.
• Turn your cell phone off during all meetings, rehearsals, concerts, and
social gatherings.
Backstage Dos and Don’ts X
It’s unavoidable: at post-concert receptions, all musicians deal with net-

working. Unfortunately, this is when musicians’ behavior can be less than
stellar. Some artists hate to go to their own concert receptions because they
feel uncomfortable talking with strangers and with non-musicians.
A cultural gap often divides casual concertgoers from performers, espe-
cially classical musicians. Perhaps because of all the hours spent alone in
practice rooms, musicians may be unaccustomed to the social graces. And
socializing exclusively with other performers can exacerbate the awkward-
ness of conversing with non-musicians.
Attitude is important. At one extreme, I’ve overheard musicians, while
talking among themselves, refer to their audiences with condescension and
even contempt. Musicians sometimes speak as though these appreciative yet
musically unsophisticated people are unworthy of the performance and of
meeting the performers afterward. These kinds of sentiments contribute to
the elitist perception of classical and jazz music. Even though no musician
would openly behave this way toward well wishers, many musicians may
think as such—and their attitudes are damaging.
Backstage Dos and Don’ts 37
In contrast, singer/songwriters and contemporary folk artists typically

often have excellent rapport with audiences and fans. At concerts, during
breaks between sets, performers invite audiences to meet with them and
mention that they’ll be available to sign CDs after the concert. I have at-
tended showcases and performances in which musicians say, with obvious
sincerity to their audience, “I’d love to talk with you afterward” and then
tell them where the reception will be.
So check your attitude. At the most basic level, music is about commu-
nication and sharing. Not every audience is knowledgeable about your art,
so some well-wishers may not use the right musical terminology when they
converse with you after the concert. Who cares? These people have made a
positive connection with your music and with you. If you want people to
connect to your music, connecting with you is part of this. People who at-
tend concerts and like what they hear are naturally curious about the musi-
cians: what they are like as people, what makes them tick. People go backstage
and to receptions to learn more about the performers and to show their ap-
preciation for the concert.
Non-musicians are often fascinated by instruments, your training, your
rehearsal technique, and your typical workday. They are intrigued by musi-
cians’ discipline, memorization, improvisation, and onstage communica-
tion among members of an ensemble. It’s an exotic world to non-musicians.
Be prepared to entertain a wide range of questions.
After your own concerts, you need to accept compliments graciously no
matter what you may think privately. You may be obsessing over a messed up
passage or how your intonation, tempo, or articulation was really #%&* in
that movement. Keep your private assessment of your performance to your-
self. Avoid quashing anyone else’s appreciation of your performance. Accept
their congratulations: you have earned it.
Your backstage behavior is part of your professional image. If the per-
formance was booked as part of a concert series, the presenter may under-
standably consider the reception an important part of the artist’s engagement.
Artists who interact well with the audience members, donors, and board
members help build audiences for themselves, for the particular concert se-
ries, and for the art form in general.
When attending other people’s concerts you enjoy, you too should go
backstage and offer your congratulations. Musicians love to hear colleagues
say what they specifically enjoyed about their performance. Rather than
hearing “Great job,” emerging artists in particular may prefer to hear specif-
ics, such as, “I especially loved the range of tone colors you used in the sec-
ond movement” or “I was so impressed by the effect of that incredibly quiet
section in the third piece.” Tell the performer or composer which moments
stood out for you and why. They will definitely appreciate it.
If you go to a concert given by someone with whom you would like to
have a subsequent, in-depth conversation, then go backstage and offer your
congratulations. Say what you found particularly compelling and what you
especially admired about their performance. Should you get a receptive re-
sponse, continue with, “If you have some time in the next few weeks [or be-
fore you leave town], I would really like to speak with you briefly about . . .
[be realistic, specific, and appropriate].” The worst thing that can happen is
they will say they are too busy. Depending on what you seek, they may refer
you to another person or resource, but they may also say, “Sure, send me an
e-mail; here’s my card.” Note: don’t hand them your card expecting them to
contact you. This is a matter of respect and deference; since you’re the one
asking, you should do the contacting. Ask the other person if you may call
or e-mail them and if you may have their card.
How to Work a Room X
Imagine you are attending a large post-concert reception or a professional

conference (such as Chamber Music America, the Classical Singer Conven-
tion, or South by Southwest conference). Whatever the specifics, you are
faced with a room full of strangers. You may think, “There may be some
people here who would have useful career information or contacts for me.”
But then you may wonder, “How can I talk to strangers when my mother
always told me not to?” Read on; here are a dozen tips for “working a
room.”
1. Observe. Look around. Are there people you know? Where is the food
and drink? Are there other people who are by themselves? (You might want
to strike up a conversation with one of them later.) Also look for conversa-
tion groups of three or more that you might join later. Do not worry about
whom to talk with yet: just get your bearings.
2. Use positive self-talk. We each make our own reality—what we tell
ourselves determines what we perceive and how we feel. If you are nervous,
you may have these kinds of thoughts playing in your head: “This looks
awful,” “I wore the wrong thing,” “No one looks friendly,” or “I can’t wait to
get out of here.” Replace these negative messages with positive and realistic
statements. You can choose to think, “These are people I have something in
common with; they are musicians and music lovers,” “Other people here
feel just as awkward as I do,” “I may feel a little nervous but it doesn’t show,”
or “This is an opportunity to make a new acquaintance and have an inter-
How to Work a Room 39
esting conversation.” Do yourself a favor and keep your self-talk positive.

This goes for networking as well as for performing!
W
The former Santa Barbara–based ensemble Anacapa String Quartet ended up
with a sponsor for their first CD through good post-concert “schmoozing.” It
started with a woman who approached them at one of their concert receptions
and asked if she could buy their CD. The quartet told her they didn’t have one—
that they didn’t yet have the funds to make a recording. The woman liked the group
so much she ended up helping them finance the CD!
V
4. Be approachable. Be open and friendly; stand up straight, smile, and

make eye contact. You need to circulate: people will not approach you if you
are sitting. To avoid the soggy handshake syndrome, hold your drink in
your left hand so you can shake with a dry right.
5. Strike up conversations with people waiting in line for drinks or name
tags. If you’re waiting in line to check in, it’s easy to ask the person in front
or behind you where they are from and how they heard about the event.
Most people welcome a bit of friendly ice-breaking conversation. A pleasant
or wry comment about the weather, the food, your surroundings, or about
the event you are attending may lead to an interesting conversation. For top-
ics, play it safe: avoid politics, religion, and sex (until you know your conver-
sation partner very well).
6. Use conversation openers. Ask open-ended questions, such as “What
do you think about the. . . . [performance, speech, workshop]?” as opposed
to yes or no questions. Ask questions that show your interest in the other
person’s perspective.
7. Approach groups of three or more. Do not interrupt a twosome—it may
be a very personal conversation. But a group of people smiling and displaying
easygoing body language are good to approach. As you approach a group,
stand a little off to the side, smile, and try making eye contact with one person.
If they smile in return, then when there’s a pause in the conversation, ask,
“May I join you?” and introduce yourself. If you do not get the eye contact at
the edge of a group, just move on and try elsewhere. The only way to get good
at this is by doing it.
8. Reintroduce yourself to people you have met before. Start with a famil-
iar face. If you cannot remember a name, simply say, “Hi, I know we’ve met
before, I’m Jane Smith, [shake their hand] and you are . . . ?”
9. Get unstuck. Sometimes you find yourself talking to someone who

latches on to you and you need to escape. There are tactful exit lines to use:
“Sorry, I need to find . . . [the event organizer, ladies room, or the person my
friend mentioned would be here]. It’s been so nice meeting you. Have a good
evening!”
10. Exchange business cards when you have reason to. Write yourself a
note on the back of the card reminding you where you met the person and
what your intended follow-up action will be. Did you offer to send someone
information? Did someone say it was fine to e-mail them to arrange an ap-
pointment or referral? Writing a note on the back of the person’s card will
help you remember to do the right thing.
11. Be realistic about networking. An initial chance meeting will not
yield a job offer or a performance opportunity. But it may lead to setting up
an informational interview or an e-mail exchange of referrals to other con-
tacts, organizations, or resources. At a two-hour networking event, you
should probably expect to talk to five to seven people and maybe have one or
two substantive conversations. Networking is not about instant
gratification.
12. Follow through. If you say you will call, send an article, or leave a
message for someone, do so. Your promise and your word need to be good.
It’s the mark of a professional.
Hosting a Brainstorming Party X
One other great way to get more out of your network is to harness the brain
power of your closest group of supporters. Popular author and career coun-
selor Barbara Sher, who wrote Wishcraft: How to Get What You Really Want,
and Live the Life You Love, originated the success team approach. This in-
volves forming a career support group that meets regularly, once or twice a
month. Members give support, contacts, advice, and hold each other ac-
countable for work they promise to do before the next meeting.
I recommend a variation on this approach: hosting your own brain-
storming party. The object is to use the collective brainpower of a group of
your colleagues and friends to generate ideas and possible action steps to-
ward a specific goal. Here are guidelines:
1. You will first need a clear directive: a specific project for which you
want feedback. It might be launching your own performance series or
festival. Perhaps you want to book a mini-tour of performances in
your region. You need to have a specific project in mind, clear enough
so that your team can generate useful ideas.
2. Invite five to seven people who know you well, are supportive, and
whose opinions and perspective you value. This group may include
people from your inner and intermediate network circles. Include non-
musicians—they will offer a wider perspective and diverse ideas. It is
best not to include your spouse or partner because he or she may
inadvertently inhibit the brainstorming. It can be hard for those
closest to you to entertain a range of new ideas, because they are
personally invested. Most likely, you already discuss your career goals,
and the point of the brainstorming party is to gather new ideas.
3. Invite your team to your home for a good meal, and make it clear in
advance that after you eat, your guests will be put to work. A weekend
brunch can work well for this. After clearing the dishes, have everyone
sit in a circle and get a volunteer to take notes.
4. Remember: there is no such thing as a bad or crazy idea; all sugges-
tions get written down. The trick is not to censor or inhibit ideas; let
them fly. Suggestions that at first seem impossible or ridiculous often
lead to some of the most creative solutions. Don’t worry about funding
or other practical issues that may stifle creative brainstorming; the
important thing is to fire up people’s imaginations. Don’t interrupt
with “Yeah, but . . .” or “I already tried that” or “That would never
work.” Be quiet and let the ideas flow, even if you have to bite your
own tongue. Remain positive and open-minded.
5. At the end of the party, you will have pages of ideas to consider—far
more than you can implement. But the discussion should provide you
with energy, a fresh outlook, and unexpected leads. Afterward, send
thank you notes to every member of your team.
6. You will need to comb through your options and think how to
proceed. And you may want to enlist the support of your team to
make preliminary project plans. This can be a great way to launch a
new venture.
Bonus Section: Interpersonal Skills for Ensembles X
Because musicians so often play in ensembles, here are some specific recom-
mendations. Whether you are putting together a jazz trio, new music collec-
tive, or a string quartet, there are some essential points to consider. In order
to launch and manage your group successfully, you need to consider your
choice of collaborators, individual and collective goals, and work styles.
The Right Person for the Job

Choose your partners carefully. In his excellent article for Musician’s Atlas,
“How Bands Die,” psychologist/musician Mike Jolkovski writes, “Joining a
band with someone is a combination of marrying them, fighting alongside
them in a war, and being trapped in an elevator with them. Soon you will
have heard every joke they know at least six times, and you will be (over) ex-
posed to the way they talk, drive, eat, and smell.”1
Your criteria for selecting ensemble members must include more than
simply how well they play. You need to find people who can learn new reper-
toire quickly, who are open to new ideas, and who can both give and receive
constructive feedback. Furthermore, members need to have one or more of
the non-musical skills necessary to run the group. These include adminis-
trative, computer, financial, and networking skills. And of course, groups
need members with enthusiasm, patience, and humor.
Jolkovski offers this: “A good rule of thumb is that if you would pick
someone to go camping with in bad weather with inadequate gear and not
enough food, they might be a good person for your band.”2 Prima donnas
spell disaster for ensembles. The most successful groups have members that
are sensitive to the feelings of others and who are able to set aside their own
egos to direct their energies toward the efforts of the group. For stability and
growth, groups need members with personalities that complement and bal-
ance those of their colleagues.
Taking Care of Business

Unless your group is totally leader-driven, ensembles typically divide up the
administrative and management duties. If one member of the group ends up
handling all administrative and logistical tasks, this person will, inevitably,
become resentful. In the long run, the groups that survive are those that
have effectively divided the workload among the members.
Make the most of each member’s strengths. The most charming and
extroverted person should probably be the one to make phone calls and act
as liaison with concert series presenters and club managers. Think about
who is good with computers, with writing, and with finances. To stay on
track, members need clearly defined roles and projects. Groups also need to
have regularly scheduled business meetings—always held separately from
rehearsals. Weekly meetings keep people updated and accountable to each
other. Shared responsibilities build a shared commitment.
“Decide who has the ‘vision’ of how the group will develop,” advises jazz
bandleader Lucinda Ellert. “Is it a democracy, or is this your own baby?”
Whether you choose a leadership/authority style management or a more
democratic nonhierarchical one, each has its advantages and challenges.
Most classical groups adopt a shared responsibility model, meaning

that each member, at times, will be in a leadership role. The group may rely
on a particular member for leadership in specific matters, but each mem-
ber of the group has a voice and a vote in the group decisions. In contrast,
most jazz ensembles are leader-driven, with the leader/composer writing
or composing the majority of the works, and with the other players most
often deferring to the vision of the leader but contributing their artistry
and ideas to that vision. Unlike string quartets, most jazz ensembles are
not full-time commitments, so players are often, at any given time, mem-
bers of multiple bands or projects and working on a range of their own and
others’ projects.
Whatever the model, unless all the members of a group share in the vi-
sion, there will be difficulties. For some members, the ensemble may be top
priority; for others, it may be just another casual gig. In order to adhere to a
rehearsal and performance schedule, each group member needs to make a
commitment to the ensemble. So, it’s crucial that groups discuss goals and
expectations. For groups just getting started, a good tactic is to arrange for
an upcoming performance or to enter a competition. This can be an essen-
tial motivating force, giving the group something to work toward and some-
thing to solidify the group identity and work habits.
Working Well Together

Your ensemble needs to develop effective rehearsal habits. In the excellent
Chamber Music America brochure, Can This Marriage Be Saved? Interper-
sonal and Organizational Guidelines for Ensembles, authors Janice Papolos and
Howard Herring conducted in-depth interviews with ten professional cham-
ber groups (including the Tokyo and Emerson Quartets). From these inter-
views, the authors extrapolated some “best practices” and recommendations:
“Everyone interviewed voiced an important rehearsal rule: Try out everyone’s
ideas—with absolute conviction—no matter how off the wall they may sound
at first. Don’t talk it to death beforehand. Play it and then have the discussion.”3
Inevitably, some ensemble members lean toward more nitpicky rehearsing,
whereas others prefer playing through whole sections to get the sense of line
and cohesion. Ensembles ultimately need a balance of both approaches.
As far as rehearsals, the classical groups interviewed in the CMA study
generally rehearsed four to five hours a day, four or five days each week.
Other kinds of groups have varying commitments and work patterns. Some
groups come together only several times a year for intensive rehearsals in
preparation for touring or recording projects. What’s important is that all
the members of the group are in agreement about their commitment and
responsibilities.
No matter what the working structure, group dynamics are always fas-
cinating. If a difficulty arises between you and another ensemble member,
the CMA guide advises “discussing it with that person and NO ONE ELSE!”
If you are unable to resolve the issue, then the two of you should air it openly
with the rest of the group.
People have unconscious habits and sensitivities and have differing tol-
erances for tension within groups. The roles that people tended to play
growing up in their own families (such as the “dutiful child,” “court jester,”
“peacekeeper,” or “black sheep”) are the same ones members typically repli-
cate in adult work group situations. This can be helpful in some cases but
not in others. The challenge for all ensemble musicians is to be able to “get
over ourselves,” our habitual thinking and behavioral patterns, so that we
can see things from our colleagues’ perspectives. That gets at the fundamen-
tal challenge and reward in making music with others: we are given the op-
portunity to be inspired by and to learn from our peers, and we need to be
able “to give as good as we get.”
W
Career Forward
Writing out your responses to these questions and following the prompts will
help you cultivate your network and enhance your interpersonal skills.
1. Who is in your inner networking circle? (Include five to seven of your closest
supporters, mentors, and colleagues.) When was the last time you spoke with
the people in your inner circle? What would you like to consult with them
about?
2. Choose a trusted mentor from your inner circle to contact this week. Arrange
an appointment with your mentor to ask questions about your career plans.
Which person in your list is best suited for this?
3. List the names of other people with whom you have lost track and would like
to reconnect.
4. Start (or update) your mailing list database. Include the names, phone num-
bers, websites, e-mail, postal addresses, and keywords (for segmenting the
types of contacts).
5. What particular area of the music industry or specific skill do you wish to
explore through networking? Which person or organization would be a good
resource? With whom would you like to arrange an informational interview?
6. If you were to host a career brainstorming party, whom would you invite?
What objective would you ask the group to brainstorm about?
V
3
Developing Your
Image: Creating
Promotional Materials
that Work
W
In this chapter:
Who Are You? Bio Basics
Why Promote Yourself? Photos
Brand YOU Promo Kits
What’s Your Type?
V
Who Are You? X
The image that you project consists of everything that contributes to your
reputation. It includes not only the way in which you perform and what your
colleagues think of you but also your professional habits: the way you dress,
return calls, and follow through with plans. The focus of this chapter is on
the components of a promotional toolbox—the pieces necessary for build-
ing a musician’s professional image.
Why Promote Yourself? X
Promotional materials tell the story of who you are and what your music is
about. They are necessary for booking performances, attracting audiences,
and selling CDs. They are crucial components to telling your story well.
The most basic promotional materials musicians need are bios, photos,
and demo recordings. Subsequent chapters will cover recordings and online
promotion; here the focus is on the content of written and visual materials.
45
46 Developing Your Image
The good news is that you can create most of these yourself. Musicians
often ask, “Can’t I just pay someone to do all this for me?” The truth is, whether
you hire professionals or do it yourself, you are still ultimately in charge of the
content and presentation. Whether you work with an artist manager, publicist,
or record label, you need to be an informed and savvy partner in all the deci-
sions about your promotional materials. After all, it’s your career.
Many musicians have negative associations with any form of self-pro-
motion. I have heard musicians describe it as repugnant, as a “necessary
evil.” And I often encounter musicians who ask, “Why can’t the music speak
for itself?”
To put this in perspective, many young performers believe their “job” as
musicians is to practice and perform. Period. Some mistakenly may believe that
once they become accomplished professionals, they will be protected from the
crass world of commerce and the everyday details of handling finances, logis-
tics, and publicity. They may imagine that the details of managing their career
will be handled by their agent—or, perhaps, by a fairy godmother!
Here’s the reality: handling publicity is part of a musician’s job. You are
the best person to tell your story. The challenge lies in creating promotional
materials that effectively communicate who you are and what is distinctive
about you and your music.
Brand YOU X
Branding is a marketing concept from the business world that many arts
organizations and individual musicians have also found useful. Branding is
about clarifying your identity, mission, and reputation. It’s not about having
slick promotional materials or creating a glamorous image. Branding, and
the promotional effort that stems from it, is about articulating your true
self, not putting up a false front. Branding involves communicating with a
targeted audience using effective and consistent messages. It’s about creat-
ing a specific, accurate, and memorable positive impression. In other words,
branding is about identifying your core mission and values, then working
outward to tell others your story.
We each have stories that help define us as individuals, and we can to
choose which of these stories to use in our marketing materials and in our
networking. Think through your past, both musical and non-musical. Sort
through remembered anecdotes, old photos, and concert programs to help
get a sense of what you’d like to communicate about yourself. Think about
what you have done as a musician, what you intend to do, what you value,
and what you have to offer.
On the most basic level, you need to have a distinct brand because oth-
erwise, you are simply just another talented and well-trained performer, one
What’s Your Type? 47
of thousands. Why should anyone take notice? There are simply far too
many good musicians. Without something to distinguish you from all the
others, you are anonymous. So the message here is to think carefully about
yourself, your projects, and your intentions. What is your mission? Do you
perform unusual or noteworthy repertoire? Have you been involved in in-
teresting multimedia or experimental music projects? Have you performed
for interesting charity causes? Your promotional materials should convey
what is distinctive and special about you.
What makes all this worthwhile is that working on your brand and pro-
motional materials should help you clarify your goals and your commit-
ment, and should help you take a good look at where you are now so you can
plan the next appropriate action steps. Ultimately, your music is a form of
communication, a way to contribute positively to the world. Your image and
brand should be an extension of this positive energy.
What’s Your Type? X
The first thing you need in terms of your brand and promotional materials is
a recognizable and consistent typographic “I.D.” The equivalent of a logo, or
what might be called your “letterhead design,” this needs to include your
basic information. That is your name, or your ensemble’s name, instrument/
voice type, genre (if applicable, to clarify), and all your contact details: e-
mail, phone, and social media addresses). To promote yourself effectively,
choose a typeface (the design style of the letters) and a layout that will effi-
ciently and attractively convey a real sense of both you and your music. This
should appear in a consistent format on all your promotional materials: your
website, flyer, postcard, CD cover, and all your correspondence.
Large corporations pay hundreds of thousands of dollars to advertising
firms to design their businesses logos. Think “Coca-Cola” or “Dunkin’ Do-
nuts,” and your mind’s eye will probably conjure up the distinctive typeface
designs of these companies’ logos. You may not have the big bucks to hire a
top-of-the-line graphic designer, but you can create a letterhead design that
looks professional and helps promote your career and your music.
The idea is the same as a logo: by using it consistently, you help readers
remember your name and what you do. Letterhead designs convey a certain
“image” through the choice of typeface. Typeface can communicate all
kinds of personalities and energies. If a picture is worth a thousand words, a
typeface is worth at least 700.
For example, here are alternate designs using different typefaces and
page layouts. The same name, in four different typefaces, reads like four
very different musicians. Each look is professional, yet each communicates a
somewhat different impression of the singer and her music.
What image is being conveyed in each version? Instead of simply noting

your aesthetic preference, notice the nuance of the typeface and the kind of
statement each design communicates. What adjectives would you use to de-
scribe each one? Every typeface has a distinct personality. Typefaces can be
conservative, elegant, traditional, modern, quirky, fun, or stiff. For insight
on typeface, check out the DVD of the fi lm Helvetica, the fascinating and
surprisingly entertaining documentary about the typeface of the same name
and its wide use in design and advertising.
You might be thinking, “But I’m a musician, not a graphic designer!
How am I supposed to create a letterhead design?” Don’t panic: below is a
creative exercise that can make this easy and fun. Simply type your text
(name, instrument or voice type, and contact info) into a new document on
your computer. Then copy and paste this text seven or eight times down the
same page, leaving an inch or so of blank space between each. Next, try out
a different typeface and layout with each so that you have seven or eight
draft designs. Computers come loaded with dozens of typefaces, and you
can buy additional software if needed. Challenge yourself to choose con-
Christine Taylor, jazz vocalist

PO Box 411 Your Favorite City, State 02222 (999) 555-1212
[email protected] • www.christinetaylor.com
(typeface is Britannic Bold)

PO Box 411 • Your Favorite City, State 02222 • (999) 555-1212
[email protected] • www.christinetaylor.com
(typeface is Century Gothic)

[email protected] X www.christinetaylor.com
(typeface is Kudasai)

[email protected] | www.christinetaylor.com
(typeface is Pristina)
Sample letterhead designs

Bio Basics 49
trasting typefaces and formats: see how different you can make each version
look. When you are done, print the page; you may have a different reaction
to your designs on paper than on screen.
Choosing the right letterhead design is not simply a matter of which is
the most eye-catching. Rather, you want the one that best communicates the
image and personality you want to convey. A typeface that you would use for
a party invitation or poster design may not be the best choice for your pro-
fessional transactions. Get feedback from mentors and colleagues. Once you
have chosen your design, use it on all professional correspondence: your bio,
résumé, business cards, website, CD liner notes, and any other career-related
materials requiring your name and contact information. For establishing
and maintaining a consistent image and brand, letterhead design is key.
W
Customize Your Signature
For your e-mail correspondence, you may want to consider using a signature:
an automatic text message that appears at the bottom of each e-mail message you
send. Your signature can be a version of your letterhead design. Use color if you
like; it will help distinguish your signature from the message, but be sure to stick to
the darker, most visible colors.
People sometimes use an inspirational quote at the end of their e-mail signa-
tures. If you decide to do this, choose your quote carefully because it will accom-
pany your name on every e-mail. The quote then becomes part of your image. It
works like an advertising tag line, as in the Bissell vacuum cleaner company’s “Life
is messy; clean it up” and Apple’s “Think different.” My friend and colleague in ca-
reer services at Berklee College of Music, Peter Spellman, uses this quote from Ben-
jamin Disraeli, “As a general rule, the most successful people in life are those who
have the best information.” This is a great quote for Peter because he is dedicated
to connecting musicians with career information.
V
Bio Basics X
The next essential promotional piece in a musician’s professional toolkit is

the bio. Despite the name, a bio is not a biography: it is not a chronicle of
your life history. Rather, a musician’s bio is a marketing piece consisting of
background information written in paragraph form, conveying what is dis-
tinctive and compelling about you and your music.
Bios are used on websites, in concert programs, and for grant and com-
petition applications. They are also used for booking performances and to
attract media attention and audiences to these performances. Bios in pro-
grams give the audience a chance to find out about—and be impressed
with—the performer before she appears on stage. When a bio is part of an

application, it helps selection committees develop a three-dimensional view
of the musician and his work.
Veteran music career advisor John Blanchard, director of alumni affairs
at Manhattan School of Music, recommends thinking of a bio as a “call to
action—inspiring audiences to become loyal fans and ticket-buyers, inspir-
ing concert presenters to book you for their series, inspiring ensemble lead-
ers to engage you as a soloist, inspiring club owners to hire you for their
establishment.” By thinking of bios this way, it becomes clear that they need
to be much more than dry listings of performances, degrees, and teachers.
For people who book artists, a bio is often the initial introduction. Your bio
needs to be compelling enough to motivate the concert presenter reading it on
your website to actually click on and listen to your sound sample. Offline,
printed bios used for booking purposes are typically short: one page (a few para-
graphs) in length, printed on letterhead paper. These may be sent along with a
CD to help pique the reader’s interest enough to put the CD in to listen to it.
Most musicians have several versions of their bio, each tailored for a differ-
ent situation. What an audience member wants in a concert program bio is
different from what a grant selection committee wants or what might interest a
music journalist. What’s more, publications often have strict space limitations,
so it can be helpful to have both short and long versions of your bio. The secret
of writing an effective bio is to approach writing it from your intended readers’
perspective. Put yourself in their shoes: what would they find interesting?
Most musicians use bios that are, unfortunately, just plain boring. They
tend to read like laundry lists of awards, performance credentials, and de-
grees. Many bios give no indication that the musician is an actual person
with interests, passions, and projects. The challenge in writing a bio is to
convey what makes you individual and distinctive.
On the following page is a now outdated version of the cellist Joshua
Roman’s bio, found on his website and on that of his artist management,
Opus 3 Artists, back in March, 2009. Read it to see whether you get a sense
of what his viewpoint on music is and what is distinctive about him. Do you
get a clear message about his mission as an artist? And you may want to
compare it to his current version at http://www.joshuaroman.com.
Let’s analyze this bio. Yes, of course he’s got impressive credits, but take
a look at how the bio is organized. The first paragraph tells us three things
about Joshua. It first gives Joshua a label “Classical Rock Star,” setting up the
reader’s expectation that this will be accounted for in the bio. Then there are
two sweeping statements: that he has a wide-ranging repertoire, and that he
has “an absolute commitment to communicating the essence of the music at
its most organic level.”
Dubbed a “Classical Rock Star” by the press, cellist Joshua Roman has earned a reputation
for performing a wide range of repertoire with an absolute commitment to communicating
the essence of the music at its most organic level.
Since winning the Principal chair in the cello section of the Seattle Symphony at the age of
22, he has become a favorite of Seattle music lovers, with sold out solo and chamber perfor-
mances throughout the city.
When not performing in or in front of a Symphony Orchestra, Joshua is likely to be found
on the stage of a club, performing music as varied as jazz or rock, as well as chamber music
or a solo sonata by Kodaly or Bach. His fearless pursuit of new challenges has led him to ex-
pand his horizons and embark full-time on his growing solo classical career.
His interest in and exploration of new music have led Joshua to work with many composers
in performance of concerti, chamber music, and solo works, including works of his own.
Among the composers with whom Joshua has collaborated are Samuel Adler, Gabriela Lena
Frank, Syd Hodkinson, Aaron Jay Kernis, Paul Schoenfeld, and David Stock.
As a concerto soloist, he has performed with the Seattle Symphony, Spokane Symphony,
Oklahoma City Philharmonic, Cleveland Institute of Music Orchestra, and the Wyoming
Symphony. The 2008/09 season will include, among others, performances with the Edmon-
ton Symphony, Quad City Symphony, Stamford Symphony, and a return to the Seattle Sym-
phony for the premiere of the David Stock Cello Concerto.
In addition to his solo work, Joshua is an avid chamber music performer and has enjoyed
participating in the Seattle Chamber Music Society.
In the spring of 2007 Joshua was named Artistic Director of TownMusic, an experimental
chamber music series at Town Hall in Seattle, which allows him to create programming that
reflects the many influences on his music making. He also has enjoyed collaborations with
musicians such as Sergei Babayan, Earl Carlyss, Franklin Cohen, Desmond Hoebig, Wil-
liam Preucil, Ann Schein, Joaquin Valdepenas, and Christian Zacharias.
Joshua’s desire to communicate takes him beyond diverse concert venues. In the summer of
2006 in response to his own growing awareness of the atrocities in Africa—specifically
Rwanda—he traveled with his violin-playing siblings to Uganda, where they played cham-
ber music in schools, HIV/AIDS centers and displacement camps, bringing a message of
hope through music.
Joshua began playing at the age of three. He studied with Lacy McLarry, concertmaster of
the Oklahoma City Philharmonic, beginning his cello studies on a 1/4 size cello. He played
his first public recital at the age of ten. Homeschooled until the age of 16, when he left to
pursue his musical studies at the Cleveland Institute of Music, Joshua received his Bache-
lor’s Degree in Cello Performance in 2004, studying with Richard Aaron. In 2005 he also
received his Master’s Degree from the CIM, studying with Desmond Hoebig, Principal Cel-
list of the Cleveland Orchestra. Joshua is grateful for the loan of an 1899 cello by Giulio De-
gani of Venice.1
51
This is a tall order for a bio to come through with the details to back all
this up, particularly the fi nal point on communicating the essence of music.
But Joshua Roman’s bio does all this by detailing his interest in performing
in nontraditional spaces, and by describing his repertoire of new works,
commissions, and collaborations. He also has started his own experimental
music concert series. His more traditional repertoire credentials are estab-
lished with the details of his orchestral and concerto soloist experience. As
for his commitment to communicating what music is really about, the para-
graph on Joshua’s humanitarian work in Africa is compelling testimony of
his mission of “bringing a message of hope through music.”
Note the order of the information and the topics covered in each para-
graph, and how that order affects your impression of this musician. Think
about how different your impression of him would be if the bio had begun
with the actual fifth paragraph—the one listing his concerto soloist experi-
ence. Paying attention to these organizational details will help you write a
bio that conveys what is special about you.
Your Bio in Six Easy Steps

This is the quickest method I know for writing an effective bio. Instead of
plunging in and writing a draft or trying to rewrite your existing bio, I rec-
ommend this step-wise approach. In the end, it saves time and yields better
results. Ending up with an engaging bio is worth the effort.
1. Start by making a list of potential items for your bio. This is your raw
material, a compost heap of the ideas and details you might include. List the
following:
• The venues where you have performed: the names of the performance
hall, series, club, or festival, and its city and state (or country if abroad).
Do not list only the venues you feel are important: list them all.
• Detail your community and education work: performances at senior
centers, preschools, hospitals, or other nontraditional venues; these listings
are good to show that you are comfortable with all kinds of audiences.
• Any awards, grants, scholarships, or competitions you have won.
• Recording projects (with repertoire, collaborators, and labels if
applicable).
• Range of your repertoire: list five to eight composers whose works you
perform. Emphasize the less standard composers to showcase the
widest range in your repertoire. List any premieres of new works and
interesting repertoire of upcoming performances.
Bio Basics 53
• Names of the ensembles with which you have performed and the
artists with whom you have collaborated (those with some name
recognition are best to include).
• Quotes from reviews or from letters of recommendation (as long as
you have permission from the letter’s author).
• Interesting musical projects, what you’re especially interested in or
focusing on lately; include upcoming plans.
• Interesting non-musical hobbies and interests, such as causes or
community efforts with which you’ve been involved.
• Unusual biographical anecdotes, such as how or why you chose your
instrument, or any dramatic or unusual story about your training and
decision to become a musician.
• Education information: schools you attended, degrees received, your
well-known teachers, coaches, master classes, and conductors.
At this “composting” stage, do not self-censor; don’t edit out things you
think are not good enough for a bio. Now is the time to just get everything
down; edit later. Forget about the order, or about making sentences and
paragraphs—just make the list. It should be more comprehensive and wide-
ranging than your résumé. Be as inclusive and thorough as possible, because
this is the construction material from which you can build a better bio.
W
Bio Hazard
Bio writing can be a challenge. In writing bios, musicians usually have one of
two problems. Either the writing is overblown and hyperbolic—far too grandiose—
or else it suffers from low self-esteem.
For those that are overblown, the best treatment is to get rid of sweeping
generalizations and unsubstantiated descriptors. Steer clear of comparisons and cli-
chés. Stick to concrete details and facts: where, with whom, and what you have
performed. Delete extravagant adjectives and adverbs.
As for bios afflicted with low self-esteem, the recommended treatment is simi-
lar: stick with concrete, specific details of what you’ve done. Emerging musicians
often feel inadequate: that they are lacking the “right” kinds of credentials. But
paradoxically, these same musicians often leave out some of their best bio material.
They either have forgotten or don’t include the performances, projects, and awards
that they assume are not impressive enough. Do not discount your accomplish-
ments. What may not seem impressive to you is often perceived very differently by
others. The concrete details of your actual experience will help build a comprehen-
sive and positive impression of you as an artist at this point in your career.
V
It is good to keep track of all your career-related credentials, and if you

have not yet done so, this will give you a reason to start. If you can’t remem-
ber where a particular performance occurred, or the name of an award you
won, look it up on the web or ask family and colleagues. Enlist your col-
leagues and friends to help: they can remind you about your accomplish-
ments and give you perspective on how an outsider might view them. This
is also a great excuse to reconnect with former teachers and coaches who
may have the information you seek and would like to hear from you. Keep
your list saved on computer so it can be easily updated.
List any noteworthy personal information, such as how and why you
became an early music enthusiast, or why you specialize in traditional music
of the African Diaspora; write down a description of any unusual hobbies
you have. Can you describe what drives you personally? What is your mis-
sion? What are the projects you have been most invested in?
We each have stories we tell about ourselves (and others tell about us)
that reveal different aspects of our personalities. It is these stories that even-
tually reveal who we are, what we want, and where we are headed. What are
your stories?
W
Word to the Wise
Warning: List only what you have actually done. Do not embellish, exaggerate,
or fabricate, because lies inevitably come back to haunt you. Be accurate and hon-
est in how you present yourself. It is too small a world to risk your reputation.
Don’t worry about what you have or have not done at this point in your career.
Don’t waste time or energy comparing your accomplishments to those of others.
Being envious and competitive is pointless. You are where you are right now: this is
the starting point from which you build your future.
Focus on presenting the credentials and experience you do have. Tell whatever
is most compelling in your story: the goal is to get the reader interested in you and
your music.
V
2. Choose an opener for your bio. Read over your list as though you were
an objective outsider. Circle the top three most impressive or interesting-
sounding items on the list. Bios should grab the reader’s attention immedi-
ately. Your lead may be a quote, a single item, a group of impressive-sounding
awards, or a group of performances at interesting venues. It may be an un-
usual multimedia project you participated in, premieres of new works, or a
research project that led to performances. Whatever you choose, your opener
should not be about your earliest musical experiences, because your bio
Bio Basics 55
should not be in chronological order. Here are sample bio openers, chosen as
leads because they were the most compelling items for these particular en-
sembles and individuals:
“Boston Baked Brass first drew national media attention during the
running of the 100th Boston Marathon, when the group performed for
the mid-race wedding of two of the runners.”
“Clarinetist John Q. Public has premiered over 30 works by composers
such as Elliot Carter, Hans Werner Henze, Marc Anthony Turnage,
Ralph Shapey, Michael Finnissy, Sydney Hodkinson and Eric Mandat.
With a repertoire ranging from Mozart, Beethoven, and Brahms to
Corigliano, Boulez, and Ferneyhough, Mr. Public’s eclectic and
innovative programming is redefining the clarinet concert
experience.”
“Violinist Jennifer Liu made her solo debut at age 12 with the Chi-
shien Symphony Orchestra in Kaohsiung, Taiwan, performing Bruch’s
Violin Concerto in G minor. Four years later she became the youngest
soloist ever to appear with the Kaohsiung City Symphony Orchestra,
performing the Mendelssohn concerto.”
3. Group similar items together by topic. Depending on your list, you
might group ensemble performances together, or awards and scholarships,
or community-based performances for children or seniors. But don’t group
items by either year or location, because you do not want to write a chrono-
logical bio. Once you have your groupings, they are easy to turn into topic
paragraphs.
4. Write a draft. The easiest way to do this is to concentrate on one para-
graph at a time, one topic per paragraph. For instance, if your list contains a
grouping of contemporary music performances and premieres, draft a para-
graph focused on the topic of your commitment to new music. With a set of
draft paragraphs, you can then choose an order for these, linking them logi-
cally by using transitions to signal a new topic. For instance, if the previous
paragraph highlighted solo performance experience and the next one is fo-
cused on ensemble work, the new paragraph might start with, “Active as a
collaborative artist as well, Ms. So-and-So has performed with the ABC
Quartet at the 123 Festival in Quebec.” As you write sentences and then
paragraphs, alternate how you refer to yourself (e.g., as Tina Appleton, Ms.
Appleton, and “She”).
5. Back up all general statements with specific examples. If you use a
phrase like “is playing to rave reviews across the United States,” then the
reader understandably expects your bio to include numerous press quotes

from well-known music critics throughout the country. Without these details,
you lose credibility. If you write “has performed recitals in New England and
in the Midwest,” then you must back this up with specifics, such as “on the
ABC concert series in Boston and the XYZ series in Chicago.” If your bio
claims you have a “wide repertoire,” give examples like “repertoire ranging
from Monteverdi to Haydn, and Schumann to Harbison.” Without the details
to back up your generalizations, you will not be convincing. Readers are very
much attuned to advertising messages and “hype.” Concrete details and ex-
amples assure them that you are indeed every bit as accomplished as your bio
indicates. Resist all temptations to write sweeping, grandiose statements.
6. Proofread: Find and fi x the typos, run-on sentences, and grammatical
errors before you send out anything. Read it out loud. Your ear will pick up
many things that your eye will miss. Show your bio to three people, and have
them proofread and edit. It’s not at all unusual for musicians to write five to
seven drafts before finalizing a bio.
W
Bio “Dos”
• Do highlight your most impressive credentials.
• Do write your bio in the third person: use she/he, and Ms./Mr. (not “I”).
• Do be careful how you handle dates. There is no need to include the date of
every award, performance, scholarship, or degree. When things happen is
nowhere near as important as what happened.
• Do include all your contact info in your letterhead design at the top of your
printed bio or PDF version, and double-space the bio text for easier reading.
Bio “Don’ts”
• Don’t write in chronological order! Don’t start with “Jane Doe began her
studies at age three . . .” Unless you are already world-famous, your earliest
musical experiences won’t be all that interesting to your readers.
• Don’t start with your educational credentials—save this for the end of the
bio.
• Don’t use unattributed comparisons: it is presumptuous. Don’t write, “The
best of his generation” or “The most promising and accomplished jazz
guitarist of the decade” unless you are quoting a review or a statement from
a respected and well-known mentor.
• Don’t use clichés such as “unique.” Besides being a cliché, it’s redundant:
each of us is, by definition, an individual, so don’t state the obvious. Avoid
hackneyed phrases such as “critically acclaimed,” “rising star,” and “quickly
establishing herself as one of . . .” and “has had the privilege of studying
Bio Basics 57
under . . .” These are all clichés: they sound trite and mechanical. Don’t try to
“dress up” or “puff up” your bio with fancy words and flowery language. In
the end, it’s the concrete facts of the story itself that make an impression,
not the adjectives.
V
What Makes You Special?

An effective bio contains something memorable that helps fix the artist in
the reader’s mind. It may be your particular (or unusual) repertoire, the
nontraditional performance spaces where you have presented concerts, a
cause you support, a degree outside of music, or a research project. For the
reader, these features help make you distinct from others, memorable and
three-dimensional.
John Blanchard, at Manhattan School of Music, advises that adding in-
formation about your hobbies and interests may be a plus. It can generate
readers’ interest as well as media attention, depending on what you have and
how you present it. Here are some of John’s guidelines:
Boring/Vague Specific/Interesting
“Avid outdoorsman” “200m Gold medal winner in the 2006
Mazda Swim Meet in Denver,
Colorado”
“Likes to read” “Has published an article exploring the
influences of American ‘beat’ poets
on 1960s jazz”
“Collects antiques” “Is the proud owner of several vintage
guitars from the Big Band era,
including a 1939 Gibson L-5 . . .”
“Is married with three children” “ . . . as a volunteer soccer coach, has
led her son’s junior high school team
to two district titles”
The left column has vague, generic statements. The right column has
specific, memorable details. Such details in a bio can bring a musician to life
as a multifaceted human being, not just someone with a series of degrees
and performances.
W
Bios for Ensembles
If you are writing a bio for a band or ensemble, don’t assume that your readers
are familiar with the instrumentation or sound of the group. Not everyone knows
what instruments comprise a brass or woodwind quintet or a piano trio. Describe
the repertoire and the range of sounds your ensemble can deliver in a way that is
engaging and informative.
For example, a brass quartet’s bio includes “delights audiences with their rich,
finely blended sound, and interpretations that range from warm and lyrical to festive
and rousing. Their repertoire includes Renaissance and Baroque music of Gabrieli,
Bach, and Handel, as well as ragtime, Stephen Foster favorites, and gospel arrange-
ments. From its core quartet of two trumpets and two trombones, XYZ Brass can
expand to perform as a quintet or larger ensemble.”
Make clear what your ensemble offers. At the bottom of their bio is: “XYZ
Brass is available for concert presentations, master classes, lecture-demonstrations
for K–12 audiences, as well as for weddings, holiday parties, special events, and
business functions. See www.xyzbrass.com.”
V
As you read musicians’ bios, instead of comparing your credentials to

theirs, read analytically to learn tips on bio construction. Ask yourself, what
stands out in this bio? For individual bios, do you get a real sense of the mu-
sician as a person—her specific musical interests and passions? For ensem-
bles, do you get a real sense of the group—its mission and distinctiveness?
Notice how the bio is structured—is the lead compelling? How is the mate-
rial organized? How does it flow? Is your interest maintained throughout?
Reading analytically to evaluate the effectiveness of other musicians’ pro-
motional pieces will absolutely help you improve your own.
Bio examples are shown on the following pages. The names and contact
information for some of these artists have been changed “to protect the in-
nocent.” However, Kevin Harris’s bio is real (as of 2009), as is that of Second
Wind, although it’s from a few years ago. And those of Rhiannon Banerdt
and Daniel Rios are actual bios as of 2009 during their undergraduate years
(thus their contact information has been “anonymized”). To read more bios
of emerging classical artists, you may want to check the websites for the
Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center Two Artists or any other major
competition or festival that lists bios of young artists. For jazz, you may want
to check out http://www.allaboutjazz.com and http://www.jazzcorner.com.
Vivianne Vocalist, soprano
123 My Street #6 Our Fair City, MA 02115 (617) 555-1212
[email protected]
In the Boston area, soprano Viviane Vocalist has appeared as a soloist with the New
England Conservatory Chorus, the Boston University Women’s Chorus, and the Boston
University Collegium Musicum, performing repertoire ranging from Orff’s Carmina
Burana to the Bach St. Matthew Passion. Ms. Vocalist has also been featured on WCRB
broadcasts as soloist and section leader with St. Paul’s Cathedral Choir. Her recital perfor-
mances have included John Harbison’s Mirabai Songs, the Bach Coffee Cantata, and the Ba-
chianas Brasileiras No. 5 by Villa-Lobos.
As a chorister, Viviane Vocalist has performed with the Choir of Trinity Church, the
Boston University Chamber Singers, and the New England Conservatory Chamber Singers.
Her choral repertoire includes Libby Larsen’s Billy the Kid and Daniel Pinkham’s The White
Raven. She has performed in Symphony Hall, Jordan Hall, the Tsai Performing Arts Center,
and Marsh Chapel.
Pursuing a strong interest in early music, Ms. Vocalist has studied and performed at
the Austro-American Institute in Vienna. Based on her own manuscript research of com-
poser Marianna Martines, a contemporary of Mozart, Viviane Vocalist produced a modern
printed edition of a Martines cantata. Ms. Vocalist performed this cantata at Boston Uni-
versity the following year.
A native of Long Island, Viviane Vocalist is currently pursuing a master’s degree at

New England Conservatory in Boston, studying voice with Carole Haber. Ms. Vocalist re-
ceived her bachelor’s degree in music from Boston University, graduating summa cum laude
and with departmental honors in Voice.
Ms. Vocalist’s upcoming projects include a solo recital at New England Conservatory,
solo appearances with the New England Conservatory Extension Division Youth Chorale,
and a tour of England with St. Paul’s Cathedral Choir. The cathedral choir, with Viviane
Vocalist as a soloist, will be releasing a CD later this year.
[Note on this Bio’s organization: the 1st paragraph topic is solo and recital work; 2nd is
choral work; 3rd is special interests and projects; 4th is home and study; last is upcoming
projects.]
59
Kevin Harris, jazz pianist
www.kevinharrisproject.com [email protected] Cell (617) 738-0116
Jazz pianist Kevin Harris plays a distinctive combination of traditional and contem-
porary music. The native Kentuckian’s compositions and arrangements vary from explo-
sive polyrhythmic pieces to introspective ballads. Harris has performed at the Wang
Theatre, Columbia University, Jordan Hall, Berklee Performance Center, Les Zygomates,
Blue Note New York and Milan, Italy, Wally’s Jazz Café, Scullers, and the Regatta Bar. His
music contains the varied influences of Chopin, Marcus Roberts, Keith Jarrett, Danilo
Perez, and Thelonious Monk.
Harris’ Boston-based trio includes drummer Steve Langone and bassist Kendall Eddy.
Kevin’s first CD, Patient Harvest, was released in 2002; in March of 2007, Harris released his
second CD, entitled The Butterfly Chronicles, and, in 2008 his new CD, Freedom Doxology,
was released at his performances at the Regatta Bar in Cambridge, MA and at the Blue Note
in Milan, Italy.
Kevin holds a Master’s degree in jazz performance from the New England Conservatory
and an undergraduate degree in music education from Morehead State University, KY. At
NEC, he studied with Fred Hersch, Mike Cain, Cecil McBee, George Garzone, and Danilo
Perez, and performed with George Russell, Benny Golson, and Bob Brookmeyer.
After graduating from New England Conservatory in 2000, Harris worked as an ac-
companist for jazz and pop vocal ensembles at Berklee College of Music. That same year,
Harris started five separate band programs with help from “Arts In Progress,” a Boston-
based arts organization. In the summer of 2007, Harris served as jazz piano instructor for
students from Brazil, India, and South Africa during the Northeastern University Fusion
Arts Program. Currently, Harris teaches trumpet, piano, and jazz band at the Cambridge
Friends School and the Charles River School. Harris also teaches privately at his studio in
Boston.
In earlier years, Harris was invited by the mayor of New Orleans to perform for the
Alpha Phi Alpha Forum at the Mahalia Jackson Theater for the Performing Arts in New
Orleans. During high school, he was selected to appear on the nationally broadcast Black
Entertainment Television program Teen Summit, a showcase for U.S. talent.
Committed to community and to getting kids involved in music, Kevin has also con-
ducted instrumental improvisation clinics (K-12) in public and private schools throughout
the nation and in St. Thomas, Virgin Islands. A typical educational performance of Harris’
involves interacting with the audience; he thrives on communication. “Participation,” he
says, “is what keeps our souls alive.”
[2009]
60
Rhiannon Banerdt, violinist
1 String Street, Boston, MA 12345 (617) 555-1212
[email protected]
Violinist Rhiannon Banerdt has performed a wide range of solo and chamber music on
five continents. At age 14, she made her solo debut with the New England Youth Ensemble
in Pietermaritzburg, South Africa, performing Bruch’s Violin Concerto in G minor. The
next year, Ms. Banerdt performed Bach’s Double Violin Concerto with John Banerdt of the
Philadelphia Orchestra in Philadelphia’s Verizon Hall as a winner of Strings International
Music Festival Kimmel Center Competition. She has presented solo and chamber perfor-
mances at the Taos School of Music in Taos, New Mexico, and at the Quartet Program in
Fredonia, Boulder, and Bucknell. Her numerous solo recitals, at venues such as New Eng-
land Conservatory and Walnut Hill School for the Arts, have included works by Bach,
Fauré, Stravinsky, and Szymanowski.
A former member of the Amethyst Piano Trio, Rhiannon Banerdt was selected for the
semifi nals of the 2006 Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition, and the same year
was awarded first prize in the International Chamber Music Ensemble Competition. As
first prize winners, the trio was invited to play at Weill Hall in New York, where their per-
formance was hailed by Edith Eisler, correspondent for Strings Magazine, as “real music-
making—concentrated and deeply felt.”
Ms. Banerdt strives constantly to expand her artistic boundaries by exploring new
music, blurring genre boundaries, and going beyond the conventions of classical perfor-
mance to connect with audiences. Dedicated to the performance of new music as well as
old, Ms. Banerdt has collaborated with a number of composers to present premieres of new
music at New England Conservatory’s Jordan Hall, as well as other venues in the Boston
area. She has performed new works by Malcolm Peyton, Osnat Netzer, Niall Conor-Garcia,
and Chia-Hui Hung. She has also collaborated with such non-classical artists as fiddler
Mark O’Connor and accordionist Cory Pesaturo. In addition, Ms. Banerdt is passionate
about the development of innovative music education and community programs. She is a
member of the newly formed Discovery Ensemble, a chamber orchestra which, in partner-
ship with the City of Boston, will present a series of linked workshops and performances in
Dorchester, an underserved community in the Boston area, throughout the 2008-2009 sea-
son. In an effort to reach a wider audience, she has performed in numerous non-traditional
venues, from libraries, community centers, and schools to street corners and outdoor movie
theaters, and particularly enjoys working with children.
Ms. Banerdt is currently completing an undergraduate degree at the New England
Conservatory, where she studies with Lucy Chapman. Her former teachers have included
Marylou Speaker Churchill and Lyndon Johnston Taylor. She has also coached with Lydia
Artymiw, Edward Dusinberre, Martha Katz, and the Borromeo, Brentano, and Shanghai
string quartets.
[2009]
61
Daniel Rios, oboist
100 Reed Street, Boston, MA 12345 (123) 456-7890 [email protected]
A native of San Antonio, oboist Daniel Rios has performed with many of the area’s
premier musical groups, including the San Antonio Symphony, San Antonio Opera, and the
Olmos Ensemble. It was with the Olmos Ensemble, made up of the principal musicians of
the San Antonio Symphony, that Daniel made his professional chamber music debut at the
age of 14. With the Olmos Ensemble’s founder, oboist Mark Ackerman, Daniel has pre-
sented recitals in San Antonio, with programs ranging from the standard oboe repertoire,
to an early music program, a concert of music for oboe/English horn and organ, and a con-
cert of works by Latin and Texan composers.
In the summer of 2008, Daniel attended the Music Academy of the West in Santa Bar-
bara, where he performed as principal oboist of the Academy Festival Orchestra. While in
Santa Barbara, he played numerous chamber music concerts, giving performances of the
Mozart Oboe Quartet, Poulenc Sextet, and the Poulenc Trio. Mr. Rios also gave a critically
acclaimed performance of the Ballade for Oboe and Piano by Hendrik Andreissen, which
was hailed in the Santa Barbara News Press as “romantic, sensitive and handsomely
played.”
Daniel Rios has had the opportunity to perform with such acclaimed artists as Warren
Jones, John Gibbons, and the Parker Quartet. He has also served as principal oboist of all
the New England Conservatory orchestras, including the conductor-less Chamber Orches-
tra. He currently serves as principal oboist of the Discovery Ensemble, an orchestra whose
mission is to provide music and education to citizens of the Boston area. Upcoming projects
with the ensemble this season include community concerts and educational programs.
Daniel will also perform a solo recital at New England Conservatory, featuring Joseph
Schwantner’s Black Anemones, Francis Poulenc’s Trio for Oboe, Bassoon and Piano, and
Richard Strauss’ Oboe Concerto in D.
Currently residing in Boston, Daniel attends the New England Conservatory, where he
studies with John Ferrillo and Robert Sheena of the Boston Symphony Orchestra.
[2009]
62
Second Wind Recorder Duo
Players Roxanne Layton and Roy Sansom
26 Flett Rd., Belmont, MA 02178
tel (617) 489-3906
[email protected]
The Second Wind Recorder Duo is noted for its virtuosity, musical insight, and wit.
American Recorder praised Roxanne Layton’s and Roy Sansom’s performance as “. . . evoc-
ative, emotional, intense . . . the applause went off the gauge.” Lloyd Schwartz of the Boston
Phoenix described them as “stellar.”
The Second Wind Recorder Duo explores repertoire from the Middle Ages to con-
temporary music, offering imaginative and inventive programming. Their concerts often
include works by Chopin, Telemann, Poulenc, Machaut, Bartok, and C.P.E. Bach, as well
as the players’ original compositions and arrangements.
Since its inception, Second Wind has performed at the early music festivals in Berke-
ley and in Boston, and on the Society for Historically Informed Performance summer
concert series. The duo has toured the Southeast, performing in Atlanta, Jacksonville,
Augusta, and Durham, and has traveled to Australia to teach and perform for the Recor-
der Society of Western Australia and the Recorder Society of Tasmania. As a team, Roy
and Roxanne have also appeared with the New World Symphony, the Utah Opera, and
the Boston Lyric Opera, among others, to critical acclaim. Both Roxanne and Roy are
long-term members of the acclaimed Emmanuel Music, performing in their weekly Bach
cantata series, and they have both recorded for American Gramophone and Koch
International.
Beyond Second Wind engagements, Roxanne Layton has appeared as soloist with the
New Orleans Philharmonic and the Handel & Haydn Society Orchestra in Boston. With
the Mannheim Steamroller, she has toured extensively, with appearances including the
Today show and the Tonight show on NBC, and at two White House Christmas perfor-
mances. Roy Sansom has performed with the Boston Pops Orchestra and the New York
City Opera. His recordings include the Bach Brandenburg Concerto No. 4 and the Monte-
verdi 1610 Vespers, with Boston Baroque on Telarc Records. He has taught and coached for
many workshops and seminars including Mountain Collegium, Pinewoods, and for the
Institute for Historical Dance in Salzburg.
The Second Wind Recorder Duo is available for concert bookings, lecture-demonstra-
tions, master classes, and ensemble coachings. For further information and a demo recording,
call or write to address above.
[2005]
63
Dan Alias, Jazz Guitarist/Composer
1 Main #2 Boston, MA 02115 (617) 555-1212 [email protected] www.hiswebsite.com
A multifaceted musician, Boston-based guitarist and composer Dan Alias has ap-
peared in a wide range of venues, from New York’s CBGB’s to Washington DC’s Kennedy
Center and Boston’s Jordan Hall. Other performances include appearances at the Banff Jazz
Festival in Alberta, Canada, and the South by Southwest Independent Music Conference in
Austin, TX. In recent years, Mr. Alias performed as a member of the New England Conser-
vatory Honors Jazz Ensemble, a select group chosen to represent the Conservatory to the
public through a series of concerts in the Boston area.
Mr. Alias is also active as a performer and interpreter of contemporary classical music.
He worked under the direction of composer Lukas Foss on a performance of Foss’s Para-
digm for Five Instruments at the New England Conservatory. Upcoming projects include an
orchestral performance of John Cage’s Cheap Imitation, under the direction of Stephen
Drury, to be premiered locally at Boston’s Jordan Hall. A recording of the work is to be re-
leased on Mode Records CD series, The Music of John Cage.
Dan Alias is currently completing an undergraduate degree in Jazz Studies at New

England Conservatory in Boston. He has studied privately with artists such as Mick Good-
rick, Danilo Pérez, Jerry Bergonzi, and Charlie Banacos, and has been coached in ensembles
with George Russell, Cecil McBee, and Allan Chase. Mr. Alias has performed in master
classes with guitarist John Abercrombie and bassist William Parker. Dan Alias graduated
with a bachelor’s degree in sociology from the University of Miami, Coral Gables, FL.
64
Bio Basics 65
Bios for Composers and Improvisers:

The Challenge of Describing Your Music
Bios are a challenge for all musicians to write, but especially for composers
and those who improvise. These musicians have the added work of describ-
ing their own music. Elvis Costello famously compared writing about music
to dancing about architecture. Nevertheless, a written description is often
necessary for introducing a composer’s work. A bio should help build a
bridge between a composer and her audience.
Composers and improvisers need descriptions of their music for grant pro-
posals and applications for festivals, grad schools, and artist residencies. This
description should serve as a compelling and distinctive “preview” to help mo-
tivate readers to listen to sound clips, read scores, or come hear the performance.
In networking situations, when people inevitably ask, “What kind of music do
you write?” answering that you write or play “free jazz” or “contemporary clas-
sical” is not specific enough. People want to get a real sense of what your music
is like, especially if they are considering hiring you or commissioning you.
It can help to take a few tips from visual artists: they typically have to
write artist statements that accompany their work at exhibitions, on web-
sites, and for portfolio reviews. At its best, an artist’s statement reads easily,
is informative, and adds to the reader’s understanding of the artist, his in-
tentions, and his work. At its worst, an artist’s statement is difficult to un-
derstand, is pretentious, and irritates rather than informs. Some composers’
descriptions of their work have similar shortcomings.
W
Writing Prompts
To generate material for your description, try answering these questions:
• How would you describe your music to a new acquaintance, someone you
wish to invite to an upcoming performance?
• How have your mentors or colleagues described any of your particular works,
or your work overall?
• What you are reaching for in your compositions? What is it you seek to
realize in your work?
• Instead of writing a description of all your music, try writing a description of
a particular work or project. For example, describing its instrumentation,
form, particular features, techniques used, or the occasion for its
composition.
• What are your sources of inspiration—ideas, writers, visual artists, other
musical or non-musical influences?
• Do you have a specific approach or philosophy toward music?
V
Excerpts from Composer/Improviser Bios

“The instrumental and electroacoustic music of composer Alexandra Gard-
ner combines explorations into the rich details of acoustic sound with a
visceral percussive energy to create dynamic sonic landscapes. Drawing in-
spiration from sources ranging from mythology and contemporary poetry
to her training as a percussionist and collaborations with cutting-edge mu-
sicians and artists, Gardner is building new audiences for contemporary
music with an expressive sound and a flair for the imaginative and unex-
pected.” (http://www.alexandragardner.net)
“Meredith Monk is a composer, singer, director/choreographer and cre-

ator of new opera, music theater works, films and installations. A pioneer in
what is now called ‘extended vocal technique’ and ‘interdisciplinary perfor-
mance,’ Monk creates works that thrive at the intersection of music and
movement, image and object, light and sound in an effort to discover and
weave together new modes of perception. Her groundbreaking exploration
of the voice as an instrument, as an eloquent language in and of itself, ex-
pands the boundaries of musical composition, creating landscapes of sound
that unearth feelings, energies, and memories for which we have no words.
She has alternately been proclaimed as a ‘magician of the voice’ and ‘one of
America’s coolest composers.’ During a career that spans more than 35 years
she has been acclaimed by audiences and critics as a major creative force in
the performing arts.” (http://www.meredithmonk.org)
“Dead Cat Bounce invokes Charles Mingus and the World Saxophone
Quartet with their ‘tightly arranged, swirling contrapuntal reeds and multi-
part, blues n’ roots-infused tricky compositions’ (Jon Garelik, The Boston
Phoenix). Their eclectic approach to rhythm is informed by traditions from
the Caribbean, Deep South, Brazil, Eastern Europe and Detroit. In Dead Cat
Bounce, solo and collective improvisations energetically complement the
poise of its ever-expanding compositional repertoire. According to Dave
Leibman, Dead Cat Bounce ‘does it all with exquisite writing, the subtle use
of a bass-drum rhythm section and above all a definite sense of communica-
tion between the members that I am sure will be apparent to even the casual
listener. These young Boston-based musicians are not just playing music on
the page, but listening and communicating together.’ ” (http://www.dead
catbounce.org)
From singer-songwriter Jonathan Coulton’s sonicbids bio:

“His songs about vengeful nerds, ennui-afflicted clowns, self-loathing
giant squids, and devotees of a certain Swedish prefab furniture store are in-
Photos 67
sanely clever without being too clever for their own good. They repeatedly
lure you into laughing before suddenly breaking your heart. And the sick
part is, you keep coming back. Coulton’s is the voice of every spooky ele-
mentary school kid who could never quite keep his shirt tucked in or shoes
tied; every lovelorn mason and mad scientist; every one of us who has ever
sat despairingly on the floor, surrounded by parts of an Ikea endtable, weep-
ing over our Allen wrenches.” (http://www.jonathancoulton.com)
Photos X
We live in a visually oriented culture, so publicity photos are a must for pro-
fessional musicians. Also referred to as “promo “or “head” shots—or, in the
“old days” of the twentieth century, “8 × 10 glossies”—publicity photos are
used for websites, posters, brochures, CDs, and in seeking media attention.
For singers, headshots are required on résumés at most auditions and
competitions.
Photos are powerful communication tools. We all make snap judgments
based on first impressions. People who see your headshot make assumptions
about you and your music before they ever hear you perform a note. An ef-
fective photo is one that makes a memorable, positive impression and helps
convey your intended image and brand.
W
Tip: Newspaper, magazine, and online arts calendar editors often highlight
selected performances for their “pick of the week” sections. They have limited
space, so from the many performing arts events offered, they can choose only a
few. How do they decide? In part, they select based on the photos, choosing the
most unusual, dynamic, or engaging shots. Do they use conservative, traditional,
head shots? No. An editor wants photos that will cause readers to stop, look, and
read; often, these are images that seem to suggest a story or have some extra dy-
namic element to them. Artists should have an assortment of such photos suitable
for a range of uses. If possible, have both verticals and horizontals (called landscape
shots) available, because editors often select a photo based on the size and shape
space they have left on a page.
V
What Does a Photo Communicate?

Photos create immediate and lasting impressions. They impart a sense of the
individual’s musicianship and personality. Effective photos convey distinct
aspects of a musician’s persona, such as imagination, intelligence, confidence,
and sensitivity. Unfortunately, photos can also communicate a negative image.

We’ve all seen shots that unfortunately suggest that an artist is immature, in-
experienced, arrogant, stiff, or vacuous.
What should you aim for in a publicity photo? Your photo image should
look like you (on a good day) and should communicate a real sense of your
personality—the version of yourself revealed through your music. This is
not about glamour or sex appeal, or trying to look like a fashion model. It’s
about your artistry, your musical personality. What you want is the real you
captured in a photo that is interesting and memorable, and that helps con-
vey what is distinctive about your music.
W
The Adjective Exercise
Browse the websites of any performance series or arts calendar. Look at pic-
tures of musicians you have not yet heard perform. Choose a shot and ask yourself,
based on this photo alone, what do you imagine this musician’s performance will be
like? What adjectives come to mind? Do this exercise with a few friends—it can be
interesting to see how other people view the same photos. This exercise is a warm-
up for helping you determine what you want your next photo to communicate.
On the next pages are samples of musicians’ publicity photos, taken by Boston
photographer Susan Wilson (http://www.susanwilsonphoto.com), Atlanta-based
photographer Angela Morris (http://www.angelaphotography.com), and the New
York City–based photographer Jeff Fasano (http://www.jefffasano.com). Play the
adjective game with them: what words would you use to describe the sense you
get of these musical personalities? What image is being communicated?
V
Choosing a Photographer
In order get an effective promo shot, you need to do your homework. Check
out websites of interesting performing arts series, clubs, or festivals to get a
sense of what’s current for musicians and bands playing music similar to
yours. Browse through local arts events calendars online and in print to see
which promo shots get media attention. You should go through thirty or
more shots to get a sense of the good, the bad, and the unusual.
Choose a photographer whose work you admire. Find professionals who
specialize in musicians’ photos, as opposed to those who shoot yearbooks,
weddings, or babies. Your photographer needs to know the business—what’s
current and what’s getting used in the media. Ask colleagues for referrals,
and when you see a musician’s publicity shot you like, look for the photo
credit to get the name of the photographer.
Photos 69
Baritone Aaron Engebreth (http://www.florestanproject.org/artists/engebreth

.html); photo credit Susan Wilson, http://www.susanwilsonphoto.com
Once you have the referrals, look at the photographers’ work online.
Make sure you find examples you like. Call and talk with the photographers
to see whether you feel at ease with them. A good photo reveals your genuine
personality, so you need to feel at home with your photographer in order for
a head shot to reflect the real you.
Jennifer Stumm, violist

(http://www
.jenniferstumm.com);
photo credit:
Angela Morris
http://www
.angelaphotography.com
Imani Winds (http://www.imaniwinds.com); photo credit Jeff Fasano,

http://www.jefffasano.com
W
Is Hiring a Pro Necessary?
Musicians often ask if they really need to hire a professional photographer.
They want to save money by having a talented relative, friend, or colleague take
their photo. Susan Wilson, one of Boston’s top musician’s photographers, addresses
this question on her website (http://www.susanwilsonphoto.com). “When you hire
a pro, you’re not just hiring a person with a more expensive camera than your Uncle
Fred. You’re hiring someone who knows how to make you (or whatever the subject
is) look awesome, using an artistic eye, an ability to put the subject at ease, and the
technical skill to give you a riveting image that everyone will notice. You’re hiring
someone who can take your vision of yourself (or of the subject you want shot),
and mold it into something eye-catching, truthful, and new. If those things don’t
matter to you, phone Uncle Fred immediately.”
Photos 71
Good professional publicity photos have a specific look, most often the result
of years of the photographer’s training and experience. Can people tell the differ-
ence between a professional-quality shot and something less than? Absolutely.
Moreover, when you hire a professional, you are paying for the expertise that will
produce more good shots per appointment time. Overall, it’s a smart investment.
V
Costs
For a professional photo shoot in Boston, as of 2010, you can expect to spend
between $350 and $700 (more if you are a duo or a larger ensemble) al-
though “photographers of the stars” will charge over $1,000. Make sure you
know what your session fee covers, because hidden costs can add up. Discuss
all fees in detail in advance to avoid any confusion or misunderstanding
about the bill. Your photographer should take a minimum of 100 shots
(preferably more for an ensemble in diverse poses and at different angles.
The more pictures your photographer takes, the more options you will have.
Check on how many shots are included in the fee. Ask about retouching and
the cost of a finished master shot. With most photographers, you are paying
for the creation of the photos (skill and expertise), an agreed amount of
time for the shoot and delivery of the final product, a print or scan of select
images, the reproduction rights for use of the images, plus all expenses in-
volved, such as postproduction digital work and processing. According to
U.S. copyright law, it’s the photographer—not you—who owns the nega-
tives. So make sure you know exactly what you are paying for and what you
should get in return.
Before Your Shoot

Come to your shoot prepared. Determine which types of photos you want:
formal or informal; a head shot, full body, or partial; indoor or outdoor; on
location or using a backdrop; with or without instruments or cases. You’ll
need to make decisions about clothes, hair, makeup, and jewelry. Bring ideas
about lighting, mood, and style. Remember that each of these “minor” de-
tails will be reflected, good or bad, in your final photos. Plan for getting two
types of shots: one formal and one less so, with changes of clothing, lighting,
and mood.
W
Tip: Photographer Susan Wilson recommends bringing along “reference
shots.” These are photos of yourself that you either love or hate. Be ready to explain
why. This is so your photographer will know that, for instance, you cannot stand
how your nose looks from a certain angle or that you are self-conscious about your
chins. If your photographer knows what you want, you will have a much better
chance of being satisfied with the results. Show samples of other musicians’ promo
shots you like for their mood, composition, or lighting.
Before the shoot, Susan also suggests making a list of adjectives describing
what traits you want to your photo to convey (serious, self-assured, creative, intro-
spective, etc.). Be specific about how you want to come across. Your photographer
cannot read your mind, so you need to make sure to effectively communicate the
image you want your photo to convey.
V
What to Wear
In terms of attire, we are not always the best judge of which colors, cuts, and
designs are most flattering for our body type. Get advice from someone with
professional experience. The “personal shopper” staff, available by appoint-
ment at most upscale department stores, can be very helpful for advising.
Bring several changes of clothes to your shoot—two formal (one all black)
and one semi-casual. Make sure your outfit projects your intended image. In-
clude clothes that you would actually wear in performance and also clothes
that appropriately reflect “you.” Stick to solid colors; black is flattering to most
people. Wear minimal jewelry (take off watches) so that your face remains the
primarily focus. Keep it simple: your publicity photo is not a fashion ad.
For print and online purposes, it can be helpful to have both black-and-
white and color options. With digital photography, you can get photos shot in
color and then processed into black-and-white as needed. Note that flattering,
bright colors show up as grays when translated into black-and-white photos.
The “you” in your photos should be consistent with how you appear
when you perform. If you always wear glasses in concerts, wear them in your
photos. (Your photographer will have a much easier time if your glasses are
non-glare or if you can pop the lenses out for the shoot.)
Regarding makeup: many women opt to have a professional do their
makeup before a photo shoot. You can get made up at a department store
counter for free (or for the cost of a lipstick). But do ask your makeup artist
to tread lightly; you want a light, natural look so that you are still easily rec-
ognizable without makeup.
W
Tips for Your Shoot
• Get a good night’s sleep the night before; it makes a big difference.
• Get everything ready the day before (clothes chosen, cleaned, and pressed)
so that the day of your shoot is easy.
Photos 73
• Arrange for a stress-free morning and an easy commute so that you can be
relaxed and focused at the shoot. The camera reads whatever is on your
mind—really!
Bring the following with you:

• Comb and brush
• Lip balm (helps to keep your lips from sticking to your teeth while you smile)
• Powder from a compact; this is handy to cover the shine on your nose that
will come from being under the lights.
• A friend and/or recordings to play during the shoot to help you relax.
V
During the Photo Shoot

A good photographer will begin the session by asking questions to help you
get the results you desire. Tell your photographer how you plan to use the
photos (for a CD cover, online, for print media). By talking with you before
the shoot, the photographer will also get a sense of you as a photo subject;
this is important in determining how best to photograph you. Describe
again the professional image you want your photos to communicate (and
make sure you have thought all this through in advance so that you can ar-
ticulate it clearly).
In photos, your thoughts (or lack thereof) are readable on your face.
During the shoot, in order to have a compelling expression, you need to have
something going on behind your eyes. As a musician, you have vibrant sto-
ries to tell through your music: your story-telling skills are part of what you
want your photo to convey. Janice Papolos, author of The Performing Artist’s
Handbook, recommends that during the shoot you think of loved ones, fa-
vorite memories, or a juicy secret. These thoughts evoke real feelings—en-
thusiasm, warmth, and wit—that will show in your expression.
After the Photo Shoot

Depending on how busy your photographer is, it may take a week or so until
you receive your photos. Ask your photographer to recommend particular
shots (in many cases, the photographer will ask that you make the first cut,
then they will help you decide among your favorite images). It can be diffi-
cult to be objective, so make the most of having expert advice.
Once you have chosen the best of your shots, your photographer will
make a “master” final version, with any touch-ups as needed. For the digital
version, you should ask for both a high-resolution fi le (8 × 10 inch, 300 dpi
TIF), suitable for printing and high-quality publications, as well as a well as
a low-resolution fi le (8 × 10 inch, 72–150 dpi JPEG), suitable for websites
and e-mailing (these won’t overload someone’s e-mail or crash their server).
If you want hard copies, your photographer can print an 8 × 10 master. It’s
generally not necessary to send a print anymore, however, because most of
the mass reproduction labs are happy to work from your high-res digital fi le,
which you can mail on a CD or upload on their FTP site. These photo repro-
duction shops specialize in quantity photos for discounted rates. Look for
package deals for less than two dollars per 8 × 10. Ask your photographer for
referrals. A second option—which is great if you have an active website—is
to have your new publicity photos downloadable for clients in both high-
and low-resolution formats. The photos you send out or make available for
promotional purposes (hard copy or electronic) should be labeled appropri-
ately. You should also, whenever possible, make sure to include the photo
credit (such as “Photo by Patricia Smith”).
Promo Kits X
With a letterhead design, bio, and photo, you now have the beginnings of a
promo kit. Musicians put their electronic promo kits (EPKs) on their web-
sites to make it easy for others to download photos and information for
booking purposes. Components of your kit may also be useful in applying
for grants and teaching jobs. It is particularly helpful to have PDF files of
your text-based documents, such as your bio, so that the formatting and
typefaces appear as you intend. For an easy way to have your EPK immedi-
ately available online and accessible to all, check out http://reverbnation.
com and http://www.sonicbids.com, which you can use in conjunction with
your existing website, social networking sites, or as a stand-alone.
The Extras
On the following pages are descriptions and examples of additional promo-
tional pieces useful to musicians. When choosing which additional promo
kit items to create, think of your intended recipients. In assembling materi-
als for a competition, grant, or for booking performances, tailor your mate-
rials appropriately for the intended recipients.
• Letters of recommendation: These can be extremely helpful for emerging

artists. Ask mentors if they would consider writing you letters of
recommendation. One way to go about this is to request feedback on
your demo recording. If the response is enthusiastic, ask your listeners if
they might offer testimonial quotes or letters for your kit. If you have
performed for a concert series, club, or festival and the organizer’s
response was positive, ask for a letter. A strong recommendation from a
Promo Kits 75
fellow presenter can be a powerful incentive for someone else to consider

booking you. Just make sure you get permission before using anyone’s
letter or quote in your promo materials.
• Quote sheet: Once you have acquired several letters of recommenda-
tion from presenters and mentors, consolidate the best excerpts into a
single document. Musicians often have difficulty choosing the best
sound bites. Get advice and suggestions from experienced PR profes-
sionals. If you do not have PR contacts, this is a great opportunity to
find them through networking. And when you have reviews, include
the best quotes along with the names of the publications (and the
reviewers’ names if they are well known).
• Rep list: Anyone considering booking you will want to know what
music you have to offer. Applications for competitions, festivals,
grants, and teaching jobs often require repertoire lists. Classical
performers use repertoire lists, what nonclassical performers usually
call play lists—these are simply listings of the works you have per-
formed and have available. Works are presented alphabetically by the
composer’s last name on the left and the titles on the right. Composers
promoting their own music use “work lists,” with titles, instrumenta-
tion, dates completed, and timings. Bands that play multiple genres
should organize the play lists by genre category. Ensembles also often
list originals in one category and covers or jazz standards in another.
For classical instrumentalists, it can be helpful to organize works into
“Solo Repertoire,” “Chamber Music,” and “Concerto Repertoire.” Singers
typically divide their repertoire into categories such as opera roles, musical
theater roles, and recital rep. Art song repertoire can be segmented by
languages.
A variation of a standard repertoire list is a version that lists the
selected repertoire and projects available for the coming season. Such lists
can be titled (with the appropriate date) “Repertoire Available: 2014–2015.”
Creating or updating your rep list can give you a boost of confi-
dence as you survey all that you have performed and have to offer.
Working on your list is also helpful for future planning, as you can
identify the works you would like to add next.
• Available programs showcase one or more full concert program you
can offer, listing the work titles, movements, composers, and their
dates. Interesting or unusual programming can be one of the best ways
for emerging artists to win the attention of presenters, audiences, and
the media. You may have an interesting idea for combining works not
traditionally heard, or you might offer a program with an innovative
theme, multimedia work, or premiere.
• Recent engagements detail where you or your ensemble has performed.

List performance venues without dates, in order of most prestigious to
least. Include the name of venue (the hall, festival, or club), with city
and state (and country, if international). A variation on this is an
“Upcoming Engagements” list, detailing venues already booked for the
upcoming season (with dates included). For those just getting started,
these lists may be ideas to consider for the future as you gain more
experience and credentials.
• Media: highlight any reviews or articles that have been written about
you or your ensemble. If you have had any media attention, include it in
your kit (JPEGs or photocopies as applicable)—people who book
concerts want to know if you have drawn media attention. Reviews can
be hard to come by, but there are other types of media coverage you can
include: previews of performances, calendar listings, blog postings by
influential writers, and award notices. Include human interest pieces
that feature you, whether for your music or for other community work,
an unusual hobby, or anything else interesting and positive.
To present these pieces well, cut out the original article along with
the publication’s banner (its name and location) and the date the piece
ran. Resize the banner and article separately on an 8–1/2 × 11 sheet of
paper to create a balanced presentation. This will become your master
copy. You can then scan the document to create a JPEG and add it to
your electronic press kit. When hard copies are needed, you can make
photocopies and direct the reader’s attention to the juiciest portions by
using a highlighter on the copies (not on the original). Another option is
to identify the best quotes, enlarge them on a photocopier, and paste
these on top of the article, so that both the publication’s name and a
portion of the article are still visible, but the pullout quote is most promi-
nent. This can also be scanned and converted into a JPEG for use online.
• Workshops: In addition to mainstage performances, you may wish to
offer additional programming. These days, presenters are particularly
interested in artists who can offer audience engagement activities such
as clinics, master classes, workshops, and pre- or post-concert talks.
Create a page describing your presentations.
Kitchen Table Test

This is adapted from the excellent presentations of arts consultant Deborah
Obalil. She recommends that before you put together your own kit, you first gather
examples of other professional musicians’ promo materials. Visit your local per-
Promo Kits 77
forming arts centers and other venues; pick up flyers, postcards, and brochures ad-
vertising upcoming performances. These typically have photos, a few quotes, and
a short bio. Shuffle them in among your own existing materials and spread every-
thing out on your kitchen table. Pick up one item at a time and examine it. Do a
mini-analysis on each for the following:
Ability to speak to the heart

Consistency of image (in use of language and tone, typeface, other visuals)
Focus toward a specific audience
Magnetism—how and why does it attract your attention?
Deborah says, “The real value of the kitchen table test is to learn how to stand
out from the crowd. By looking at all the materials in one place, you can quickly see
what cuts through the clutter and what doesn’t. Then, looking more in depth at
those pieces that stand out, you can discover how to make your own materials
more effective.” (See http://www.obalil.com.)
V
• Flyers, one-sheets, or postcards: Single-sheet flyers or postcards can be

useful to provide a quick overview or introduction to an ensemble,
band, or soloist. Flyer fronts generally have an interesting and inviting
photo of the artist or ensemble, their name, and a few media quotes.
On the reverse, flyers often include a brief bio, additional quotes, and
possibly another photo—often more casual than the one on the front.
You can create flyers using desktop publishing programs, scanning in
your photos, and using a color copier. Engaging a graphic artist friend
or a design student from a local art school can also save you money.
However, postcards can be an affordable and versatile alternative to
flyers. Postcards can be used for mailings, invitations, and inserts for both
performances and recording releases. Postcards typically have an image of
the musician(s) on the front announcing the upcoming performance or
album release, and on the back, details and contact info. Cards can also
include a press quote or bio excerpt. There are many inexpensive printers
online; see http://www.jakprints.com, http://www.1800postcards.com,
and http://www.modernpostcard.com.
Cyber publicist and author Ariel Hyatt recommends 3 × 5 or 4 ×
6 double-sided printed color postcards. In “How to Be Your Own
Publicist,” Ms. Hyatt writes, “They’re more versatile, and a better
investment than the old fashioned 8 × 10 prints. They look great and
professional, and extra postcards not used in press kits can be sent to
people on your mailing list, or you can give them away at gigs.” (See
http://www.arielpublicity.com.)
W
Beyond the Kit
Consider offering promo items for giveaways or sales at performances and on
your web site. Bands regularly sell “merch” emblazoned with their logos. The ter-
rific ensemble eighth blackbird offers a wide variety of fan merchandise bearing
their distinctive “8bb” logo. Fans can buy 8bb boxer shorts, thongs, beer steins,
wall clocks, fridge magnets, messenger bags, as well as T-shirts for toddlers or the
entire family. Offering these items is a way to help build and strengthen a fan base.
On their website, enthusiasts can click on the group’s “store” which is linked to its
cafepress pages (http://www.cafepress.com manufactures the items and handles
the purchase transactions). Groups can also sell these items alongside their CDs
and DVDs at performances. Audiences regularly want to take home a souvenir of a
live concert experience. They want to connect with the artists, and purchasing al-
bums and memorabilia, visiting the group’s website, and subscribing to its e-news-
letter are all good ways to do just that. (See http://www.eighthblackbird.com.)
V
Putting It All Together

After creating individual promotional pieces, you can present them online
as your electronic press kit. There are still occasions, though, when hard
copies of your materials are useful or preferable: at auditions, at booking
conferences, with the media, and in networking situations. Make sure that
your name and contact information—in your chosen letterhead design lay-
out—is on every promo piece. For hard copies, your materials can be orga-
nized into a folder or stapled together as a packet.
For folders, you can use the two-pocket, solid-color folders available at
most office supply stores. On the front, you can design a label with your
name and instrument or voice type, using your consistent letterhead design.
If the inner pocket has slots for this, you can insert your business card. Be-
cause folders are bulky, you may want to, instead, simply create an inexpen-
sive color-copy flyer with your photo and name. Using this as your cover
sheet, you can then slip it into a clear plastic folder or just staple it to your
supplemental materials. Attach your bio, quote sheet, available programs, or
any other appropriate materials. Quantity is unimportant—do not “pad”
your kit. Instead, send only what is relevant to that reader (for example, a
recital series presenter will not be interested in concerto repertoire).
The following pages show sample promo kit items: rep lists, recent en-
gagements, quote sheets, available programs, and workshop lists. They are
included for perusing and analyzing. You may not have or need all these
items. Remember, your promo kit should be tailored to your intended recip-
Promo Kits 79
ient’s interests. Do not worry if you are lacking particular materials; you can
always add them in the future. The point is to make the most of what you
have now and to present it well.
Summary
Your promotional pieces serve as your calling card—they introduce you to
others—so remember that first impressions are lasting ones. Invest the nec-
essary time and effort to create promotional materials that illuminate who
you are and what your music is about. Your materials should reflect your
high standards of professionalism and artistry.
W
Career Forward
Working through these practical suggestions will help you in creating and im-
proving promotional materials.
1. Design six or seven draft versions of your letterhead design using different
typefaces and layouts. Print them out on a single sheet. To help you choose a
final design, get feedback from colleagues and mentors with publicity or
graphic design experience.
2. Write a draft bio using the recommended six-step method outlined in this
chapter. Gear it toward a specific purpose (such as a grant application,
performance program, recital booking, or teaching application).
3. Compare and contrast photos of musicians you have not yet heard perform.
Find them online at a performing arts center website, and choose 6 or 7 to
analyze. What does each photo communicate? Imagine each musician
performing. What adjectives come to mind? Which photos are most effective?
Why?
4. For your next photo shoot, what would you like your headshot to convey? Use
four adjectives.
5. Make a draft of your rep list; include the entire repertoire you have performed
and/or composed. Make sure you carefully check the spelling of all titles and
composer names. Choose the most appropriate categories to highlight the
range of music you have to offer.
6. Do you have letters of recommendation from mentors, coaches, or people
who have booked your concerts? If not, ask the three most appropriate
people. If they have not heard you perform in a while, invite them to an
upcoming concert or send them your latest demo recording and ask for
feedback. This is a great excuse to reconnect with people in your network. If
they respond enthusiastically, request a letter or quote from them.
V
Carl Troubadour, Trumpeter
1 Main St. • Boston, MA 02116 • (617) 555-1212 • [email protected]
Trumpet & Piano Repertoire

Damase, J.M. Hymne
Enesco Legend
Hindemith Sonata
Honegger Intrada
Kennan, K. Sonata
Peeters, F. Sonata
Trumpet & Organ Repertoire

Damase, J.M. Trois Pières Sans Paroles
De La Lande, M.R. Suite
Hovhaness Prayer of Saint Gregory
Pinkham Psalms
Sampson, D. The Mysteries Remain
Trumpet & Soprano Repertoire

Aldrovandini De Torrente
Bach Cantata 51
Bassani, G.B. Quel Che Dice
Conrad, L. The Chariot
The Path
Handel Eternal Source of Light Divine
Let the Bright Seraphim (Samson)
Revenge
The Trumpet’s Loud Clangor
Melani, A. “All’Armi, Pensieri”
Plog, A. Two Scenes
Purcell Thus the Gloomy World
Trumpet Song, from Massaniello
Scarlatti Seven Arias
Su Le Sponde Del Tebro
Vaga Cintia
Example: Repertoire list
80
Sarah Songster, singer/songwriter
Recent Engagements, New England
Clubs (Massachusetts)
Club Passim, Cambridge
Colonial Inn, Concord
Kendall Café, Cambridge
Kevin’s Café, Pepperall
Old Vienna Kaffeehaus, Westborough
Plantation Club, Worcester
Bars / Restaurants / Coffeehouses

Café Pierrot, Milford, NH
The Courtyard, Manchester, NH
Coyote’s, Framingham, MA
Dolphin Striker, Portsmouth, NH
Hermanos, Concord, ME
Jerky’s Café, Providence, RI
The Pickle Barrel, Killington, VT
The Rock, Newport, RI
Sugarloaf Lodge, Sugarloaf, ME
Wellesley Inn, Wellesley, MA
Theaters
The State Theater, Portland, ME
The Ioaka Theater, Exeter, NH
The Strand Theater, Providence, RI
The Music Hall, Portsmouth, NH
ABC Artist Management, 1 Main St. Boston, MA 02116

contact John Doe: tel/fax (617) 555-1212
[email protected]
www. JohnDoeArtists.com
Example: Recent engagements list
81
Second Wind Recorder Duo
Players Roxanne Layton and Roy Sansom
26 Flett Rd., Belmont, MA 02178
tel (617) 489-3906
[email protected]
“The applause meter went off the gauge . . . their personalities also helped set
in relief the lines of a duo by Telemann and shaped the evocative, emotional,
intense Xylophobia . . .”
—American Recorder
“Roy Sansom and Roxanne Layton, recorders, made the piece [Bach
Brandenburg Concerto #4] sound much easier than it is and negotiated the
high tessitura without a hint of shrillness.”
—The Boston Globe
“The recorder players [in the Boston Early Music Festival Orchestra] were
particularly fi ne.”
—The Wall Street Journal
“ . . . stellar . . . sexy recorders (yes, recorders, especially in their undulating

introduction to the duet of the two sirens . . . )”
—Lloyd Schwartz, The Boston Phoenix
“What Second Wind has, in fact, is a rich blend of exquisite technique and
diverse repertoire stretching from 14th century dances to Sansom’s own
compositions and arrangements.”
—Middlesex News
Example: Review quotes
82
Reinmar Seidler, cellist
P.O. Box 548, Boston, MA 02130 • (617) 524–2736 • [email protected]
Available Programs 2011–2012 Season
Program 1
Solo Cello Spanning 3 Centuries
2 Ricercari, for cello solo (1689) D. Gabrielli

Ricercar in C Major
Ricercar in d minor
Suite No. 5 in c minor, for cello solo (ca. 1720) J.S. Bach
Intermission
Suite No. 1 for Solo Cello (1964) Britten
Program 2
Fables and Fantasies for Cello and Piano
Fantasiestücke Schumann
5 Stücke im Volkston
A Fairy Tale Janacek
Capriccio Foss
Intermission
Variations on “Frog He Went a’Courting” Hindemith

Serenade Henze
Tango, Boogie, and Grand Tarantella S. Hodkinson
Sonata Britten
Example: Sample programs
83
Reinmar Seidler, cellist
P.O. Box 548, Boston, MA 02130 • (617) 524–2736 • [email protected]
Selected Workshop Topics
Baroque Performance Practices for the Modern String Instrumentalist

An introduction to the various musical tastes and styles of the Baroque era, designed spe-
cifically for players of “modern” instruments. Includes the art of Rhetoric—music as
“text”—the functions of music in Baroque society, Baroque musical architecture, contrast-
ing national styles, ideals of sonority, and an introduction to 18th-century ornamentation.
The Healthy, Happy Cellist—Techniques for Healthier Playing

Discover how physical tension differs from energetic expression. Explore ways of integrat-
ing rhythm more deeply into the whole body, and learn how to let musical shapes guide
physical response patterns. Clarifies the false dichotomy of “technique” versus “musical-
ity.” Specific practice methods are shared for changing those habits that can make players
uncomfortable.
The Compleat “Basso Continuist”—Baroque ensemble playing for cellists

Explore the musical architecture of 17th- and 18th-century repertoire and its special de-
mands on the continuo player. Develop a sensitivity to harmonic progression and tonal
function in order to shape bass lines powerfully and expressively. Examine both ensemble
and solo repertoires.
Music, Politics and the Visual Arts in Post-Revolutionary Mexico

Multimedia presentation relates the “social-realist” painting, architecture, and mural work
of Diego Rivera, Jose Clement Orozco, and David Alfaro Siqueiros to the symphonic and
chamber music of Silvestre Revueltas and Carlos Chavez, as together they forged a vivid and
politically-charged artistic identity for the new Republic in the 1920s and ‘30s, using folk
elements and consciously non-European techniques.
Example: Workshop offerings
84
4
Expanding
Your Impact:
Making Recordings
W
In this chapter:
Why Record?
The Recording Industry and You
The Entrepreneurial Solution
Legally Yours: Copyright Issues
Licensing Issues
What to Record
How and Where to Record
Artwork and Graphics
How Much? Financing Your Recording
Sales: How to Turn a Profit
Selling Your Music Online
Promoting Your Recording
Getting Reviewed
V
Jenny, a talented pianist and master’s degree candidate, stops by to ask

a question. She is recording a few pieces to submit with her application
for a major competition. She also has a degree recital this spring that
she will have professionally recorded. Jenny asks, “How can I get more
use out of these recordings?”
Jenny’s housemate is Amy, a terrific jazz vocalist with her own band.
Amy has been gigging steadily throughout her student years. She uses
her demo and promo materials when contacting club managers and
festival organizers. She wants to do a full-length album and “shop it
around” to labels. Amy asks, “How can I get a record contract?”
85
86 Expanding Your Impact
Bob stops by and proudly hands me a copy of his new CD, asking
me to listen to it when I have a chance. With his brass quintet last year
he played twenty concerts plus lots of in-school and library educa-
tional performances. “Now that the album is done,” Bob says, “I want
to know how to promote it online, get it reviewed, and use it to get
more gigs. Any ideas?”
These are composites of many conversations I’ve had with musicians over
the years. This chapter is about unpacking answers to questions about re-
cordings.
Emerging musicians often lack information and perspective on the re-
cording industry. Consequently, the path to a successful recording project
can be strewn with unforeseen roadblocks. Many musicians rush in to re-
cording projects without considering key questions. They may spend thou-
sands of dollars making a recording that ends up in boxes, collecting dust in
a closet. Don’t let this happen to you.
Consider realistically what a CD can and cannot do for your career at
this point. Like any endeavor, a recording is an investment of time, energy,
and money. As a rule of thumb, it’s best to ask questions and do research be-
fore you invest. Why do you want to record now? What should you record?
Who is your audience? What do you plan to do with the recording? What
will you need to spend? This chapter is designed to help you evaluate your
options by exploring the why, what, how, and how much of recordings.
Essential to promo kits, recordings are used in booking performances,
for prescreening in auditions, and in applications for competitions, music
schools, and festivals. They are also typically required for grant applications
and college teaching jobs. Musicians make their CDs and DVDs available
for purchase at their performances, on their websites, via online retail sites,
and in a few remaining retail stores. For most musicians, though, recordings
are far more effective and valuable as promotional tools than as a significant
source of income.
Why Record? X
For most musicians, the real reason to record is to express oneself—to create
something new. But before launching into a recording project, think specifi-
cally what you want to achieve. Be clear about your purpose and your expec-
tations. Ask yourself, do you want to:
• Use your recording for applications and auditions?
• Use it as a demo for booking performances?
• Use it in contacting the media, for possible reviews or articles?
• Document your original compositions?

• Sell the recording at performances?
• Sell it online?
• Sell the recording on consignment at local shops?
Clarifying your purpose and goals is an important first step in any large
project. But no matter what your reasons are, you’ll make better decisions
with a basic understanding of the recording industry.
The Recording Industry and You X
Forty years ago, well-established artists and major orchestras had long-
standing recording contracts with major labels. These labels would also reg-
ularly scout for younger talent. In those days, there was a larger audience for
both classical and jazz, and consequently, major labels invested in more art-
ists and released more recordings.
Back then, careers were built and balanced on a “three-legged stool” of
recordings, radio, and touring. Each leg was necessary to support the whole
career. The record labels invested money in promoting their new releases on
radio, in stores, and through their artists’ touring. In the 1950s and ’60s,
there were enough radio stations, concert series, and music critics to sup-
port this system. Ultimately, it made good business sense because there was
a ready audience interested in this music. The New York Times reports that
in the early 1960s, classical music still accounted for 33 percent of all record
sales in the United States. Today, according to the Recording Industry Asso-
ciation of America, classical and jazz record sales each account for about 3
percent of all sales.
Today, file sharing and technology have made it easier than ever to re-
cord and distribute music. Because everyone can and does record, the market
is flooded with recordings. The challenge lies in cutting through the noise to
gain media attention and develop a fan base. Changes in radio technology
and licensing have resulted in fewer opportunities for terrestrial radio play to
reach broad audiences for classical and jazz music. And there is no longer a
clear connection between record label support and touring. It is no longer a
streamlined system; the three-legged stool has become quite wobbly.
The Lowdown on Record Labels

Major Labels
The three biggest labels, as of this writing, are Warner Music Group, Sony
BMG, and Universal Music Group. These are huge, multinational media
conglomerates, and recordings make up just a portion of their business
dealings. These companies put significant amounts of money into market-

ing a small set of superstar musicians of all genres, but generally ones with
immediate name recognition. These are people like Yo-Yo Ma and Renée
Fleming in the classical arena and Wynton Marsalis and Diana Krall in jazz.
A recording project for one of these celebrity artists can cost hundreds of
thousands of dollars. The blockbuster-style promotion campaigns for these
artists’ albums can include full-page newspaper and magazine ads, as well as
billboards, television, and radio ads.
Indie Labels
For the majority of other musicians, working with a record label means
working with one of several thousand indie (independent) labels. Unlike the
majors, most indie labels specialize in one or more specific genre (such as
classical, folk, jazz, or world). Indie labels vary in size from one-person op-
erations to large, competitive companies. Some well-known, large classical
indie labels are Naxos, Harmonia Mundi, Hyperion, and Chandos. Well-
known jazz indie labels include Thirsty Ear, Concord Jazz, the Hat, and Pal-
metto. And there are thousands of smaller indie labels as well. Though
promotional budgets for indie releases are often quite modest in compari-
son to those of the major labels, indie releases are also typically marketed
more strategically to niche audiences.
How a Label Evaluates a Project

If you’re hoping to release an album with an independent label, you
need to do your research. Find out which labels record emerging artists.
Check the websites for these labels, and read about their releases and the
artists. Are you at a similar career stage? Indie labels often have information
on their site about how to contact them with possible recording projects.
Get advice and recommendations from mentors with experience in the re-
cording industry. If you don’t have such contacts, check with your school’s
alumni association and start networking!
If a label decides that you have a marketable product and project, you
might be offered a contract. You may not be used to thinking of your art-
istry—or your music—as a product. But a record contract is a business deal.
The label has to determine if there’s an audience for your album—if it has a
chance at making decent sales. Signing a musician to a contract is a business
investment; the record label is a business and, as such, needs to make a profit
in order to stay in business.
Picture this: an emerging, talented classical artist—with no name recog-
nition and not much performing experience—has a project to record stan-
dard repertoire (Bach, Beethoven, Brahms). There are already six well-known
recordings available of the same repertoire by very established artists, past and
present. So why should any label be interested in this young artist’s project?
Now picture this alternate scenario: an emerging artist has a recording
project of new works by a composer who has captured media attention, or
perhaps a project to record undiscovered gems by an historic composer. In
this case, the project may be of interest to a particular niche audience and
niche indie label. Different labels have different priorities. Do your home-
work, and find out what kinds of projects various labels are interested in.
For example, the Naxos label is well known for its extensive catalog of
composer series recordings. Started as a budget line of high quality CDs,
Naxos now has a huge catalog with many series, including ones dedicated spe-
cifically to guitar, organ, opera, historic performances, contemporary classi-
cal, and jazz. Naxos has frequently signed emerging artists to record the works
of specific composers.
Another label, New World Records is a nonprofit label dedicated to the
proliferation of both new and neglected treasures of American music: classical,
jazz, traditional, and folk. The label’s web site, http://www.newworldrecords
.org, has proposal guidelines for submitting potential recording projects.
In general, labels look for projects with a compelling hook or concept.
The project needs to be of interest to a niche audience, and it needs to have
the potential to attract media attention. Recording project concepts can
range from “New American Works for Solo Clarinet,” to “The Mozart Ef-
fect: Smart Baby Lullabies,” or “Guillaume de Machaut: Motets.” The po-
tential market for the smart baby album is much larger than the other two,
but there probably is a niche audience for each of the other project ideas, de-
pending on the fan base of the performers and their promotion plan.
Do You Really Want a Recording Contract?

Caution: “getting signed” is not all it’s cracked up to be. With the majority
of record label contracts, it is the musician who pays for the recording and
manufacturing of the album and who hires a publicist to promote it. The
label handles the manufacturing, some of the promotion, and the distribu-
tion. In working with a label, musicians relinquish control over most of their
project, including the budget, choice of recording engineer and producer,
promotional campaign, and the bulk of any profits. What do musicians get
in return? They get whatever cachet comes from releasing an album under
the label’s name and whatever assistance the label can offer in terms of dis-
tribution and marketing.
Here’s how the money works: until all of the costs of the manufacturing
and production of the album is made back in sales (recouped), you, the mu-
sician, won’t make a dime. And when you do finally make a profit, it’s a
small percentage of each album’s purchase price. If sales are good, you may
recoup the money you originally invested, and break even—otherwise you
will take a loss.
The effort and money a label puts into marketing your album depends
on the contract, the project, and the label. In some cases, if a tour was part
of the signing deal, then the money made from performing also goes to the
label. And there are cases of musicians recording an album for a label and
the label deciding not to release it. So before signing any contract, have it
thoroughly checked out by an experienced entertainment lawyer. For help
finding such a person, consult the Volunteer Lawyers for the Arts; the VLA
has local chapters nationwide (http://www.vlany.org).
The Entrepreneurial Solution X
The recording industry has undergone massive changes in the past ten years.
Technological advances have upended the old business model. Widespread
downloading and sharing of music fi les has left record labels with dwindling
profits and musicians with a fraction of their earnings. Labels have merged
or gone out of business. Record stores have become obsolete. And as audi-
ences have gravitated to other niche genres, classical and jazz radio pro-
gramming has become scarce.
On the positive side, technology has also made it easy and inexpensive
for musicians to record, promote, and distribute their own music. The
model of an independent, entrepreneurial, and successful musician is
quickly becoming the norm. Today, musicians are taking matters into their
own hands and going the do-it-yourself route. Musicians who release their
own recordings have some specific advantages: they control the project, ar-
tistically and financially, and keep more of the profits, eliminating the need
for the middleman.
There are now companies to help with the production, marketing, and
distribution of your music. Digital retailers, through which you can sell
your tracks and albums, include CDBaby, iTunes, Nimbit, Amazon, and
Magnatune. These services offer far more favorable rates than the old-school
models.
Many musicians have started their own labels or formed cooperatives
with other musicians to start a label. Violinist Gil Shaham’s contract with
Deutsche Grammophon was cancelled after ten years and more than fifteen
albums, so he started his own label, Canary. Cellist David Finckel, of the Em-
erson Quartet, and his wife, pianist Wu Han, started their own label, Artis-
tLed, in 1997. Since then they have recorded and produced thirteen albums,
which they market online at http://www.artistled.com. Flautist Ransom Wil-
Legally Yours: Copyright Issues 91
son’s label, Image Recordings, has released CDs by violinist Joseph Silverstein
and pianist Christopher O’Riley. GM Recordings, founded by composer Gun-
ther Schuller, focuses on jazz, classical, and multigenre works. Other artist-run
labels include composer John Zorn’s Tzadik label, Bang on a Can’s Cantaloupe
Music, violinist Paul Zukofsky’s CP2, pianist Santiago Rodriguez’s Elan
Records, and cellist Matt Haimovitz’s Oxingale records. Since 2003, the Bor-
romeo String Quartet has made recordings of their live performances avail-
able through their Living Archive Project (http://www.livingarchive.org).
Legally Yours: Copyright Issues X
Whether you start your own label or simply record a demo, you need to
consider some essential legal issues. You want to avoid recording anything
you might not legally be able to release.
Copyright is essentially about authorship of original work. Copyright law
provides that the creator of a work owns the rights to it. Technically, copyright
is established automatically when a musical work is created and established in
a tangible form, such as in a recording, score, or lead sheet format. Therefore,
melodies and improvisations (as well as ideas) that are not in a fi xed or tangi-
ble form (written down or recorded) are not copyrightable.
Every musical recording inherently contains two separate and distinct
copyrights. There is the copyright for the musical composition (the piece it-
self, no matter who performs or records it), and then there is the copyright for
the sound recording (a particular performance fixed in tangible form). This
means that if you write a song, you own the copyright for the musical compo-
sition. If you are the performer who records someone else’s song, you own the
copyright for the sound recording (as distinct from the composition). And if
you perform and record your own song, you own both copyrights.
Copyright is designed to help protect your work from unauthorized use by
others. To illustrate, think about how you might feel if you found your record-
ing being used—without your permission and without your being compen-
sated—to sell a product on television. Copyright law is set up to help ensure
that creators of original work receive proper credit and due compensation.
Copyright is actually a bundle of rights. As the owner of a copyright,
you have the exclusive rights to do any of the following:
Make copies of your work (to publish, photocopy, or create multiple
recordings)
Distribute copies of the work (such as selling sheet music or
recordings)
Perform the work (the specifics on performance licensing is detailed in
chapter 6)
Display the work publicly (applies to visual displays of scores)

Make derivative works (such as arrangements and transcriptions)
Each of these rights is distinct and may be administered separately. This

means that as the copyright owner, you can license another person or entity
to use one or more of these rights, such as the right to create an arrangement
of your composition or to use your recording in a TV commercial.
Although copyright is established automatically with the creation of a
work, proof of copyright is established by registering with the Library of Con-
gress Copyright Office. The process to secure your copyright registration is
simple. Go to the U.S. Copyright Office website (http://www.copyright.gov)
and download Form CO with its instructions. Note: the Copyright Office has
done away with the method of offering different forms, like “SR” for sound
recordings; Form CO is the form for all types of works, and you note which
type of work predominates. As of this writing, you can pay $35 online or $50
by mail to register the copyright.
Along with payment, you need to send the properly completed applica-
tion form and two copies of your recording or score. There are helpful FAQs
and downloadable circulars on the copyright office website. Circulars in-
clude updates on both Copyright Office procedure and the law; if you haven’t
registered a work in more than a few months, it is good to reread the relevant
circular to make sure nothing significant has changed.
You may have heard of the “poor man’s” copyright protection method.
This involves sending yourself a copy of your album or your original score by
registered mail through the U.S. Postal Service and keeping the sealed post-
marked envelope as dated proof of authorship. This method is not recom-
mended. Should the copyright be contested and legal action be pursued, an
officially registered copyright is authoritative evidence. More significantly, reg-
istration is a prerequisite for gaining access to the court system to enforce your
copyright; it also entitles a victor to statutory damages and attorneys’ fees.
Licensing Issues X
Think of the Golden Rule. Just as you would want others to respect your
copyright and refrain from unlawful use of your recording, so should you
take pains to respect composers’ copyrights. To record a copyrighted work,
you need to obtain a mechanical license from the copyright holder, usually
the publisher or composer. A mechanical license allows for the manufacture
and distribution of a recording of a work. You need a license to record copy-
righted works whether or not you intend to sell the recording.
However, you do not need a mechanical license if the copyright on the
work has expired. In most cases, works published in the United States before
Licensing Issues 93
1923 are considered “in the public domain” and may be freely recorded,
adapted, sampled, or arranged. In most cases, works published after 1922
but before 1978 are protected for ninety-five years from the date of publica-
tion. As of this writing, copyright protection for works composed on or after
January 1, 1978, generally lasts the life of the composer plus seventy years.
This is just the bare outline of very complicated legislation, so you need to
check the copyright status of any particular work you plan to record (or to
arrange, sample, or perform).
If you plan to record a work that has as yet never been recorded, then
you negotiate the license directly with the copyright holder (the composer
or the publisher) and confirm your agreement with a written contract that
both parties sign. This is usually not a big hurdle. Many composers are en-
thusiastic to have their compositions recorded and will gladly grant you
their permission. If you are not already in contact with the composers whose
works you wish to record, fi nd their contact info online, through their pub-
lisher, or through one of the performing rights organizations (PROs). In the
United States, these are BMI (Broadcast Music, Inc.), ASCAP (American
Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers), and SESAC (Society of Eu-
ropean Stage Authors and Composers). The vast majority of U.S. composers
are registered with either BMI or ASCAP (you can register with only one).
Classical composers seem to gravitate more toward ASCAP, whereas the ma-
jority of jazz composers are with BMI. The staff members at these organiza-
tions are very helpful. They’re advocates for new music and they want you to
perform it, so don’t hesitate to call or e-mail with questions, but note that
there are also very helpful FAQs on their websites.
If a work has already been recorded, the process to license subsequent
recordings is more straightforward. For these, you obtain a compulsory me-
chanical license. The cost for the license is set by Congress, and the fees are
dependent on the length of the work, the number of copies of the recording
planned, and the intended online use. The administrating organization for
mechanical licenses is the Harry Fox Agency (HFA). For current rates, see
http://www.harryfox.com. If you would like to make fewer than 2,500 cop-
ies of your recording as either physical products (CDs, cassettes, or vinyl) or
permanent digital downloads, you can request licenses at the HFA site under
“Songfi le.” Keep in mind that CD manufacturers require proof of mechani-
cal licenses before they will begin work on a client’s recording, so it’s essen-
tial that you obtain the licenses before you record. For more details, see the
FAQ page on the HFA website.
Creative Commons
In recent years, digital technology has made copyright law tremendously
complicated. Many composers and musicians these days are experimenting
with sampling and mashups, using excerpts of other musicians’ recordings

to create sound collages, new works, and parodies. Traditional copyright
does not allow for this creative experimental use of work to be done without
permissions and licensing. Many musicians find the standard copyright
laws too restrictive. The organization Creative Commons provides musi-
cians a range of alternatives.
Creative Commons (CC) licensing enables works to freely circulate on a
legal basis while still preserving the owner’s copyright. CC licensing allows for
legal downloading and file sharing for creative use of original work. Many pop
and rock musicians give their music away online for free or on a “pay what you
will” basis. The idea is to cultivate a sense of community, build fan loyalty, and
allow for co-creative efforts. (See http://www.creativecommons.org.)
W
Creative Partnering with Your Fans
Brooklyn-based singer-songwriter Jonathan Coulton (http://www.jonathan
coulton.com) is an enthusiastic supporter of Creative Commons. He has built a
large fan base for his live shows and recordings. His successful independent online
music business model was profiled in a 2007 New York Times piece, “Sex, Drugs
and Updating Your Blog.”1 Coulton’s example is indicative of the new generation
and its relationship with technology, fans, and the industry. He sells his recordings
on his own websites but also through CDBaby, which places the recordings on the
sites of many online retailers (iTunes, Rhapsody, Amazon, Napster, and more).
Coulton also posts free podcasts and downloads of his music on his website.
He explains why on his site’s FAQ page: “I give away music because I want to make
music, and I can’t make music unless I make money, and I won’t make money un-
less I get heard, and I won’t get heard unless I give away music.” He releases all his
music under an Attribution/Non-Commercial Creative Commons license, which
allows fans to use his music for any nonprofit purpose provided they credit him
and his website. His fans have made videos using his songs and Flickr slide shows
using Creative Commons photographs to accompany Coulton’s music. With Cre-
ative Commons licensing, Jonathan allows and encourages fans to co-create and
collaborate. This helps him build and cultivate his fan base for his live shows and
tours.
V
Whether you use standard copyright or Creative Commons licensing,

make sure you include the appropriate notice on your album cover and disc
label. There are two standard copyright notices to include with recordings.
One covers the sound performances on the recording, indicated by a ! P (for
phonorecord), followed by the year the copyright was established and the
What to Record 95
name of the copyright owner (usually the label). The other copyright notice
covers the text and artwork on your album, indicated by ©, followed by the
year the copyright was established. More flexible legal language may follow,
such as “All rights reserved. Unauthorized duplication is a violation of ap-
plicable laws” or “All rights reserved. Unauthorized copying, reproduction,
hiring, lending, public performance and broadcasting prohibited.” See the
albums in your collection for examples of this language. Also be sure to
credit the composer and any other copyright holders whose work is incorpo-
rated into the album.
Creative Commons licensing is represented with ! cc . Make sure that if
using this you include the appropriate language for the version of the Cre-
ative Commons license you have chosen.
Now, with a basic overview of copyright and licensing, the next ques-
tion is, what repertoire will you choose to record?
What to Record X
Musicians need recordings for different reasons at various career stages, but
the most basic recording a musician needs is a demo. A brief ten- to twenty-
minute demonstration, or demo, recording showcases a musician’s abilities
and repertoire. You can select three or four contrasting short works or move-
ments to highlight your strengths and the range of your repertoire and skills.
The order of your selections should make an interesting contrast of mood,
tempo, and texture.
The first work on your demo should be your best. Competition judges
and concert presenters simply do not have time to listen to everything they
receive. You really have only the first twenty seconds of a recording to create
a great impression and grab your listeners’ attention so that they want to
hear more.
W
Chicago-based clarinetist and composer James Falzone made his first full-
length CD using the edited recording of his master’s degree recital, a program of
his original compositions. James’s music combines elements of jazz, world, and
classical; his works include both scored and improvised material. Although James
sells recordings at his performances, his goal in making the CD was not to make
money. It was an investment in his future career.
Cost-wise, for a professional-quality recording, James got off easy; there was
no studio time involved, because it was an edited recording of a live performance.
He did not pay his collaborating musicians (as friends, they played his recital as a
favor, and he gave them gifts and a great dinner). James paid $80 per hour for the
editing. The bulk of his budget went to professional artwork and printing, manu-
facturing, and packaging.
James’s budget was about $3,500. If this seems high, keep in mind that for a
professional-quality album, independent musicians often spend $6,000–$10,000.
Can recordings be made for much less? Yes, but if you want professional quality—
sound, artwork, liner notes, packaging, promotion, and marketing—you should
expect to invest real money.
For James’s investment of $3,500, what did he gain? James initially sent out
about 100 CDs as promos, and after that, 1 or 2 every month. He sells between 5
and 20 albums at each of his performances. But the real payoff has been in oppor-
tunities and connections. James says, “So many people have heard my music—peo-
ple who would not otherwise. The CD got radio play in Massachusetts, Vermont,
and Illinois, and this led to more gigs. I also sent the CD when I applied for several
teaching jobs [and he landed them] and it gave me a degree of prestige at gigs be-
cause I had a product to sell.”
V
Choosing Repertoire: Four Essential Questions

1. What repertoire do you have ready to record that is polished and at a
professional level? Talk with colleagues and mentors: get honest
feedback.
2. Does this repertoire demonstrate your own individual “voice”? You
should not sound like an imitation of any teacher or favorite recording.
3. Is the repertoire appropriate for your demo needs? If intended for a
competition, does your repertoire meet the requirements? If your
demo is to be used for booking concerts, is the repertoire representa-
tive of what you plan to perform in coming seasons?
4. Is the work you plan to record under copyright protection? If so, you’ll
need to obtain a mechanical license in order to legally record it.
Recordings of live performances can be used effectively as demos. Con-
cert series presenters prefer live recordings, and these are often required for
competitions and grant applications. Live recordings have an adrenaline
edge, an electricity that is absent from studio recordings. When using live
performances as demos, edit out all tuning and adjusting of chairs. The ap-
plause should be edited to fade in and out briefly between works, and the
breaks between movements can be shortened as needed.
W
Learn the Lingo: Glossary of Basic Recording Terms
DAT: Digital audiotape. DAT recorders work by translating sound digitally into
the binary language of numbers: zeros and ones.
What to Record 97
Distributor: Company that distributes recordings to retail outlets. Major labels

have their own distribution companies. There are independent distributors as
well, some large national ones and other smaller regional companies.
Engineer: The skilled professional who transfers your live performance to tape.
Recording engineers choose the appropriate equipment, place mics, check
levels and balance, and may do mixing and editing.
Manufacturer: Company that produces CDs from a master recording; it may
also print and assemble the graphics, and package, shrink-wrap, and ship
CDs to you (or a distributor). Of course you can burn your own CDs, but if
you need them in quantity, use a manufacturer such as Disc Makers.
Master: The first generation of your recording, the original from which
duplicates are made. Note: send out only copies, never your master!
Mastering: The final process after editing to complete a professional-quality
recording. Mastering should be done only by an experienced professional,
usually someone hired specifically just for this step. The mastering engineer
runs the tape through multiple processors to adjust the dynamic range,
equalize or add reverberation, and create consistency from one cut to the next,
conforming to the standards for radio broadcasting and professional labels.
Mixing: The blending of recorded tracks to perfect balance and volume; used
for multitrack recording sessions (in which more than two stereo mics are
being used).
Producer: Person who helps oversee the recording session, listening carefully to
catch whatever the performers may miss. Producers mark scores, help decide
what takes to use and what needs to be rerecorded. A producer can save you
precious and expensive studio time. Your producer should be a trusted
colleague or mentor, someone who knows your playing or singing well.
Retailers: Companies that sell recordings. The top-selling music retailers (as of
2008, according to Businessweek.com) were iTunes, Wal-Mart, Best Buy,
Amazon, and Target. Note that CDBaby partnerships allow for a musician’s
albums to also be available on iTunes, Rhapsody, Amazon, and many other
partner services. And in your immediate vicinity, there may be independent
stores interested in selling local artists’ CDs on consignment.
V
Choosing an Engineer
If you want a professional-quality recording, hire an experienced profes-
sional engineer. Get recommendations from colleagues and mentors. Music
schools have recording engineers on staff who may freelance or give you re-
ferrals. You want someone experienced and knowledgeable about the type
of music you plan to record. Ask to hear samples of your prospective engi-
neer’s work. Find out exactly what is included in the engineer’s hourly rate:
setup, editing, and any extra charges for equipment rental. Make sure you
discuss with your engineer the type of sound you want before you get to the
recording session. You might even provide your engineer with one or two
examples of CDs with the recorded sound you want (the amount of “room”
sound, reverberation, and sense of immediacy).
How and Where to Record X
Once you have determined what to record and why, next comes how.
Whether you plan to record a twenty-minute demo or a full-length album,
you have three options:
1. Record in a professional studio.
2. Hire an engineer to record “on location.”
3. Rent or borrow the equipment and do it yourself.
These are all good options. What matters is which one best fits your
budget, timeline, and project.
Recording in a Studio
If you choose to record in a studio, keep in mind that rates vary depending
on the studio’s equipment, location, and its local competition. Most studios
do not provide concert-quality grand pianos; if you need one, you will face
fewer choices and higher fees. In the Boston area, the hourly rates, as of this
writing, range from $50 to $200 per hour. When choosing a studio, get ref-
erences from trusted colleagues. Ask to hear samples of demos or any com-
mercial releases. You may also want to visit or tour a prospective studio to
make sure you’ll be comfortable recording there. Studios typically offer var-
ious package deals with a certain number of recording hours, an engineer,
and editing. Compare studio offerings carefully.
Recording on Location
The second option to consider is recording on location, most often in a per-
formance venue. This is generally how classical recordings are done, to take
advantage of the acoustics of a particular hall or to use a specific piano. In
Boston, New England Conservatory’s Jordan Hall is used extensively for
solo and chamber music recordings (Yo-Yo Ma records there).
Do some research to find where musicians in your area record. If you have
a church job or a teaching gig, you may be able to use a great space for free or
at a discounted price. Be careful about the reverberation in the location. Look
for an ambient (or room) sound that’s not too “boomy,” but warm and cush-
ioned. When scouting potential sites, bring along a personal recorder, and try
the space out, recording several phrases to get a sense of the acoustics.
Keep in mind that an inexpensive venue with great acoustics may not be
a bargain if there is outside traffic or indoor noise (such as heating or venti-
lation) that interferes with the recording. For these reasons, some churches
with superb acoustics can host recording sessions only in the spring and
summer months between the hours of midnight and 4:00 a.m.
Do It Yourself
The third recording option is the DIY route. You can do it all yourself or en-
list a friend with recording experience and equipment to help. If you have
access to a space with good acoustics, you might be able to record with
rented or borrowed equipment at minimal cost. As a graduate student, I re-
corded demos at SUNY Stony Brook in the school’s concert hall and hired a
fellow student as engineer. If you have the right equipment and know how to
use it, almost any good acoustic space will work. If you need a piano, your
choices are limited; if not, you have far more options. And yes, good demo
recordings have been made in stairways and even in bathrooms.
At the start of your session, be sure to check levels and balance to avoid
distortion. During playback, if you sound distant and you hear too much
room sound or reverb, then place the microphones closer. Conversely, if the
sound is too immediate and dry, the microphone is too close.
W
How to Avoid “Studio Shock”
Musicians new to recording sessions may be surprised or thrown off guard
when they first hear their sound played back. There is often a difference between
what we hear while we perform and what the recording equipment picks up. To
avoid this shock, record yourself regularly. My advice is to purchase a portable mini
recorder and use it every day in the practice room.
Professional percussionist Mark Worgaftik says that it was when he started re-
cording himself regularly, as a grad student at Juilliard, that he really started to
make substantial improvements in his playing. Mark thinks music students should
be required to record practice sessions and rehearsals. Recording yourself helps you
educate your ear.
V
Preparation for the Recording Session

Come to your recording session absolutely prepared. Don’t waste expensive
recording time with rehearsing. Many people find it helps to memorize the
repertoire they plan to record. This allows them to concentrate better and
listen more carefully. If you plan to read from music, rearrange any page
turns so that they can be done as silently as possible. Or you may need to
bring a friend to turn pages.
Before your session, record run-throughs of entire movements using
your own recording equipment. Listen to the playbacks for technical or in-
terpretive points and for extraneous noise. If you have a habit of tapping
your foot or making other sounds as you perform, now is the time to quit.
Notwithstanding Glenn Gould, Keith Jarrett, and Pablo Casals, no one
wants to hear musicians hum and groan. Be careful of your breathing and
any noisy body movements before and after each take—clean beginnings
and endings are important.
If you plan to record in a studio, your practice recording sessions are
best done in a dry or “dead” space, such as a carpeted room with a low ceil-
ing. Get accustomed to how you sound in a nonreverberant space.
If you go the do-it-yourself route, practice using the equipment in ad-
vance of your session. Try recording selections off the radio or a CD to make
sure you can properly set the recording volume level.
What to Bring to Your Recording Session

R Two extra copies of the sheet music (scores for ensemble works). These
are for your producer and engineer to make notes in; the scores you
bring should be marked with measure numbers to save expensive
recording time when you need to refer to specific phrases.
R Tuning fork or tuner.
R Metronome—to check the tempi of any repeated takes.
R Extra strings, reeds, valve oil, and any basic instrument repair equip-
ment: expect the unexpected.
R Folding wire stand(s)—these do not block sound the way the solid
metal ones do.
R Music stand lights: depending on the space, extra lighting may be
necessary.
R Quick snack food in case your energy sags (bananas and power bars
are good for this).
R Water: keep yourself hydrated.
R Layers: light weight shirts or sweaters so that you can adjust your
comfort to the recording location temperature
R Your patience and sense of humor: you will need both!
Tips for Making the Session Run Smoothly

Warm up before your session, but not too much. Discuss (again) with your
engineer the type of sound you want in the recording. At the start of your
session, record a few passages to check for balance and level. Listen to these
brief playbacks and then re-check periodically during the recording session.
Plan the order of what you want to record, with an estimated time allot-
ment for each piece or movement, and keep to your schedule. Some musicians
find it best to record the most difficult works first, when they are fresh and
have the most energy. Others find that starting with an easier movement or
work is best because it establishes a level of comfort and confidence.
In general, if you have not “nailed” a passage, section, or movement
after three takes, you most likely will not get it in that session. If you have
recorded a passage twice without getting it, take a short break or record
something else and come back to it later. Don’t force it.
How much recording time do you need? Setup time to check equip-
ment, arrange the mic placements, and establishing levels can take—de-
pending on the group—up to an hour. The ratio of recording time to
finished product is generally 4 to 1. To make a fifteen-minute demo can eas-
ily take over two hours. Be realistic: schedule enough time.
During the session, slate all the takes, announcing into the mic at the
beginning of each recorded selection the name of the specific work or move-
ment and the take number. For example, “Schubert Eb Trio, first movement,
take two.” This makes for easier editing afterward. Your producer can help
by writing comments, noting which takes and segments are the most prom-
ising, but you can do the same, so keep a notepad nearby.
Once the recording session is completed, the next step is editing. Wait a
day or two before listening to all the takes. Give yourself (and your inner
critic) a rest so that you can listen more objectively. You will need to decide
which takes to use whole and which need edits. Depending on the equip-
ment and expertise of your engineer, some performance glitches can be
fi xed with editing. It can be relatively simple to splice together portions of
two takes, depending on a number of factors, so ask your engineer. Come
prepared to your editing session with a list of which takes and sections you
want to use so that you don’t waste expensive time during the session.
If you plan to use the recording for more than demo purposes, the final
editing step is mastering. This is necessary for a polished, professional-qual-
ity sound, as for commercial releases and necessary for radio broadcast use.
Mastering is a separate step done by a specialist with particular equipment
and expertise. Ask for recommendations.
Whether you make a quick demo for a competition or a full-length
album to sell at performances, there is more to it than simply recording the
repertoire. There’s a range of issues to consider if you want to make your re-
cording available in physical form.
The reason physical CDs persist is that fans still want to purchase some-
thing tangible, a souvenir of sorts, when they attend live concerts. The for-
mat may change, but having something physical that includes graphics and
written information about the music, the performers, and composers is still
compelling for audiences worldwide.
Artwork and Graphics X
The first impression a recording makes is often visual. You see the cover design
of an album online first, before you hear it, and what you see may affect whether
or not you decide to click through, listen, or buy. The same is true at concerts:
we peruse albums prior to buying them. If someone hands you a demo record-
ing, you look before you listen. Graphics have an immediate impact and make
a statement about the value of your music and your professionalism.
Your cover design should attract attention and draw viewers’ interest to
the album. If no one feels compelled to look closely at your CD, why would
they listen to it? Your cover art should pique the viewer’s interest and com-
municate a real sense of your music: its energy, mood, period, or genre.
Whether you use a simple jacket envelope or a plastic jewel case with liner
notes, you need to consider the impact of the visuals.
W
How Graphic-Savvy Are You?
Examine your own albums. You probably have a wide range of music of vary-
ing genres. Most likely you have releases from both major and indie labels, along
with self-produced albums. Similar to the “kitchen table test” in the previous chap-
ter, here you can use the floor. Choose a random sampling of your physical albums,
about thirty, and spread them out flat on the floor so you can sit back and take a
look at the covers as a group. Imagine that you are browsing a display table. Which
covers most attract your attention? Which are you most drawn to? Why? Is it the
colors, the artwork, an interesting photo, the typeface, or graphics? Noticing what
attracts your attention and why is great preparation for making smart choices
about your own artwork.
V
If you’re making a recording purely for your own satisfaction, then by

all means choose your favorite colors, artwork, and typography. You have no
one to please but yourself. However, if you plan to use your recording to
build an audience and advance your career, then you need to consider more
than your own personal preferences. The choices of album graphics contrib-
ute to your image. More than just packaging, CD graphics make a statement
about you, your professionalism, and your music.
Artwork and Graphics 103
Use a professional graphic designer with album cover experience. Why

hire a pro? Professional designers have years of computer skills and experi-
ence using specific design programs. They use these to create the proper
composites, formats, and specifications necessary for printing album cov-
ers. An experienced graphic designer will save you headaches and dollars
when dealing with printers and your manufacturing company.
However, you may be able to save money by hiring a design student. For
graphic designer referrals, ask everyone in your network. Ask at any record-
ing studios or smaller indie labels in your area. Make sure you see examples
of several artists’ previous album covers before hiring anyone.
“Have a concept idea for your artwork and be able to articulate this to
your graphic designer,” says Israeli jazz pianist Eyran Katsenelenbogen. “But
also let them give their input and be open to their ideas. After all, you are a
musician, while your designer has the necessary visual skills and training.”
Your designer can also help you fi nd a range of choices for the artwork to fit
your concept, as well as take care of any necessary licensing for use of the
artwork for the cover.
CD manufacturing companies offer various packages that often include
design, layout, jewel boxes, bar code, assembly, and shrink-wrapping. Be a
savvy consumer: get recommendations and compare package deals at sev-
eral companies. The graphic design services included in these package deals
are usually a limited set of formulaic design templates. My advice is to get
input from a pro: the finished result should be an album cover you’ll still be
proud to look at five or ten years from now.
What Info Should Be Included with a Recording?

Provide the following recording information in both physical liner notes
and as a download on your website:
R Composer names and publishing information for each work. To
research these details, use Harry Fox, ASCAP, or BMI. Look at major
label recordings for examples of how to present this, and be
consistent.
R Titles and movements (include year of composition if a work is new or
obscure).
R Timings of each track in minutes and seconds, plus the total timing of
the album.
R Names of all performers and their instruments or voice types.
R Bios of performers.
R Program notes about the works and composers.
R Texts and translations, if applicable.
R Name of label (if you have signed with a label or if you create your own).
R Contact information: your website URL, your label’s, and/or your

manager’s. For booking performances and building an audience, this
is essential.
R Copyright notices.
R Credits for the recording engineer, recording location or studio,
photographer, graphic designer, and any reproduced artwork (includ-
ing title, artist, and permission notice).
R Thank-yous and acknowledgements of contributors, funders, family,
and so forth.
Program notes and bios should be well written: engaging and informative.
They should be appropriate for a non-musician reader; leave out technical
terms and jargon. Once you have written your draft text, have a professional
writer edit it. A music publicist or journalist may be your best bet. Ask any
public relations staff at local arts organizations for referrals. For ideas on how
to engage a non-musician audience, see chapter 6; for ideas on bios, chapter 3.
W
Pianist Catherine P. made her first CD using an edited version of one of her de-
gree recitals. She wrote about this fact in her liner notes and later regretted it. She
found that some people, when they read the liner notes, prejudged the perfor-
mance as “student” level, and viewed the album as less than professional quality.
Catherine’s advice: “If you use a degree recital recording to make a CD, keep the
circumstances of the performance to yourself! Simply state the performance oc-
curred at XYZ University or Conservatory and never mind the why.”
V
On the Disc Itself

Because discs and cases or envelopes inevitably become separated, you need
to repeat the most crucial identifying information on the disc itself, includ-
ing the following:
R Title of album
R Name of ensemble or soloist
R Contact info (website URL is sufficient)
R Titles of works and movements and their track numbers
R Copyright notices
R Name of label (including your own)
Bar Codes
If you want to sell your album through any retailer (online or otherwise),
you must obtain a universal product code (UPC), otherwise known as a bar
code. A series of vertical lines representing a unique twelve-digit number, a

bar code identifies the company offering the product (a label or a CD man-
ufacturer) and the particular product. Assigned by the Uniform Code
Council, Inc. (http://www.uc-council.org), bar codes allow retailers to
track sales and merchandise. They make it possible to scan the CD, digitally
recording the sales transaction. As of this writing, it costs $750 to obtain a
bar code. However, through CDBaby and some CD manufacturers, you can
arrange for a barcode that will cost only about $20. Be sure to check exactly
what any package deal includes. The bar code should be printed on the back
cover jewel case insert (make sure your graphic designer knows how to
handle this). It is also possible to affi x bar code stickers (available through
CD manufacturers) on top of the recording’s polywrap after the CD is
completed, but it’s far easier to incorporate it into the original design and
printing.
With these basic recording issues mapped out, the next big topic to
tackle is money. How will you fund your recording project?
How Much? Financing Your Recording X
What does it cost to make a recording? It may be next to nothing if you re-
cord using your own equipment and simply upload your recording to your
website or social networking platform. At the other extreme, recording bud-
gets can run to hundreds of thousands of dollars (what major labels spend
on recordings with full orchestras). To produce a professional-quality CD,
independent musicians often spend $6,000–$10,000 to record, edit, master,
manufacture, and promote an album. Your costs will depend on where and
how you do the recording, your collaborators, and your choices about man-
ufacturing, packaging, and promotion.
If you know that you need to raise part or all of the money for your re-
cording, the first step is to find out how much the project will actually cost.
You need to write a budget. A project budget is simply a plan for handling fi-
nances. It has two parts: expenses are the itemized costs; and resources are
the itemized assets, the existing available resources. Budgets help people
think through complex projects so they can make informed decisions.
First, write a list of all your anticipated expenses. Leave nothing out;
nobody likes encountering unforeseen costs. You may need referrals and
price quotes for specific items, such as recording engineers, mastering, disc
manufacturing, photographers, or graphic designers. Ask friends and col-
leagues; call local recording studios for prices, and call your local music
school’s audio department for recommended freelance engineers. Be a savvy
consumer: get several price quotes from recommended professionals for each
item in your budget.
Use the budget outline below as a template, writing in all your possible
expenses and all the resources you plan to commit to the project. With ex-
penses itemized in the left-hand column and resources in the right, the goal
is to get the two sides to balance each other. This is where the term bottom
line comes from: the bottom line totals should be equal, so that your ex-
penses do not exceed your resources. However, if your resources do not
cover your anticipated expenses, then read on. The next section focuses on
creative ways to finance your recording project.
W
Write Your Budget
Expenses Resources
Collaborating musicians: Savings:
Studio costs: Loans:
Hall rental: Grants:
Recording engineer: Gifts:
Producer: Other:
Editing:
Mastering:
Piano tuning:
Graphic design:
Photography:
Liner notes editor:
Copyright registration:
Licensing fees:
Bar code registration:
Artwork printing:
Promotional Expenses
Press materials/mailings:
Promo material printing/assembly:
Mailing to radio/media:
Follow-up phone costs:
Booking fee(s) associated with release concerts:
CD release flyers/invitations:
Online retail distribution fees:
Total: Total:
V
Focusing now on just the expense side of a recording budget, here is an

example of what a musician’s budget actually looks like. This is a composite
based on several recent jazz ensemble recordings done in Boston.
W
Recording Project Budget
Expenses
Musicians’ pay: $0 (good friends)
Recording session food: $300 (thank-you party for musicians)
Licensing fees: $0 (no fees for original works or for
public domain works)
BMI: $150 (initial charge for solely owned
publishing companies)
Studio time (record, mix, edit): $1,100 ($55 × 20 hours)
Mastering: $500 (4 hours studio time, 2 masters
and a reference copy)
CD production: $1,500 (1,000 CDs, four-panel
booklet, full color)
Copyright registration: $35
Graphic design: $300
Photos: $300
Promotional mailings: $650 (for bookings and for reviews)
Publicist: $1,500
Postcard: $225 (design and printing)
Postage: $160
Poster: $150 (design and printing)
CD release concert hall rental: $500
CDBaby distribution: $35
Total: $7,405
V
Your costs may be quite different from these, based on your specific
situation, resources, and plans. The important thing is to do your research
and get accurate numbers for all the expenses your project entails. No one
wants to complete a recording session only to fi nd there’s no funding left for
manufacturing or promoting the album.
Options for Financing: Fundraising

Projects and Personal Loans
Some musicians borrow money to make recordings, whereas others raise
funds with contributions from their extended family, friends, and support-
ers. Many musicians use a combination of fundraising and loans. Your best
asset for either raising or borrowing money for a record project is your own
network. These are the people already invested in your career advancement,
who know you well and are interested in seeing you succeed.
To make her first CD, jazz vocalist Linda B. needed to raise $5,000.
Among her network of contacts, she identified five fairly wealthy people who
were already supporters of her musical work. These five were people who
came to her concerts regularly and knew her well. Linda asked each for a
personal loan of $1,000, knowing that this amount of money was fairly small
change for them. All five said yes, and Linda made out loan agreements for
each, including repayment schedules. With the $5,000, Linda made her
debut album and then paid back every penny. She has since gone on to make
several more albums. Linda realized later, after she’d gotten to know these
five supporters even better—that they would have been happy to simply give
her the money, because they wanted to contribute to Linda’s success and her
career advancement. The moral of the story is this: you too may be able to
raise the money for your recording with the help of your circle of supporters.
You may even be able to do it without going into debt.
So make a list of potential contributors to your recording project. List
people who know you or your family well and who have shown interest in
your career. Use your network list from chapter 2. I guarantee that you know
people now who would contribute to your project. It’s a matter of how you
ask them, how much you ask them for, and how much discretionary money
they have to give. Chapter 11 covers fundraising in detail and provides the
outline for organizing a small-scale fundraising campaign. So don’t rule out
the possibility of raising the money to make your recording.
As for loans, be careful. Don’t attempt to finance your recording project by
juggling credit card payments or by taking out a high-interest loan. Personal
loans, like the ones Linda B. arranged, can be made for a mutually agreeable
interest rate (or better yet, no interest) with a manageable repayment schedule.
However, you should base a repayment schedule on income other than album
sales. This is because, for most musicians, a recording—especially a first one—
is primarily a promotional tool and not a substantive source of income.
Grants for Recordings

Finding grant money for recordings can be a long shot, because the majority
of funders focus their giving on causes and projects that serve a broader
community need. However, you may have affi liations with local community
organizations that make various professional development grants and schol-
arships available. Sometimes church groups, community clubs, and local
businesses have small-scale grant programs or will make one-time special
contributions to specific projects. In smaller cities and towns, it may be eas-
ier to apply for and be awarded such funding. So if you are currently living
in Manhattan, but your hometown is a small close-knit community in the
Midwest, then do your grant research when you visit the folks back home.
Contact the reference librarians at the local library and inquire at the cham-
ber of commerce, social service agencies, and religious organizations. Your
best connections to accessing local funding will be through the people who
know you well and who are interested in your career.
W
Made in America
The Aaron Copland Fund offers a grant program for recording contemporary
American music. Applications are accepted from nonprofit professional performing
ensembles, presenting organizations, and either nonprofit or commercial recording
companies. So, for example, an ensemble with an idea for a recording project of
new American music might shop their project idea to an indie label, and if inter-
ested, the label might apply to the Copland Fund for support for the project. Grants
range from $2,000 to $20,000 to support the release and dissemination of previ-
ously unreleased contemporary American music as well as reissues of recordings no
longer available. See http://www.coplandfund.org/recording.html.
V
For a full discussion of fundraising and grants, see chapter 11. Note:
there are also some competitions that offer prizes of CD production (see the
companion website http://www.oup.com/us/beyondtalent).
Selling Advance Copies

You may be able to finance at least a part of your recording project by selling
advance copies of the album to your network of supporters. This can be done
at performances, by mail order, and online. For this to work, you need to
have a healthy-sized network. For instance, if you have raised a portion of
your budget and need to come up with the last $2,000, you could raise this by
selling 100 advance copies of your album for $20 a piece. Your friends, family,
and network contacts are the people most willing to pay $20 for an album
that has yet to be made. As an added incentive for advance purchasers, con-
sider inviting them to an album release party, performance, or reception.
Excellent planning is essential. You would want the album release to be
no more than a few months from the time of the mailing. People will not
want to wait six months for the recording, and they will feel cheated unless
you deliver on time.
W
Jazz accordionist and composer Evan Harlan has financed several CDs by sell-
ing advance copies. An active performer, Evan has a good-sized mailing list of en-
thusiasts. He financed his recordings by mailing flyers out to his network, announcing
the forthcoming album. The flyers were simple yet well designed, done on 8–1/2 ×
11 paper, folded in thirds. On the flyer was an engaging description of the music
for the new album, the expected release date, testimonials and quotes about his
live performances and previous recordings, and an order form to purchase the new
CD by mail. The selling point to the reader was, “Be the first on your block to get
the new Evan Harlan album.”
V
Crowdfunding
The concept of harnessing the power of your fan base to help support artis-
tic ventures is a very old concept, but these days it’s called crowdfunding,
and there are a number of services to help with this, including http://www
.slicethepie.com and http://www.sellaband.com.
Here’s an example from Kickstarter (http://www.kickstarter.com), a
popular online service for managing fundraising projects. The cellist Ovidiu
Marinescu needed to raise $7840 to make his full budget for recording the
complete Bach Cello Suites. On the site, Marinescu posted a description of
the project, and a quick video to introduce the project to propsective donors.
Donors who pledge at specific levels receive thank-you gifts in return.
Ovidiu offered tracks or whole autographed previous albums and some of
his “package” deals at higher levels included a cello lesson, an oil painting,
and a private recital. He raised $8,337.
Each Kickstarter project is given a deadline; if the dollar goal is met in
pledges by that date, the donors’ credit cards are charged and Kickstarter
turns the total over to the group leader (in this example, Ovidiu). If the goal
is not met by the deadline, Fundable deletes the ledgers and no credit cards
are charged anything. This all-or-nothing model ensures that funding goals
are met, so projects can be completed.
On a grander scale is ArtistShare, launched in 2002 by musician and
computer programmer Brian Camilio. ArtistShare enables fans to invest di-
rectly in musicians’ recording projects. In return for investing at specific
levels, fans get access to the artist’s creative process as “thank you” benefits.
Jazz artist Maria Schneider, fed up with the unfavorable contract
terms she’d experienced with traditional labels, chose the ArtistShare
route. In 2004, she became the first musician to win a Grammy with an
album distributed exclusively on the Internet, and in 2008 Maria Schnei-
der won another Grammy. Both albums were funded and distributed
through ArtistShare.
With her album Sky Blue, Schneider’s fans who contributed at the low-
est funding level ($9.99) got in return the downloadable version. At higher
levels, fans also got transcriptions of the solos, artwork from the CD, and
downloadable interviews with the artists. The highest level of participation
Sales: How to Turn a Profit 111
Schneider offered was $18,000—and for this, the fan was listed as executive
producer on the album. According to a Feb. 7, 2008, article in the Wall Street
Journal, “Schneider said she came to ArtistShare because she wasn’t seeing
any royalty income even when she sold 20,000 CDs. Under a standard
record-company deal, an artist receives a few cents per CD but usually only
after the company has recouped its production and marketing costs.”2
In Taking Note: A Study of Composers and New Music Activity in the
United States, the contrast of Schneider’s experience with traditional labels
and with ArtistShare is detailed:
A studio recording normally cost her approximately $30,000. A
contracting record company would pay her a $10,000 guarantee
followed by royalty income. Even after months of royalty payments,
Schnieder’s out-of-pocket deficit was still $13,000. In contrast, her
agreement with ArtistShare for her latest album, Sky Blue, gave her
85% of total earnings, which for her totaled nearly $170,000, which
more than covered her initial investment.3
Keep in mind that in order to work, this type of funding model—crowd-
funding—depends on having a crowd, a fan base. Most musicians finance
their recordings with a combination of savings, assistance from family and
friends, plus loans, grants, or advance copy sales. Musicians are creative and
resourceful people, and these qualities are necessary in handling the busi-
ness and budget issues of recordings.
Sales: How to Turn a Profit X
How well a musician does selling recordings depends on a number of factors,

not the least of which is the quality of the album, in terms of the performance
and the sound quality of the recorded material. Other considerations include
the musician’s performance activity, the effectiveness of promotional efforts,
and whether the album is favorably reviewed. Yet the most critical factor de-
termining album sales is the size of the musician’s fan base.
To illustrate a range of album sales results, let’s imagine that an emerging
artist, Fran, has just completed a recording project. As planned, Fran spent
$6,000 total and had 1,000 CDs pressed. Of these, she will use 300 for promo-
tional purposes, mailing albums to radio stations, critics, and performance
presenters for potential bookings. This leaves 700 for Fran to sell, in hopes of
recouping some or all of her investment. She plans to sell albums at her
performances, by mail order to her network, by consignment at local specialty
shops, from her website, and through online retailers via CDBaby.
If Fran performs 20 concerts the year the album is released, selling an
average of 10 CDs at each performance, that yields $3,000. By selling 190 more
through her network and online through CDBaby, that’s an additional $2,850.
If she sells a final 20 albums on consignment at local shops, that’s another
$150. Altogether, that amounts to 410 albums sold, for a total of $6K, and she
recoups her initial investment. If she increased these sales to 660, through ad-
ditional performances, an enlarged network of contacts, and a more aggres-
sive sales campaign, Fran could make a profit of over $3,000.
So why is it that the majority of musicians fail to recoup the money they
invest, let alone make a profit? There are two reasons: first, musicians tend
to overestimate the number of albums they can realistically sell, and second,
they underestimate the work involved in sales. Think carefully about the
appropriate number of albums to press for promotional and other purposes,
and how many of these you will likely sell. If you’re not performing regularly
and don’t yet have a substantial mailing list, then do not expect to recoup
your investment. Instead, think of the money spent on the album as the
necessary entry fee to your professional career.
Some recording projects are more profitable than others. Projects with
more commercial value include ones with a hook, or an immediate or timely
appeal, such as albums that tie into an idea of current popular interest. For
instance, recordings focused on a particular composer and released in an
important anniversary year of the composer may have an easier time gain-
ing media attention. Or if a current popular fi lm or book focuses on music
of a particular period and your release corresponds to this period, again,
this may be good for attracting media attention.
Some musicians use more commercially successful recording projects
to finance their other niche projects. The recording industry itself does this
each year, releasing and rereleasing Christmas album classics in time for the
annual holiday shopping bonanza. Holiday album profits then finance other
projects. You might consider this model. There is a guitar duo, a couple, who
financed their children’s college expenses on the proceeds from their Christ-
mas album. Holiday music is an “evergreen” project, as it is renewed every
year. Holiday albums are not for every musician, but the basic idea is worth
considering. Look for ways to connect your music to some larger cultural
interest area, because this may result in an album that attracts media atten-
tion, concert presenters, and audiences.
Selling Your Music Online X
There are a number of online retail services that make it easy for musicians
to distribute their music electronically. When your fans can hear a sample of
your music and then immediately purchase a single track or an entire album,
that’s terrific. Services and prices, of course, change over time, but here some
basic online service options, compiled from information supplied by the

Future of Music Coalition (http://www.futureofmusic.org):
CDBaby sells digital and physical albums, and the artist sets the price.
For digital releases, CDBaby keeps 9 percent of the purchase price
and $4 for each physical album sold; the rest goes directly to the
artist, who is paid every week. CDBaby services also offers artists’
placement of their recordings on iTunes, Rhapsody, Amazon, and
others. Mechanical license rates are paid to composers, although
this is the artist’s or their label’s responsibility (not CDBaby’s).
iTunes is a digital retail store through which consumers buy individual
tracks or albums at set prices. Single tracks are $.99, and albums are
$9.99; artists typically get $6.50–$7.00 per album. iTunes is used by
unsigned artists as well as indie and major label artists. The com-
pensation rate for signed artists is based on their contracts. Mechan-
ical license rates are paid to composers, and again, this is the
responsibility of the artists or their label.
Amazon Music Store is a digital retailer for selling MP3 tracks. Users
purchase single tracks for $.98 and albums usually for $8.99,
although some tracks have steeply discounted prices. Similar to
iTunes, artists get $6.50–$7.00 per album. Mechanical license rates
paid to composers are again the label/artists’ responsibility.
Nimbit.com is a sales, promotion, and distribution company offering
independent musicians a range of services to sell music, tickets, and
merchandise directly to their fans from their own websites. Nimbit
offers their musician clients a widget, which is an online tool to embed
in their website, blog, or e-mail. The monthly service rates depend on
the range of service the musician wants. Mechanical license rates paid
to composers are again the label/artists’ responsibility.
Rhapsody is an online subscription streaming service that also
features download options. For the streaming subscription, users
pay $12 a month to have access to a huge library of albums and
tracks. Paid downloads are separate charges. For the streaming,
labels get a negotiated direct licensing fee; and artists are paid the
digital performance royalty fee as tracked by SoundExchange.
Though these digital performance fees to artists are quite small
(pennies per play), over time they can become a good supplement to
an artist’s income. Rhapsody has licenses with ASCAP, BMI, and
SESAC for songwriter/publisher performance compensation.
Magnatune is a label that sells digital and physical CDs, with variable
pricing and online licensing. Consumers download albums or tracks
and can choose their own price between $5 and $18. Acting as a
label, Magnatune keeps 50 percent of sales and licensing, and the
artist gets the other half. Mechanical license rates paid to composers
are the artists’ responsibility.
ArtistShare is a label whose releases are underwritten by the artists’ fans.
Fans buy physical and digital releases at varying rates, and for higher
fees, they can purchase access to the artist’s creative process—for
example, attending rehearsals, recording sessions, and gaining credit
on the album liner notes. Artists reap the majority of the revenue
raised, with ArtistShare keeping a small percentage. Mechanical
license rates paid to composers are the artists’ responsibility.
Pandora is a webcast station format built around music recommenda-
tion engines. There is the free, ad-supported model, or else users can
pay $36 a year for the ad-free version. Users can search for the music
that they like, and the service then makes recommendations based on
the user’s preferences. Pandora helps expand the consumer’s musical
knowledge and exposure to music and performers they are likely to
enjoy. Pandora also links to Amazon and iTunes for digital sales.
Digital performance royalty fees are paid to the label and artist via
SoundExchange. Pandora has licenses with ASCAP, BMI, and SESAC
for songwriter/publisher performance compensation.
Sirius XM Satellite Radio is available to those who pay for equipment
plus a monthly subscription fee, about $13 a month. Sirius pays the
SoundExchange digital performance royalties to labels and artists.
Sirius has licenses with ASCAP, BMI, and SESAC for songwriter/
publisher performance compensation.
Podcasts are online audio fi les, analogous to an online indie radio
station. Users can either subscribe to a podcast or simply listen
online. There is not usually a compensation model in place, unless
something has been specifically negotiated in a contract. The idea is
to freely share music, lectures, and any other audio fi les, primarily
for promotional and educational purposes.
Selling CDs at Performances

For most musicians, the best way to sell recordings is at their live shows.
After a performance or at intermission, fans are more likely to make an im-
pulse purchase. On a good night, your audience bonds with you and your
music. Consequently, they want to take home a bit of the evening’s “magic”
as a souvenir and as an extension of their connection with you.
For many musicians, the albums they sell at performances substantially
augment their performance fees. As a clarinetist friend says, the sales of re-
cordings at her performances often turn a not-so-well-paying gig into a very

good one. Chapter 6 covers booking performances in detail, but in the
meantime, here are ways to promote your CD at performances. You need to
make appropriate choices among these options according to your audiences,
programming, and performance venues.
Tips for Good Sales at Gigs

• Consider programming your performances with at least some of the
selections from your recording. While on stage, be sure to introduce
the repertoire and explain that you recently recorded it on your latest
album.
• At some point during the concert, announce—or have someone do it for
you—that your album is available, and explain where to find the sales
table. And tell the audience that you will be happy to meet them and
sign CDs at the reception after the performance; this will boost sales.
• Arrange to have a friend handle the sales table. “Dress” the table in an
attractive nonwrinkling fabric covering so that the sales table area is
noticeable and welcoming. Make it easy on your customers; you need
to be able to accept credit cards and issue receipts. CDBaby sells credit
card swipe machines very reasonably priced. And it’s good to offer
your recording at a special discount “live performance price” (but this
should still include the sales tax).
W
Note: for tax and financial management purposes, you need to keep accu-
rate records of your sales. Tracking how many albums you sell, at what price and
where, is necessary for tax purposes—as well as for evaluating and refining your
CD marketing plan. Find a qualified accountant (perhaps a friend of the family) to
help you organize a basic bookkeeping method, and make sure your friends at the
sales table follow through as instructed. See chapter 10 for detailed finance and
tax issues.
V
• Use a guest book at the sales table to get people signed up for your
newsletter and performance invitations. And then make sure customer
info gets added to your network database.
• Consider having giveaways at the sales table: inexpensive promotional
items printed with your group’s name, logo, and website. Postcards,
refrigerator magnets, and memo pads are all fine, along with anything
else that is both cost-effective and creative. Check out Zazzle, Cafe-
Press, and Vistaprint for custom promotional items.
W
Mail Order Sales Tips
• Add a shipping and handling fee to the price of the album.
• Provide a choice of shipping methods (first-class mail, UPS, FedEx).
• Include a business reply card or a self-addressed stamped envelope to get
more contact info and get people on your mailing list.
• People like a menu of choices. Include extra items to order, like your
ensemble’s T-shirt or mug.
• Consider doing a cooperative mailing with your colleagues’ CDs. Using a
combined mailing list, you can pool your resources and increase your profits.
V
Consignment Sales at Stores

Check to see if your local bookstores might carry your album. They may
have a special interest in local artists. Depending on a store’s space and lay-
out, there may be opportunities for local musicians to present live in-store
performances. Check out the possibilities in your area.
There may also be local specialty shops or restaurants interested in your
music. Think specialty boutiques, high end wine stores, art galleries—go to
these stores, introduce yourself to the manager, bring a portable CD player
with your album, so others can listen. He or she may agree to play your
album in the shop and keep a small display for sales at the register. You can
purchase small display stands through many CD manufacturers.
If a store agrees to sell your recording, you need to provide the manager
with a consignment agreement, stipulating the terms of your arrangement.
You provide the CDs (with bar codes) and the store only pays you for what
they sell, minus their commission. A simple consignment agreement between
you and the store can serve as the receipt for the CDs you provide. Below is an
example of such an agreement. The amount the album sells for and the amount
of the store’s commission is something you negotiate with the store manager.
Promoting Your Recording X
The way to kick off all these sales efforts is by celebrating your album release
with a well-promoted concert and party. To make the most of your album re-
lease, make it an event. Plan a performance party, and invite everyone on your
mailing list. Get friends to invite their friends. Create a “buzz” in the local
media. The goal is to have people reading and talking about you, your music,
and your recording. And use a guest book sign-in to get the contact info of
everyone who comes to add to your database and expand your network.
Where should you hold the event? To keep costs down, consider venues
where you have connections, such as a local temple, school, community cen-
ter, supporter’s home, or any workable setting with the acoustics you need.
Promoting Your Recording: The Release 117
Consignment Agreement
Date ___________________
Consigned to _________________________________________
(name of store)
Address __________ Phone __________ e-mail: _________

copies of the recording titled ____________________________,
(label name) (catalog number)
Suggested Retail Price: $___________

Price to Consignee: $___________
Payment is due when additional recordings are consigned or
______ days after the receipt of an invoice for records sold. Full
returns accepted.
Recordings are the property of _____________________ and
(you or your label)
may be removed at their discretion.
Thank you,
(signature of consignor, you)
(signature of consignee, the store)
For further savings, you may have friends or family who can sponsor or
cater the reception.
How do you announce the event? Below is the text from an invitation I
received years ago for a chamber ensemble’s CD release event. Analyze the
invitation; look for the specific selling points to give you ideas on how to plan
and promote your own event.
This is an effective marketing piece for this type of ensemble and event.
The selling points include the following:
• Special occasion value (not just a CD release, concert and party, but
the group’s tenth anniversary)
• Quality of the venue (a historic inn)
• Specific repertoire (the CD selections plus rarely heard works on rare
instruments)
• “Fancy extras” (champagne and dessert reception in a ballroom) plus
guest artists
• Exclusivity (“Seating is limited; subscribe early!”)
• Easy directions included
CD RELEASE CONCERT & PARTY

The Tenth Anniversary Season will mark the release
of Musicians of the Old Post Road’s second CD
Trios and Scottish Song Settings of J.N. Hummel.
For this special event at the historic Wayside Inn, the ensemble will
perform selections from the new CD and will offer rare period
instrument performances of chamber music and songs by Felix and
Fanny Mendelssohn. The Inn’s ballroom will provide an intimate
setting for this lively evening, which will conclude with a
champagne and dessert reception.
Suzanne Stumpf, flute; Julia McKenzie, violin; Daniel Ryan, cello;
Michael Bahmann, fortepiano;
with guest artist Pamela Dellal, mezzo-soprano
Saturday, March 20, 8:00 p.m. • Wayside Inn, Sudbury
Seating is limited! Subscribe early!
For reservations, please call the office at (781) 466–6694, or
send e-mail to [email protected], or check our website at
www.oldpostroad.org
Wayside Inn • Sudbury: Located just off of Route 20 in Sudbury.
From Route 128 take exit 26 west; from Route 495 take exit 24 east.
“[The performers] bring grace and elegance to their
period instruments”
—The Strad, London
• An impressive endorsement of the quality of the group (the quote from

The Strad)
Your e-mail invite should be short and friendly yet provide all the critical
selling points and details. Make sure your message includes hyperlinks to all
relevant websites. And for life beyond your CD release event, send newsletter
updates at regular intervals with invitations to your performances.
Fiddler and singer Lissa Schneckenburger performs an array of tradi-
tional and contemporary folk repertoire, from Down East New England to
Irish, Scottish, French Canadian, and contemporary folk music. To promote
the release of one of her early albums, Different Game, Lissa planned three
release concerts. She had done quite a bit of performing in three New En-
gland cities and had sufficient support and contacts to organize a small CD
Promoting Your Recording: The Release 119
release tour. Lissa researched the media contacts for each city and sent out
press releases as well as invitations to her mailing list. She also sent an-
nouncements to the appropriate folk-oriented music organizations and
businesses in her three target cities. Her work paid off; the turnout at each
performance was terrific, and she was able to make a “buzz” in not one but
three communities. (See http://www.lissafiddle.com.)
Publicizing Your CD Release

To create media attention for your album, you could spend a small fortune
on paid advertising, or you could get a range of media attention for free. Free
is better. The way people get their stories and events into the news is by send-
ing out press releases to bloggers and other media contacts at newspapers,
magazines, and radio stations.
You’ll need to put together a list of local and regional media outlets to
which you can send notices about your album release. There are also online
arts calendars (sponsored by newspapers, radio stations, and tourism of-
fices) where you can post your information. In addition, many service orga-
nizations are devoted to specific areas of the music profession. Examples
include Chamber Music America, American Guild of Organists, as well as
all other specialty organizations for particular instruments. To find these,
do an online search for “music organizations” and “music associations.”
Many of these groups publish newsletters with relevant news from the field,
so they might publish a notice about your CD release, an interview with you,
or even a CD review. Finally, if your music or your ensemble itself has a par-
ticular ethnic or national orientation, you may find relevant cultural associ-
ations and media outlets to help you reach a target audience. See chapter 7
for writing releases and contacting the media.
A word of caution: in and of itself, releasing a CD is not particularly
newsworthy, as thousands of CDs are released each month. However, if the
album includes a premiere of a new or seldom-heard work, or if the record-
ing project was funded in an unusual way, then these specifics might be the
hooks needed to interest a journalist or editor. To write an effective press re-
lease, consider what is interesting about your music, your ensemble, and
you. Think of human-interest angles—does your group have an improbable
story about how you first got together, or do you have interests beyond music
that a general reader might find engaging? Look for angles that help the
media turn a simple CD release into a compelling profile piece that would
engage a broad readership.
For example. A few years ago I received a CD release notice for the
Jacques Thibaud String Trio’s “Berlin Music at War’s End 1944–46,” released
on Sophia Classics. It features works by Schoenberg, Gideon Klein, and Villa
Lobos, who each, in the same period but under very different circumstances,
wrote their only string trios. Who is the audience for this album? First of all,
the trio is excellent, so there are their existing fans and audiences from their
touring. Then there are other potential album buyers: people interested in
World War II history, those interested in Berlin itself, and those interested
in one or more of the three composers. A targeted marketing plan for this
album might include sending posters, flyers, or press releases to libraries
and museums, as well as reaching out to memberships of historical societies
and musicological associations.
To find journalists who might consider writing about you or your
group, cyber-publicist Ariel Hyatt suggests working backward. Start with
bands or other musicians doing work similar to yours and musicians who
are at a similar career stage. Google these artists to fi nd articles written
about them and get the names of the journalists who wrote the articles.
Look for appropriate media outlets and the specific journalists who would
consider reviewing your album. In her excellent article, “How to Be Your
Own Publicist,” Ariel Hyatt recommends, “Call or e-mail the reviewers,
politely introduce yourself and ask if you can send them your CD for con-
sideration. This is a much better technique than the old school method of
getting a ‘media list’ and blindly mailing precious materials out in bulk.”
(See http://www.arielpublicity.com.)
Getting Reviewed X
To get your album reviewed, compile a media list of people who review re-
cordings of your genre in newspapers, magazines, and on the Web. A listing
of print and Internet publications with album reviews can be found on the
companion website http://www.oup.com/us/beyondtalent.
To get your CD reviewed, send it out to music journalists at appropri-
ate publications with a personalized letter, not a generic “To whom it may
concern.” The letter should describe the repertoire on the album and in-
clude engaging and relevant information on the background of the per-
formers. The purpose of the letter is to personalize an introduction to the
album so that the journalist will consider reviewing it. It can work well to
send the letter and CD along with a one-sheet—a single sheet that has your
bio, photo, website and other relevant URLs, plus a compelling description
of the album.
In sum, with recording projects, planning can help minimize frustrations
and maximize success. Use some type of project management system to keep
organized. This can be as simple as a detailed list on your computer, with tasks
and deadlines to keep track of what needs to be done when. You can program
Getting Reviewed 121
an online calendar system to send you reminders of the deadlines. This can
make any large project manageable and help reduce the stress involved. It is
possible to scale recording projects to fit almost any budget but not every aspi-
ration. So clarify your purpose, plan your work, and work your plan.
Radio Play
In order to get airplay for your album, you need to compile a media list of ap-
propriate radio stations and the program directors (for your genre of music)
at these stations. The process is to send each radio program director a person-
alized “pitch” letter along with your CD and bio. To search terrestrial radio
stations by location, see http://www.musicalamerica.com (classical) and
http://www.allaboutjazz.com (jazz). For online radio stations, see http://
www.live365.com. An added incentive for investigating online radio is that
through SoundExchange, artists can receive royalty payments for airplay.
Radio stations are particularly interested in playing albums of groups or
soloists with upcoming local performances, so timing is critical. Indicate in
your letter that you are available for and interested in a radio interview be-
fore an upcoming local performance and specify that date. Check if your
local public or college station broadcasts studio performances. In order for
a radio station to consider playing your CD, it must be mastered profession-
ally and be available for purchase online. Include information in your pitch
letter about how the CD can be purchased.
W
Career Forward
Answering these questions and following these prompts will help you advance
your recording project.
1. Who is the prospective audience for your recording? Describe, and be specific.
How many people do you have in your network? What niche audiences might
be particularly interested in your album?
2. Once your recording is completed, what do you plan to do with it? What is
your marketing and promotion plan? Go for detail.
3. If you need to raise funds for your recording, how are you planning to do this?
4. How many recordings do you plan to send out for promotional purposes? To
whom do you plan to send these?
5. How much are you expecting to make in sales? Where and how are you
planning to make these sales?
6. What individuals and organizations can you contact to get referrals and
suggestions about your recording project?
V
W
Recording Project Planning Worksheet
Complete the following worksheet to think through your next recording
project:
Why do you want to make this recording?

What repertoire would you like to record? What is the copyright status of
each of these works?
How do you plan to do the recording—on location? In a studio?
Do-it-yourself?
How much money will you need? Detail all your anticipated expenses and
your financial resources for the project:
Expenses Resources
Collaborating musicians: Savings:
Studio costs: Loans:
Hall rental: Grants:
Recording engineer: Gifts:
Producer: Other:
Editing:
Mastering:
Piano tuning:
Graphic design:
Photography:
Liner notes editor:
Copyright registration:
Licensing fees:
Bar code registration:
Artwork printing:
Promotional Expenses
Press materials/mailings:
Promo material printing/assembly:
Mailing to radio/media:
Follow-up phone costs:
Booking fee(s) associated with release concerts:
CD release flyers/invitations:
Online retail distribution fees:
Total: Total:
V
5
Building Your Online
Community:
Social Networking,
the Web, and You
W
In this chapter:
Social Media and You Cultivating Your Fan Base
Website Overview Newsletters
Site Analysis Website Design Tips
Website Building Basics What’s on the Menu
V
For musicians today, an online presence is a necessity: giving fans access to

your music, information on upcoming performances, and insight into your
personality and creative process. These days, it seems that in order to exist, you
need an online presence. Google yourself. Can people find you? If not, they
may assume you’re not a working musician and not a professional. And if your
only online presence is for social purposes, then anyone wanting to find out
about (or hire) you as a musician will move on to consider the next person.
Savvy musicians have their professional profiles on multiple social
media sites such as Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, Twitter, and YouTube.
And on each of their profi les, they include links back to their own websites,
where fans can find the most complete information and ways to connect.
With the rise of social media platforms, an individual’s website has come to
be considered just one facet of a more comprehensive web presence.
The good news is that it’s never been easier or less expensive to create an
online presence that represents you and your music well. But busy musicians
understandably have difficulty finding the time and energy to spend on this.
What’s worse, it’s an ongoing struggle, as there will always be new software,
gadgets, and gizmos on the horizon. No matter what the latest innovation
123
124 Building Your Online Community
may be, some core issues remain constant. Whether we use the postal system
and a typewriter or the latest social media platform, it’s all about connecting
with audiences. Keeping this overarching purpose in mind will help you
make decisions on how best to allocate your time and resources. Communi-
cating does take time, but there are ways to keep things streamlined and to
keep your music-making your top priority.
Ultimately, whatever online tools you choose to adopt should be the
ones that best fit your particular situation, mission, and goals. Your online
presence should reflect your goals, your values, and what you want to convey
to audiences about yourself and your music.
W
Being in the Know
To stay on top of developments and new ideas in the profession, read what
professional artist managers, concert presenters, and publicists read: http://www.
artsjournal.com. Available as a free e-mail subscription, ArtsJournal is a daily digest
of some of the best arts and cultural journalism in the English-speaking world. It’s
a good way to quickly browse headlines and to find the article gems that you want
to forward and discuss with colleagues and fans.
And there are many terrific music writers with blogs, offering perspective on
the changing music world. Below are a few to check out, but see the companion
website for more musician blogs listed by instrument and interest areas, http://
www.oup.com/us/beyondtalent.
Alex Ross’s The Rest Is Noise, http://www.therestisnoise.com

Andrew Dubber’s New Music Strategies, http://newmusicstrategies.com
Amanda Ameer’s Life’s a Pitch, http://www.artsjournal.com/lifesapitch
Greg Sandow The Future of Classical Music?
http://www.artsjournal.com/greg
Andrew Taylor’s The Artful Manager,
http://www.artsjournal.com/artfulmanager
Jazz bloggers: check out Larry Blumenthal, David Adler, Doug Ramsey, and
Howard Mandel
V
Social Media and You X
Social media is all about connecting. It’s about cultivating active relation-
ships and forming online communities of shared interests. Examples of so-
cial media platforms include Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, Flickr, YouTube,
Twitter, and Wikipedia. These platforms allow users to create, upload, and
share content, participate in conversations, and form virtual communities.

The important and lasting concept here is that what people want and expect
online is to engage actively.
As detailed in the previous chapter, singer-songwriter Jonathan Coul-
ton encourages fans to create new works based on his music, under a Cre-
ative Commons license. Coulton’s fans have made videos using his songs
and Flickr photo slide shows to accompany his songs (see the menu item
“user-generated content” on his site, http://www.jonathancoulton.com).
Another example of this trend is Yo-Yo Ma’s collaborative music project
with IndabaMusic. Ma recorded the melody of Dona Nobis Pacem (Give Us
Peace) and offered this to his fans as material for virtual collaborations with
him. Fans could add their own countermelody or anything else to create
something new. Go to the site to hear the results: http://www.indabamusic
.com/contests/show/yo-yomacontest.
Social media platforms can serve as a powerful reminder of the func-
tion of music in society. Social media is evidence of the essential human
need to connect with others and form communities. As musicians, our fun-
damental work is community building. The arts bring people together. We
create community when we perform, teach, and advocate for the arts. And
with online tools, we now have more ways to help fans connect with us and
with each other.
Second Life Music

Second Life (SL) is all about user-generated content. SL is an online platform
for a three-dimensional virtual world in which participants are represented
by avatars. These avatars interact with one another through socializing,
dancing, fundraising, taking classes, and attending concerts. As reported by
ABS-CBN News in March 2009, “The number of people that have joined the
virtual world since it was created in 1999 eclipsed 15 million last year. The
average number of people logged on to Second Life at any given time is about
70,000.”1
As for SL music, there are many events held that combine live and virtual
performances. Here are a few examples. Composer Pauline Oliveros has been
active in SL with mixed media performances including electronics, spoken
word, and SL avatar dancers. And as part of the National Black Arts Festival,
jazz trumpeter Russell Gunn played live online in Acropolis Gardens, one of
SL’s virtual venues. For another example, BBC Radio organized a two-day SL
music festival on a rented virtual island. The SL festival was organized to
sync with a real-world festival in Dundee, Scotland. The virtual festival site
had a huge screen showing a simulcast live performance from the festival in
Dundee.
Second Life offers musicians opportunities for performing before new

audiences, and building a fan base through online community building.
W
Text Messaging
At the Kennedy Center’s outdoor performances, audiences were asked to send
a text message in order to “opt in” and receive announcements about upcoming
performances. Similarly, U2 front man Bono has used text messaging to have audi-
ences participate in fundraising causes and consciousness awareness campaigns.
Asking audiences to text you or your band at intermission, with questions they
would like answered at your post-concert reception, might be a way to start a dia-
logue with a new fan who just may become a supporter or future donor.
V
Social Media Basics: Making Friends

Social networking sites can connect you with hundreds, even thousands of
fans, friends, and supporters. You can easily invite “friends” to upcoming
shows, send bulletins with updates, and swap ideas and feedback about each
others’ profi les, music, and projects. For musicians without a website, set-
ting up a profi le on Facebook, MySpace, or any other social media site is a
good starting point for establishing a more substantial online presence.
The big idea behind all of the social networking platforms is that people
want to make real connections with real people. It’s about dialogue, not
about spamming people with marketing messages. The way to build a net-
work and fan base on any site is by adding friends. This takes time and ef-
fort. Responding to the messages that your friends send you and sending out
invites to your performances is time consuming, especially if you are doing
this on multiple sites. All this can certainly be overwhelming. The time you
spend is a necessary investment, though, if you want audiences at your per-
formances and people to purchase your recordings. Make sure you add links
for all your profi les on your business cards and on your promotional pieces.
Make it easy to be found.
The good news is that there are services designed for one-stop updating
that will sync all your accounts. In other words, you can add your latest per-
formance dates or project news on one site and it will automatically make the
necessary changes in all the others on which you have accounts. See Posterous,
Atomkeep, and Ping.fm for starters, but again, explore the latest options.
As for choosing which social media platforms you should be on, check
out where successful colleagues are found online. If your crowd of musi-
cians and fans are not on a particular social media platform, then you do not
need to be there.
Cyber Safety
Your website, as well as all your social networking profi le pages, should be
appropriately professional. In the world we live in, there’s no way to keep one
social media site strictly for your personal life and another for your profes-
sional personae. It’s up to each of us to decide what is too personal or private
to put online. Employers now routinely Google prospective job candidates
before choosing interviewees. Be circumspect about the information and
photos you include on any site, because inappropriate language, comments,
or photos are not the way to build a reputation as a professional.
And, just as in the rest of life, there are some unsavory folks online, so
be careful about what personal information you post. Do not post your
phone number, birth date, home address, or any other information about
your personal habits and schedule because this might jeopardize your pri-
vacy and security. Be professional and safe.
W
Check These Out
Below are suggested sites (as of this writing) for musicians to explore. Check
the companion website for additions and updates http://oup.com/us/beyondtalent.
And ask friend and colleagues for recommendations; search for the most current
social networking platforms to fit your particular situation. Find a custom solution to
fit your career goals.
Blogging: Posterous, Wordpress, Blogger, Typepad, Movabletype

Bookmarking and news: Delicious, Stumbleupon, Digg
Microblogging: Twitter
Music: Bandcamp, Instantencore, Soundcloud, Divshare
Performance date info/calendars: Upcoming, Eventful, Jambase
Photo/video sharing: Flickr, Picasa, Photobucket, YouTube, Vimeo, SlideShare,
Divshare
Playlists, listening recommendations: Pandora, iLike
Other social networking platforms (for posting profiles and making
connections): Facebook, MySpace, Bebo, Xanga, Plaxo, LinkedIn (LinkedIn
is used primarily for business contacts and professional colleagues’
networking: can be great for finding out about the people who run
concert series, teach, work in arts organizations)
DIY social network: Ning (allows you to create your own social network on
your site, to manage your contacts)
Shared work online (great for ensembles): Google Docs
V
Website Overview X
There are several reasons to have your own website, as opposed to simply
using social networking profi les. With your own website, you have complete
control over how it looks and how it’s customized, it can be more easily
found on search engines, and it can appear as more “serious” or professional
than a Facebook fan page or MySpace musician profile. A website can be
your home base, a hub to which all your social networking sites connect.
And it can be the place for interested fans and colleagues to fi nd the most
complete information on you and your music.
Musician websites used to be static online brochures. The emphasis has
shifted from what people can find on a website to what people can do on it.
Think of a website as a catalyst. The idea is to get visitors listening to your
music, reading your blog and posting comments, signing up for your mail-
ing list, volunteering for your street team, donating to a project, purchasing
merchandise, or participating in a quiz, raffle, or contest. Above all else,
your site should allow listeners to hear and download your music.
Websites can produce powerful three-dimensional impressions of mu-
sicians, both as artists and as individuals. Your website should be an exten-
sion of you and your artistic vision. It should effectively convey your
personality. Everything on your site should be carefully chosen to represent
you and your music: from the choice of typeface, colors, and graphics to the
text, sound clips, photos, and video. Because concert presenters check on-
line for information about artists they are considering booking, it is impor-
tant that the impression you convey is neither amateurish nor generic.
Presenters, like fans, often judge books by their covers.
W
When asked about musician websites, baritone Tom Meglioranza (http://www
.meglioranza.com) offers this: “Now that musician websites aren’t novelties anymore,
I don’t want a website to be eye-catching. I just want information. I want it to load
quickly (without animated introductions). I don’t want to be forced to listen to music.
I want its information laid out in a clear, non-eye-straining, and easy-to-navigate way.
The musician websites I visit most often are the ones with interesting blogs: Nico
Muhly, Jeremy Denk, Jonathan Biss, Rinat Shaham, Sid Chen, Anne-Carolyn Bird,
David Byrne, Helen Radice, to name only a few of the blogs I regularly check.”
V
Planning is important. Think about what you want from a website and
what you’re hoping to accomplish with your site. Think about your potential
website visitors and their interests. Clear goals, planning, and research will
help you achieve a more cohesive and ultimately more effective website.
Site Analysis 129
Site Analysis X
The best way to educate yourself about websites and to prepare for designing
your own is by viewing lots of musicians’ sites with an analytical eye. As you
view other musicians’ websites, ask yourself the following questions:
What image of the artist (or ensemble) is being conveyed?
What adjectives would you use to describe the image created by the
site?
Is the site easy to navigate?
Does the front page open quickly? Or do Flash animation and other
features slow it down?
Does the site offer opportunities to contact and interact with the
musician(s)? And is there incentive to do so?
Are there interesting links? Does the site link to other musicians and
relevant organizations?
Is there anything fun or unusual on the site? Any surprises?
How does the site help the musician build an audience (or does it)?
If you were considering hiring this musician for a performance, would
you find the information on the site relevant? Interesting?
Would you visit this site again? Why or why not?
What ideas does this site give you for your own?
W
Sites to Peruse
To gather design and content ideas, make sure you look at a broad range of
musicians’ websites. This means looking at more than those of your friends and
colleagues or of those musicians who immediately come to mind. For example, for
those working on promoting a string quartet, do not simply look at other quartet
sites. Here are some that you may not have seen:
• Singer/songwriter Jonathan Coulton, http://www.jonathancoulton.com

(simple, stripped down but extremely effective: fan-oriented, distinct
personality, and funny)
• Violinist Rachel Barton Pine, http://www.rachelbartonpine.com (audience-
oriented with an e-zine, podcasts, video, blog, free downloads)
• eighth blackbird, http://www.eighthblackbird.com (great blog—reveals the
“inner” eighth blackbird)
• Ethel, http://www.ethelcentral.com (great photos, description of projects,
conveys sense of the ensemble)
• Imani Winds, http://www.imaniwinds.com (check out their comprehensive
education programming)
• Conductor Edwin Outwater, http://www.edwinoutwater.com (creative and

fun blog)
• So Percussion, http://www.sopercussion.com (inviting, distinctive)
• Bassist/composer, Ben Allison http://www.benallison.com (good graphics,
distinct image)
• Singer/songwriter, Jill Sobule http://www.jillsobule.com (terrific example of
fan-funded recording projects)
• Pianist Jonathan Biss, http://www.jonathanbiss.com (interesting, thought-
provoking blog)
• Bang on a Can, http://www.bangonacan.org (inventive)
• Providence String Quartet’s Community MusicWorks, http://www
.communitymusicworks.org (clear mission)
V
Website Building Basics X
To get started creating a website, the first thing you need to do is obtain your
domain name (the URL address that you type into your web browser). All do-
main names are completely unique and are registered with the Internet Cor-
poration for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN). For a modest fee per
year, you can own the exclusive rights to http://www.yourname.com, unless,
of course, someone else already has it. Popular sites to register your domain
name (as of this writing) include Doteasy, Godaddy, and Register.com.
Make sure you compare a range of services carefully; check out all the
features with any package offer. It can be confusing because many compa-
nies offer domain name registration along with web hosting. But it can be
important to register your own domain with a separate company from your
web host, so that in the event that you want to change web hosts, there is no
delay or difficulty using your own domain name.
Further, it is becoming equally important to secure your social media
names as well (i.e., “myspace.com/yourname” and “twitter.com/yourname”),
even if you don’t plan to use these platforms anytime soon.
Web Hosting
A website is in essence a small piece of real estate disk space on a hard drive
called a server. Each server connected to the Internet has a unique number,
called an IP address. A domain name points web users to a specific IP ad-
dress. In order to “lease” space on a server, you need to set up a web hosting
account. This is different from your Internet service provider (ISP) such as
Comcast or Verizon. Basic web hosting accounts start at $5 per month, al-
Website Building Basics 131
though they have varying contract lengths and features: bandwidth, data
transfer, and storage. For starters, here are two to consider: Dreamhost and
Media Temple. But ask around: you want to get recommendations and go
with a reliable company with a history of great customer service.
Site Construction
One of the easiest ways to build a site (and one of the best deals) is to use a
free blogging platform. This is easy and you don’t need to know html to
make a great site, although knowing a little is helpful to customize your site.
As of this writing, popular blogging platforms are Wordpress, Blogger, Type-
pad, and Movabletype.
Alternatively, for Mac users who want to build their own site from
scratch and aren’t afraid of diving in to the technical, there’s iWeb and the
more advanced Rapidweaver.
There are also many “templated” website design/hosting services, in
which users can create a site using a choice of pre-packaged design tem-
plates. As of this writing, one that is low cost and popular with musicians is
dynamod. There are also some services that offer free web hosting with
basic templated designs. With these, note that the website URL you get may
include the web host company’s name (making it harder to remember and
perhaps appear less “serious”) and often some advertising. But using one of
these can be a great way to get started.
Free templated sites and hosting:
http://weebly.com http://wix.com
http://www.yola.com http://www.terapad.com
http://www.webs.com http://webnode.com
Costs
Creating a website can cost anywhere from virtually nothing to thousands
of dollars. To find an affordable web designer in your area, Chokdee Rutiri-
sari, a Boston-based designer, recommends Craigslist. He says, “Lots of de-
signers who have day jobs seek freelancing gigs through Craigslist. Just make
sure you see their portfolio before agreeing to work with them. Also, I would
recommend signing some sort of contract or agreement before any money
changes hands. Going rates for a good designer can be $35–$50 per hr.” De-
pending on whom you hire and what is done, the cost for an entire site can
range from $300 to $1,000.
Savvy do-it-yourselfers can instead purchase web design software, such
as iWeb or Rapidweaver, and Dreamweaver (for $100–$400) and become
their own designers. You can often download free trial versions of software
to test and learn the program. For those still in school, there are often edu-
cational discounts available. Some musicians find they like website design
and develop sideline freelance work creating sites for colleagues.
You can also hire a design student to collaborate with you and to teach
you enough basic html code so you can make changes to the completed site
as needed (again, you could find such a consultant on Craigslist). A great re-
source for budding web designers and those going the DIY route is webmon-
key, which has tutorials, style sheets, tips, and articles. But, no matter who
builds it, your site should be completely search-engine friendly and accessi-
ble. This means it should be Web Standards compliant (and an experienced
web designer/consultant will know how to do this).
There are some lower-priced alternatives that you may want to consider
until you have the time, money, and energy to invest in a website. Consider
purchasing your domain name and directing it to your MySpace or Face-
book profi le until your own website is up and running. There are the free
templated sites listed above, And again, there’s the recommended free blog-
ging platform option: Wordpress, Blogger, Typepad , and Movabletype.
Selling Your Stuff

Selling anything directly off of your website can be costly and complicated
because of the software needed to provide secure credit card transactions.
However, third-party sites will list your merchandise and manage the trans-
actions and sales for you in return for a percentage of the profits. Examples
are CDBaby and Bandcamp (free!) for your music, and Zazzle and CafePress
for merchandise such as T-shirts, mugs, and just about anything else. With
Nimbit, you can do it all: sell recordings, tickets, and merchandise directly
to your fans. You place a convenient link or widget on your website to direct
your fans to where they can make purchases. These services take major
credit cards and are licensed vendors.
Traffic
In the end, what you need is not just a great-looking site, but traffic to the
site. What your site links to and who links to your site is crucial. Cultivate a
network of connections. Make sure you’re listed on the alumni pages of your
alma mater with your website link. Do likewise with any of your ensembles
and any institutions where you teach: get your bio and a hyperlink to your
site included. If you are a member of a service organization (such as Cham-
ber Music America or the American Music Center) or on a teaching artist
roster, see if your name and link can be listed on their website.
To make sure your website can be easily found on search engines, con-
sider how your website pages are tagged. This has to do with how the pages
Cultivating Your Fan Base 133
are described, titled, or tagged in html code. Think about how people might
try to find you online, with your instrument or voice type, genre, ensemble,
where you teach, or other projects. These items can be included in how your
website is tagged to help people find you. Each page of your site should have
specific title tags based on the content of that page. This is one more reason
to work with a knowledgeable consultant.
Once your site is up and running, you can use Google Analytics (http://
www.google.com/analytics) to get free site traffic analysis. These reports
can tell you geographically where your visitors are coming from and which
pages on your site they are opening. This can be very helpful both in fine-
tuning your site and your promotion efforts.
Cultivating Your Fan Base X
The whole point of attracting visitors to your website is to build a fan base so
that you can attract audiences to your performances. So your website needs
a mailing list sign-up. This should be an easy opt-in method to get e-mail
addresses of interested folk. But it’s great if you have a way to includenames
and zipcodes, so you can segment your list to alert fans when you will next
be performing in their area. Provide incentives, such as a free download of a
track with every sign-up. As detailed in chapter 2, many musicians use Re-
verbnation, Mailchimp, or Constantcontact.
You also want to fi nd out who among your fans is willing to volunteer
to help promote your performances. On your site and at your shows you
can solicit for “street team” members: enthusiastic fans willing to help pro-
mote performances and more. Your site can also have a volunteer sign-up
(ReverbNation makes this easy). Members of your team may be willing to
cater the reception or help design, print, or distribute flyers and posters. A
fan may want to help out updating your website or contacting media. You
may be able to attract a “fifth Beatle”—a fan assistant to you or your en-
semble who can handle specific tasks and responsibilities to help you
succeed.
Newsletters X
E-newsletters are the most effective way to alert your fans about upcoming
performances and to cultivate their support. Newsletters are most success-
ful when they incorporate great photos along with interesting and personal
news and viewpoints. Remember that your newsletter is about cultivating a
community. It should not be just a list of upcoming gigs (everyone is sick of
online advertising). With a good a mailing list management system, you
can send tailored newsletter announcements to segmented contacts of your

mailing lists.
Music publicist Ariel Hyatt says newsletters need three essentials: the
personal (your thoughts, ideas on . . . ); the news (your latest career-related
highlights); and one call to action (this can be to get people to “friend” you
on MySpace or Facebook, to offer you suggestions on where to tour next
summer, or to give you feedback on a proposed concert program idea).
To make it personal, take the reader inside your creative process—what
was the recording session like? Do you have photos from your last perfor-
mance or tour? What is your “latest find” or inspiration? This might be a re-
cording, restaurant, recipe, book, or article. Something you can provide a
link to. Aim for content that is engaging for your colleagues as well as for
non-musicians.
Website Design Tips X
These tips are adapted from Bob Baker, author of many music career guides:
• Fit the most important information onto your home page on one
screen. Don’t overload your visitors. Keep it simple! Beware; flash and
animation can take too long to load, may be unreadable on certain
platforms, and can make specific pages and information hard to find
on search engines
• Use “white space,” and avoid clutter—make your site pages easy on the
eyes.
• Put the most important info or image in the upper left of each page.
Studies show that this is where visitors start, so put your name,
instrument, or essential image there.
• Place “eye anchors” carefully on the page. Because people scan web
pages, use concise text, short paragraphs, bullet points, and eye-
catching graphics judiciously.
• Think of having a “call to action” on each page, a goal for something
you want the visitor to do. This might be to sign up for your newslet-
ter, listen to a sound clip, or purchase a track, a ticket, or some
merchandise.
• Ask friends to surf your site, and watch them to learn what they are
attracted to and what they actually read and do on your site.
• Provide distinctive resource information on your site: a reason for
visitors to stay and read and return. This might be links to your
favorite benefit causes, local restaurants, YouTube clips, or tips and
recommendations for students.
What’s on the Menu X
Below is information on some of the most common items on musicians’

websites. You may not need or want all of these, but they are worth
considering.
Blogs: are easy and free to create, and can be used as a website or as a
feature of a website. They are very customizable, and blogging platforms
provide design “themes” and it’s simple to add handy widgets for adding
audio and video clips. See Wordpress, Blogger, Typepad, Movabletype.
Blogs are for story telling: when effective, they draw the reader in to the
writer’s world and perspective. Blogs are enlivened with photos, videos,
quotes, and, of course, the writer’s commentary on these. Of course you
want to promote your upcoming performances and recordings, but a blog
should really be about cultivating a relationship with your fans. There needs
to be more than marketing messages in your blog posts. Postings should be
concise, newsworthy, and entertaining because most people have limited
time and patience for online reading. Find good tips on writing blog posts at
http://www.copyblogger.com.
On the eighthblackbird ensemble’s blog, I read one of the group’s “favor-
ite posts.” The topic was flutist Tim Munro’s comedic backstage accident ti-
tled “Anatomy of a Head Injury.” And another posting transcribed the
after-concert “twitterings,” as the six members tried to decide who was going
out for beer. These postings give the reader a real sense of the humor and
personalities of the group. Readers feel invited to and included in the party.
When I first visited conductor Edwin Outwater’s website and blog, he
had up a YouTube clip of a great vintage comedy skit with Sid Ceasar and
Nanette Fabray “doing” the first movement of Beethoven’s 5th as a couple’s
argument. Below that he had posted a description of his most recent perfor-
mance, an orchestra/electronica concert with Mason Bates. Outwater had a
link to an article about his orchestra’s education program and then two You-
Tube clips from the latest political campaign, and his commentary on these
was simply the question, “Isn’t it about time artists got MORE political?”
This all creates a strong positive impression of the conductor’s humor, his
music, and the way he thinks. I was won over and interested to hear his re-
cordings and performances because of his blog posts. (See http://www.ed-
winoutwater.com.)
If you’re not yet performing enough to keep a tour diary, then consider
using your blog for opinion pieces and commentary on topics about which
you are passionate. The idea is to enable a communal online discussion, and
to start an interesting dialogue thread. You need to have a topic that you
care about and know enough about to jumpstart a series of conversations.

One musician writes about food and bread baking, another friend writes on
the topic and idea of community. Greg Sandow writes on the future of clas-
sical music (http://www.artsjournal.com/greg). Your topics may include
politics, religion, and other incendiary topics. Just remember, once you post
anything, you have published it for anyone and everyone to read: all your
friends, family, and colleagues, as well as current and potential employers.
Be clear about what to keep personal and private.
Many musicians start blogs and then find it difficult to keep up with
ideas for new postings every week or so. Therefore, it can be helpful to invite
guests to post on your blog, perhaps an interesting collaborator, mentor, or
student of yours. You can also keep an idea fi le for future postings in case
you run out of ideas. Interesting blog posts can focus on your favorite his-
torical sites, recipes, pop culture, favorite books, and movies.
Bio: The version of your bio for your website should be brief and engag-
ing, fit easily on one screen with plenty of margin, and have room for a
photo. But it can be great to provide options, a concise one-paragraph opener
bio and a link to the rest, or else menu buttons for the short and long bio
versions. If the website is for an ensemble, have both a group bio and links
to individual member bios.
Performance Calendar: listings should include when, where, and what

you’ll be performing, ticket info, a hyperlink to the venue’s website, and
travel directions with a link to mapquest or another mapping website. De-
pending on the music you perform, you may want to include brief, well-
written program notes on the composers and the pieces (written for a
non-specialist audience). You may find a skilled friend or fan willing to help
write these.
Sounds: Having examples of your music is essential! You can include

downloadable sound fi les or MP3 clips that showcase your music. A popular
platform, as of this writing, is SoundCloud, on which you can upload your
music with no fi le size limit and then embed the link on your site. There’s
also Bandcamp and Divshare. The sound clips you provide free can be “teas-
ers” to prompt listeners to purchase tracks or entire albums, and come to
your live shows. Your music page should include links to the:
Purchase page: Provides links to the online retail sites where your al-
bums and tracks are available, such as CDBaby, iTunes, Bandcamp, Amie
Street, Magnatune, TuneCore, Nimbit, and Amazon’s CreateSpace. In gen-

eral, these companies take a portion of the profit in exchange for handling
the digital distribution and sales. For manufacturing and selling other mer-
chandise (T-shirts and such), many musicians use CafePress, Zazzle, as well
as Nimbit.
Photos/Videos: Embedding YouTube clips from your performances can

be a terrific way to engage your readers. Years ago I stumbled onto a flutist’s
website with an embedded YouTube video clip. It was a video of a commu-
nity education performance he had presented for a museum audience. In the
video the flutist performed a solo work standing in a gallery near a painting,
with his listeners standing and gathered around him to hear the music and
view the artwork. The video was especially effective because of the camera
position: the video was shot from behind the performer’s right shoulder, so
that the viewer saw his audience’s response, his movement, and the great lo-
cation. The clip was very effective because the emphasis was on the audi-
ence’s positive response.
Make sure you use a variety of photos throughout your site. And still
shots can be “animated” as slide shows (with Flickr, Photobucket, and oth-
ers). It is great to have less formal shots on pages that focus on teaching, edu-
cation concerts, and audience engagement. If your site is for an ensemble,
use group shots on most pages, but have individual shots to accompany the
individual bios.
Press or testimonial page: If you quote your reviews, make sure you in-
clude the newspaper name, city, and state. If the critic is well known, include
his or her name. If you do not yet have reviews, you can use quotes from
mentors, concert presenters, or club managers, as long as you have obtained
their permission. In other words, if someone has written something positive
about you and your music in an e-mail or recommendation, simply ask,
“Would it be OK to use your quote on my website?”
Electronic Press Kit (EPK): This can be a specialized portion of your

website offering versions of your promo materials geared towards booking
and media purposes. Here you can provide several lengths of your formal
full bio as well as programming materials in ready-to-print downloadable
PDFs. Include a series of high-resolution JPEGS for downloading use by pre-
senters and the media. And many musicians use the site Sonicbids to post
their EPK, giving club managers and presenters one more place to easily find
them and access sound samples.
Links page: You want to have fun, interesting, and relevant links to other
websites. Think what your visitors might be interested in, such as links to
other ensembles you collaborate with, resource sites for musicians and
music enthusiasts, plus non-music sites you find interesting. You may want
to list links in topic categories, keeping the number of links per category to
seven or fewer. You can update or rotate these links as you find new ones.
FAQ page: Many websites have a Frequently Asked Questions page. For
musicians and ensembles, this can be a fun page with quirky personal infor-
mation interspersed with factual, interesting tidbits about your group, rep-
ertoire, and upcoming projects.
Contact info: Make it easy for people to connect with you.
Mailing List Sign-up: stay in touch with your fans. Offer them an incen-
tive for signing up, such as a free download of your music. When you ask
people to sign up for your mailing list, consider asking for their zip code.
There are performing groups who plan their tours based on where their fans
are. You can offer a free download of a performance in exchange for signing
up and leaving a zip code. It’s very easy to set up a mailing list signup. Popu-
lar services include Constant Contact and MailChimp.
Interactive elements: The most successful and popular web pages are
those that are interactive. Include a music trivia quiz, questionnaire, or a
raffle for free CDs or tickets. To connect even more with your visitors and
supporters, think of ways to involve them in your music. Radius Ensemble
reserves the last concert of their home season as an audience choice pro-
gram. People vote on the group’s website for the repertoire for the fi nal con-
cert, choosing encore performances from the pieces performed at the earlier
concerts that season. There are a number of sites that provide free interac-
tive tools you can use on your site:
http://www.bravenet.com
http://www.misterpoll.com
http://www.widgetbox.com
http://www.sparklit.com
http://www.surveymonkey.com
Educational pages: If you teach, you may want to have a portion of your
website devoted to your teaching. And if you play a somewhat unusual in-
strument, consider including a page on the history, construction, or me-
chanics of the instrument. Marimbist Nancy Zeltsman’s site (http://www

.nancyzeltsman.com) is terrific and includes a basic technical introduction
to the marimba and a memo to composers on writing for the instrument.
Nancy has premiered many new works and has had many commissions; this
information is not only helpful for her future composer collaborators, but
for the future of the art form.
Trombonist Mark K. has a brass quintet and a teaching studio. On the
front page of his website, visitors click on the area of first interest, the quin-
tet or the teaching. This simplifies what might have been a confusing menu
if the two areas were combined. The quintet does lots of gigs, weddings, and
corporate events. Its pages include an ensemble bio and separate bios for
each performer, a repertoire list, sample programs, descriptions of work-
shops and booking information.
More remarkable is the teaching studio portion of the site. Its menu has
separate areas for kids, for advanced students, and for parents. Mark in-
cludes (for parents) his teaching philosophy statement, his teaching creden-
tials, a short bio about his teaching experience, and his studio policy. There
are resource and method books listed, as well as advice on how to encourage
children to practice. For students, there are recommended CDs, an “expec-
tations” section, audio fi les, fingering charts, and music theory worksheets.
In addition, there’s a student news section, featuring the accomplishments
and photos of his students and a special set of links just for kids. The teach-
ing portion of the site is thorough, engaging, and impressive. It’s helpful for
both students and parents.
The Internet has made this the age of the entrepreneurial musician. Tech-
nology has made it easy and inexpensive for musicians to enter the profes-
sional market place, build their fan base, promote performances, and sell
recordings. Just keep in mind that the particulars on your site should be tai-
lored to your career, projects, and goals. Take time to think carefully about
who you are, what story you want to tell, and whom you want to reach. Then
just get started: it can be as easy as uploading a version of your one-sheet with
a few clips of your music, a calendar, bio, your email, and some photos!
W
Career Forward
Writing down your responses to these questions will help you create an effec-
tive online presence.
1. What is it you want from having an online presence? What is it you want your
website and social networking to do for you?
2. Which musician websites do you visit regularly? Why? Which musician blogs
do you read? Why?
3. What is it you want your site to convey about you as a musician, person, and
citizen? What image do you want to communicate?
4. What could make your website distinctive? What projects could you feature on
your site? What hobbies and interests would you want to include?
5. What do you want visitors to do on your site?
6. What incentives could you provide to encourage visitors to sign up for your
mailing list?
7. How will you drive traffic to your website?
8. If you do not have a website, or have one that needs improving, what is
preventing you from moving forward with the project?
V
Interlude:
Five Fundamental
Questions
Clearing the Runway: Removing Obstacles to Your Success

Before venturing further with the practicalities of your music career, there
are some larger conceptual issues that need attention. The five questions
below speak to the essentials that determine your satisfaction in your career
and life. These core issues often go unexamined by musicians. Unfortu-
nately, when not dealt with, these issues can be stumbling blocks on your
career path. Thinking over these questions can help you clear the path to
your future.
1. Why Are You in Music? X
It’s easy to get bogged down in everyday life and lose sight of why you first
got into music and what you value most in your musical activities. There are
many ways to be involved in music, so knowing what you want out of your
involvement is essential to making good choices. Understanding your moti-
vation will help you decide which projects to pursue and how to spend your
time and energy toward creating a satisfying life in music.
Musicians rarely grapple with this crucial question of their motivation.
If you take the time to reflect, you will most likely identify a range of reasons
for your involvement in music. What’s more, goals and ambitions often
change over the years. So periodically reexamining your fundamental drive
will help you assess whether or not the journey is worthwhile. Bear in mind
that we are all “works in progress.”
141
142 Interlude: Five Fundamental Questions
W
The Motivation Quiz
There are no right or wrong answers here. There is only the value of examining
your motives. Check off all the reasons why you are in music. Add more as needed.
R Love of music itself, both as a listener and as a performer

R Passion for making music—the physical, intellectual, and emotional
experience
R Love of performing, being in front of an audience, the adrenaline rush, the
excitement, the applause
R Connecting with the audience, sharing a sense of community and
communication
R Desire for acceptance, encouragement, approval (from parents, teachers,
peers, and audience)
R Attraction to the “musician lifestyle,” the idealism, ambition, and the daily
rhythms of practice, preparation, and performance
R Sense of accomplishment
R Sense of identity, mission in life
R Sense of belonging to a community of the arts, something larger and more
essential than a mere job or profession
R Challenge to surpass one’s limitations, to constantly improve
R Communication: music as a means of expression that is more fulfilling than
either words or any other arts discipline
R Other reasons? Add yours here:
V
2. How Do You Define Success? X
Musicians can be so focused on improving their abilities as performers that

they avoid defining the version of success they actually seek. How do you
picture success? What does creating a satisfying life in music mean to you?
When advising musicians, I generally run into two extreme camps. On
the one hand are the complete idealists, interested only in artistic success,
not financial success. They don’t care what they have to do to make a living
as long as they have time and freedom. These people proudly wear the
“starving artist” badge, and dealing with any aspect of the business of music
is viewed as “selling out.” Unfortunately, this extreme position is difficult to
maintain without a trust fund or second income.
On the other hand are those musicians who define success as having a
major international career, worldwide acclaim, and the imagined appropri-
ate financial reward for such stature. For these people, success means fame
and the rarefied atmosphere of superstardom.
How Do You Define Success? 143
But outside the arts, other highly skilled, accomplished professionals

are considered successful even if they are not famous. The idea is illustrated
in this riddle:
What do you call a person who graduates from an Ivy League medical
school at the bottom of his class?
A doctor.
How does this apply to musicians? There are highly skilled and accom-
plished musicians who do not consider themselves successful because they
have not attained national or international recognition. They may perform
locally and regionally, and have created wonderful lives for themselves and
their families. They may combine performing and teaching with recording,
freelancing, and other work. Viewed from the outside, their lives seem inter-
esting, varied, and satisfying. But they may not consider themselves success-
ful because they have not achieved “superstar” status. It’s not unusual to
hear gifted and experienced older musicians lament the fact that they never
got that lucky break or the major label contract of their dreams. And they
may express some version of “I could have made it big if only . . .”
To me, the problem in all this is how narrowly musicians define success
and how they discount their own value and achievements. How you define
success for yourself determines how you will measure your life’s work. Your
estimation of your accomplishments can either contribute to your happi-
ness or make you bitter and resentful.
So when you take the measure of your life, what kind of yardstick will
you use? As you advance in your career, you need to notice and appreciate
the everyday triumphs, the series of small successes along the way. It’s im-
portant to be both practical and patient; long-term career development is
about process. It requires separating the fantasy of media-hyped stardom
from your own values and goals.
Goals and priorities can change over the years. Your goals at age 20 are
different from what they will be at age 30, 40, or 50. Look at how the priori-
ties of Astrid Schween, the cellist of the Lark Quartet, have shifted more than
once over the years. Early in the quartet’s history, the Larks had a grueling
tour schedule, playing 100 concerts per season. Later on, as several members
were starting families, they focused more on New York City–based commu-
nity engagement and education work and asked their manager to limit their
touring schedule. These days, Astrid is excited to be adding concerto and
recital work to her schedule, something she had no room for earlier on.
Besides your own goals changing, available opportunities will change as
well. Technology has fundamentally changed the way music is heard and
taught, distributed and purchased. As audience demographics change, so does
the arts economy. Orchestras, opera companies, jazz clubs, and festivals are all
undergoing rapid change. As you develop your career, you will need to be
open to exploring new opportunities and expanding your skill set.
Many musicians find that as they develop their careers, they want to
make a larger impact, to help improve their own local communities and be-
yond. This is one of the reasons we find that the leaders of major arts institu-
tions are typically either practicing artists or former artists. Whether it is
the head of the National Endowment for the Arts, the managers of perform-
ing arts centers, symphony orchestras, or conservatories, these leaders typi-
cally started out as artists and then found they also had the interest and the
ambition to improve organizations and communities.
It’s also important to acknowledge that career success and happiness do
not necessarily go hand in hand. Life is just more complex than that. Talk to
people you consider successful, people in any profession. Ask them about their
definition of happiness. Most often, people speak of seeking a balance in life,
of having meaningful and challenging work balanced with a rich personal life.
In this balance is where many find satisfaction, contentment, and joy.
3. Is Your Thinking Getting in Your Way? X
The phrase “he’s his own worst enemy” encapsulates the idea that individuals
can sabotage their own chances of success. The problem lies typically in how
these people view their circumstances—it’s about their thinking. The way we
think about ourselves and the world determines how we experience it.
For musicians, there’s a particularly common syndrome, a type of prob-
lematic thinking. It’s a black-and-white “music versus business” dichotomy,
and this results in an unfortunate “us versus them” attitude. The two col-
umns below illustrate some of the contrasting thought associations—the
way musicians think (and talk) about the artistic and the business sides of
the profession. These are slightly exaggerated, but all based on my experi-
ence of advising musicians.
W
Thought Associations
How do you think about music itself and about the business side of the music
profession?
Music as Art versus The Business of Music
Good (clean, pure) Bad (dirty, commercial)
Us (musicians, people who “get it”) Them (everyone else)
True calling “Selling out”
Realm of imagination, creative Tedious, dull
What Kind of Partnership Are You Creating Through Your Music? 145
Focus on practicing, performing Focus on money, paperwork, and

“administrivia”
Feeling “at home” Feelings of discomfort, distrust
Being idealistic (perhaps unrealistic) Being pragmatic (perhaps limited in
imagination)
Art for its own sake Music as a profession (way to earn
money)
Self-satisfaction Music for others (an audience)
Expect/wait for that “lucky break” Do-it-yourself, artist in charge: an
entrepreneurial attitude
V
As you read down the columns, consider your own associations with art
and business. And consider this: nothing in life is ever really 100 percent
good or bad. There are positive and negative aspects on both sides. The real
problem here is that for musicians, this good versus bad thinking prevents
them from dealing effectively with both sides of their careers. And both sides
are necessary for success. This polarized thinking can prevent musicians
from taking charge and from moving forward in their careers. It can keep
them isolated and disconnected from others, even from potential supporters
and collaborators. Careers don’t happen in a vacuum. The best alternative to
the “us versus them” dichotomy is to think in terms of partnerships.
4. What Kind of Partnerships

Are You Creating Through Your Music? X
Consider the live performance experience itself. Arranging a concert in-

volves plenty of work: securing a venue, handling the publicity, writing and
printing program notes and invitations, organizing a reception, and more.
To be successful, performances usually need a team of people, all working
together for one goal: a successful musical experience for both the performer
and the audience. Who is on your “team”? How are you treating them?
The “us versus them” thinking separates musicians from the people who
are actually their partners in this artistic process. To get beyond the us/them
trap, remember that performers work in partnership with others to create the
live concert experience. The diagram below shows the process and the col-
laborators. With this illustration, notice that the performer is not in the cen-
ter, and is not a lone figure, but is, in fact, part of a team. The performer—with
or without a manager—works with the presenter to arrange the performance
date and negotiate details. Then, in order to attract an audience to help create
the live musical experience, a performer needs to connect with media outlets.
Everyone in the circle is a partner in the process. They are all contributing to
the desired outcome, which is a successful live musical experience.
It may seem strange to see the audience in the circle of collaborators.
What is the audience’s role? What does an audience contribute? For musi-
cians, a successful performance may mean a high level of technical accuracy
and a close approximation to their ideal interpretation. For the concert pre-
senter, the successful performance may mean a full house, a good postcon-
cert reception with the artists and donors, lots of media attention, and
names and addresses of potential new season subscribers. But what does the
audience want?
Several years ago I heard the Borromeo String Quartet perform the
Schoenberg String Quartet Op. 7, a dense, difficult, forty-five-minute work
that I had never heard before. The performance was spectacular. But what I
found most memorable was my experience during the performance. For once,
I was not analyzing the work or the performance (the curse of a trained musi-
cian as audience member). Instead, I noticed my own experience, my pleasure
in watching expressive, passionate performers, and in the collective audience
response. The audience’s intent listening made a kind of palpable electricity in
the hall. At times my thoughts were racing, trying to keep abreast of my own
sensory overload, thought connections, and trying to take in the total experi-
ence of the performance. Because the piece is one long movement, a sustained
experience, I was even more conscious of my continuous thought process. At
some point after the quartet finished, during the applause and cheers, it
dawned on me that each person in the audience had experienced something
individual, perhaps nothing at all like what I had felt. But as a communal ex-
perience, it was clear we had all shared in something powerful.
I used to think of performances as fairly one-way transactions. The mu-
sician gives the performance, and an anonymous audience receives it. At the
end, the audience signals its pleasure or displeasure. But now I think of the
performance not as the sounds the musician produces but as the experience
created by the audience and the performer in partnership. What I mean is
that the real performance occurs in each listener’s mind, the nonverbal
dance of ideas, emotions, reminiscences, and associations. The performance
experience is creative, associative, individual, and communal. In the best
situations, a performance creates a sense of community between musicians
and audience.
What do you imagine your audience getting from your live perfor-
mance? What do you imagine runs through their minds as they listen? It
can be difficult for trained musicians to imagine what nonmusicians experi-
ence, because they may not listen critically. The audience may be there for
entertainment or as an escape, a break from their hectic lives. People come
How Meaningful Is Your Work? 147
Process and collaborators in live performance
to concerts to mark special social occasions for family and friends, or be-
cause they seek a source of inspiration, solace or comfort, an emotional and
intellectual challenge, or a spiritual release.
As for the question of partnerships, it’s worth considering: who are your
partners? If you feel a sense of being part of a larger effort, and that others
are pulling with you, it can improve your experience as a performer, and can
improve the quality of your interactions with others.
W
“I believe that musical talent is a gift given and that it is inextricably bound to
social responsibility . . . I believe that musicians are agents for positive change in
the world.”
—Pianist Kwang-Wu Kim, former administrative director of El Paso Pro- Musica,
an innovative community music program in El Paso, Texas, at his inaugural address
as president of the Longy School of Music in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
V
5. How Meaningful Is Your Work? X
In a culture obsessed with materialism, celebrity, and status, it can be easy

for musicians to feel marginalized. Musicians often feel disconnected from
their community and people working outside the arts. But stepping back
from everyday concerns allows musicians to take in the bigger picture of
how music functions in our culture. It is important to at least occasionally

consider the larger purpose of music.
After the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, the sheer number of me-
morial concerts showed how important music is in helping people express and
process powerful emotions. For the first anniversary of the attacks, the “Roll-
ing Requiem” project presented worldwide, continuous performances of the
Mozart Requiem. Each performance began at 8:47 a.m. (the time of the first
plane crash), so that the performances in each time zone circled the globe in
sequence. I attended a Boston-area performance of the Requiem, held at one
of the churches in my neighborhood. The building was packed beyond capac-
ity, with people listening outside on the front lawn. It was so crowded that
speakers were used to broadcast the performance into the basement, where
organizers had set up chairs for another 100 people to sit and listen. They’d
had only a few rehearsals, and because the orchestra and chorus were made up
of community volunteers, it was not a very polished performance. I sat there
in that crowded basement, listening to a spotty, heartfelt reading of a master-
work, surrounded by neighbors and strangers, all members of a community
grieving together. I have rarely been so moved by any performance. For me,
this was a powerful reminder of how music serves humanity: by creating rit-
ual and meaning. In these ways, music creates community.
Each of us has moments when the importance of music is illuminated
and the value of our work is made apparent. Which moments in your life have
crystallized, for you, the value of music? If it’s not about becoming rich and
famous, then for you, what is it about? For anyone planning to devote his or
her life to music, it’s important to clarify its value and purpose in society.
W
Self-Assessment Inventory
The internal process for career growth involves coming to terms with your mo-
tivation, getting an accurate reading on your current abilities, and gaining the per-
spective needed to make appropriate positive change. To help your process, ask
yourself the following questions:
• When do you feel most whole?

• Who is the person you want to become?
• What has been working well for you so far? Why?
• What has not been working so well? Why?
• How can you connect your music with your community?
• How can you help build audiences for your music?
V
21 Questions for Young Performers 149
These essential questions are worthy of revisiting throughout your ca-

reer. Your perspective on these core issues resonates throughout your work
and your life. Responding to these questions should help clarify your values
and help you make career and life decisions based on these values.
Below is a terrific article with still more questions to consider concern-
ing the creative process, performance, and practice. This article is by trom-
bonist Abbie Conant and her husband, composer William Osborne, reprinted
by permission. This piece is one of several interesting articles found on their
website: http://www.osborne-conant.org.
Abbie Conant was formerly solo trombonist of the Munich Philhar-
monic. The International Trombone Association Journal has featured Ms.
Conant in a cover article and described her as “in the first rank of world
class trombonists.” She performs as a soloist and performance artist inter-
nationally and is a professor of trombone at the Staatliche Hochschule für
Musik in Trossingen.
Composer William Osborne has received two ASCAP awards, a doc-
toral fellowship to Columbia University, alternate to the American Rome
Prize, and a major prize from the Theater Commission of the City of Mu-
nich for his Beckett productions. He founded the Wasteland Company in
1984, along with his wife Abbie as the main performer, to explore women’s
roles in music theater. In recent years they have performed his compositions
in over 115 cities in America and Europe to great critical acclaim.
21 Questions for Young Performers X
By Abbie Conant and William Osborne

Many of these questions for musicians stem from our work in music theater,
and suggest how interdisciplinary endeavors might enhance one’s under-
standing as a performer.
1. Are you practicing and performing with a sense of authenticity and
commitment, or working as if you had a musical factory job?
2. Some stage directors are interested in the “performer’s personality and
process.” Are you working with such people, or simply preparing to be
a cultural institution’s “personnel”?
3. Do you try to discover the musicality of a piece for yourself?
4. A performance is a sort of response to the public. The ability to
respond begins with silence, stillness and neutrality. Receptivity. Can
you respond when performing, or are you too buried in routine or
fear?
5. Are you trying to discover your own identity as an artist? Find it, feed
it, fatten it. Think of the stage personality of Maurice Andre, Jean-
Pierre Rampal, Maria Callas, or Louis Armstrong. Every person has
the potential to express his or her own identity. Who are you? How
will you find your artistic identity?
6. A stage director uses responsiveness, receptivity, and intuition. Do you
direct the music when you play?
7. Have you thought of working together with a composer or performer
to develop a music that fully expresses your identity? Is there a music
that is really yours? If not, why not? What would such a music be?
8. To explore yourself without performing (just practicing) leads to
excessive introspection and inaudible music. With a little practice and
encouragement you can evolve as a performer who projects his or her
ideas. Are you learning by doing? How often do you perform?
9. Do you practice to be aware of and remove habits and clichés? Do you
practice mechanically?
10. There are three steps to “recreating” a composition. The first is the
existential, which is considering what the piece means to you. The
second step is the psychological, which is considering the composer’s
motives for writing it. The third is the semiological, which is deter-
mining how you will perform the work so that others can perceive its
meaning. Have you considered these steps? How will your perfor-
mance make vivid the composer’s motives, and your inner relation to
the composition?
11. We communicate when we perform. Have you considered that
everything has a meaning, including your presence on the stage?
12. Do you realize that humans think with their whole bodies, and not
just the brain? Do you realize that performing is essentially an act of
the body? Do you consider it presumptuous to consider performance
as poetry in space made possible by intense physical preparation?
13. Art is the creation of symbolic forms. How do you highlight and detail
your performance to create an iconic vividness?
14. The antics do not make the clown, it is when he or she reveals some
truth about him or herself. Authenticity. Is it the technique or acro-
batic perfection that makes the musician? Do you reveal the truth
about your inner identity when you perform? How can you learn to?
15. Have you noticed how instantly and unthinkingly you catch yourself
when you slip on the ice? It’s not instinct. When you were born you
couldn’t even walk. When you play do you make active the knowledge
that resides in the body? When you practice are you adding the right
knowledge to it?
21 Questions for Young Performers 151
16. Music and theater were given birth by the same muse. Do you realize
that every concept, idea, or method in theater has its corollary in
music, and vice-versa? Do you realize how this understanding can
enrich your music?
17. Have you considered your internal repertoire of physical, imaginative,
and emotional skills? Are you trying to increase them? What are you
calling upon when you perform? What do you have to offer as a
human being?
18. When you practice and perform do you confront yourself in a state of
perpetual discovery?
19. Do you practice with the goal of making things so natural and
spontaneous that you no longer feel your body? You must divest your
body, it must in effect cease to exist. Ironically, only then does it really
begin to exist. Do you “subdue the flesh” by removing its blockages?
20. What are you doing to learn to come before a public and not be afraid?
21. Perhaps music isn’t sound. Perhaps it doesn’t exist outside of our
heads, because nothing in the world is a perfect realization or perfor-
mance of our abstract ideals. Are you learning to operate with your
mistakes? Every performer must. It is part of the human condition to
constantly proceed from failure. Is there not a certain frailty and
miraculousness to creation?
6
Booking
Performances:
Artist Management
and Self-Management
W
In this chapter:
The Big Question
Myths about Artist Management
How Artist Management Works
How Not to Get Artist Management
The Truth about Competitions
Self-Management: Your Best Bet
Alternatives to Traditional Management
Where to Perform
Effective Programming
Booking Your Own Concerts
Negotiating Fees
Confirmations/Contracts
Booking a Regional Tour
V
The Big Question X
Jenny is a talented and ambitious pianist in her mid-twenties who’s

won several regional competitions. She makes a career advising
appointment to discuss her career. Since getting her master’s degree
two years ago, she’s been teaching at a local community music school.
She also teaches a few students privately, is the accompanist for a voice
teacher’s studio, and has performed with several local new music
ensembles.
152
Myths about Artist Management 153
At the appointment, I ask how things are going. Jenny says, “The
teaching is OK, I like working with kids, but this isn’t what I had in
mind for life after graduation. I really want to be making a living as a
performer, playing solo recitals. I was hoping you could give me the
names of a few artist managers so that I can get representation.”
I’m asked a version of the question “How can I get management?” about
once a week. And similar to the question “How do I get a record contract?”
the answer takes some deconstructing.
Myths about Artist Management X
Unfortunately, there are many common misconceptions about artist man-

agement. Here are a few of the most pervasive:
Myth #1: Careers happen like this: if you are talented, practice hard,
and win big competitions, you will be rewarded with a manager who
will make you a success. Your manager will provide enough well-
paying performances so that you will not need to have a “day” job.
This is NOT the way it works.
Myth #2: Finding a manager is a straightforward process. You simply
send in your publicity materials with a letter requesting management,
someone signs you on, and then you become a success.
Also, not true.
Myth #3: Once you have a manager, your career will take off. Your
manager will handle all of the business aspects of your career—the
details of publicity, contracts, and finances—leaving you free to
practice and perform.
Again, this is not the way things actually work.
Myth #4: In order to get bookings and have a successful career, you
need a manager.
Absolutely not true.
Reality: What Managers Actually Do

The main work of artist managers is booking concerts for their artists, and
negotiating the fees and contracts for these performances. An experienced,
successful manager is someone who has built solid relationships with pre-
senters—the people who organize concert series, festivals, and residencies.
154 Booking Performances: Artist Management and Self-Management
Managers use their connections and skills to promote and “sell” their artists
to presenters. Managers do this “sales” work by phone, fax, e-mail, and in-
person meetings at regional and national booking conferences.
There are some differences in artist management among genres. Be-
yond getting bookings, artist managers also create or oversee the develop-
ment of their artists’ promotional materials. Classical artist managers may
also arrange for commissions, for their artists to audition for conductors,
and may help secure full-time residencies or make connections with record
labels. Generally, artists work in partnership with their managers.
Unfortunately, there are many more talented and deserving artists than
there are ready-made performance opportunities. It can take an enormous
amount of time and energy for artist managers to get bookings for their art-
ists, especially on the higher-profile concert series. There are also many
more musicians seeking artist management than the industry can support.
W
Who’s Who?
Today, people are working in expanded capacities, as the industry is trans-
formed by changes in funding, audience interest, and technology. The roles of
managers, producers, and presenters (and sometimes artists) are becoming some-
what blurred. It’s not always a straightforward buy-and-sell transaction. Musicians
are becoming presenters of their own series, and some start their own festivals.
Artist managers are sometimes working as producers and partnering with present-
ers. Though the job descriptions are becoming blurred, here are the basics:
Artist managers book performances for the artists they have agreed to
represent; they may also advise on artists’ career projects and promotional
materials. Managers must develop and maintain good relationships with
presenters. Managers face stiff competition in trying to book artists for a
shrinking number of prestigious concert series opportunities.
Booking agents book artists to perform at a variety of concert and
commercial venues (such as cruise ships and hotels). They generally do not
get involved in promoting their artists’ long-term careers, or in recording
or commissioning projects. Booking agents typically work with pop, rock,
and jazz artists.
Personal representatives are hired to work on behalf of an artist, booking
concerts and managing specific aspects of the artist’s career.
Presenters are in charge of engaging artists to perform for their audiences.
Presenters curate performance series, festivals, and residencies. They may
work for many different types of venues, such as universities, libraries, and
arts councils. Presenters oversee the bookings and contracts for the artists,
How Artist Management Works 155
as well as the publicity and finances for the series. Because ticket sales
cover only a fraction of the costs of presenting a series, fundraising and
budget concerns are a big part of the job. Presenters must also consider
the balance of the entire concert series they book, so that they provide a
variety of offerings appropriate for—and of interest to—their community.
Producers organize performances; this may include renting the performance
space, choosing and editing the program, hiring the performers and
backstage crew, renting sound and recording equipment, managing the
publicity, and scheduling rehearsal times and sound checks.
Publicists work to get media coverage for an individual or organization. They
write and send press releases and PSAs (public service announcements) to
newspapers, radio, television, and online media outlets. They may work
for an organization, such as a label or a festival, or on a freelance contract
basis for particular artists, handling a performance project, tour, or CD
release. Their goal is to gain media attention for their clients.
V
How Artist Management Works X
There are many factors that go into a manager’s decision about which artists
to represent. Of course, a manager must believe in the musician’s artistry and
ability to communicate with audiences. This is somewhat subjective, a mat-
ter of taste and interest on the manager’s part, but it is also a matter of the
artist’s track record of success, reputation, career readiness, and personality.
A manager needs to know that the artist has “booking potential,” that the
manager will be able to interest presenters in booking this artist. And of
course, managers must consider the balance of their roster. If a manager al-
ready represents a solo harpist (not an easy act to book), it is unlikely that she
would consider adding another. And if a manager is stretched thin with the
number of artists he is representing, it may be impossible to add any more.
Here is the bottom line: managers need to sign artists who can earn
them a profit, who already have a track record of excellent performances and
reviews, or who have just won a major international competition and are at-
tracting significant media attention. No matter how much artist managers
love music and love working with musicians, they are still in a business. In
order to stay in the business, they must be able to earn an income.
Classical managers’ standard commission is 20 percent of the artist’s
gross concert fee paid by the presenting organization. For jazz and other
genres, the commission is 10–15 percent. In addition, artists are billed for
their share of the necessary expenses, which include artist roster advertising,
brochures, long-distance telephone for sales calls, postage, travel to booking

conferences, and the artist’s promotional materials. The expenses are typi-
cally invoiced to the artist as monthly or quarterly bills. In most cases, man-
agers have their artists sign initial contracts of 2–3 years, with an automatic
yearly renewal. The contract agreement details the artist/manager working
relationship: the financial arrangement, the exclusivity, and geographic reach.
Some contracts are for North American representation only; artists may have
other management in other parts of the world. Classical musicians’ artist con-
tracts are typically exclusive: they cover all performances the soloist or en-
semble is involved in, no matter how the performance opportunity comes
about. Jazz artists often do not have exclusive contracts because they typically
work concurrently with multiple ensembles and consequently end up work-
ing with multiple booking agents for various projects.
The three major classical New York artist management companies are
Columbia Artists (CAMI), Opus 3 Artists (formerly ICM), and IMG Artists.
These firms have the largest artist rosters, and often the most well known
artists. And these firms have the most clout in negotiating contracts with
festivals, record labels, and orchestras.
There are also mid-level management firms, with somewhat smaller
rosters, such as Barrett Vantage Artists, Thea Dispeker, Alliance Artist
Management, Melvin Kaplan, and Colbert Artists Management. Finally,
there are many small firms, generally one- or two-person offices, including
MCM Artists, BesenArts, Sciolino Artist Management, and many more.
The advantage of mid-size and smaller firms may lie in the often greater
amount of personal attention the artists receive.
To find listings of artist managers, see Musical America, the annual inter-
national music industry directory. You can browse Musical America (hard
copy or online version) at your local music school’s library and read about the
various artist management firms and see which artists are on their rosters.
To find out more about how artist management works, visit the Na-
tional Association of Performing Arts Managers of America website (http://
www.napama.org). Read the ethical guidelines for the profession to get a
good idea of what to expect from a manager and what questions to ask if you
are considering working with a particular manager.
Before signing any contract or investing in management representation,
be sure to do your homework: ask for the names and phone numbers of past
and current artists the manager has represented. Check these references
carefully. Before an artist signs with a manager, there is usually a courting
period when both parties are checking each other out. A manager without
appropriate skills, contacts, and experience is a bad investment. Overall, the
chemistry between artist and manager has to be right, because the working
relationship is a partnership.
How Not to Get Artist Management 157
After signing with a management firm, it may take a whole year before
an artist gets any work. This is because most presenters of mid-size and
larger series book several seasons in advance, so it can take that time for
word to get around about an interesting new talent. And, once an artist or
ensemble has secured management, he or she still needs to cultivate and
maintain an excellent working relationship with their manager.
In his article “The Quest for Management” (published in Chamber
Music America’s CMA Matters in October 2007), artist manager Robert
Besen (http://www.besenarts.com) writes that he counts on his artists “to
work with me, not simply depend on me.” His roster includes the Daedalus
Quartet, the Orlando Consort, and guitarist William Kanengiser (of the Los
Angeles Guitar Quartet). Besen explains that he is most effective as a man-
ager when his artists not only deal professionally with booking and perfor-
mance details, but also take a proactive approach, feeding him “creative
ideas about repertory and other projects” and leads on new venues. “I like to
work with artists who are effective at pressing the flesh,” adds Besen, “those
who get to know presenters, board members of presenting organizations,
important members of the presenters’ communities.”1
Robert Besen also addresses the key questions artists should ask them-
selves when considering management: “Are you working? Are you getting
re-engagements? Are you earning decent fees? Do you have a following? Do
you have a recognizable and compelling artistic personality? Do you have
something compelling for a manager to sell and for presenters and their au-
diences to buy?”2
Take the artist management quiz:

How many concerts did you play last season?
What was the total amount you earned from last year’s performances?
Next, take 20 percent of last season’s concert fees and ask yourself,
would a manager be interested in signing you? In other words, have
you generated enough work and media attention to interest a
manager?
Professional managers are not in the business of growing anyone’s ca-

reer from scratch (unless you are a world-class child prodigy). Managers
simply cannot afford to invest time and energy in this process. However,
there are effective ways for emerging artists to manage themselves.
How Not to Get Artist Management X
Musicians often prepare elaborate, expensive promotional kits and send

them to all the managements listed in Musical America. Every week these
management companies receive stacks of unsolicited promo kits with letters

from artists requesting representation. These letters and kits, by and large,
go unread. The management companies have their hands full trying to book
the artists already on their rosters. So, without a personal contact to an art-
ist manager or the specific knowledge that the artist manager is looking for
an up-and-coming wind quintet or solo harpist (if that’s what you do), then
you’re simply wasting time and money sending materials that will only be
discarded.
However, management companies may be interested in hearing a new
or emerging artist if an esteemed performer, teacher, or presenter recom-
mends the artist. If you have a mentor with management contacts who feels
you are ready for professional representation, he or she can invite these peo-
ple to your next concert or write a letter of introduction for you.
Without these contacts, you might wonder, what’s an aspiring artist to
do?
The Truth about Competitions X
Yes, there are some competitions that offer preprofessional artist manage-
ment to the winners. Such competitions include those sponsored by Astral
Artistic Services, Concert Artists Guild, Young Concert Artists, and Pro
Musicis International. These competitions offer winners artist representa-
tion and concert bookings for several years, after which some artists are
successful in moving on to full professional artist management rosters.
There are also other competitions (Van Cliburn and the Honens com-
petition for pianists, and the Sphinx Competition for Black and Latino
string players) that offer the winners a number of concerts, solo engage-
ments with orchestras, and/or a recording. These prizes and the media at-
tention may be helpful in gaining the interest of potential artist managers.
See the companion website for additional information on competitions.
But the truth is that no competition guarantees a career, and there are
many musicians who win prestigious competitions these days and do not
get artist management. So, putting all your hopes on winning a competition
is like gambling with the odds stacked against you. Competitions are fi ne
but not as one’s primary strategy for creating a career.
The real challenge for emerging artists is not how to get a manager; it’s
how to get an audience, how to build a fan base, a reputation, and media at-
tention. The new music group Bang on a Can makes for a good case in point.
It started with three young composers, fresh out of Yale, who were interested
in music “from between the cracks,” between minimalism and rock, between
Self-Management: Your Best Bet 159
written and improvised music, between music and noise, between live per-
formance and electonica. In 1987 they put on their first concert, a twelve-
hour extravaganza of new music, and called it the “first annual” Bang on a
Can Marathon, without knowing whether they could attract a following.
They thought the actual audience for their music was likely to be those inter-
ested in contemporary visual art and film, not the traditional classical music
crowd. So they concentrated their efforts on spreading the word to people
who visited galleries and art events. Their hunch paid off. Since then, the
group has established a touring ensemble, the Bang on a Can All-Stars, part
rock band, part amplified chamber group. In 2000, Bang on a Can started the
People’s Commissioning Fund, which invited audience members to give, as
little or as much as they could, to a fund for commissioning new works. In
addition, Bang on a Can now has a summer educational festival for young
composers and performers located in the Berkshires at the Massachusetts
Museum of Contemporary Arts. All this came from three composers with an
idea. This is the entrepreneurial approach. You can create your own perfor-
mance opportunities and attract new audiences without a manager.
Self-Management: Your Best Bet X
Here is the good news: you do not need to win a major competition in order
to get your career going. Nor do you need a manager to get concert book-
ings. It is possible to successfully self-manage your career. The basic idea of
self-management is that you are in the driver’s seat.
The truth is that nobody is going to be a stronger advocate for your music
than you. No one will get as excited about it or have as much at stake in it as
you. So, instead of hoping to win the right competition or wait for someone
else to give you opportunities, why not take charge of your own career? Mo-
zart and Phillip Glass both wrote and performed their own works, rented
halls for performances, organized their own ensembles, and produced their
own concerts. Yes, all of this takes considerable work, but take heart: there is
a long history of musicians as creative and successful entrepreneurs.
Booking your own concerts is not rocket science, but it helps to acquire
certain skills. In coaching musicians in this process, I’ve found that when
the work is broken down into bite-size pieces, most musicians can book
their own concerts. After all, musicians routinely analyze and understand
complex musical works. They break these down into manageable sections to
practice and to master. Self-management simply means putting some of
these same critical thinking and organizational skills to work in another di-
rection, toward career projects.
It helps to keep in mind that all careers start locally. So, first arrange
performances in your immediate community. The goal is to gain experience
and to start building an audience, adding names to your mailing list, and
perhaps gaining media attention. All of this can lead to bookings at larger
and more prestigious venues.
Whether you have a manager or are doing it yourself, there are some
absolute essentials with which everyone must come to terms. Freddie Hart,
artist manager for Triple Helix, describes the necessary discussions artists
need to have with either their managers or with themselves: “Have open and
honest communication about goals but also about where you are now. It’s
important to have realistic expectations.” At the beginning, it may be far
more important to gain performance experience than it is to be earning
fees. Hart recommends to “Be clear about how important the money is (or
isn’t) in terms of validating your self worth.” Tying one’s self-esteem to the
fees paid for performances is a losing battle. Hart advises musicians to “re-
member why you want to be performing in the first place.”
Alternatives to Traditional Management X
When a musician has built a solid local and regional reputation and fan
base, he or she is in a good position either to attract professional manage-
ment or to hire and train an administrative assistant to handle portions of
the self-management work. Assistants may be skilled (or trained) in manag-
ing press material updates and mailings, making “cold calls” to presenters,
writing contracts, managing the musician’s mailing lists and website, and
writing program notes.
W
Mike J., a Boston-area clarinetist, has specialized in contemporary music, pre-
miering and commissioning many new works for solo clarinet. He had self-managed
his career while in school and also pursued finding professional management for a
few years, but to no avail. Finally, he found a friend with a background in orchestral
management who agreed to work as his personal representative on a 20 percent
commission basis. The first season, Mike’s friend booked him fifteen solo engage-
ments with regional orchestras in the Midwest. This made a great addition to the
New England area bookings that Mike had arranged on his own.
V
There are many examples of ensembles that started as self-managed

groups and went on to hire their own artist representatives (the Cavani and
Cypress String Quartets, Synergy Brass Quintet, and the ensemble Asteria
are just a few). These groups were self-managing until they reached a thresh-
old where they needed—and were able—to hire outside help. The artist rep-
resentative may be paid on a per-project basis, on a monthly retainer, or on
an hourly or weekly rate basis.) Early on, the Kronos Quartet brought on
board Janet Cowperthwaite as their artist representative and the “fifth
member” of the quartet: an integrated member sharing equally in the finan-
cial risk and rewards of the group. The Kronos quartet is structured as a
nonprofit (this is a legal and tax status that helps with the fundraising and
grants necessary for most arts organizations to operate). Today, Janet is
managing director, with a staff of eight administrators, all working for the
Kronos Quartet/Kronos Performing Arts Association, and they handle all
of Kronos’s booking, travel, promotion, production, and fundraising.
Another alternative to traditional management is described in Making
Music in Looking Glass Land, a terrific music career guide by Ellen Highstein
(published by Concert Artists Guild). In the book, Highstein outlines the idea
of creating a cooperative management. A group of musicians or ensembles
may collectively hire a personal representative to work on their behalf, either
on a commission or retainer basis. Alternatively, the musicians themselves
may divide up the work, delegating the telephone and e-mail contact, graphic
design work, and the administrative and bookkeeping duties. The work can be
assigned according to the members’ abilities and preferences. Highstein writes
that these alternatives to traditional management can have “several advan-
tages over individual or self-management: they can enable group members to
pool information and contacts, to spread the work and cost of self-management
among the members or allocate it to a salaried person, allow the member mu-
sicians to control the kinds of musicians on the roster and allow the members
to say, ‘Call my manager,’ with honesty and confidence.”3
Where to Perform X
Ultimately, you need to find places to perform. Because all careers start
local, look for venues in your community. To get ideas, ask your mentors,
teachers, and colleagues for suggestions of places to perform. Read your
local arts calendar listings online to find who is performing where in your
area. Familiarize yourself with the various concert series and venues, and
check their websites. Beyond your network, your sleuthing should include
checking websites for the itineraries of other emerging musicians. Where
are they performing?
Barbara Raney, who managed Epic Brass for many years, recommends
that emerging artists “approach smaller series with smaller budgets and
make them an offer they can’t refuse! Practice six degrees of separation: if
you want to get to a series, plot a course through the people you know and
the people your people know. Your message is more compelling when you
can say, ‘Jim Barker suggested I call . . . ’ ”
You may have more than one geographic area for possible performances,
such as where you live now, where you attended school, and where you grew
up. You can get presenter lists from your state and regional arts agencies (see
the companion website). With contacts and performance opportunities in
multiple locations, musicians can arrange “micro-tours,” performing the
same program in several different communities to gain exposure and expe-
rience. And the good news is that in smaller cities and towns, emerging art-
ists often have an easier time getting media coverage and reviews.
The Elegua duo, cellist Ginevra Ventre and pianist Claire Black, orga-
nized a concert in New York’s Adirondack region where Black grew up. The
two had attended Baldwin-Wallace College as undergraduates and enjoyed
rehearsing and performing together. Though they were then, in 2008, at dif-
ferent grad schools, Ventre and Black wanted to continue performing to-
gether. The duo made a list of possible places to play and got help from
Claire’s family friends in the area.
At their initial concert in the region, they had a guest book for audience
members to sign and leave e-mail addresses. After the concert, the duo sent
thank-you notes to everyone, and some people wrote back, offering ideas
and contacts for future performances and assistance with getting press cov-
erage. “Claire and I were surprised at the extent to which audience members
were willing to help,” Ventre said.
Their initial performance in the spring grew into a summer tour of
eight concerts; the range of venues included a local hospital, elementary
school, a community art center, church, art gallery, and a nursing home.
Ventre explained their process: “To negotiate the fees, we investigated the
venues’ websites (if they had one), and Googled them to research all that we
could. When we talked to the presenters we asked what their budget was and
what other kinds of entertainment they hosted, all to get an idea of what
would be an appropriate fee to ask for. We also bartered, in some cases ex-
changing a lower fee for help with publicizing the performance and the
tour.” The following summer, the duo presented a local composer’s piece on
one concert and another concert was recorded for broadcast on the regional
NPR radio station.
Alternative Performance Sites

Think beyond established concert series and festivals. Think of places that are
already attracting audiences or attendees but do not currently present con-
certs. Visit your public library; ask the reference librarian for help researching
potential venues. Your local chamber of commerce and arts council also are
good resources. You may find non-traditional sites with surprisingly good
acoustics where people are enthusiastic to have your music. Check out your
local sources:
Museums Hospitals High-end condominiums
Parks and recreation Resort hotels Boys and girls clubs
Historical houses Prisons Rehab centers
Churches/temples Libraries Colleges/universities
Community centers Hospice centers Chamber of commerce
Senior centers Public schools Adult education centers
Shelters Alumni associations Community music schools
Veterans’ associations Private schools Civic clubs (Elks, Rotary,
Lions)
Another great way to cultivate a fan base and supporters is to arrange
“house concerts.” These can be held in apartments, country homes, or city
lofts. They can be organized as specific fundraising events for a special list
of invited guests, or they can be a great way to try out a new program in ad-
vance of a more formal concert date. Fortepianist and harpsichordist An-
drew Appel is the founder of Four Nations (http://www.fournations.org), a
Baroque ensemble based in New York’s Hudson River Valley. Since the mid-
1990s, Appel has been organizing a fall series called the Hudson River Har-
vest Concerts. Each concert takes place in a privately owned site of historic
interest or in a particularly important home in the region. To organize your
own house concerts, start with the people in your network. Find out who
has the larger living spaces, a piano (if needed), and who might be interested
in hosting or sponsoring a house concert.
W
Finding Your Niche
Here’s a tip from self-managing jazz pianist Bradley Sowash. In “Self-Market-
ing for Artists,” Sowash advises musicians to “find a niche for which you alone are
suited. Find where people gather around your niche concept, and you have a new
outlet for performing that can be in addition to your concert career. I know a guy
who wrote and self-produced an instrumental recording of songs about flowers
and herbs mentioned in Shakespeare. He could have named them Song #1 or Opus
43 but he hooked his notes to flowers through his titles. Do you know where he
gigs and sells merchandise? Flower shows. Since jazz worship services are a part of
my offerings, I go to church events to promote them . . . How many other touring
performers do you think set up booths at flower shows and church conventions?
With zero competition, it’s easy to stand out among bud vase wholesalers and
angel jewelry vendors.”4
V
Effective Programming: Engaging

Presenters and Audiences X
Before contacting a presenter or venue manager, you need to make sure that
the program you offer is compelling. Think about it from a presenter’s point
of view. A relatively unknown artist, whose name alone will not attract an
audience, playing a recital of standard repertoire—does that sound like a
box office draw? If an artist offers only traditional repertoire, why should an
audience attend? They can stay home and listen to recordings of these same
works by any of their favorite legendary artists. Presenters need to consider
whether or not an artist can attract an audience. So, for emerging artists
without name recognition, innovative programming is the answer.
In effect, a presenter “curates” a concert series the way a museum curator
plans an art exhibition. Museum curators carefully select and arrange the art-
work, with the idea that each single work is experienced in relation to the
whole exhibition. Likewise, a presenter books individual performances with
the balance of the entire series in mind. Curators write and print descriptions
of the individual works and of the exhibition itself. Presenters do the same.
And they both work to publicize their shows to attract, engage, and enlighten
a community audience. There are many factors that go into presenters’ deci-
sions about which artists to book. So being rejected may simply mean that
your program does not fit a presenter’s plans for that particular season.
One of the best ways to interest presenters—as well as critics and audi-
ences—is by programming unusual pieces, or pairing well-known works
with non-traditional ones, or by using thematic programming (building a
program around a particular thematic idea).
To gather creative ideas for programs, ask other musicians, collaborators,
faculty, and music librarians. In terms of programming for non-traditional
venues, consider how a concert might fit with the organization. You might
offer a museum a program of music related to its collection of twentieth-
century Expressionists, or a program built around a particular type of art-
work such as miniatures, portraits, or landscapes. If the venue is a school,
considering developing programs for specific age groups. Does the organiza-
tion have a special fundraising event coming up that could use a performance
after the gala dinner? In preparing for your booking calls, it’s important to
have at least one program organized and to be able to describe it engagingly.
Radius Ensemble is a flexible, mixed chamber group with a set of core
players, headed by director/oboist Jennifer Montbach. The ensemble pro-
duces its own concert series. Jennifer approaches programming individual
concerts by first choosing a piece she loves and wants to program. Then she
asks herself which potential themes or ideas suggested by this piece could be
explored in the rest of the concert. She also asks herself what pieces might
make for interesting contrasts. The idea is to think creatively to develop

imaginative programs that will help draw media interest and audiences.
(See http://www.radiusensemble.org.)
Creative Programming Tips

To generate more ideas, consider building programs around the following:
• The premiere of a new work (especially by local composers)
• Unusual pairings (e.g., Baroque ornamentation and contemporary
improvisations—a program exploring the parallels between the two,
with classical and jazz works)
• Works that explore a thematic idea, such as war, passion, faith, time,
redemption, or healing
• Works inspired by myths or legends
• Works inspired by dance forms, the visual arts, or theater
• Music from a particular country
• Celebration of a local event, person, holiday, organization, or
anniversary
• Collaboration with a guest artist from the local community: a musi-
cian, dancer, or a video artist
• Music inspired by literature
• Pairing of music with live poetry or short fiction readings
Assuming you have developed one or more potential program to offer
and you have a list of possible performance venues to pursue, the next step
involves a little more sleuthing.
Booking Your Own Concerts X
Next, do some research about your potential presenting organizations and

venues. Much of this research can be accomplished online, by reading care-
fully the venues’ websites, and the rest by making exploratory phone calls.
Keep a notebook or spreadsheet to organize the information you fi nd for
each venue.
Find out the following:
• What is the range of the organization’s existing programming?
• Are the acoustics appropriate for your music? (Check what types of
groups perform there now.)
• What is the seating capacity of the hall or space? (Emerging artists
should look for a smaller venue that your friends and fans could fill.)
• Does the venue host any family or educational programming, partner-
ships with local schools?
• If they do present music, what is the career “level” of the artists? Find
out if emerging local musicians perform there. Check who is perform-
ing there this season; find these artists’ bios on their websites, and
check their backgrounds and credentials. Some larger-budget series
book only well-known artists with professional management. So target
the venues appropriate for your current level of experience.
• Examine the series’ staff and board of trustees’ lists posted on their
website. Ask friends and colleagues to find a personal connection with
the series so you can convert a “cold call” into a warm one with
something like “Beatrice Fortner suggested I contact you.”
After you have researched your list of local venues and have a compelling
program organized, you can make initial exploratory calls to fine-tune your
information. Smaller-budget series are often booked by volunteers, part-time
staff, or people who have various other duties at their institutions. Whomever
you reach, be gracious. Always make a note of the name of the person you are
speaking with, so that when you call you can greet the person by name.
Booking Calls: Five Elements of a Pitch

To be effective in booking your own performances, you’ll need a succinct,
well-crafted pitch, a 20–30 second statement about you or your ensemble.
The purpose of the pitch is to interest presenters in you and your music, so
that they will want to listen to your demo and read your promo kit. You ba-
sically have the first 20–30 seconds in a call (or on a voice-mail message) to
pique a presenter’s interest. In that brief time, you need to cover the five
points below, otherwise you will lose the presenter’s attention and she or he
will end the conversation quickly.
A pitch is not a blurb you memorize and recite verbatim when making
booking calls. It should be, instead, the equivalent of elevator speech mate-
rial (see chapter 2) that you can use flexibly as part of your conversation. It
is important to have this material thought out and to feel comfortable using
it before you make any calls.
Remember: the call should be a dialogue—back and forth, a real con-
versation. The five points outlined below are the major areas you need to
cover, but of course, you will need to be responsive to whatever reactions
and questions you get from the presenter.
1. Identify your name and what you do (genre/ensemble, etc.). “Hi, my
name is Jane Doe with the ABC Brass Quintet”; “Hello, my name is
Ron Tompkins calling on behalf of the XYZ Jazz Trio”; or “Hi, I’m a
violinist here in Tucson; my name is Marla Thompson.”
2. Establish a connection with the organization, the presenter, the series, or
the community. If you have a personal contact in common, use it:
“Betty Kim suggested I contact you.” Or “Tim Porter, the baritone

who performed for your series last year, suggested I call you,” or
“Wendy Jones, on your board of trustees, suggested I get in touch with
you,” or “I grew up here in Northfield, and have attended many
exhibitions at your gallery space.”
3. Give a third-party endorsement. Include one or two of your best
credentials. This will give the presenter evidence of your abilities and
experience as a performer:
“I recently won the ABC competition.”
“I recently performed on the DEF and GHI concert series.”
“I recently received the KLM grant.”
“I graduated with honors from the 123 music school and have per-
formed with the 456 ensemble.”
“My ensemble recently released a CD that got a good write-up in XYZ
journal.”
“My ensemble has presented well-received family concerts at the
Whoville Library and Whatsit Community Center.”
4. Program idea: explain what specifically you are offering.
Pitch for a club: “We’ve just completed our debut recording and are
looking to book album release concerts this fall. We’d like to include
a date in your area.”
Pitch for historical society or architectural college: “I noticed on your
website that you offer family programs, and I wanted to let you
know about our educational programming. We’ve got two programs
pairing architecture and music that we thought would work well at
your site. The programs are fun and interactive: emphasizing how a
piece of music is constructed. We work with the children in ‘build-
ing’ a new piece of music, relating architectural concepts to musical
ones.”
Pitch for a women’s college: “I’ve got a program of works by women
composers—including new works by two regional composers—that
might be of interest to your college students and local alumni.”
Pitch for a bookstore, library, or college lecture series: “I’ve got a new
program that pairs spoken word and music inspired by literature,
that I perform together with local actor Tom Beakman reading.”
5. Propose next steps:
“May I send you some information?” . . .“What specifically would be
most helpful? . . . Should I send you this electronically or in hard
copy?”
(Note: your full hard copy promo kit is expensive to produce. Don’t send the
full kit unless it’s requested. Give presenters just what they ask for, but
include a note telling them what else you have, in case they want more.)
“And, I’ll call to follow up in 2 weeks. When are the best times to reach
you?”
Once you’ve developed your pitch statement, practice it with colleagues
and friends. Do a “pretend” booking call, having a colleague or mentor play
the role of the presenter at the other end of the line. This will help you feel
more confident when you do these calls for real.
If No One Answers
If you call and get only voice-mail, leave a brief message introducing your-
self and concisely explain why you are calling. Leave your phone number
but promise to call again. Wait four or five workdays and then try again,
leaving another message if no one picks up. After that, try a few more times,
experimenting with different days of the week and different times of the
day, but don’t leave any more messages. If after five or six attempts you still
cannot reach the person, move on.
Follow Through
Keep scrupulous notes about all your presenter contacts. Keep a log of all
presenter interactions so that you can track when you called, what you sent,
and when to make the follow-up contacts. If you promise to send a presenter
something, make sure you do it right away and personalize what you send.
This can be an e-mail note with a link to your website and your EPK. Or, if
sending hard copy materials, it can be either a typewritten or handwritten
note, something like this:
Dear So-and-so:
I enjoyed speaking with you today about your series! Here are the
materials you suggested I send you: bio, fact sheet, and CD for my jazz
ensemble, Four Minus One. I am very interested in the Sunday after-
noon jazz programming you mentioned and the diverse audience you
are drawing. I believe we have a program that might be a good fit and
will call in two weeks to follow up.
Best Wishes,
Eric Platz
If you say you’ll call to follow up, do it. When you call, remind the pre-
senter who you are and what you sent. Be personable and positive.
Possible Outcomes to Presenter Calls

1. Rejection. Remember that when presenters say no, they’re not rejecting
you or judging your music. They are simply saying that what you’re
offering does not fit with their series—now. It may in the future, or it
may not. You will need to determine whether this presenter is appro-
priate for you at this career stage. Be cordial, and ask the presenter for
suggestions of appropriate other series where you might be a better fit.
And thank them for their time.
2. “Don’t call us, we’ll call you.” A presenter may say they will call you if
they’re interested, as a way to let you down gently. If so, keep this
presenter on your mailing list and periodically send career updates
and invitations to your performances.
3. The presenter is interested! She or he may ask you detailed questions
about your performance history, ideas for programming, the number
of people on your mailing list. Talk in terms of the fit your perfor-
mance might make with their series. Be personable. You are building a
relationship with this presenter. Sometimes a presenter is interested
for a future season, not the immediate one. If this is the case, ask when
it would be best to follow up and then make sure you do so.
W
In “Self-Marketing for Artists,” Jazz pianist Bradley Sowash writes, “Offering
many different booking options is my first secret to filling up a performance sched-
ule. For example in the last 12 months, my engagements have included solo piano
concerts, educational appearances, guest speaker appearances, jazz worship ser-
vices, benefit concerts, retail CD signings, concert CD signings, arts organization
panelist, teacher training, master classes, private lessons, and conference workshop
leader . . . A lengthy list to be sure but united under one consistent artistic and per-
sonal vision. If your schedule is scant, you might ask yourself, ‘What else can I do
with these skills?’ ”5
V
Negotiating Fees X
If the conversation is going well, the presenter may bring up the question of
your fee, either suggesting a fee or asking what your fee is. Do your home-
work in advance. If you know people who have performed on this series, ask
them what range of fees this presenter has paid.
Because some presenters receive public funding, your state and local
arts agencies may be able to give you information about their fee range.
Many smaller community series have limited budgets. Libraries and com-
munity centers may pay $300–$1,000, with little or nothing extra for trans-
portation or lodging. But these series can be the best kind to get started
with, to build a fan base and gain local or regional media attention. Present-
ers of larger concert series may pay emerging solo artists $1,000–$3,000 and
ensembles $2,000–$5,000.
Know your bottom line. To determine whether or not a fee is accept-
able, calculate the total expenses you anticipate for this performance (your
accompanist fees, travel, any lodging costs.) If you have any technical re-
quirements (drum kits, amplification, or video equipment), find out what
the presenter can provide and what you would need to bring or rent. This
will affect either your expenses or the presenter’s. The details of technical
requirements should be clarified in your negotiations and then confirmed in
your written confirmation or contract. Typically, these are inserted into a
contract as the technical rider. Once you know the costs involved, you are in
a better position to accept or decline the performance date.
In negotiating your fee, it’s always best if you can get the presenter to
name a possible fee or indicate their budget range first, but if you are asked
what your fee is, be prepared to say something like:
“My (or our) usual fee is ______” and then PAUSE! . . . (Don’t fill the
silence!) Wait a beat or two for the presenter to react. She or he may
say, “That’s fine” or “Oh, we can’t pay that much” or “That’s a little
steep for our budget.”
After they react, then you can say (if you are willing to negotiate), “I’m will-
ing to work with you on this” or “I can be somewhat flexible.”
Former artist manager Barbara Raney suggests, “If you can’t get the fee
you want, ask the presenter if he or she can make it up in in-kind services, such
as meals, or transportation.” Presenters may be able to offer discount lodging
or accommodations at the home of a board member or contributor. In the
end, you’ll need to weigh the benefits of doing the performance (the exposure
and experience) against the costs to determine your acceptable fee.
The idea to convey is that you are reasonable, that you want to work as a
team with the presenters to help make this series successful. Show that you’re
easy to work with. Think long term. Remember, it is not about booking one
particular gig; it’s about building a professional relationship with a presenter
who can potentially book you again and recommend you to others.
These three issues will affect how reasonable the offered fee is:
1. Whether or not you can sell your recordings at the performance. It is
not unusual for presenters to ask for a percentage of the CD sales,
Confirmations/Contracts 171
especially if they provide equipment or staff to assist with the sales. Ask
and then confirm your arrangement in writing as part of the contract.
2. Any special equipment or lighting needed for the performance.
Discuss who provides what (tuned piano, amplification, percussion,
screen and video projector), and specify these arrangements in the
contract as your “technical rider.”
3. Transportation and lodging arrangements. Generally, when it comes
to these considerations, artists are on their own. So unless the pre-
senter has offered or agreed to provide accommodations or travel, you
will need to consider these costs as you negotiate your fee.
Presenters often have a board of trustees or a programming committee
to satisfy. So a presenter may need to get approval before making a firm offer
for a booking. This can take several weeks, especially with colleges and uni-
versity presenters. Musicians need to be patient through the process.
Confirmations/Contracts X
Once you and the presenter have a verbal agreement on a performance date,
fee, and related details, you need to confirm all this in writing. Signed con-
tracts help insure against surprises and misunderstandings that can mar a
performance experience. Many presenters send their own contracts to per-
formers. Read these carefully, and, if needed, add an attachment to clarify
specific details. If the presenter does not mention a contract in the conversa-
tion, then you should send your own contract or letter of agreement. It
should include these items:
1. Date, time, location of the performance.
2. Fee and specifically how and when it is to be paid (by check, made out
to the artist, received at the performance).
3. Any special equipment or arrangements you’ve agreed upon can be
specified in the technical rider (such as Steinway grand piano tuned to
A440, page turner, particular lighting, amplification, or permission to
record).
4. Arranged times for sound check and rehearsal in hall; name and
contact information for the facility’s manager or on-site person to get
into the hall.
5. Any special parking, transportation, and lodging arrangements.
6. Whether or not you may sell your CDs at the performance, and any
specified cut of the CD sales for the presenter.
7. The box office phone number.
8. Cancellation policy.
Make sure that you get detailed directions well before the performance,
along with parking and lodging recommendations as needed.
Note that a contract becomes valid only when both parties—the pre-
senter and you—sign it. When using your own contract, send two unsigned
copies to the presenter, who signs both and sends both back to you. Then
you sign both copies, keep one, and send the other to the presenter for her or
his records. This procedure ensures that you do not fi rst sign something that
gets amended later. Below is a sample contract.
Booking a Regional Tour X
Organizing a tour usually starts with an initial booking of an “anchor” date.

Next, the artist looks for other possible venues in the region that will make
the expense of travel, food, and lodging for this date worthwhile. There may
be nearby schools interested in master classes, residencies, or lecture dem-
onstrations to “tag on” to the anchor date. And there may be other venues in
the region to help develop a single performance into a tour. The anchor date
presenter can often suggest other presenters in their region. Keep in mind,
though, that presenters do not want your other regional tour performances
to compete for the same audiences and media attention. In other words,
make sure the next gig is not in the next nearby town.
Veteran artist manager Barbara Raney offers this advice: “Be geograph-
ically strategic: target places that are easy to get to and won’t consume your
travel budget. Also try locations with a good concentration of presenters so
you can offer ‘en-route’ fees and invite other potential presenters to preview
your performance.” You can identify venues within driving distance where
you might be able to do a series of performances, a mini-tour of “run-out”
concerts. Once you have a great program to offer presenters and an initial
“anchor” date booked, it can be easier to interest other presenters.
Below is a sample e-mail pitch for possible tour dates:
Dear Ms. Smith:
Ms. Jones at the ABC Concert Series in Portsmouth suggested I contact
you. She’s booked our string trio, Trifecta, for her series this spring.
We have a terrific program that we’re taking on tour in your region—
it’s an evening of tangos, rags, waltzes, and other dance tunes. She told
us great things about your series in Portland, especially about the
innovative community programs you do with the parks department.
I hope you’ll check out our website; it has recordings from our live
concerts, http://www.Trifecta.com. We have dates open for the first
two weeks of April. I would love to find out more about your program
Music Performance Contract
From: Jane Doe To: Ann Smith, Executive Director

16 Chilcott Place #1 Smithtown Concert Association
Jamaica Plain, MA 02130 1 Main St.
617/555-1111 Smithtown, MA 02111
[email protected] 978/555-2222
[email protected]
This contract is intended to confi rm the following agreements.
• Soprano Jane Doe, herein after referred to as “the Artist,” agrees to perform a concert for the
Smithtown Concert Association, herein after referred to as “the Presenter,” at the First
Congregational Church in Smithtown on Wednesday, November 10, 2012, at 8 pm. The concert
will consist of the attached programmed repertoire, subject to change by the artist. The concert
will last approximately 90 minutes with one 15 minute intermission included.
• The Presenter agrees to pay the Artist $ ________ for the concert, payable in U.S. dollars by
Certified Check or Money Order, to be given to the Artist on site prior to the start of the
concert.
• If an invoice is required before payment, please state: Yes No
• The Presenter agrees to furnish one Concert Grand Piano, preferably a Steinway or best
Concert Grand in the area, properly tuned and in top playing condition, for the use at the
performance.
• Rehearsal and sound check will be 2-4 pm the day of the performance.
Person to notify upon arrival:
________________________________________________________________________________
Name
____________________________________________________________________________________
email Phone
• The Presenter agrees to provide the Artist with four comp tickets to be held at the box office.
• The Presenter agrees to allow the Artist to sell her CDs at intermission and immediately
following the concert. The Presenter will provide a table and chair in the lobby for this purpose.
The CD sales will be managed by the artist with no assistance from the Presenter.
• No recording of this engagement shall be made, reproduced or transmitted from the place of
performance, in any manner or by any means whatsoever, in the absence of a specific written
agreement with the Artist relating to and permitting such recording, reproduction or
transmission. The Signatory Artist may enforce this prohibition in any court of competent
jurisdiction.
• The Artist shall be under no liability for failure to appear or perform in the event such failure is
caused by or due to the physical disability of the Artist, or acts or regulations of public
authorities, labor difficulties, civil tumult, strike, epidemic, interruption or delay of transpor-
tation service, or any other cause beyond the control of the Artist.
Signed ___________________________________________ Date ___________________

(Presenter’s signature)
Signed ___________________________________________ Date ___________________

(Artist’s signature)
Artist’s social security number or Federal ID number for payment and tax purposes:
___________________________
Example: Performance contract
173
and discuss the possibility of our working together. I’ll follow up in a

few days with a phone call.
Looking forward to speaking with you,
Jane Doe
Creating a Concert Series

Some musicians create their own performance opportunities by starting their
own series. Cellist Eric Edberg, on the faculty at DePauw University, started a
summer concert series in 2005 in Greencastle, Indiana. On his blog (http://
ericedberg.blogspot.com), Eric writes, “There’s a warm and appreciative audi-
ence for classical music in Greencastle, and the culture of our small town is such
that ‘classical’ is a selling point, not something to call by another name, not
something that needs to be transformed into a post-classical something else.”
Eric explains that it started
with six bi-weekly concerts as a way to keep me playing and practicing
during the summer, and I played on most of the concerts. Now it’s
grown to fourteen concerts, from the week after DePauw’s Com-
mencement until the week before classes start, and while I play
“support cello” on a number of them, only two or three really feature
me in a significant way. When I started it, I didn’t want it to be too
much of an “Eric Edberg and friends” sort of thing. There’s an aspect
of that to it, of course, but hey, I am the one putting it on! This
summer, so many colleagues and friends wanted to play it was hard to
fit everyone in.
The performers include doctoral students from nearby Indiana Univer-
sity, members of the Indiana Symphony, and others. Asked what he finds
most satisfying about his festival work, Eric explains it’s been “gratifying to
see the difference the festival has made in the life of the community. And
both the audiences and the performers have been happy.”
W
Cellist Eric Edberg offers these tips for anyone contemplating starting a series
or festival:
1. Find a community space you can use low-cost or free.

2. Think carefully about scheduling to avoid competing with other community
events.
3. Don’t do it alone—get help! Build your support through your community
relationships.
V
Conclusion 175
Performance Licensing
If you plan to perform a composer’s work that is under copyright protection,
you need a performance license. Most concert halls, university auditoriums,
and festivals have “blanket licenses” and pay dues regularly, so that compos-
ers can be compensated the royalties they are due.
However, if you plan to perform in any non-traditional performance
spaces that do not generally hold performances, you’ll need to obtain a li-
cense. To do so, you can contact one of the performing rights organizations
(PROs) that grant licenses. Don’t be worried: this is not a huge difficulty or
a large expense, but it is important to take care of.
In the United States, there are three PROs: BMI (Broadcast Music, Inc.),
ASCAP (American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers), and
SESAC (Society of European Stage Authors and Composers). These three
organizations were formed, in part, to track performances for composers
and publishers. The staff members at these organizations are very helpful,
so don’t hesitate to call or e-mail with questions, and there are also very
helpful FAQs on their websites.
Conclusion
Are you waiting for a prince (or princess) charming of an artist manager to
grace your career? Until you fi nd the manager of your dreams, you will most
likely need to self-manage, booking your own performances. To enhance
your reputation and build your track record, start local and small. There are
places in your community where you could be performing in the coming
months, and you are the one who can to make this happen.
Make sure you plan carefully, offer engaging programs, research per-
formance sites, prepare a script for booking calls, practice negotiating fees,
and close the deal with a written contract.
W
Career Forward
Write down your responses to the following prompts in order get started
booking your own performances.
1. List three people you know and could call to ask about possible performance
opportunities. Think about the people in your hometown, family friends, and
former teachers. Think beyond the typical concert series. Consider museums,
historical homes, libraries, and other community gathering sites.
2. Describe one or two programs you could offer these venues. List the proposed
repertoire, with the timings of works. Consider any points of connection
between the program and a possible venue (such as a program of literary-

inspired works offered to a library or bookstore series).
3. To prepare for making booking contacts, write your pitch statement, including
the five essential elements.
4. Practice your calls with a colleague or mentor, and then go for it!
V
7
Telling Your Story:
Attracting Media
Attention and
Building Audiences
W
In this chapter:
What Is Newsworthy?
Attracting an Audience
Do You Need a Publicist?
Types of Media Coverage
Press Releases
Compiling Your Media List
Tips on Being Interviewed
Timelines for Publicizing Your Next Concert
How to Grow a Career
V
In order to win media attention—and an audience—you need to have some-

thing to promote, something interesting and informative, and worth the
audience’s time. You need to communicate what is distinctive about you and
your music. What is your mission? Do you perform unusual or noteworthy
repertoire? Are you involved in interesting community-based, or experi-
mental music projects? This chapter focuses on the how-to of media rela-
tions, but all of this work is based on the essentials of knowing who you are
and what you have to offer.
What Is Newsworthy? X
Regarding coverage of music-related events, journalists and news editors are

expected to first report on the major happenings in their readers’ areas. This
177
178 Telling Your Story: Attracting Media Attention and Building Audiences
means that daily and weekly papers focus primarily on major performing
arts groups (the symphony, opera, or major presenting series). After that, it
may be up to the journalist or critic to determine what readers want. So
what actually gets media coverage next? What can an emerging artist offer
that will attract media attention?
Unusual, innovative programming
The premiere of a new work: is there a story around the inspiration for
the work, its dedication, commission, or about who is performing
and why?
Collaboration with a well-known artist
Collaboration with an artist from another discipline—a dancer,
graphic artist, or novelist
Performance in an unusual setting (e.g., the 100th anniversary of the
Boston Marathon)
A local “celebrity” narrating a work on the program
Benefit concert for a worthy cause
A performance to celebrate a national holiday, anniversary, or season
Repertoire chosen to reflect and focus on local history, a particular
ethnicity or culture, the opening of a new community building
A personal connection to work(s) on the program: the performer
studied with the composer, or the performer is related to the
composer, or the performer is returning to this work after a hiatus
of ten years
Interesting tie-ins to the performance: a CD release, location, or
anniversary
Beyond Performances, What Else Is Newsworthy?

Not all press releases are written about performances. Here are some of the
other good reasons to contact the media:
Winning a grant, award, or competition
Commissioning a new work
Launching a tour
Releasing an album
Starting a concert series or festival
Announcing the new season of performances at your series or festival
Launching a competition for a new work for your ensemble
Participating in a summer festival
Accepting a teaching position
Launching a private teaching studio or after-school music program
Human interest: quirky personal stories about you or your ensemble,

such as how your group first got together, how you creatively
financed your CD, how you booked your own cross-country tour,
stories about buying instruments, or unusual “day jobs”
Broader Arts Coverage: Issues in the News

The media are also interested in arts stories about broad trends and issues.
Can you offer information, experience, and interesting examples of a trend
or issue in the arts? Journalists and editors might be interested in writing an
article that would briefly profi le and quote a number of musicians and en-
sembles to tell a larger story. You can pitch such a story idea by contacting
journalists by phone or e-mail and offering a brief and concise description
of your story idea. Emphasize what is current and new with this topic, and
why it would be of compelling to their readers. Broader topics of interest to
arts journalists and editors include the following:
Funding issues (private and public, at national, state, and local levels).
Recording industry issues (copyright, artist-run labels, creative online
promotion, recording technology).
Arts education issues (K–12 music education, teaching artists, resi-
dency programs).
Economic issues such as the impact of the arts on the local economy.
Interesting stories about how concerts spur other spending (dining,
parking, local shopping). Do your own audience poll at intermission
to get statistics.
Arts events as benefits for a cause. (The cause may be the main news,
and the fundraiser gala dinner may be on the society page, but the
performers can also reap the benefits of the media attention.)
When you start following arts coverage, you will find that it is not just
relegated to the arts pages. Public relation specialists work creatively to find
connections between the arts and other news topics. You can see stories
about musicians as businesspeople and entrepreneurs in the financial news
section, musicians as teachers in the education news, and interview pieces
on local musicians in the city or neighborhood news sections of newspapers
and webzines.
Attracting an Audience X
In order to attract an audience to a performance, you need creativity, plan-

ning, and some media savvy. With a timeline and some advance work, you
can help generate media buzz. By sending well-written press releases and
invitations, you can build your fan base, grow your reputation, and attract
media attention. This is the process for taking your performing career to
the next level.
Once you have a performance date booked and confirmed, the next step
is to draw an audience. If you’re producing your own performance, you’ll
need to handle the publicity yourself. If you’re being presented on a series,
you still need to be an active partner in the publicity process. You and the
presenter both want the performance to be a success—to draw a large and
diverse audience and to attract positive media attention. But most arts orga-
nizations are understaffed and underfunded. If the presenter can do only a
portion of the work, you need to do the rest.
Once the performance date has been confirmed, have an open discussion
with the presenter (or venue manager) about what she or he is willing and able
to do to promote the show. You want to find out how the organization handles
publicity so that you can be helpful in these efforts. Whether you will be per-
forming in a club, an art gallery, a children’s museum, or on a traditional con-
cert series, here are good questions to ask the person arranging the event:
Is there an e-mail list of subscribers (or organization members)?
Can they do an e-mail blast or postcard mailing for your
performance?
Do they use social media platforms? If yes, how many people do they
reach?
Is there an event booklet or a season brochure?
If yes, will your performance be included on it? When does the
mailing go out?
Does the venue manager send press releases to local newspapers,
magazines, bloggers, online arts calendars, and/or radio stations? If
so, which ones?
In order to effectively promote your concert, presenters typically have
to meet strict print and mailing deadlines for posters, programs, and bro-
chures, and strict media submission deadlines for calendar listings, web-
zines, and radio. To meet these deadlines, presenters need your program
content, program notes, bio, photos, and CDs for possible radio play. These
are the essentials of what is often referred to as a media kit or press kit (a
version of your promo kit designed for sending to the media). It’s essential
to have these items ready and to send them promptly when requested. Have
a variety of high-resolution photos (at least 300 dpi). And have a variety of
lengths of bios, to fit the presenter’s needs. In short, make it easy for the pre-
senter to publicize your concert. Respect the deadlines.
If you’re producing the concert yourself, you’ll need to meet your own
deadlines for all this. Is it possible to do a strictly electronic promotional
campaign, sending e-blasts and text messages to your fans and forgetting all
the mainstream media? Absolutely, but here again, you still need to plan
what to send out, when, and to whom.
Send invitations. If the presenter mails postcards to season subscribers,
ask if you may have a stack of these to send to your own mailing list. You can
also make your own postcards through various online services such as
http://www.modernpostcard.com, http://www.jakprints.com, and http://
www.1800postcards.com. On the front of the card, musicians often have
their photo; on the back is the invitation, with the date, time, venue, and
contact info plus room for the mailing label.
Personalize the postcard invites by writing on the back (in blue, purple,
or green ink, so it stands out from the black print), something like, “Hope to
see you there!” or something more personal for special guests, friends and
family. These personal messages may be the tipping point for getting people
to come to your concert. An attractive postcard invitation can be put on the
fridge, used as a bookmark, and carried as a reminder.
Still, postcards alone are not enough: you want to have a multifaceted
approach, using e-mail, texting, social networking, and in-person invita-
tions. Word-of-mouth is powerful. And timing is critical. When sending
both print and e-mail invitations, time your print mailing so that folks re-
ceive the postcard about ten days before the performance and then send the
e-mail, text messaging, or social network invitations five days before the
performance—and a reminder on the day before. Ask a group of your friends
who are coming to the concert to be your “digital street team” and spread
the word electronically, via e-mail and text messaging. Get them to invite
everyone they know to the concert.
I’ve also received very clever and funny video invites to concerts as
well—including one in which the performers sang an improv in which the
lyrics were the invitation and details about the concert. Whatever methods
you use, plan carefully. There can be a fi ne line between being assertive and
being a pest, so tread lightly!
Next, you’ll need to expand beyond your network and the presenter’s
subscriber list to contact the media.
Paid Advertisements versus Media Relations

To clarify, paid advertisements for performances, recordings, and teaching
studios can be found in many media: in newspapers, newsletters, and maga-
zines (both on- and offline) on radio and television, and in concert pro-
grams. Advertisements for concerts are often presented in newspaper and
magazines in text boxes at the sides of the news articles written by journal-
ists and reviewers. Google ads running in the right-hand margin when you
do a search are the online equivalent. This kind of promotion is paid for by
the musician or by the company representing the musician. Paid advertising
in the more prestigious newspapers and magazines is extremely expensive
and therefore beyond the means of most emerging artists. Online advertis-
ing can be much less expensive, but it has not been proved effective for pro-
moting performances.
However, there is another route to getting information about your per-
formances, recordings, or teaching studio into the media. It is more effective
than advertising and it’s absolutely free! Here’s how it works: media outlets
make their money through paid advertising charges and subscription
charges, but the real reason people subscribe to these outlets or visit these
websites is to get the local news. The media—newspapers, webzines, radio,
TV—all need content because subscribers want to know what’s happening
and what is of interest in their communities. Journalists need story ideas,
material to turn into articles, interviews, features, reviews, and calendar
listings. Consequently, journalists are sent bucket loads of story ideas in the
form of press releases every day. From these, journalists choose what is most
engaging and relevant for their next issue, radio program, or blog update.
Because it’s written and edited by professional journalists, a news article
carries far more weight than advertising. It’s the equivalent of having a
trusted colleague tell you, “Go see this movie, you’ll love it! And here’s why
. . .” as opposed to seeing the print ad or the trailer produced by the studio
that’s releasing the fi lm.
Later in this chapter you will read how to write press releases and pres-
ent news story ideas to the media. And rest assured, the majority of pub-
lished news stories start out as press releases. And these releases are written
and sent by either professional publicists or musicians like you.
Do You Need a Publicist? X
“A publicist is the professional you hire to be your ambassador to the media,”

writes Janice Papolos in The Performing Artist’s Handbook. Publicists work
either on a per-project basis (such as publicizing a particular concert or
album release) or on an ongoing, retainer basis. A publicist’s job is to plant
the seeds for news stories in the media to create buzz about the musician.
Publicists send out press releases and photos, CDs, and press kits to contacts
in the media. They follow these up with phone calls, pitching their story
ideas to journalists in hopes of generating interest and potential articles on
their musician clients.
Types of Media Coverage 183
When you hire a publicist, you hire the strength of their contacts and
reputation with the media, along with their writing ability and experience
in promotional campaigns. Publicists’ fees depend on the market in which
they operate and the scope of the project. To promote a single concert or a
CD release, fees can run $500–$1,500 and up, depending on the amount of
work done and the clout of the publicist.
When should you hire a publicist? Janice Papolos writes, “There must
be a story behind you that the publicist can work with, as well as newswor-
thy events on the horizon such as a concert or record.” So until your career
is far enough along to warrant a full promotional campaign, most likely you
will handle the basic work of publicity on your own. The good news is that
this is very doable.
As an alternative to hiring a publicist, some musicians consult with a
skilled media relations professional, to get feedback on strategy and on drafts
of press releases. Arts consultant Jeffrey James (http://www.jamesarts.com)
recommends that musicians new to media relations talk to more established
colleagues. “Find out how successful groups write press releases and handle
their public relations . . . find a mentor, or take a publicist or established arts
professional to lunch or ask for a consultation. It’s well worth it!” In some
cases, a few pointers and editing suggestions may be all you need to get your
newsworthy items published.
Types of Media Coverage X
There is a range of types of media coverage to go after:

1. Calendar listings are postings of a community’s arts and cultural
events. Calendar listings are found on city or community websites, in
newspapers, magazines, on- and off-line. Events are also announced
on radio and TV as public service announcements (PSAs).
2. The Arts “Pick of the Week” or “Critic’s Choice” section in newspapers
(both on- and offline). These are highlighted performances and
events, selected by an arts editor or journalist. These may be promi-
nently displayed in a pullout section in a physical newspaper, or for the
online version, prominently placed, often with photos and more
details than the other listings.
3. Preview articles for a particular concert, including program details and
information on the musician’s (or the ensemble’s) background, and
often a photo and quotes from the musician interviews. Intended to stir
reader interest in community events, preview articles are found mostly
in daily and weekly (as opposed to monthly or quarterly) publications.
4. Feature articles: in-depth profi les of particular musicians or ensembles.

These may be tied to a significant milestone in the musician’s life
(recently winning a big competition or launching an innovative
commissioning project). Or it might be a human interest story about a
particularly compelling non-musical event or circumstance (overcom-
ing cancer, maintaining an unusual sideline occupation, or organizing
a benefit for a worthy cause).
5. Reviews of recordings.
6. Reviews of live performances.
7. Articles on broader trends and issues in the arts, such as funding,
education, copyright issues, and economics. These can often include
mini-interviews and profi les of individual musicians and ensembles.
W
Do It Yourself
“Most musicians operate from a scarcity mindset,” says music publicist Ariel
Hyatt. In contrast, she says, “Successful people choose to see the abundance and
potential in any situation.” In other words, fretting over the fact that you do not
have a New York Times review is simply a waste of energy; there are many other
ways to build buzz. In “How to Be Your Own Publicist,” Hyatt writes, “Getting that
first article written about you can feel daunting. Two great places to start are your
local weekly hometown papers (barring you don’t live in Manhattan or Los Ange-
les), and any music website that you like.” Hometown weeklies will often take the
press release you send about a local musician (yourself) doing well (performing,
teaching, winning awards) and print it verbatim, especially if you include a good
photo. Other ways to build buzz include being interviewed in a webzine or being
featured prominently on a blog oriented toward your musical niche. (See http://
www.arielpublicity.com.)
V
Acquiring Media Savvy

To find where you might be able to get media coverage, do your research in
your local area. Part of being a successful musician is being aware of current
ideas and opportunities. If you’re not reading about who is performing what
and where, you’re missing out on program ideas you can borrow, potential
collaborations with colleagues, possible bookings, and more. Find out where
your local arts scene is covered. Check out the local daily and weekly news-
papers, radio programs, webzines, online calendars, and the blogs that cover
your music genre. Keep current on the arts in your community and learn
what gets media coverage.
Press Releases 185
Press Releases X
A press release is an announcement issued to the media, designed to answer

the who, what, when, where, and why about your performance, special event,
or other news. Press releases are sent to media outlets and may be used in
part or used verbatim—printed or uploaded “as is” to the newspaper, jour-
nal, newsletter, or webzine.
A release should effectively demonstrate why your news item merits
media attention. It should outline the news story and provide pertinent
background information. Arts journalists receive dozens of press releases
each day, and part of their job is to select from these the most relevant and
engaging news for their audience.
What do the media want? Editors and journalists want news. They need
content: ideas and information of interest to their particular audience. You
are potentially a supplier of that content. If you want a newspaper or website
editor to consider your news item for publication, or a radio programmer to
announce your listing, you need to submit your information in the proper
format: a press release.
There can be an unexpected benefit to working on all of this. Deciding
how and what you want to communicate about yourself to the media may
cause you to re-examine your choices in programming, performance ven-
ues, and more. Former reviewer for the Newark, New Jersey, Star-Ledger,
Paul Somers, notes in his “Getting Ink” article, “You must inevitably come
to the question, ‘Why are we giving this concert?’ This most fundamental
question must be answered if you are to have success with both the press and
the audience.”1
How to Write a Press Release in Seven Steps

Press releases should be written in the declarative. State the facts—use the
active voice to describe without expressing feeling or judgment. This is not
advertising, so no hyperbole, please!
1. Write a headline for your release that encapsulates the main focus of the
story. Make it catchy or engaging for readers. If you’re from the area,
emphasize your local connections, because editors (especially at smaller
media outlets) are looking for news of special interest to local readers.
Note: headlines are often written in all capital letters and always in bold.
ABC STRING TRIO LAUNCHES RESIDENCY PROGRAM AT
HOMELESS SHELTERS
SOPRANO CONQUERS STAGE FRIGHT, WINS INTERNATIONAL
COMPETITION
FIFTH ANNUAL BRASS BASH WELCOMES TUBA-TOTING
MAYOR AS GUEST ARTIST
LOCAL VIOLINIST PREMIERES NEW THEATRICAL WORK:

VIVALDI WITH VAMPIRES
2. Cover the essential facts in your opening sentence (your lead). This
should be the who, what, where, and when (the four Ws). Your
language should be succinct and direct.
The Quintet of the Americas will present a special program of Polish

music for wind quintet on Sunday, April 27, 3 pm at the Kosciuszko
Foundation, 15 East 65th Street, between Fifth and Madison, in
Manhattan.
3. Consider the why—the fifth W. Why does this news item matter?
What’s the real story here? Is what you have to say of interest to others
in your community? Journalists need to provide readers with
thought-provoking information about the cultural happenings in
their area. If the item is of only marginal interest to a select group of
readers, then you’ll have a hard time gaining media attention.
Emphasize what would be of interest to the general (nonmusician)
public. Make sure your release passes the Who Cares? and the So
What? tests.
4. Stick to concrete facts. Newspaper editors want news, not advertising.
Avoid superlatives or hype. Instead, state your credentials, such as the
other impressive places where you’ve performed or the awards you
have won. Include quotes from presenters or teachers (if you’ve first
obtained their permission). You can also quote yourself, as though
you’d been interviewed, as long as you have something interesting and
fresh to say about the repertoire or some other aspect of the perfor-
mance. Note that some journalists prefer not to get quotes from other
journalists, so use these with discretion.
Ms. Smith is looking forward to returning to Whoville for this

performance and says, “Whoville is where I got my start. So I’m
thrilled to be performing for both new and old friends to help
celebrate the opening of the ABC community center.”
5. Watch your language—think carefully about your target audience.

Consider submitting your release to appropriate specialized newspa-
pers. If the paper is published in a language other than English, it’s
best to send the press release in that language. And in whatever
language you use, avoid music jargon or technical terms that might
alienate an average reader. Find engaging ways to describe the program
so that nonmusicians can understand it.
Press Releases 187
Hill’s work, “Thoughtful Wanderings,” features natural horn and a taped

accompaniment of nature sounds and percussion instruments. The piece
was inspired by the music of the Native Americans from the Plains.
6. Use short, well-organized paragraphs—newspapers prefer them. Keep
these to two to three sentences each, in logically organized units of
thought. After the lead paragraph, where the essential information is
covered, subsequent paragraphs should flesh out the story with
background info on the performers and details about the program,
composers, and sponsors. Keep in mind that editors assume that the
essential info is in the top of the release (inverted-pyramid style), so
they generally cut from the bottom.
7. Double check your details. Don’t forget the all-important information
such as the performance day, date, time, venue name and street
address, the ticket price, and the necessary contact information.
Leaving out crucial details is an all too common mistake and is very
often why releases don’t make it into print. Have friends proofread
your work carefully before sending it out.
There are three examples of press releases on the following pages. The
first is for a single concert; the second release announces a chamber ensem-
ble’s opening concert of its new season; and the third is an announcement of
a teaching appointment and a concert that a trumpeter sent to his home-
town newspaper.
There are certain conventions for writing and formatting press re-
leases—the norms that journalists and editors expect from potential news
stories. By following these guidelines, your press releases stand a greater
chance of being read and published.
Press Release Formatting Tips

• At the top of the release, list your name, telephone number, and e-mail
address (or those of the most appropriate contact person in charge of
answering any questions the media have pertaining to the release).
• Put the release date underneath the contact info, indicating the desired
date for publication (“For Release: April 5, 2014”). Or, if the time is
ripe, write “For Immediate Release” and the date you’re sending it.
• Start the release with the city and state (in bold), the location from
which the news is being generated.
• Use double spacing and wide margins to make it easy for journalists to
read and edit.
• Keep it brief: one to three pages. If sending the release as a hard copy
and it runs more than one page, write “continued” or “more” at the
Contact: Jeffrey James Arts Consulting
(516) 797-9166 or [email protected]
For Immediate Release
April 18
Quintet of the Americas Presents All-Polish Program in New York on April 27
New York, NY—The Quintet of the Americas will present a special program of Polish
music for wind quintet on Sunday, April 27, 3 pm at the Kosciuszko Foundation, 15 East
65th Street, between Fifth and Madison Avenues in Manhattan.
This program will feature Grazyna Bacewicz’s “Quintet for Wind Instruments,” Maciej
Malecki’s “Suite for Wind Quintet,” Alexandre Tansman’s “Suite for Reed Trio,” and
Robert Muczynski’s “Quintet for Winds” (1985).
Tickets for the April 27 concert, which include a reception with the artists following the
concert, are $25 ($20 for KF members) and can be reserved by calling the KF office at
(212) 734-2130.
The members of the Quintet of the Americas are Sato Moughalian, flute; Matt Sullivan,
oboe; Edward Gilmore, clarinet; Barbara Oldham, horn; and Laura Koepke, bassoon.
The Quintet, founded 26 years ago, has toured extensively in over 300 cities in North and
South America, Eastern Europe, and the British West Indies. They have twice received the
ASCAP/CMA Adventuresome Programming Award, and were recipients of the Chamber
Music America Residency Program Award. They are currently the Quintet in Residence at
New York University. The group has released several CDs, including woodwind music
from North and South America. The Quintet of the Americas has premiered over 50
works, commissioned over 20 new pieces for the woodwind quintet repertoire, and made
numerous arrangements of their own. More information about the group can be found on
their website at http://www.quintet.org.
This concert is made possible with public funds from the New York State Council on the
Arts, a state agency.
For more information about the Quintet of the Americas, contact Jeffrey James Arts
Consulting at 516-797-9166 or [email protected].
END
Example: Press release announcing an individual concert
188
Contact: Jennifer Montbach
617.792.7234
[email protected]
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Aug. 20
RADIUS ENSEMBLE OPENS ITS FIFTH SEASON AT THE

EDWARD M. PICKMAN CONCERT HALL, 27 GARDEN STREET IN CAMBRIDGE
ON SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 27 AT 8 PM
“Radius ensemble is first rate . . . The players represent a new generation of chamber musicians,
and their youth and informality has attracted a younger, more diverse audience.”
Richard Dyer, The Boston Globe
Boston, MA—Radius Ensemble, directed by Jennifer Montbach, opens its fi fth season on
Saturday, September 27, at 8 pm at the Edward M. Pickman Concert Hall, 27 Garden Street in
Cambridge. The concert includes Alberto Ginastera’s “Impressions de la Puna” for flute and
strings; “Amour Fou,” a piano trio by the avant-garde conmposer John Zorn (of “Naked City”
renown); Mozart’s quintet for piano and winds; and Luciano Berio’s brilliant and timely “Opus
Number Zoo” for wind quintet.
There will be a free pre-concert talk at 7 pm with Mary Greitzer (Harvard University), and the
concert will be followed by a free reception with the artists, with goodies from Carberry’s Bakery
and Café. Tickets are $10 (cash or check at the door), $5 for children and college students.
Subscriptions are available. Call 617.792.7234 or visit http://www.radiusensemble.org for more
information.
Performers include director and oboist Jennifer Montbach, pianist Sarah Bob, flutist Orlando
Cela, pianist Alison d’Amato, clarinetist Eran Egozy, violinist David Fulmer, horn player Anne
Howarth, cellist Mickey Katz, violinist Annegret Klaua, bassoonist Sally Merriman, and violist
Julie Thompson.
Radius Ensemble has earned rave reviews and a dedicated following in just four years by
reinvigorating classical music for a new generation. A chamber music ensemble of winds, strings,
and piano, Radius Ensemble performs music from the classical period to the modern era, from
beloved masterpieces to undiscovered gems. Its musicians are outstanding young professionals
inspired by tradition, willing to take risks, and committed to connecting with a diverse group of
listeners. Founded in 1999 by oboist Jennifer Montbach, Radius Ensemble’s season includes a
four-concert subscription series at Pickman Hall in Harvard Square, a free Saturday-morning
family concert, and a free community ticket program offering tickets to disadvantaged children
and their parents or mentors.
Pickman Hall is wheelchair-accessible and convenient to public transportation. Large-print or
Braille programs are available by request; please ask about additional accommodations if needed.
Radius ensemble, Incorporated, is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization and a Massachusetts public
charity.
###
Jennifer Montbach, Director
Radius Ensemble
45 Pine St. Concord, MA 01742 P: 617.792.7234
W: radiusensemble.org E: [email protected]
Example: Announcement of ensemble’s new series
189
CONTACT: James Knabe
faculty, School of Creative Arts
(617) 641-4493
May 1
LOCAL MUSICIAN APPOINTED TO FACULTY POSITION,

ANNOUNCES BOSTON DEBUT
BOSTON, MA—Former Iowa City resident, trumpeter James Knabe, son of William and
Judith Knabe of Iowa City, has been appointed to the music faculty of the School of
Creative Arts in Lexington, MA. The School is affi liated with Grace Chapel, the largest
church in the New England area. This school serves numerous communities including
Boston. At the school, Mr. Knabe will teach private trumpet lessons, music history
courses, and will conduct a brass ensemble.
James Knabe will also make his Boston-area solo debut at Grace Chapel in Lexington at
8:00 pm on Friday, May 26. The program will include familiar and unusual works by
Handel, Hovhaness, Copland, Neruda, and Vaughan Williams. Artists joining Knabe for
the recital are pianist Elenye German, soprano Kimberly Cone, organist Douglas
Marshall, and narrator Nancy Gerber.
A former student of David Greenhoe at the University of Iowa, James Knabe is now
pursuing a graduate degree at the New England Conservatory in Boston, where he studies
with Peter Chapman and Charles Schlueter of the Boston Symphony. Knabe has
performed with the Boston Civic Symphony, Boston Chamber Ensemble, and the
Dubuque Symphony Orchestra. He currently plays principal trumpet with the North
Shore Philharmonic Orchestra. He returns to Iowa this summer for a series of master
classes and recitals. When asked about his latest success, Knabe said, “I consider myself
very fortunate to have received a great musical start growing up in Iowa City, and I look
forward to returning home this summer to re-connect with my musical roots.”
###
Example: Press release, intended for hometown newspapers in Iowa, announcing a

teaching appointment and recital in Boston, and appropriately emphasizing local Iowa
connections.
190
bottom of page; then, in the header of the continued pages, write, for
example, “Radius press release, Aug. 20, 2010, p. 2 of 3.” To indicate
the end of the release, finish it with “END” or ###.
• For releases sent via e-mail, don’t use an attachment, but send the text
in the body of the e-mail message and aligned left to minimize any
difficulties in formatting.
• Use quotation marks to indicate titles of compositions (newspapers do
not use italics).
• Stylistic conventions for months and numbers are as follows: Aug.
through Feb. are abbreviated, whereas March through July are written
out; and numbers one through nine are written out, whereas numerals
are used for 10 and above.
On the next pages are more examples: a calendar listing, a radio an-
nouncement, and a cover letter sent by a publicist requesting a review of a
new CD. To read examples of a wide variety of music press releases, see http://
www.musicalamerica.com. And note that many larger performing institu-
tions place their recent press release announcements on their websites.
Compiling Your Media List X
The most important media contacts to gather first are local listings. Find out
who the arts reporters are in your area. You should also add strategic regional
and national publications where appropriate. Your list needs these details:
• Name, title of journalist/editor, and the name of their publication or
organization (make sure of exact title, as in with or without “The”),
plus the section of newspaper he or she covers (calendar, arts pages,
special column, or features)
• Mailing address
• Phone number and e-mail address
• Website
• Publication schedule (daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly)
• Deadlines for receiving info
Gather your media contact information and put it into a database for-
mat with the rest of your mailing list so that you can customize and send
both e-mail and print releases as needed. Media lists need constant updates,
because people change jobs and media outlets may change focus. People
hate to get mail addressed to their predecessor, or with their name (or their
organization’s name) misspelled, or with their title wrong. Keep your media
list updated and readily accessible.
CONTACT:
Danny Lichtenfeld
Phone: (617) 325-5200

[email protected]
Collage New Music and Janna Baty present Exotic, Neurotic, Erotic
Music of Luciano Berio, Ralph Shapey, and Fred Lerdahl
Boston, MA — Live-wire Janna Baty joins Collage New Music in her prismatic singing of
Luciano Berio’s vivid multi-national Folk Songs and Fred Lerdahl’s Eros, an electrified and
electrifying display of Ezra Pound’s heated poem, “Coitus.” Pianist Christopher Oldfather
and percussionist Frank Epstein convene to tackle the radical-traditionalist voice of
maverick Ralph Shapey in the Boston premiere of his Gottlieb Duo. The exotic, the
neurotic, the erotic.
Who Collage New Music, with soprano Janna Baty

What Exotic, Neurotic, Erotic: Music of Luciano Berio (Folk Songs), Ralph
Shapey (Gottlieb Duo), and Fred Lerdahl (Eros)
When Sunday, January 12, 2003 at 7:30 p.m.
Where Suffolk University’s C. Walsh Theatre
41 Temple Street, Boston—behind the State House on historic Beacon Hill,
between Derne and Cambridge Streets.
Wheelchair Accessible
Tickets $20 at the door or by calling (617) 325-5200; $7 students/seniors.
Free to students from Boston Conservatory, BU, Harvard, Longy, MIT,
Milton Academy, NEC, Tufts, Suffolk, and Walnut Hill.
Info Danny Lichtenfeld, Collage New Music
(617) 325-5200, [email protected]
Example: Calendar listing, the most basic form of a press release; it contains the essentials
and is mailed to appropriate calendar editors in plenty of time to meet their deadlines.
192
Contact: Jeffrey James Arts Consulting
(516) 797-9166 or [email protected]
STARTING DATE: Feb. 12
ENDING DATE: Feb. 28
PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT
“NEW YORK VIRTUOSI (Ver-choo-OH-see) CHAMBER SYMPHONY PRESENTS CONCERT

FEATURING INTERNATIONALLY RENOWNED GUITARIST”
WORDS: 77
TIME: 30
THE NEW YORK VIRTUOSI CHAMBER SYMPHONY PRESENTS A CONCERT ON SUNDAY,

FEBRUARY 28 AT 3 PM AT THE HILLWOOD RECITAL HALL OF CW POST UNIVERSITY IN
GREENVALE. THE VIRTUOSI WILL BE JOINED BY INTERNATIONALLY RENOWNED GUITARIST
VIRGINIA LUQUE (LOO-Kay) FOR A PROGRAM THAT INCLUDES A GUITAR CONCERTO (con-
CHAIR-toe) BY RODRIGO, VIVALDI’S FOUR SEASONS AND MOZART’S EINE KLEINE NACHTMUSIK
(EYE-nuh KLINE-uh NOCKTmoozik). FOR FURTHER INFORMATION, PLEASE CALL THE NEW
YORK VIRTUSOSI AT (516) 626-3378 . . . THAT’S 626-3378 FOR THE NEW YORK VIRTUOSI.
WORDS: 57
TIME: 20
THE NEW YORK VIRTUOSI CHAMBER SYMPHONY CONCERT, ON SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 28 AT 3

PM AT THE HILLWOOD RECIATAL HALL OF CW POST UNIVERSITY IN GREENVALE, WILL
WELCOME GUITARIST VIRGINIA LUQUE (LOO-Kay) FOR A PROGRAM THAT INCLUDES
VIVALDI’S FOUR SEASONS AND MUSIC BY RODRIGO AND MOZART. FOR MORE INFORMATION,
CALL THE NEW YORK VIRTUSOSI AT (516) 626-3378 . . . THAT’S 626-3378.
WORDS: 45
TIME: 15 seconds
THE NEW YORK VIRTUOSI WILL PERFORM MUSIC BY RODRIGO, VIVALDI, AND MOZART ON
SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 28 AT 3 PM AT THE HILLWOOD RECITAL HALL OF CW POST UNIVERSITY
IN GREENVALE. FOR MORE INFORMATION, CALL THE NEW YORK VIRTUSOSI AT (516) 626-3378
. . . THAT’S 626-3378.
WORDS: 31
TIME: 10 seconds
THE NEW YORK VIRTUOSI PRESENTS MUSIC BY RODRIGO, VIVALDI, AND MOZART ON
FEBRUARY 28 AT 3 PM AT THE HILLWOOD RECITAL HALL OF CW POST UNIVERSITY IN
GREENVALE. FOR MORE INFORMATION, CALL (516) 626-3378.
Example: Public Service Announcement (PSA) release intended for radio. Note: Radio
stations are required by law to include a certain number of public service announcements
for nonprofit organizations and free community events. For releases sent to radio stations,
include phonetic pronunciation guides for any words the average reader might be unsure
of how to pronounce, especially names of performers, composers, and titles of works.
Provide the word count and accurate timing it takes to read the announcement. Include
several versions of different lengths, in order to give the radio announcer choices to fit
whatever time is available. Also include the starting and ending dates for when the
announcement should be aired.
193
Beacon Communications
1753 Beacon St., Number 2 Telephone: 617.232.1212
Brookline, MA 02445 Email: [email protected]
April 27, 2002
Steve Greenlee
The Boston Globe
135 Morrissey Boulevard
Boston, MA 02107
Dear Steve,
The Shimon Ben-Shir Group will be celebrating the release of their debut CD Shades at
Ryles Jazz Club, 212 Hampshire Street, Cambridge, on Wednesday May 29 at 8 pm. En-
closed is a copy of the CD for your consideration for a review in The Boston Globe. The band
is based in Boston, but the members represent far-ranging regions from around the world.
The music reflects the individual journeys the musicians have taken to come to share a mu-
sical vision and a common language . . . jazz.
The musicians in the Ben Shirim Group have considerable performance experience, playing
in venues around the world with jazz luminaries and, in two cases, playing before a king
and a president. I believe your astute readers would enjoy learning about good jazz by local
musicians. The CD has been getting airplay on the Jazz Gallery with Al Davis on WGBH
radio and is currently available at http://www.yoursound.com, where the band is also fea-
tured; and at Flipside Records in Brookline. Enclosed is a list of upcoming performances in
the area.
I hope you like the music. Thank you so much for your time and consideration. If you have
any questions or would like additional material, please don’t hesitate to let me know.
Sincerely,
Kevin C. Myron
Beacon Communications
Example: submission for CD review from publicist Kevin Myron to Boston Globe jazz critic
Steve Greenlee.
194
Your Local Media List

• Local newspapers/magazines (daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly) with
specific names and contacts for the arts reporters and community
calendar editors
• Appropriate radio station programmers
• Local commercial and community TV station arts reporters
• Website editors for community arts calendar listings
• Your college or university’s newspaper and alumni magazine
• Newspapers from your former hometown
• Webzines and blogs
How do you get all this information? To research for your local list, visit
your university or public library and ask the reference librarian if there is a
compiled directory for local media. And ask about the Encyclopedia of Asso-
ciations (for specialized music organizations with newsletters). For national
media contact information, see http://www.musicalamerica.com. And check
the companion website for many more links to media listings.
Regional and National Exposure

Online CD reviews (by professionals and fans) can be posted on CD
retailiers such as CDBaby, iTunes, Amazon, and many others
University newspapers, their radio stations, and alumni magazines
(check with your alma mater)
TV (your local community cable access channels)
Instrument-specific journals (for example, Flute Talk, Brass Player,
Classical Singer, Saxophone Journal, Wind Player, Strings, Strad,
Keyboard; to find more, see Musical America)
Membership organizations with relevant journals, newsletters, or
website listings (Chamber Music America, Percussive Arts Society,
Early Music America, Chorus America; to find more, see Musical
America and the Encyclopedia of Associations)
Music education journals (American Music Teacher, Music Educators
Journal, American String Teacher, Journal of Singing)
Music magazines (such as DownBeat, Gramophone, Jazziz, Opera
News, The Instrumentalist, Jazz Times)
Large groups of music professionals for posting press releases:
Musical America, http://www.musicalamerica.com
Music Industry News Network, http://www.mi2n.com
Billboard Publicity Wire, http://www.billboardpublicitywire.com/
Databases for posting concert information:
http://eventful.com
http://upcoming.yahoo.com
http://www.jambase.com
Press release directories for posting to the media outside of music:
http://www.24–7pressrelease.com
http://www.pr.com
http://www.prlog.org
Send It Out!
For releases about performances, you may have several types to send: simple
calendar listings, full releases, and radio releases. Pay close attention to
deadlines; you may need to send releases at least five months in advance for
monthly magazines, two weeks in advance for weekly newspapers and radio
programs, and ten days in advance for daily papers.
Most news outlets prefer to receive releases by e-mail, but there are still
some that prefer hard copies. Check the publication’s website for submission
directions before sending. For an e-mail press release, use the left-hand text
alignment (do not use centering or indents, because your formatting will be
lost when the text is transmitted by e-mail). In the text, when you fi rst men-
tion the performers, ensemble, and presenter, include their hyperlinks, and
if you are performing new music, include the composers’ links as well.
Press releases should be sent as text in the body of the e-mail, not as an
attachment. Journalists (like all of us) are wary of computer viruses from
attachments. Also, do not send JPEG photos or MP3 sound clips as attach-
ments with your release. These kinds of fi les are too large, and they quickly
clog and disable a journalist’s e-mail in-box. Instead, with your e-mail re-
lease, include a link to your website, EPK, or your social networking site. On
these sites you can have your music clips and downloadable high-resolution
(at least 300 dpi) JPEG photos available. Make sure your photos and sound
clips are clearly labeled with your name. Having this easy access online can
mean the difference between getting media coverage and not. Journalists
and editors unable to get the details they need may simply decide to include
the next musician’s news instead of yours. Make it easy on the media to tell
your story!
W
Inviting Critics to Review a Performance
Newspapers and other print publications are experiencing tough financial
times as people rely more and more on websites and blogs to access news. Conse-
quently, there is less coverage of the arts in the mainstream press. Although getting
a good review can help a career, a review can neither make nor break a career. The
best approach is to do what you can to get listings and preview articles for your
Tips on Being Interviewed 197
performances. Send releases, invitations, and ideas for articles. You may need to
build a track record, to be on a critic’s radar screen for several seasons before get-
ting reviewed. Be persistent, professional, and patient.
The following will help you to attract a critic to your performance:
• Have a compelling program.

• Schedule your performance so it does not conflict with major performances
in your area. Plan ahead. Get the season listings early from presenters and
performing groups in your area. Monday and Tuesday nights, in general, are
less crowded with competing performances.
• Send a release and invitation two to three months in advance, to give the
reviewer plenty of notice.
• With the release, send a letter inviting the critic. Ask the critic to call or e-
mail you to have two complimentary tickets left in her/his name at the box
office.
• Ask a teacher or other well-regarded mentor who knows the reviewer to
extend the invitation.
Note: It can be far easier to get media coverage and possibly a review in smaller
communities, so think about the smaller towns and cities where you might organize
a performance and invite the local media.
V
Tips on Being Interviewed X
Whether you’re asked to do an interview for radio or for a profi le article, it

will go better with some preparation and perspective. Radio interviews
may also include an in-studio performance or the playing of a recording of
yours. Print interviews are often conducted by phone. In any case, you’ll be
more comfortable, articulate, and interesting if you do some homework in
advance.
Some people imagine that their music will speak for itself. If that were
true, then there would be no reason to have liner notes, bios, printed pro-
grams, or artist interviews. People want to get to know at least a little about
performers and composers: they want to make a connection. With a well-
prepared interview, you can do just that and come across as both interesting
and personable.
If you are worried that preparation will make you too self-conscious
and you want to come across as spontaneous, never fear! The idea is not to
memorize anything to recite by rote. Instead, by thinking in advance about
what makes you tick as a musician and what you are particularly enthusias-
tic about, you can be prepared with stories to tell. You’ll be ready to speak
with enthusiasm, instead of struggling to come up with anything to say.
1. Find out whatever you can about both the interviewer and the media
outlet in advance. Google the interviewer and the radio program or publica-
tion for the details. Address the interviewer by name during the interview.
If you’re being interviewed at a distance from where the performance will
take place, include references to the local area where you will be performing.
You could mention looking forward to that city’s signature food item, its
sport team, or art museum, or anything else you’re looking forward to expe-
riencing. It should be genuine and reveal your enthusiasm for traveling to
this city.
2. Think carefully in advance about what makes you and your upcom-
ing performance distinctive. Think about what you would be interested in
hearing about if listening to or reading the interview. Write it down. You
need two or three specific points: your answers need to be focused, concise,
and revealing. Be prepared to give answers that contain your two or three
points no matter what questions you’re asked. Make sure that you commu-
nicate what is most important for listeners or readers to know about the up-
coming performance. This is what politicians do, of course, but it’s also a
useful strategy for musicians!
3. Think about the stories you have, possible anecdotes that illustrate
your two or three points. These might include how you first got hooked on
music or how you came up with the idea for this concert or ensemble. Hav-
ing a memorable anecdote or example can make an interview come to life.
In Ellen Highstein’s excellent book Making Music in Looking Glass Land,

published by Concert Artists Guild, Thomas Bartunek, president and gen-
eral manager at WQXR-FM, offers the following comments about being
interviewed:
Be prepared with an anecdote or two that will create a personal note
and create a connection with your listeners. A story about how you
choose your repertoire, or what it means to you, is usually more
engaging than the history of the works and the dates of the composers.
Something that reveals your humanity—how the string broke during
the last performance and what you did to deal with the emergency, for
example—creates more sympathy and engages the listeners more than
a list of your credits. Try to also show that you care that the audiences
enjoy what you will present. Listeners need to know why they should
Timeline for Publicizing Your Next Concert 199
attend your event, and for that they need to know why you? and not
why Brahms? and, above all, why me—why should I go?2
Timeline for Publicizing Your Next Concert X
To help organize your preparations for a performance, have a checklist and

timeline. Find out what publicity the presenter will do and when so that you
can coordinate your efforts. In publicizing concerts, you need to send releases
and invitations out in the right form, to the right people, at the right time.
Beyond your friends and the press, you should also invite other local
presenters, influential musicians, conductors, artist managers, and col-
leagues. Even if they do not come, you will be getting on their radar screens.
Remember, building buzz paves the way for future opportunities.
Six Months Before
R Research and compile your media list.
R Update your mailing list, including influential local musicians,
conductors, artist managers, and presenters.
R Send press releases to quarterly publications (check deadlines!).
Three to Five Months Before
R Send releases and make phone calls to any specialized radio shows that
do guest interviews and/or live performance broadcasts. (You need the
lead time because these shows are booked so far in advance.)
R Send press releases to monthly publications (check deadlines!).
Two to Three Months Before
R Invite local critics.
Six Weeks Before
R Send releases to radio program producers.
R Send releases to local cable channels and online calendars.
One Month Before
R Send releases to weekly publications.
R Send calendar listings to all.
Two to Three Weeks Before
R Send releases to daily publications.
R Send Internet releases to online calendars and magazines.
Seven to Ten Days Before
R Send personalized invitations to your mailing list, perhaps a postcard
with a handwritten “Hope to see you there!”
Five Days Before

R Send e-mail and/or text message invitations to your mailing list.
One to Two Days Before
R Send reminders to your mailing list
After the Concert

The next day, send thank-you notes to everyone who assisted you in the per-
formance—this is a good way to help the presenter and other supporters to
think positively of you and to want to work with you again. Andrew Kohji
Taylor, a violinist who performs frequently in the U.S. Northeast and in
Japan, found that once he started sending handwritten thank-you notes to
presenters after his concerts in Japan, his return engagements were much
more frequent. Andrew was really getting to know these presenters as peo-
ple—and they liked working with him and wanted to invite him back.
Send e-mail thank-yous to the fans who signed your guest book, and
add these people to your database. Scan copies of any media coverage you
received about the performance for adding to your EPK.
How to Grow a Career X
The process is cyclical: promoting every concert includes inviting the people
in your network and sending information to the media in order to create
buzz and grow your fan base. Getting media attention can make it easier to
get airplay on local radio stations. It should also result in bigger audiences
and increased album sales. Ultimately, all this activity can lead to more
bookings at more prestigious venues. The periodic buzz of media attention
(from a CD release, concert review, new project, or profi le article) helps ad-
vance a musician’s career to a new level. This is how performance careers
advance from the local to the regional and national levels. Each performance
needs to be promoted, no matter how established the performer. And musi-
cians need to regularly launch new projects for the sake of their careers as
well as their artistry.
W
Career Forward
Work through the following questions and prompts to help promote your
performances with the media.
1. Do you have an updated mailing list? Does it include media contacts? If not,
start now. Don’t forget your local media and neighborhood papers, and the
How to Grow a Career 201
specific membership organizations and magazines for your instrument or

genre.
2. List five local media outlets where you could send a press release about an
upcoming performance.
3. Write out a story idea for a press release that you could send to your home-
town weekly newspaper. The focus of the pitch should be on an upcoming
performance or a teaching project you’re currently involved in, or an award or
grant you have recently won.
4. Recall the last concert you gave. Now, as an exercise, think like a publicist and
write a dynamic press release for it, one that would attract an audience and a
critic. Emphasize the most compelling features of the concert—is it the
performers, the occasion, the program, or something else?
V
8
Connecting
with Audiences:
Reaching Out
and Reaching In
W
In this chapter:
What Is Residency Work?
What Is a Teaching Artist?
What’s in It for You?
Why Bother?
What Does Residency Work Encompass?
Talking to Audiences
Finding the Right Entry Point
Structuring Programs
Designing Programs for Adults, Seniors, and K–12 Audiences
Getting Hired
Marketing Your Programs
Quality Control: Evaluating Programs
V
What Is Residency Work? X
The focus of this chapter is your audience, on helping them make powerful
emotional connections to your music. It’s about what you can do to help the
audience become actively engaged with music. This is at the heart of what
music is actually for—it’s about communication and connection. It’s a two-
way street;the rewards are not just for the audience.
Presenters often refer to this essential aspect of musicians’ work as com-
munity engagement or residency activities. There are also other terms, such as
202
What Is a Teaching Artist? 203
outreach, although this word can have negative connotations. Outreach can
imply a one-way elitist transaction, a kind of cultural imperialism, whereas
community engagement connotes collaboration and participation. For the
sake of ease and consistency, we will use the term residency work, here, as do
many presenters.
What Is a Teaching Artist? X
As for the musicians who do residency work, in the United Kingdom they
are called animateurs, or, more recently, music leaders. And in the United
States, in the past few years, musicians (as well as visual artists, dancers, and
actors) who do this work are often called teaching artists.
Arts consultant and author Eric Booth offers this definition: “A teach-
ing artist is a practicing professional artist with the complementary skills,
sensibilities, and commitment of an educator, who engages people in learn-
ing experiences in, through, and about the arts.” And the Arizona Commis-
sion on the Arts defines teaching artist simply as “an educator who integrates
the creative process into the classroom and the community.” Teaching art-
ists work in a wide range of settings, from primary and secondary schools to
hospitals, prisons, shelters, community centers, retirement homes, and mu-
seums. Residency work is challenging and rewarding. Teaching artist skills
are becoming essential for musicians. Due to a lack of music education in
the schools, the competing demands for audience leisure time, and the hun-
ger in our cultures for meaningful social connection, teaching artist skills
have become essential for today’s musicians, and for the future of music.
What’s in It for You? X
Doing residency work is personally demanding because it calls into question

the artist’s relationship to music, to performing, and to the audience. This
work often helps musicians re-ignite the fire that originally drew them to
music. It can reconnect them to the purpose of their performances and their
original musical inspirations. Composer/bassoonist John Steinmetz ex-
plains that residency work helps musicians improve their performances,
“because through thinking about what to demonstrate to the audience and
how to explain it, performers get clearer about the musical message they
want to communicate.”
As an undergraduate, pianist Kazuha Nakahara designed a residency at
a local retirement home. She became the home’s intern artist-in-residence
for a semester, earning college credit. Her performance space was the living
room of a brownstone, with a Steinway in need of repair. Her audience was
204 Connecting with Audiences: Reaching Out and Reaching In
a group of about twelve retirees. Some were quite knowledgeable about clas-
sical music, whereas others were just glad to have a young person come visit.
Over the course of a semester, Kazuha presented ten programs of both solo
and chamber repertoire. She brought in guest performers and in all the pro-
grams talked about the music with the residents, asking questions and get-
ting to know them over the course of the semester. She planned her programs
and her discussion points beforehand. For some of these, she brought in art
prints and maps to discuss various connections between the music and its
context. And she and the residents talked about their own connections to
music, history, and geography.
At first, she found it difficult to “switch gears” between talking and
playing, because each demands a different kind of focus. And there were all
the unforeseen happenings in the presentations, from residents’ unexpected
reactions to discussions, to health emergencies and fire alarms. But with
more experience, Kazuha grew more confident and at ease with the per-
forming, talking, and transitions between the two. Talking and making
music are, after all, both forms of communication. And it’s probably inevi-
table that when you perform in arms’ reach of people you’ve gotten to know
over time, that the performing becomes more personal, more human, and
more about sharing.
Most of all, Kazuha got to know the residents, and they got to know her.
She was surprised at how interested the residents were in her personally and
by the end of the residency; she was surprised at how much they had come
to mean to her. As a result of Kazuha’s residency work, she found that all of
her performing felt more personal and more meaningful.
Residency work entails an inner process of self-reflection as well as an
outward focus. Musicians need to “get into the minds” of their audience, to
imagine what it is that people actually want. Doing residency work can
sharpen your performance and communication skills, inspire you to de-
velop compelling programming, and build your performance experience
and reputation.
In addition, residency work can offer an opportunity to explore new col-
laborations. Musicians can create partnerships to explore a wide range of mu-
sical and non-musical interests with composers as well as artists from other
disciplines. Today’s musicians and audiences are often fascinated with proj-
ects that combine music with visual art, dance, literature, technologies, or
theater. These kinds of projects can be rich in connection and “entry” points
that help both audiences and performers find meaning and relevance.
Finally, on a most practical level, there is good money to be made in
doing residency work. Many presenters book only artists who can do both
main stage performances and residency activities, and do both of these well.
Why Bother? 205
There is far more demand for effective residency work than there is for for-
mal concerts. This is because there is simply more grant funding available
for arts education presentations than for traditional concerts.
Why Bother? X
Is residency work necessary? Musicians often think, But if I perform really

well, the audience will “get it.” The music should stand on its own. After all,
music is the universal language.
It can be difficult for trained musicians to imagine what going to a live
concert is like for the general audience, for people who may be inexperi-
enced with art music, who don’t play or read music, and who have never
paid close attention to it.
Try to put yourself in their shoes.
Have you ever been to a museum or art gallery and been confronted by
a work you simply didn’t “get”? And maybe your friends and family were
raving about the work, but you were at a loss and felt left out? Well, many
people have the same experience with art music—the kind that one has to
pay attention to, be it Bach, Coltrane, Zwilich, or Shankar.
People often miss out on getting more out of music because no one has
helped them to engage more fully with it, to hear more in the music. Many
non-musicians experience music as aural wallpaper, the backdrop of their
daily life, creating ambiance for commuting, shopping, dining, and at work.
The fundamental listening skills musicians take for granted, such as hearing
melody distinct from accompaniment, and distinguishing instrumental tim-
bres, changes in tone color, tonalities, tempo, and contrasting themes—these
are all skills that people learn. Audiences need to practice listening in a new
way in order to catch these distinctions. And it can be quite easy for people to
begin hearing more in music—it may only take a minute—but people need
help learning how to do it. We often ask audiences to pay attention without
giving them any clue as to how or for what to listen for specifically. In his ex-
cellent article “Resuscitating Art Music” (http://www.musicunbound.com/
artx2.html), bassoonist/composer John Steinmetz writes, “It’s not hard to
perceive musical details but often listeners need help learning how to aim
their ears.”
The whole point of paying attention to art music, of perceiving the de-
tails, is that this can lead to making stronger emotional connections to it.
Sometimes all a new listener needs is a chance to hear a work several times.
Through repeated hearings of a work, live and recorded, a listener starts to
get a sense of the shape and features of a work. With repeated hearings, listen-
ers start to have the pleasure of recognizing themes, discovering new details
within the familiar, and having the satisfaction of perceiving a work as a

complete “narrative” experience, with a beginning, middle, and end, much
like a story with an exposition, conflict, and resolution. So, designing resi-
dency activities that offer listeners a “preview” of themes or key sections—
before the full performance—can work well. And some musicians program
concerts in which a new work (not too lengthy) is played twice, with some
commentary in between, to give the audience a second crack at what they
might have missed.
What Does Residency Work Encompass? X
Residency work is often about going to the audience, meeting them on their
turf and performing in nontraditional spaces, such as school gyms, retire-
ment homes, or office complexes. Residency work at its best is engaging, in-
teractive, educational, and artistic. This applies to the work whether it’s a
single presentation for a sixth-grade class, a postconcert audience talk with
musicians sitting on the edge of the stage, or a monthlong residency at a
community center.
For most presenters, the primary goal of residency work is to bring music
to those who would not otherwise attend main stage concerts. But the idea of
residency work is to do more than simply expose people to great music. In
many cases, residency work is focused on education: on helping audiences
learn about the instruments, the musicians, the music, and each other.
Exposing people to it and educating them about art music does not nec-
essarily lead to converted fans. People become fans because they get an emo-
tional charge out of an experience. But unless people are “invited in,” they
may never have the chance to fi nd if they get an emotional charge. Residency
work is all about the “inviting in.”
For many, the formality of traditional Western classical concerts can be a
real turnoff. The audience is asked to sit quietly in rows, at a distance from the
performers, without making noise or speaking until intermission, and God
forbid anyone should applaud at the wrong time! All of this creates a barrier
between audience and artist. So, in recent years, presenters and musicians
have been rethinking the how, where, when, and why they give concerts.
The Fischoff National Chamber Music Association in South Bend, Indi-
ana, presents concerts performed in local homes and businesses. This is
chamber music the way it was intended to be heard, in intimate settings.
Ann Divine, the executive director for Fischoff, has scheduled concerts in
museums, cafés, and furniture stores, incorporating good food and good
company. The idea is to make both the music and the players more ap-
proachable. (See http://www.fischoff.org.)
What Does Residency Work Encompass? 207
And in Texas, Da Camera of Houston presents a main-stage series plus

educational programs at schools and other community settings. Their fam-
ily series includes four weekend afternoon performances at the Houston
Zoo, complete with a question-and-answer session and a musical petting
zoo, to give children a chance to see, touch, and play musical instruments.
(See http://www.dacamera.com.)
Lastly, the Myrna Loy Center in Montana presents visiting musicians in
turn-of-the-century landmark buildings in Helena, including performances
in the city’s cathedral, its capital building, and the former governor’s man-
sion. Great music heard in beautiful and unexpected settings makes for
memorable experiences. (See http://www.myrnaloycenter.com.)
What’s in a Name?
Traditionally, residencies referred to artist-in-residence programs, long-term
positions for ensembles or composers (occasionally for soloists) at colleges or
universities. These positions are quite difficult to attain because they are gen-
erally offered only to well-established groups. It’s nice work if you can get it,
but these are not the only kinds of residencies available. There are also resi-
dency positions for emerging ensembles, in which players study with distin-
guished faculty members as part of a graduate degree or diploma program.
In recent years, the definition of the term residency has been extended
to include shorter-term arrangements, from a few days, weeks, or months,
sometimes with performance activities at multiple sites. Examples range
from a touring musician’s three-day stay in a community doing work in the
schools, to an ensemble’s concert series at a museum, or a quartet’s full-time
tenured position at a university. These are all considered residencies.
Jazz vibraphonist and composer Stefon Harris participated in a residency
several years ago at the University of Iowa Hancher Auditorium (http://www
.hancher.uiowa.edu), one of the leading presenting series in the United States.
Hancher’s former artistic director Judy Hurtig invited Stefon to collaborate in
a residency with poets during the university’s renowned literary conference,
the International Writing Program. Before the residency, Stefon was sent the
participants’ written poems and recordings of their readings so that he could
get a sense of the sounds of the various languages and voices. Then, over two
evenings during his residency, Stefon and his band, together with the poets
reading, created the music and the order for the performance. Stefon prepared
written and improvised works to be performed with each poem as it was read
by the author. The works were presented in a continuous poetry cabaret-style
performance at the student union. It was a big success. The poets got a chance
to present their work in a dramatically new context, and Stefon got an inter-
esting creative challenge and access to a new audience. The presenting series at
Hancher also got great media coverage for the innovative event and the op-
portunity to collaborate with one of the university’s most well known pro-
grams, setting the stage for future collaborative projects. It was a win-win
situation for all the residency partners as well as for the audience.
W
Questions for Exploring Residency Work
In planning effective residency work, musicians need to balance various needs
and interests: their own, their audience’s, and the sponsoring organization’s. Ask
yourself the following questions:
About you:
Why are you interested in doing this work? What are your goals and
motivations?
What would make this a successful experience from your point of view?
What repertoire would you like to use?
About your audience:

Who is the prospective audience? A high school ninth-grade class, a
retirement home, the local Rotary club?
What needs and interests does this particular audience have?
What would you like the audience to get out of this?
How can you help your audience actively connect with your music?
About the prospective partnering organization:

What is the organization’s reason for wanting the residency activities?
What would your partner like the audience to get out of the residency
program?
V
Talking to Audiences X
For many musicians, talking with audiences is where residency work begins.
Being able to introduce yourself and your music from the stage is a terrific
starting point for more complex residency activities. Most presenters wel-
come and expect musicians to introduce one or more works on a program,
especially any new or unusual pieces. Although speaking to audiences is a
welcomed and important part of performances, many musicians do not seek
out coaching or feedback on their public speaking skills. This is a shame be-
cause many people are nervous about speaking in public and can benefit
from basic coaching on these skills. So don’t make the mistake of leaving
this aspect of your performance unpolished.
Talking to Audiences 209
What you say and how you say it can help build rapport with your
listeners and a sense of cooperation and community within the audience.
Your attitude plays a major role in your speaking. Imagine, for any perfor-
mance you give, that you are in someone else’s home, and that a number of
other people have been invited to come and meet you there. You can take the
approach, no matter what the setting, that this is an intimate house concert,
and you are welcoming people to the performance. Your remarks should
help everyone (including you) feel comfortable and “invited in.” Be gra-
cious, because you are in a sense both a guest and a host for the evening!
The Borromeo Quartet presents a popular early evening concert series,
four to five concerts each season, at their home-base institution, the New
England Conservatory. The concerts are programmed on weekday evenings
for just one hour, 6–7 p.m., during which the quartet presents and talks
about a single work. These brief concerts are convenient for students and
commuters to fit it in before going home or out to dinner. The Borromeo at
first intended these concerts to be a small, in-house series for students, col-
leagues, and friends, but it proved to be so popular that they had to move it
to a larger hall. The quartet’s format is to first talk about the piece, pointing
out specific musical details in each movement and playing examples. Then
they play the entire work through, and, finally, they open the floor to any
and all questions from the audience.
The quartet’s first violinist, Nicholas Kitchen, does most of the talking
for the group. Although he is a gifted communicator and educator, Nick also
readily admits he has worked hard on these skills. His approach to the audi-
ence is friendly, interested, and enthusiastic. And he’s not afraid to talk
about tough pieces that can seem forbidding to audiences. Nor does he shy
away from describing the emotions of a work or what the experience is like
for the quartet members.
In presenting Bartok or a late Beethoven quartet, for instance, the group
first plays short examples to demonstrate how a motivic idea is worked out
over the course of a movement. The group sometimes deconstructs a sec-
tion, demonstrating how the composer takes an initial theme, breaks it into
pieces, and then uses these fragments to build the movement. Having the
quartet play short examples first and show how the work progresses helps
the listener to recognize and follow the narrative arc of the work when it’s
played through. With this kind of introduction, audience members—both
classical groupies and novices—can have a satisfying listening experience.
As for the audience that comes to the Borromeo’s early evening series,
they include music students, retirees, fans of the quartet, and working adults
in the area. Because of the mix, the questions afterward are surprising and
fun. People ask specific and technical questions about the work, or about the
quartet’s instruments, the mechanics of playing, and the lives of touring
musicians. The audience has a good time getting to know both the music
and the players, and consequently this popular series has attracted a loyal
following. (See http://www.borromeoquartet.org.)
What to Talk About

Stick to experiential issues, how the music is perceived and experienced by
listeners. Highlight personal reactions, histories and stories around a work,
both your own and/or the composers.’
Remember that this is not a music theory or history class. Your remarks
should not be about teaching facts or delivering information; they should be
tools to aid in the listening experience. Strike a balance: avoid using musical
jargon and technical terms, but beware of sounding patronizing. It’s easy to
alienate novices simply by using technical terms like contrapuntal, cadenza,
sonata form, and dominant seventh chord. As John Steinmetz writes,
Many musical phenomena can be described using normal English
words. Musical terms are only needed to direct attention to something
in the music that has no word in English. (For example, “getting
louder” is better than “crescendo,” but “cadenza” might be worth
using in some pieces, as long as you explain what it means.) Use words
to help focus attention on the aspect of music you want the listeners to
notice, but the main emphasis should not be not on what you say but
on the musical examples, on things that the listeners can hear.
To find a focus for residency presentations with specific repertoire, try
brainstorming with a free association exercise. You can do this with mem-
bers of your ensemble and with friends, both musicians and non-musicians.
Listen to a recording or play through a movement of the work you plan to
use, and then discuss it. When you hear the piece, what associations come to
mind? The composer’s spiritual or religious background? The political real-
ities in the world at the time? Chaos theory? The fragility of life? The nu-
ances of dialogue, of musical “conversation”? One or more of these associative
thoughts may make a great entry point into the music. This can be a launch-
ing pad for a fascinating discussion with your audience. Part of what you
can do in residency work is to name these associations, to reveal your own
reactions to the music to your audience. In a sense, by your example, you
can encourage audience members to explore their own musical associations
and reactions. This helps people deepen their connections to music.
Finding the Right Entry Point X
In his excellent book, Reaching Out: A Musician’s Guide to Interactive Perfor-

mances, David Wallace writes, “Entry points can help people to appreciate
Structuring Programs 211
musical works in essentially three ways: on a purely musical level, on an in-

tellectual/metaphorical level, or on a personal, emotional level.” Here are
Wallace’s recommended questions to ask yourself, in choosing the right
“entry point” for any piece:
What makes this work great?

What excites me about it?
What do I especially hope my audience notices?
Is there anything unusual, cool, or striking about the work?
Is there any musical element or metaphor that underlines the entire
work?
What entry points would make good aural or visual “hooks” for first-
time listeners?
What difficulties would a first-time listener encounter in the work?
Is there anything pragmatic or historical about the work that would
help a listener?
What aspects of the piece are so strong and immediate that they need
no activities to highlight them?1
Structuring Programs X
To work well, a program needs a specific, clear focus and theme. Otherwise,
it may come across as a haphazard collection of pieces interspersed with
talking. There needs to be a structure, with a beginning, middle, and end.
Build a program around an idea that the audience can explore together with
you. David Wallace advises that a good program theme fulfills four basic
criteria: that it:
Is intriguing, challenging, or entertaining for both performers and

audience.
Invites musical exploration, not just demonstration
Has an emotional or intellectual “bite.”
Is musically strong and original.2
W
Program Theme Examples:
How tension and resolution work in music

Improvisation
How an ensemble works: negotiating, team work, decision making
The element of surprise
Humor in music
Exploring musical form and structure
Compositional choices: having the audience try out changing the tempo,
dynamics, articulation, and tonality of a piece.
Exploring a period in history (music connected to history)
Programmatic music: pieces that tell stories
Exploring a particular culture or region
Composer portrait (centered on the work and life of a particular composer)
Exploring connections between a work and another art form (visual art,
dance, drama, literature)
V
Sometimes a program theme emerges from the chosen repertoire, and

other times musicians find the repertoire to fit the theme they choose.
Brainstorm with friends and colleagues to find entry points, themes, and
interactive possibilities for your programs. Though this takes time and ef-
fort, creating a satisfying program is worth it. Your program should chal-
lenge you, whether it is the first time or fifteenth time you present it. There
should be elements of spontaneity and fun in every presentation, and that is
fed by your encouraging the audience’s response and participation.
W
Tips for Residency Work
From Nancy Christensen, former education director for Chamber Music Amer-
ica and current managing director of the artist management firm MCM Artists.
1. “Talk to other musicians who are experienced and successful with this kind of
work.” For referrals and contact info of teaching artists in your region, check
with your state arts agency, Young Audiences, Inc., and with Chamber Music
America.
2. “Observe successful musicians doing their residency programs.” Most people
are flattered to have a fellow musician ask to observe their work, and most
would be happy to spend time with you afterward discussing residency work
opportunities.
3. “Before doing any residency work do your homework. Before the gig, call and
talk to your contact at the residency site—the presenter, classroom teacher, or
activity director. Find out about your audience, their community, and about the
performance space. For school performances, make sure you know what the
students are studying now. Find out if the school has a music teacher, any
other local arts organizations working with the school, or no music or art
instruction at all.”
4. “Use humor, be genuine. Your audience wants to respond to you personally.”
V
Designing Programs for Adults, Seniors, and K-12 Audiences 213
Designing Programs for Adults,

Seniors, and K–12 Audiences X
Adult Programs
Adults can be very self-conscious about their musical knowledge. So make
sure your approach is not in any way condescending. The goal is to create an
atmosphere of fun, open inquisitiveness, and exploration.
Whether your audience is a group of college students or insurance bro-
kers, if you are doing residency work for adults—people without musical
training—find links between what your audience is familiar with and the
music you present. Look for points of reference and connection between a
kind of thinking they are familiar with and successful in, and the new area,
the music you are offering. What is great about this approach is that it helps
make meaning. We live in a culture in which the media inundates us with dis-
connected facts and information, so any chance we have to connect ideas
across disciplines helps us make sense of our world. Finding meaning is one of
life’s chief pleasures, so don’t underestimate what you actually have to offer.
The String Trio of New York, a violin, guitar, and bass jazz ensemble, of-
fers a series of college-level educational programs called “The Human Resi-
dency.” These programs were developed to highlight the natural links between
music and a variety of subjects including mathematics, philosophy, art, psy-
chology, sociology, business, and more. The trio’s program “The Mathematics
of Jazz” includes a discussion of the use of numbers in music, from the over-
tone series and rhythmic subdivisions to intervals and figured bass. Their pro-
gram “The Business of Collective Initiative,” designed for economics and
business classes, involves the discussion of how the ensemble is organized and
managed as a collective group. The trio has presented these innovative ses-
sions on many campuses, including Dartmouth, Penn State, and Stanford.
The Guild Trio had an eight-year residency with the State University of
New York at Stony Brook’s Medical Center, a teaching hospital. The trio’s
residency included an educational Illness and Inspiration series and their
Frontiers colloquium on creativity in science and art. The trio also presented
a series of five concerts, each in the teaching hospital’s lecture center, and
conducted a ten-day annual amateur chamber music seminar. The residency
helped to foster a greater sense of community among faculty, students, staff,
and patients.
Senior Programs
Performing for seniors can be especially gratifying because elders are often
the most appreciative of audiences. If you’re just getting started with talking
to audiences and designing interactive concerts, you might want to start by
offering a program to a local senior center. Retirement and nursing homes,

assisted living facilities, senior day centers, and Alzheimer’s units are all
possible sites for residency work. These facilities offer a range of care and
programs to elders with varying health needs. All of these types of facilities
have activity directors who organize social and cultural programs for resi-
dents. It’s good to go meet these activity directors to view the possible per-
formance settings and to find out what kinds of programming their residents
especially appreciate.
In doing residency work for seniors, it’s important that your audience
can hear you well. You need to be able to project your voice well or else use a
microphone. And keep in mind that older people may have difficulty sitting
through long programs, so introducing each piece and even each movement
often works well. Still, it’s not unusual to have disruptions during programs.
Some people may need medication or particular assistance. A musician’s job
in the face of such distractions is to be understanding, kind, and flexible.
Some retirement homes book formal concerts of strictly classical music.
But more often, homes look for a mix of classical, jazz, and familiar stan-
dards from musical theater and the Great American Songbook. If you have
(at least as encores) a few standards by composers such as George Gershwin,
Cole Porter, or Jerome Kern, and can get your audience to sing along, that’s
great. Think of programming at least some familiar music that your audi-
ence knew when they were growing up.
K–12 School Programs

To work successfully in K–12 school environments, it’s important to be
aware of school culture. Teachers and school administrators are very busy
with many competing demands. Schools are under tremendous pressure
these days for accountability, and standardized testing often drives curricu-
lar decisions. Funding is tight and time is short, and this means that artists
wanting to do residency work need to design programs that enhance, rein-
force, or extend the school’s core curricular focus. Each state has its man-
date and required curriculum. The Arts Education Partnership website lists
each state’s arts requirements, assessment policies, and teacher certification
information (see http://aep-arts.org).
So, whether it’s for a single forty-five-minute assembly presentation or a
monthlong residency, musicians need to design programs that fit the school’s
schedule and culture, and that support the work of teachers and their curri-
cula. Effective in-school residency work helps link music with other areas of
learning. An example would be connecting math and music through ex-
ploring fractions in the context of rhythmic notation, and demonstrating
how music is organized in time. Other programs connect science with music
Designing Programs for Adults, Seniors, and K-12 Audiences 215
by exploring the properties of sound waves, how instruments produce

sounds, and how these are perceived and recorded. And there are many pos-
sibilities for connecting music and social studies: exploring history, culture,
indigenous music, and geography.
Programming for children should be imaginative, creative, and fun.
The Music Center of Los Angles County offers a wide variety of programs to
schools in the area. On their website, you can read brief descriptions of these
programs, such as the following:
Musica Angelica’s program entitled Musical Super Heroes introduces
grades K–6 to the world of ancient Greek and Roman mythology. The
ensemble—a soprano, tenor, and lutenist, all highly accomplished
professionals based in the Los Angeles area—play intriguing instru-
ments, perform opera scenes, dances and instrumental music of the
Baroque period. Colorfully costumed and highly interactive, the
program invites audiences to participate as it shows how these
marvelous myths are relevant to the family of man. (http://www
.musiccenter.org)
Greg Pliska, an arts education specialist at the Lincoln Center Institute,
recommends finding links between what the students are learning in a given
grade and what you the artist can offer. To find out what will work best in
schools, invite a teacher out for coffee or lunch and a consultation. Ask what
issues, ideas, and concepts the students are tackling in different grades. Find
out what’s being explored in the curriculum that you might enhance with an
innovative residency program. Pliska also suggests that you ask teachers
what kinds of residency work would be most helpful for them and their stu-
dents. As you develop programming ideas, check these out with teachers
and get their feedback and suggestions.
To get acclimated and to understand the culture, ask to spend a day vis-
iting a school. Spend part of the day with a teacher, visiting classrooms. And
spend time with the administrators—and with children on the play-
ground—to see how a school really functions.
W
The Four Nations Ensemble is an early music group with a core ensemble of
harpsichord or fortepiano, violin(s), flute, and cello. Four Nations has had long-
term residency programs working with inner-city schools in the Bronx and in
Brooklyn. The harpsichordist Andrew Appel described some of their residency
work several years ago at a Chamber Music America conference: “Our approach
is to engage students in a project that involves their skills and imagination and
helps us, the musicians who are strangers and unfamiliar with their communities.
We ask a group of 9th or 8th graders to work as a marketing agency for our en-
semble. (Those taking part have had some introduction to business and run a
school store). Four Nations doesn’t know enough about them, their families and
friends, and doubts if we can attract an audience to our programs of music. Their
job is to get to know our product (classical music), get to understand the market
(through surveys and interviews in their school), and develop an advertising cam-
paign for classical chamber music that appeals to the market.
“There is never any pressure to ‘appreciate’ the music, only to observe and de-
scribe it. At the end of the school year, they present Four Nations in a concert. Tickets
are available at the school store. The concert hall is managed by the students with the
help of the chief staff. Every aspect of presentation, from box office through stage
lighting to program design, is handled by the students. This year, they will select,
from a list of pieces, the music and order they feel is best for the presentation. This
business aspect is possibly the most unconventional part of the program.
“We have regular business meetings during the year to discuss the writing of
copy and interpretation of the survey results. Here we can work on verbal, written,
and math skills. This is an important argument for the viability of the program. Post-
ers, art, and copy are discussed as if we were employees of a major advertising firm.
You might imagine that I offer lots of input. But, mostly I try and clear away the
thicket of resistance to imagination. Decisions and materials must come from the
students so that they can recognize themselves in each final product.
“Concurrently, we begin working with other students in all grades, from K–9.
There are regular mini-concerts (15 to 20 this year), at which time we introduce
them to the chosen repertoire. Our sessions include performances and then the
sharing of responses, from emotional to creative. All the pieces on the ‘big’ concert
program are heard throughout the year. In this way, students enjoy the pleasure of
recognition—one of the most important in the appreciation of concert music.”
(See http://www.fournations.org.)
V
Children’s Programming Beyond Schools

There are other great venues for children’s educational programming, some
with fewer bureaucratic and scheduling hardships. There are summer camps,
after-school programs, community music schools, and preschools. For the
pre-K crowd, check out the Fischoff Association’s program for introducing
great books to preschoolers through musical reenactments by chamber
groups. The performers use their instruments to represent the story’s charac-
ters, emotions, and ideas. Musicians narrate the story and often use props for
additional drama. These interactive programs incorporate music, reading,
art, storytelling, drama, and imagination. (See http://www.fischoff.org.)
Getting Hired 217
Getting Hired X
Over the past fifteen years, U.S. orchestras, opera companies, festivals, and
concert series have invested heavily in the development of community edu-
cation programs. Many opera companies have young artist programs that
focus on touring children’s operas and other educational community pre-
sentations. Orchestras offer contract work for players doing chamber music
as teaching artists in their communities. The New York Philharmonic, Phil-
adelphia Orchestra, and the San Francisco Symphony all hire outside teach-
ing artist specialists—in addition to their own orchestra members—to do
residency work. See the companion website for a selection of links to orches-
tral community engagement programs.
Many musicians make a significant portion of their income from resi-
dency work. The national organization Young Audiences contracts 5,200
teaching artists (musicians, dancers, and actors) to present educational per-
formances in schools in thirty-three state chapters in the United States
(http://www.youngaudiences.org). Also, state arts agencies (funded by state
taxes) typically provide funding to subsidize residency work in public
schools. Musicians also independently book their own residency work and
create partnerships with community organizations.
But employers generally want to hire people with experience. If you’re
just getting started with residency work, rest assured that there are places in
your community now where you could be developing residency skills and
valuable experience. And some may even be able to pay you a modest hono-
rarium while you develop your skills.
In looking for venues to present residency programs for adults, think
about your own community connections. Ongoing residencies are built on
partnerships, on relationships between the musicians and a partnering or-
ganization. Start with your network as you explore leads. Do you have col-
leagues, friends, or family connected with any local organizations? Make a
list of possible venues and contacts, and then, just as for booking concerts,
prepare a pitch and appropriate marketing materials. Do some reconnais-
sance visits to check out possible venues. You want to be familiar with the
institution, the site, and your potential audience.
The Huntington Brass Quintet first honed their residency skills during
a year-long grant-funded program that brought them to Stephenville, Texas,
to perform, teach, and live in the community. The grant was the former
Rural Residency program funded by the National Endowment for the Arts
and administered by Chamber Music America (CMA). Though the NEA
program no longer exists, CMA continues to offer its own residency grant
program with flexibility about locations, community partners, and time
commitment (http://chamber-music.org)
Subsequent to its Stephenville experience, the Huntington Brass Quin-

tet (HBQ) went on to hold shorter-termed residencies at several Boston-area
churches. Their residency work involved performing for special church ser-
vices and holidays, and in exchange, the churches offered the HBQ their
own concert series. Having their own “home” series allowed the quintet to
grow their local audience base and gain visibility.
Church music residencies are not usually aimed at aesthetic education
or hearing distinctions and specifics in music. Church residencies instead
focus on linking music, faith, and community. Whether performing in a
church, temple, or mosque, musicians are being heard in a context that helps
listeners open their hearts to music.
In addition, the HBQ performed residency programs in schools, librar-
ies, and other community settings. They found that presenters appreciated
not just their good playing, but also their ability to talk with audiences and
design interactive programs. Trumpeter Mark Emery attributed the group’s
frequent return engagements to their residency skills.
So yes, you can create your own ongoing residency. Partnering organiza-
tions may include concert series, after-school music lesson programs, and sum-
mer festivals. Start with one event: a concert, a fundraiser, or a master class. If
the event goes well, you can explore the possibilities of creating a small series of
events there and develop an ongoing relationship with the organization.
W
Possible Community Partners for Residency Work
Libraries Hospitals
Festivals Correctional facilities
Churches Senior centers
Synagogues Civic organizations: Kiwanis, Lions, Rotary
After-school programs Hospice
Museums Preschools
Boys and Girls Clubs Parks and recreation departments
Public schools Rehabilitation centers
Private schools Shelters
Historical societies Colleges/universities
V
Where to Find Residency Bookings

Beyond looking for residency work on a case-by-case basis, there are also a
number of organizations that hire musicians or subsidize residency work:
Your state arts council most likely has an arts-in-education program
that helps fund performances and short-term residencies in
Marketing Your Programs 219
schools. Look up the website, and investigate the possibilities in

your state.
County and city arts agencies are funded in part by their state arts
councils. These smaller local agencies often fund a variety of
community arts projects. To find what is available in your commu-
nity, call or e-mail your state arts council for referrals to the
appropriate organizations.
Young Audiences is a national nonprofit organization that arranges
performances and residency programs in schools. There are thirty-
three chapters and affi liate organizations nationwide. Find the one
nearest you at http://www.youngaudiences.org.
Local organizations devoted to music performances in schools. To find
other organizations that fund work in the schools, ask a reference
librarian at your local public or university library. And ask local K–
12 music department chairs and local parent-teacher organizations.
VSA Arts is a national organization that works to make the arts
accessible to people with disabilities. The organization has network
affi liates in forty-nine states (see http://www.vsarts.org).
National Funding Sources for Residency Projects

Chamber Music America, http://www.chamber-music.org
Association of Performing Arts Presenters, http://www.artspresenters
.org
Meet the Composer, http://www.meetthecomposer.org
American Composers Forum Continental Harmony project, http://
www.continentalharmony.org
Marketing Your Programs X
Concert presenters are becoming more sophisticated in terms of their expec-

tations for residency activities. The work can be fairly well paid and competi-
tive. So in order to market programs effectively, you need promotional
materials that represent you well. Typically, experienced teaching artists have
a separate flyer or brochure for their residency work that can be included in
their promotional kit or sent separately. Even if you’re just getting started,
you can still come up with a simple and effective one-sheet with a compelling
detailed description of your background and what you have to offer.
Residency Flyers
What to include:
• Contact information for the artists and how to get more information
(website, e-mail, phone).
• Brief bio including where you’ve presented residency work.

• Testimonials, ideally with quotes from presenters who have booked
your group.
• Concise and compelling description of the programs you offer: for
each, describe the benefits, what the audience will get from each;
appropriate age group for which each program is tailored; and recom-
mended audience size.
• For in-school performances, describe how the program is tied to the
curriculum. This is essential for principals and teachers in order to
justify the class time given to the activities. In order to get the funding
for residency work in schools, there needs to be a clear and specific
educational value.
Effective K–12 Residency Materials:

Study Guides for Teacher Preparation
One way to ensure that your residency program has some real impact is to
create supporting materials for teachers to use before and after your visit.
The best materials are those that teachers and students can immediately put
to use.
Here are tips for K–12 residency materials from Brooke Thompson, a
music teacher in the Chicago Public Schools, and Catherine Larson, music
education faculty at DePaul University:
1. Keep materials and instructions brief, because teachers have little
time.
2. Keep these user-friendly for non-musician teachers (who may be
intimidated if they have little familiarity with music).
3. Offer relevant activities that teachers can do with their students before
and after your program.
4. Include brief but clear instruction on how to do these.
Read others’ teacher study guides. For example, see http://www.quad
cityarts.com/studyguides.html and on http://www.ums.org (click on “edu-
cation & community”).
Quality Control: Evaluating Programs X
Getting objective feedback is necessary to improving your teaching artistry.

If you’re breaking in a new program, do several trial runs with friends, fam-
ily, or colleagues as your audience. Let them know in advance that you wel-
come their specific and critical feedback. Tell them you are looking for
comments such as, “I didn’t quite follow the explanation about . . .” or “I’m
not sure your audience will understand these terms you used: . . .” or “The
balance of talking to playing was generally good but I thought you went on
a bit too long about the third movement” or “I’m not sure why you demon-
strated . . . or what it had to do with . . .”
When you present the actual residency work, ask a member of the host
institution’s staff in advance to observe your residency work. When people
know you are open to hearing critical feedback and you really do want their
input, they are more likely to give it. Sometimes non-musicians feel unqual-
ified to give feedback, so make clear the questions you want to answers to,
such as the following:
In the presentation, when did the participants seem most engaged?
When were they least engaged?
Was there anything you noticed that would help me improve the
session?
The school or institution that hires you for this work will need concrete
evidence of the effectiveness of the program. This is used in reporting to
funders who support residency work. And evaluating yourself allows you to
improve and develop better programs. The evidence of your effectiveness is
also important for marketing purposes for future bookings and media at-
tention, which is essential for your continued career growth. You can gather
comments, quotes, and letters of recommendation, along with the construc-
tive feedback for improvement.
For extended residencies in K–12 schools, portfolio assessments can
work well. Have the children keep a journal in which they write about what
they experienced in each residency session. For younger students, the jour-
nal may include drawings of what they worked on during each visit. Older
participants can write about what they did with the visiting musician, what
they liked most and least and why, as well as what they would like to do next
with their musical interests and skills.
Evaluation information can be collected in a number of ways, some
more formal than others. Get written thank-you notes or e-mails from par-
ticipants, teachers, and staff, and use photocopies or excerpts of these when
submitting your evaluation materials (these testimonials can also be useful
for marketing purposes). Try to capture the informal verbal feedback you
get from participants, staff, parents, and teachers. You can simply write
these comments down or, when possible, record them.
Take photos; these are good for documenting your work and captur-
ing audience reactions as well as for publicity. You can also videotape your
program (ask a friend to not just fi lm you but to try to catch audience reac-
tions and response as well). But note that, to take photos or video, you
must get permission from the partnering residency institution in advance.

This can be particularly tricky in schools, because parents need to sign re-
lease forms.
And of course, you can design a brief evaluation form for participants
and guest observers, administrators, and teachers. Tailor the form to fit your
program, but keep it concise because teachers and administrators are busy
(so an online survey with only five or six brief questions is best).
Summary
Residency work is ultimately about creating connections and community.
Helping others connect with the music you love is gratifying. Developing
residency skills and opportunities takes time and effort, but the rewards are
many: engaged audiences, additional performance opportunities, and the
possibilities of grant and other institutional support. But the biggest reward
is often personal: residency work can help remind musicians why they fell in
love with music in the first place.
W
Career Forward
Answering the following residency-related questions and writing down your
responses will help you enhance your skills and opportunities.
Brainstorming for Residency Programming

1. Imagine that you have been hired to perform for a group of business people at
an awards luncheon honoring the retiring president of the company. Choose
one piece from your current repertoire that you would like to perform for this
group. Imagine that because most people in the audience will be unfamiliar
with this work, you have decided to introduce the work verbally. What could
you say in a two- or three-sentence introduction to help the audience connect
to this work?
2. Same piece, new audience. Now you are performing this work for a hospital’s
cancer unit in-patient audience. How would you introduce it?
3. Same piece, new audience. How would you introduce the work to a class of 25
fourth-graders?
Brainstorming for Finding Residency Work Partners

4. Where in your local community might you be able to offer residency work?
Write down the names of three facilities or organizations. Forget about
traditional concert series and halls, and instead think about places where there
are regular groupings of people, possible new audiences for you. Perhaps they
have an unusual performance space, or a particular membership base that
might also be interested in your music. For ideas, read your local newspapers,
talk to neighbors, and search online. Think broadly and creatively: consider
science museums, historical homes, and civic organizations.
5. Research the three community organizations. Find out about their resources,
programming, and any current partnerships. Visit the organizations, and read
their printed brochures and websites. Look at staff and board listings to see if
you have any networking contacts connected with the organizations. Check
with your alumni office. To make an initial contact, it is especially helpful,
though not necessary, to start with a personal connection.
6. Take a piece of music in your current repertoire and design an initial program
offering for an organization. Find the appropriate person at the organization,
and make an appointment, hopefully with the help of an introduction from
someone you both know. During the appointment, present your program idea
for a single performance presentation. If the initial performance goes well for
all parties, there may be interest in developing this work into a small ongoing
series.
V
9
Performing
at Your Best
W
In this chapter :
What Is Peak Performance?
What Is Stage Presence?
Managing Performance Anxiety
Treatment Starts with Self-Assessment
Interventions and Treatment Methods
Goal Setting
Performance Health
V
What Is Peak Performance? X
Performers sometimes describe their best performancee experiences as

peak. In describing their state of mind during such performances, musicians
report that they are free from distraction and that the performance seems to
happen on its own, without interference. Time seems suspended, and the
body works easily while the mind remains calm and receptive. Athletes de-
scribe this as being in the zone. Similar to meditative states, this involves a
loss of self-consciousness. Psychologists describe this as flow, a state of opti-
mum concentration and creativity.
To be clear, a peak performance is not necessarily a technically perfect
performance. What makes it peak is not a lack of flaws but the quality of the
performer’s state of mind. In fact, when musicians focus on technical perfec-
tion, paradoxically, they may actually shut down the essential element of
peak performances, which is a freedom from controlling thoughts.
Peak performances can be elusive, rare occurrences, impossible to pre-
dict or to make happen. But we can be physically and mentally prepare for
224
What Is Peak Performance? 225
them. The idea is to work to create the optimal environment to achieve peak
performance, whether it happens in a phrase, a work, or an entire concert.
What does it take to perform at your best? Of course, preparation is
paramount. But assuming that a musician is well prepared, the quality of
the performance experience itself is a fascinating balance of physical, emo-
tional, and intellectual factors. This chapter focuses on how musicians can
use their bodies and minds to most effectively communicate their musical
ideas to audiences. The specific topics in this chapter are stage presence,
performance anxiety, and performance health. The vast majority of musi-
cians experience difficulties in each of three areas at some point in their ca-
reers. Many musicians do not seek help, and many struggle in isolation. This
is unfortunate, because there is so much that can be done to help, with ac-
cess to good information, coaching, and specific interventions.
Developing Your Own Creative Voice

The Grammy award–winning composer and jazz bandleader Maria Schnei-
der regularly speaks to musicians about ways to develop their individual
creative voices. In two terrific talks she gave at the Eastman School of Music
and the Berklee College of Music, she offered these five tips, paraphrased
here:
1. Don’t follow the crowd. Find your own artistic role models. Don’t be
overly influenced by your peers. Just because others are raving about
particular musicians and constantly listening to their recordings
doesn’t mean you have to. Follow your own taste and inclinations:
explore the creative works of those you are genuinely drawn to. Stay
true to your own artistic sensibilities.
2. Remember: the commodity of most value that you possess is your own
individuality, your distinct perspective and sensibility. So, even if you
think you don’t come from a dramatic background, an exotic place, have
endured unthinkable hardships, or had an extraordinary education at a
young age, you still have your own uniqueness that is in endless supply.
3. Spend some time each week investing in yourself. Spend time away from
your own music, doing something alone that nurtures your creativity.
This might mean a trip by yourself to an art exhibition or museum,
going to a concert of music outside your specialty area, attending a play
or an art film, or even taking a long hike in the woods. Give yourself this
quiet time away from others in order to explore and cultivate your
imagination.
4. Read for inspiration. In her presentations in 2009, Maria Schneider
highly recommended a book by the artist and educator Robert Henri,
226 Performing at Your Best
titled The Art Spirit. Though intended for visual artists, everything in
the book is immediately transferable to musicians. The book offers
perspective on how to stay motivated and how to approach creating
work; it’s thought-provoking and inspiring.
5. Turn off your cell phone and PDA. Do this for at least two hours each
day, preferably for longer. Give yourself a break from distractions, find
out what is going on in your own head, and listen to your thoughts.
Solitude and contemplation are essential to creativity.
What Is Stage Presence? X
In considering your performance experience, let’s start with stage deport-

ment—how you come across to others. In Stage Presence from Head to Toe,
author Karen Hagberg defines the topic quite broadly, as the total “visual
aspect of a live performance: everything from a performer’s walk, bow, fa-
cial expression, and dress, to an ensemble’s portrayal of a single, unified en-
tity; from the condition of the chair, music stands, and piano, to the
mechanics of smooth stage management.”1
Some musicians have a natural charisma and a physical ease that trans-
lates immediately to their stage presence. That’s fine for those few folks, but
for the majority of musicians, things don’t come so easily. The good news is
that there are specific tips to retool your stage presence to become more at
ease, both onstage and off.
Think about an artist whose live performances you have seen a number
of times and whose stage presence you admire. How would you describe the
impression this artist makes when she or he walks on stage and bows? Con-
fident, austere, energized, humble, or preoccupied? Think about how you
want to come across to your audience: what you want to convey about who
you are and what your music is about.
The ideal is to create the right environment for your performance. This
means your stage presence and demeanor should invite the audience in to your
experience with the music. Hagberg describes good stage presence as a clear
expression of a musician’s “respect for the music, for the audience, for other
musicians and for himself.”2 Working on obstacles to this is what improving
stage presence is about.
W
True Story
Hands down, the worst stage presence I ever witnessed was a concerto soloist
(who shall remain nameless) who exhibited an extreme case of what I would call
“stage arrogance.” When he strode on stage, he barely acknowledged the ap-
plause, giving just a perfunctory nod in the manner of a cocky high school athlete
about to compete in a sports competition. During the orchestral introduction, he
appeared to be both bored and impatient. After he would finish a solo passage, he
either nodded to himself, as if he approved, or he would shake his head from side
to side and frown. With his body language and facial antics, he gave the audience
a kind of blow-by-blow commentary on his own performance. The visuals were so
exaggerated that it would have been amusing but for the fact that the musician
was not a child but an adult professional. Either no one had taught him that this
behavior was unacceptable, or else, if someone had told him, he simply did not care
about the impression he made. As for his playing, he also sounded arrogant, even
when I closed my eyes to blot out the visual distractions.
V
Some performers convey their nervousness and unease, forecasting an

unsure performance to the audience before they even start. Others have un-
conscious physical habits or facial tics that the audience may interpret as
anger or discomfort. Most musicians are not such extreme cases, but then,
most of us do not actually know how we come across in performance. Which
brings me to the first recommendation.
Have someone videotape your next performance, including your stage
entrances and exits and your bows. It can be very hard to be objective when
you watch yourself, so view the video with a trusted mentor and discuss it
together with the sound turned off in order to really focus on the stage pres-
ence. As you watch, ask yourself, am I conveying the image of a professional
who welcomes the opportunity to share music with the audience? Or do I
appear uncomfortable, tortured, nervous, or angry? Many performers have
mannerisms and habits that are unflattering, but these can be overcome.
This is worth working on because it is such a big part of the audience’s
experience.
Many of the specific pointers below come from the noted stage director
and coach Janet Bookspan, from the workshops and seminars for musicians
she has given at numerous conferences and schools of music. It can be espe-
cially helpful for musicians to work with an experienced stage director or
acting coach because having an objective third party is often the fastest
route to identifying problem areas and making improvements.
Take a Bow
The purpose of an entrance bow is to greet your audience and to acknowl-
edge their applause. A bow is the equivalent of a handshake and a greeting
when you meet someone new. When you walk out from backstage, walk
straight to your performance position, with your head and chin up. Then,
turn to the audience and make eye contact, not fi xing on any one individual,
but catching eyes as you let your eyes sweep over the crowd, and smile. The
eye contact conveys your sincerity. And what you think about translates to
your facial expression and body language. Focus on positive self-talk. Think-
ing, “I’m so happy to see you here!” may help to put you and your audience
at ease.
Next, bow from the waist to about forty-five degrees, with arms relaxed
at your sides—it is fine to let them fall forward. Do not clasp your hands in
front or in back of you as you bow. Hands clasped in front is sometimes re-
ferred to as the “fig leaf” pose because it can appear that you are protecting
your most vulnerable area. Look down as you bow; this is a sign of humility.
When you come up, again make eye contact with the audience. Hagberg
writes that when you do not complete all these components of the bow, it is
the “equivalent to meeting someone and shaking hands without making eye
contact, or turning to walk away before the handshake is finished—either of
which would be dismissive and rude.”3
Pointers
• Remember to smile! Check your posture. .
• Page turners should enter unobtrusively after the performers and
should bring music to the stage. If entering the stage on the usual side,
stage left, the page turner should walk behind the piano.
• If the audience applauds between movements, do not frown, glare, or
roll your eyes. Instead, if you simply lower your head a bit, you can
wait until the audience quiets, then proceed with the performance.
• After performing, bow and acknowledge the audience: convey that you
appreciate their thanks and smile, no matter how you feel the perfor-
mance went. When returning for curtain calls, return to center stage to
bow.
• If you’re given flowers, accept them graciously and bring them back-
stage. If there is another curtain call, leave the flowers backstage—do
not bring them back on stage with you.
• Orchestral soloists make their stage entrance before the conductor,
and walk to their intended spot and wait for the conductor to get to
the podium. Then you both can acknowledge the applause (this shows
respect to the conductor who is considered the bigger “star”). As a
soloist, make sure you appear interested and involved during the
orchestral tutti sections. When the performance is done, shake hands
first with the conductor, then the concertmaster, and say thank you to
the orchestra before taking your own bow, and then take the conduc-
tor’s hand and bow together. For the first curtain call, simply shake
hands with the concertmaster. For the second, shake hands with the
conductor and let her or him signal for the orchestra to stand (it’s not
your job to do this). Audiences, orchestras, and conductors all appre-
ciate good manners.
• For stage exits, it always looks better if males let females go first. For
entrances, however, if it is an ensemble performance, enter in the order
your group will be arranging itself on stage. If you are a male recitalist
and your pianist is female, you should enter first because it is your
recital, but exit second (demonstrating that though you’re a star, you’re
still a gentleman). Chivalry looks good on stage.
• About encores: should you announce these or simply launch in? This
depends on the size of the hall and your ability to project your voice.
Have a colleague come to your run-through and stand at the back of
the hall to listen to your speaking voice and tell you frankly what will
work best.
W
Just for Ensembles
1. All the ensemble members should move roughly at the same speed during
exits and entrances. Pick a leader to cue the beginnings and ends of bows and
to signal the stage entrances and exits. Clarify this before each performance.
This can mean the difference between looking like a cohesive professional
group and looking like a bunch of freelancers who have just met to sight-read
a gig. When returning to the stage for curtain calls, return to stage center, in
front of stands and chairs (as long as there is enough room to do this
comfortably).
2. Figure out a tuning order and do it quietly, quickly, and accurately. If possible,
take care of your tuning off stage.
3. Be careful of the way you sit so that all ensemble members’ faces can be
seen—the audience wants to see your expressions, your eye contact with each
other, and all the nonverbal communication.
4. Look at your partners during their solos—show your involvement in the music.
Do not “tune out” and simply count rests—audiences can always tell if you’re
not involved in the music.
V
Concert Attire
What you wear needs to be appropriate for the performance site and occa-
sion. For a morning residency at a middle school, you would wear some-
thing different than at the formal evening concert on a traditional presenter’s

series. Get objective opinions on your concert attire from people who go to
and who give lots of concerts. We all think we have great taste and that we
know what is most flattering on our bodies, but the proliferation and popu-
larity of television makeover shows would argue the contrary. We have all
been to concerts in which the performer’s choice of attire was less than opti-
mal and made a less than favorable impression. The ideal is to wear concert
attire that makes you feel confident, that you know for sure is flattering on
you, and that shows well even from the back of the hall.
Dress for Success

• Make sure your concert attire allows you to move and breathe freely
and looks good when you are moving in performance (musicians often
wear concert clothes that are too tight or constricting).
• Pay attention to the quality of the fabric, and the design and line of the
garment (how it falls on your body), because all this is very apparent
under stage lights. Watch out for bargains that look second-rate on
stage. Even wearing all black, it’s possible to look elegant, distinctive,
and attractive.
• Keep the distracting accessories to a minimum: no watches or dan-
gling earrings. The exception is for female vocalists who can get away
with more showy necklaces to highlight the face and neckline.
• Shine your shoes! And because onstage your socks and/or hosiery are
usually partially visible, make sure you’re not flashing bare shins or
odd-colored socks or stockings. For men: your jacket should be
buttoned when you enter and exit the stage. If you perform seated,
unbutton the jacket after you bow and as you take your seat.
• For ensembles: consider how your group looks together. You don’t
necessarily need to wear the same suits or colors, but you need to
create, with the help of your clothing, an impression of a cohesive unit.
For men in ensembles, consider purchasing suits of the same design,
label, or fabric. Otherwise, slight variations in shades of black and
fabric can make a group appear amateurish.
• For everyone: watch out for hairstyles that hide your features—the
audience wants to see your expressions.
Just for Women

Remember, your performance is not a fashion show. Your attire should help
the audience focus on you and your music, not your clothing. The line and
drape of a gown or trousers can help accentuate the positive and minimize
the negative of any figure. Shop for your potential concert gowns with a col-
league you trust, someone who will be brutally honest before you buy any-
thing. Consider using a personal shopper; upscale department stores offer
these services. There are also upscale resale shops where you may find high-
quality, affordable gowns. Again, make sure you get good advice.
It’s usually best to stick to a solid color because it’s less distracting and
will help elongate your line. The color, of course, should be flattering to you
but should also help make an impact (for instance, dark reds and greens can
look wonderfully rich on stage).
Be careful about lengths of dresses for daytime concerts: mid-calf may
be the safest. If you sit to perform, choose fuller skirts. Cellists and harpists
need full skirts full length or pants with a flattering drape. As for shoes,
women do best with those that match the color of their gown (shoes can be
dyed), pairing these with flesh-colored stockings.
Many women, young and old, have jiggly upper arms. If you do, avoid
sleeveless gowns; instead, wear loose fitting sleeves that cover the upper arm.
Make sure your audience can concentrate on your music making and not on
the knees, legs, or thighs you may be flashing or the bodice out of which you
may be falling!
Just for Men

In terms of formal concert attire, men have it easier. There are fewer ways to
go wrong, because a dark suit, well cut and tailored, and made of quality
fabric, is great. A good suit can be expensive, but it is an important invest-
ment. There are always end-of-season sales and outlet stores for purchasing
high-quality suits at a discount. Ask a salesperson for help fi nding the right
size, and have your suit tailored if needed. It is especially important that
your suit jacket is cut so that you can move easily. You want lightweight nat-
ural fabric to stay comfortable under hot stage lights. Check the necks of
your suit shirts also, so that your movements are not restricted. Make sure
your suit is cleaned regularly, your shirt pressed, your shoes polished, your
socks black and matching, your pants the right length, and that you have an
appropriate tie.
Pre-performance Checklist
R Check the stage lighting carefully so that spotlights do not blind you
or create too much heat on stage. Check that the lighting is flattering
to performers.
R In your dress rehearsal, carefully arrange the chairs and stands the
way you want them in the performance. Make sure your setup allows
the audience to see all ensemble members and that all performers can
see each other and have enough space to perform. If the stage crew
needs to move any of the chairs and stands before the concert, have the
floor marked or “spiked” with tape so each setup can easily be redone.
Do whatever you can to help make smooth stage transitions and to
minimize the time between your stage entrance and the first note.
R Make sure all page turns are workable (photocopy, cut, and tape pages
as needed).
R Pianists: if at all possible, arrange the bench height before you walk
onstage, to spare the audience an extended display of bench adjusting.
R For ensembles: use folding metal stands adjusted low because these
will neither block sound nor obstruct the audience’s view of you and
your instrument.
Remember that the audience experiences the performance as a totality,
including your bows and facial expressions, any speaking from the stage,
your clothing, and even your attitude at the reception. From the audience’s
point of view, the “concert” is much more than just how the music sounds,
so make sure that their total experience is a good one.
Managing Performance Anxiety X
If you have performance anxiety, rest assured that you’re not alone. Seasoned
professionals, as well as rank amateurs, can experience debilitating perfor-
mance anxiety. Pianist Glenn Gould retired from performing to the record-
ing studio because of stage fright, and Barbra Streisand is reported to suffer
from it as well. Every musician experiences performance anxiety to some de-
gree. But the way each person experiences it is unique. The extent to which
anxiety interferes with any performer’s abilities is as individual as the combi-
nation and range of symptoms experienced.
In coping with performance anxiety, what works for one person may be
useless to the next. What your studio teacher or coach recommends may not
work for you. And musicians report that their performance anxiety changes
over time, so the coping skills that worked for one phase of their career may
not work for the next.
Unfortunately, there is no such thing as a quick fix because individual
symptoms and coping skills vary so widely. Finding the right treatment
strategies or intervention takes time and experimentation, and often works
best in conjunction with a trained performance coach or therapist. Many
musicians are too quick to dismiss a treatment method that they may have
tried only once. Even the use of beta blockers (a prescription drug used to
treat anxiety symptoms) is not an automatic fi x because musicians typically
need a few trial performances to determine whether or not the drug or dos-
Managing Performance Anxiety 233
age is effective. My first suggestion is to have patience. Adopt a neutral curi-

osity about your performance anxiety, and be willing to give treatment
options a thorough and complete trial.
The Basics: What Is Stress?

Stress can be understood as the mental, physical, and emotional reaction to
events and situations in our lives. Stress can be caused by negative as well as
positive events, by the loss of a job or a loved one, as well as by a marriage,
birth of a child, or a new job. Stress is basic to life; without it, existence
would be predictable and boring. Stressors—the events and situations we
react to—make life challenging, exciting, and memorable.
Experiencing stress before a performance can be positive: it means you
care about the performance and are excited about it. Stress gives performances
energy, the “edge” that can be lacking in studio recordings. So, stress is not the
problem, but the way you react to stress may be problematic. The base level of
general, underlying stress in your life—as well as your habits and methods of
coping with it—plays a critical role in performance anxiety.
19 Stress-Busting Tips
To help better manage your overall “general life” stress:
1. Exercise every day (and no, practicing music does not count as
exercise).
2. Get enough sleep.
3. Eat healthy; take real breaks for meals.
4. Notice the beauty and nature around you.
5. Identify pleasurable non-music activities that do not take a lot of time;
do these regularly.
6. Exercise your sense of humor.
7. Be aware of daily stressors, and choose how to react to these.
8. Know yourself; pay attention to the physical and mental clues you get
that signal you’re on overload.
9. Use a daily planner, and keep your to-do lists short and reasonable.
10. Learn to say “no.” Do not overcommit; delegate when you can.
11. Don’t isolate: get feedback, suggestions, and encouragement from
family and friends.
12. Don’t be a slave to your cell phone, text messages, or e-mail—schedule
downtime to return messages.
13. In a stressful or emotionally charged situation, dial back to being
observant about the situation instead of letting your emotions imme-
diately take over. This can buy you time to choose your response.
14. Meditate and/or use progressive relaxation exercises.

15. Dump your stress: on your way home each day, or when you pack up
from a practice session, pick a symbolic spot where you can, in your
imagination, dump the day’s stress. You want to make sure that when
you leave work, practice, or rehearsal, you let go of your stress.
16. Know your own core values, and make sure you are living in sync with
these.
17. Remind yourself why you like your work and why you love music.
18. Own your successes, give yourself credit and celebrate the small
achievements and daily pleasures.
19. Remember that you deserve to be treated well, so take good care of
yourself.
The Mechanics of Performance Anxiety

“If you can do a piece in a practice room—efficiently and well—then you
have the technical abilities to do it,” says sports psychologist and perfor-
mance expert Don Greene. “But then if you go on stage and are not able to
execute the piece, it’s not a technical issue. It’s a mental issue, an issue of how
you deal with stress. A lot of people then will go back to the practice room to
work on a problem that wasn’t there, namely their technique, when the
problem wasn’t their technique—it was their response to stress.”4
Our body’s extreme reaction to stress is called the fight-or-fl ight re-
sponse, an instinctive reaction that includes an increase in heart rate and
blood pressure, and a rush of adrenaline. Biologically, humans are pro-
grammed to react with the fight-or-fl ight response in life-threatening situ-
ations. But unless you are performing in a war zone, a concert is not a
life-threatening situation.
When a musician reacts during a performance with the fight-or-flight
response, this produces a chain of physical, behavioral, and cognitive reac-
tions. The perception of fear can trigger sweaty palms, dry mouth, trem-
bling hands, and distracted thoughts, all of which may lead to memory slips,
missed notes, forgotten text, and other mishaps. Performance anxiety can
be broken down into four groups of symptom types, but anxiety can mani-
fest itself with any one or any combination of these:
1. Physical symptoms include shortness of breath, dry mouth, sweating,
increased muscle tension, rapid heart rate, trembling, nausea, and/or
dizziness.
2. Cognitive indicators are thoughts or worries that dwell on a negative
assessment of the situation and negative thoughts about the perfor-
mance and oneself.
Treatment Starts with Self-Assessment 235
3. Emotional indicators may include feelings of inadequacy, fear of

disapproval, fear of the fear itself, and/or an irrational exaggeration of
the performance situation (a concert becomes a test of one’s worth as a
person, a do-or-die situation).
4. Behavioral changes occur in response to the symptoms above, such as
avoidance (canceling an audition, postponing a recital), or denial
(procrastinating the planning, practicing, or rehearsing for a
performance).
People who experience high levels of performance anxiety tend to con-
centrate on their symptoms. This in turn causes more worry, more negative
thought patterns, more feelings of inadequacy, and an increase in the sever-
ity of these symptoms. Musicians can get stuck in a performance anxiety
loop or a downward spiral.
W
The Sam Q. Story, Part 1
A talented flutist, Sam Q. found that his performance anxiety had increased
over the past four years and it was becoming disabling. Before a performance, he
would typically find his hands trembling and his mouth so dry it became nearly im-
possible to start a performance. The weird thing was, once he got started, the
symptoms usually subsided and he was able to perform adequately—not as well as
he could in a practice room—but better than he feared he would before the
performance.
V
Treatment Starts with Self-Assessment X
Self-assessment entails exploring what kinds of conscious and unconscious

thoughts and feelings are contributing to the anxiety. Your attitude matters,
as in your attitude toward yourself (your confidence and self-esteem), to-
ward your instrument (is it a love/hate relationship?), toward performing in
general, and toward your audience. These are all important factors that con-
tribute to how you experience performance anxiety. There are specific
thoughts, associations, and feelings that can cause the range of symptoms
any musician develops.
First off, perfectionism is a trap. Jeff Nelsen, the hornist with Canadian
Brass and faculty member at Indiana University, points out that flawlessness
should not be the primary goal in performances. Nelsen advises instead, to
“Focus on what you want to convey, over and above the technical qualities
of your performance, and trust your preparation to keep your errors to a

minimum.”5 (See http://www.jeffnelsen.com.)
If you realize that perfection is not for humans and that mistakes are
inevitable, you may give yourself the leeway to take risks in your perfor-
mances. Be able to recognize what is good, what is valuable in your perfor-
mances, and what your strengths are. We are far too good at analyzing our
deficiencies and are often unable to articulate or appreciate our positive
qualities. Give yourself permission to fail, and you may surprise yourself
and feel a new freedom in your performances.
Attitude Toward Audience

The foundation of performance anxiety is fear of public humiliation. In
competitive environments and professions, the festive aspect of perfor-
mance can all but disappear. It’s easy to get caught up in worrying about
being judged. It’s easy to forget why people come to hear performances in
the first place. Audiences are not there to judge. They come to hear you and
to be moved by the music. Even in competitions and auditions, the adjudica-
tors want to be moved. Jeff Nelsen recommends shifting your thinking: “Sell
the story, not yourself.” Instead of focusing on wanting the audience to love
you, “make them an audience that loves what you love.”6 Don’t project your
fears and negative thoughts onto your audience—they are on your side.
Examine Your “Self-Talk”

Distorted thought patterns typically result in negative self-talk. Think about
what actually goes on in your head during a performance. Negative self-talk
often comes in predictable flavors:
“I can’t believe I just f#&%d up that passage” or “Well, that was a
disaster, and there’s no excuse. It went great in the last rehearsal. I’m a
wreck!” (This is polarized thinking, critiquing what’s past instead of
focusing on the present.)
“Who do I think I’m fooling? I can’t play this piece!” or “This is going
really bad; this whole performance is going to suck.” (This is overgener-
alizing, catastrophizing, personalization.)
“I can tell the audition committee hates me. I don’t stand chance. This
is so unfair!” or “Oh my God, here comes that passage I always screw
up . . .” or “Yikes, here’s where I had that memory slip last week.”
(Anticipating disaster often makes for a self-fulfilling prophecy.)
These thoughts are often lurking just below consciousness and may be
long-standing habits that undermine our self-esteem and therefore our per-
formances. We may not be aware of these messages at all. Self-talk is a back-

drop to our daily activities that exerts a powerful effect. These negative
thoughts produce negative feelings of worry, fear, a sense of inadequacy, and
these feelings in turn incite the physical symptoms of performance anxiety.
W
The Sam Q. Story, Part 2
When flutist Sam Q. started to self-assess, he noticed his thoughts in the prac-
tice room—what specifically went through his head while he prepared for his next
quintet concert. He started to keep a practice room journal, and during each prac-
tice session he would spend part of his time imagining that he was in the warm-up
room backstage with his colleagues and they had only five minutes before the
stage call. He visualized everything, from seeing himself in his concert attire to
hearing his colleagues warm up, to feeling the excitement and energy start to
surge, along with his stomach acid. Sam noticed his self-talk and wrote it all down.
His thoughts tended to center around worry over particular passages. He antici-
pated all kinds of disasters and obsessed over certain phrases, even though most of
these passages had gone fine in the last rehearsals. His thoughts raced with frantic
statements such as, “The third movement is no good, that fast passage is a mess!”
or “What if I screw up that cue?” or “My intonation sucks!” As for what Sam was
thinking about himself and his audience, he noted that right before walking on
stage, he felt like he was unqualified, that he was a fraud and had no business giv-
ing the concert. He thought that the audience was going to “see through him” and
judge him as incompetent. Sam wrote all this up in his journal. He was surprised at
how negative and extreme the thoughts were. He was discouraged. His negative
self-talk seemed so entrenched that he doubted he could find relief.
V
Interventions and Treatment Methods X
Though there’s no quick fi x for performance anxiety, there are a range of

methods and coping techniques that can be extremely effective. Changing
our ingrained habits of how we react to stress takes time, patience, and ex-
perimentation. It also takes a willingness to explore our self-talk, underly-
ing feelings, and emotional baggage.
A range of coping techniques and methods is included below. Keep an
open mind, and experiment with these suggestions to find a combination or
adaptation that works well for you. Consider your practice room as your
laboratory. Try out the ideas and coping strategies below, incorporating
them into daily practice to build new habits in the coming weeks and months
before your next performance.
Treatment should address the specific symptoms and issues you face.
For instance, if you physically tense up before a performance, you may need
to work on specific muscle relaxation exercises and prompts. If you tend to
become distracted, exercises to help you center and focus your thoughts
may be helpful. If your perfectionism is plaguing you, there are affirmations
and thought-stopping and resiliency exercises to explore. If you have a hard
time quieting the critical voices in your head, there are also exercises to alter
these ingrained “tapes.” Here are a dozen suggestions:
1. Find a counselor. Seeing a professional counselor can be tremendously
helpful. Consider those who specialize in working with performers and/or
those who treat anxiety disorders. The purpose of working with a skilled
therapist or consultant is to get objective feedback and perspective from a
trained professional, someone who can help tailor a treatment program to
your specific needs. Always get referrals; you may need to meet with several
therapists before finding the best match.
2. Check your community resources and reach out to others for help; don’t
isolate. Find out what stress management courses or anxiety treatment pro-
grams are available in your area. Many community centers and hospitals
offer these services. Whether or not they are specifically for musicians
doesn’t matter, since to some extent, anxiety is anxiety, and you may find
excellent treatment and support.
3. Preparation for your next performance or audition will do a lot to in-
crease your confidence. Create a plan for the months and weeks preceding
the performance. Include a schedule of practice time and deadlines for com-
pleting work on each piece. You may want to schedule lessons with mentors
to make sure that you are fully prepared and do not have concerns over your
objective abilities to perform.
4. Desensitization is the process of gradually building up resistance and
increasing tolerance to stress. This is the same technique used to treat aller-
gies, social anxiety, and panic attacks. The idea is that you start with lower
stress performance situations, such as playing a casual mini-concert in a
less-pressured atmosphere, and gradually build up to the “real” perfor-
mance. Start with just playing a small part of your program for one or two
friends. Then you can “raise the stakes” regularly, systematically increasing
the number of people and the level of stress in each performance situation.
Arrange to perform at a local church, elementary school, or senior center.
The object is, in part, to learn more about what is going on in your
thinking as you perform, and, most important, to become more accustomed
to handling your symptoms as you experiment with various coping strate-
gies. “Powerful performance is not about being relaxed,” says performance
expert Don Greene. “You have to accept that when you perform, you might
be feeling some extra energy, and the more accustomed you can get to feel-
ing that energy when you play your first few notes, the better.”7
The reality is that most musicians simply don’t get enough practice per-
forming. Don Greene cites a basic mistake musicians make in their ap-
proach. They
never switch over from practicing practice, to practicing performance.

And then they go out on stage—where the environment is very
different—expecting to do something they’ve never adequately
practiced. All that time they’ve been practicing doing something
they’re not going to do. They’re not going to go out there and rehearse,
stopping and starting and correcting. At some point, a musician
should start practicing performance—making an entrance, playing
the piece straight through regardless of what happens, and then
getting up to make the exit.8
So, you need to create more performance situations for yourself. A

good place to start is by arranging for lower-stress performances in your
community.
5. Visualization is the technique of creating detailed mental images
that can influence your thoughts, feelings, and actions. Visualization is a
powerful tool, a mental skill useful for performances, but like any skill, it
demands practice. Below are three different visualization exercises. To fi nd
more, see the terrific book Musical Excellence: Strategies and Techniques to
Enhance Performance, edited by Aaron Williamon, as well as the other rec-
ommended resources in this book’s companion website, http://www.oup
.com/us/beyondtalent.
A. Re-creating a performance. Think back to a performance of yours
with which you felt satisfied. Using your imagination, re-create this perfor-
mance experience in every detail. Remember what you saw, smelled, heard,
and felt. How did your arms and legs feel as you were performing? What was
your breathing like? What thoughts were passing through your mind? What
feelings were you aware of? You can re-create this state of mind in your prac-
tice sessions, gradually increasing the amount of time you can stay in the re-
membered state, in the re-created sense of calm, focused concentration.
With practice, musicians learn to bring back this desired state of mind and
body at will, so they can use this technique in performances.
B. Direct your own movie. In your mind, you can create a movie of your
own ideal performance, the way you best perform a particular passage,
movement, or piece. Make sure that you are not just replaying a favorite CD
or DVD in your head—this visualized performance has to be your own,

based on your current best performance abilities.
Detail all of your sensory experience. You may want to close your eyes as
you do this. How do your fingers, neck, shoulders, spine, and feet feel? In
your ideal performance of a particular passage, what would you see? The
conductor, a colleague, the music? What would you smell? How are the
acoustics in the hall? What exactly do you notice about how the first passage
sounds? Start first with just a phrase, then build up your movie-making abil-
ity to a complete work. When you create such a movie in your head, you are
teaching your mind and body how to re-create this performance in reality.
C. Circle of excellence. In his article “Performing at Your Best,” Michael
Colgrass describes this exercise. Draw or mark a circle on the floor using
chalk or removable tape (on a tile or linoleum floor), or in a carpeted room,
you may be able to simply “draw” your circle in the carpet’s pile with your
finger. Now step into your circle of excellence. Michael Colgrass writes,
“Inside the circle is your own personal excellence, what makes you
unique. If even for a split second you feel less than your best, you step out of
the Circle, quickly do what’s necessary to regain your optimum state, and
step back in again. The Circle is like a force field made of your own energy,
and it’s impenetrable. You can visualize the Circle anywhere you need it—
on stage, in the practice room, at auditions—and it’s always with you be-
cause you carry it in your head. Performers claim they feel an almost
electrical power in their Circle of Excellence, a feeling very like their peak
performance state.” Remember, you need to develop this skill over time in
the practice room before trying it in performance. (See http://www
.michaelcolgrass.com.)
6. Keep a performance journal to keep track of your preparation and per-
formances. Record your self-talk and emotions in practice sessions and re-
hearsals. Record whatever visualization techniques you use and how they
work. This way you can track your progress and your use of various tech-
niques. After performances, write down how you felt before, during, and
after the concert. Write what people said to you about your performance. It’s
important to be able to appreciate what’s good and what is actually working
well. Writing down these positive comments should help to let them sink in.
7. Thought stopping is the technique of consciously stopping the negative
and replacing it with the positive. For this to be effective, you have to be vig-
ilant, because most of us are unaware of our own self-talk. Negative thoughts
kick off the cycle of performance anxiety symptoms. Cognitive therapy is
based on the theory that your thoughts determine your feelings and there-
fore your behavior. So, when you replace negative self-talk with positive, you
trigger positive feelings of confidence and reduce the physical reactions to
stress. The main point is that you can control the self-talk and choose which
“voices” to follow, the negative or the positive.
For instance, if you find yourself thinking things like, “I can’t do this”
or “There’s no way this is going to be good” or “Oh my God, my hands are
starting to sweat again,” you need to quash these thoughts. You may need to
shout in your head, “Stop!” and then replace the negative with positive talk,
such as “I have prepared well,” or “I have a good performance waiting to un-
fold,” or “I have a story to tell through my performance and I want to share
it with this audience.” Self-talk is powerful; it determines our emotional
states. If you want to change your emotional state, you need to change your
self-talk.
8. Learn to let go. During your performances, are you able to stay in the
present? If you make a mistake, can you let it go and not dwell on it? Can you
stay focused on the now? Are you able to appreciate your performance in the
moment?
Improvising is all about being in the present. I have often noticed a dif-
ference in the general attitudes that jazz and classical musicians have toward
performing. Jazz musicians, because of the nature of their art, don’t chase
after a fi xed version of perfection. So if you don’t improvise now, consider
taking a class or some lessons with a musician who does. Or take a theater
class in improv. This can be a great way to start feeling more comfortable in
your body and with the experience of being—and performing—in the
present.
9. Take a deep breath. Better than any pill is using the technique of deep
abdominal breathing. It is the best antidote for the fight-or-flight response.
Slow diaphragmatic breathing will calm your racing heart, help regulate the
surge of adrenaline, and help you calm down and focus. Make it a habit to
practice this breathing twice a day. Start by practicing for two minutes at a
time, and gradually increase your capacity. The practice will pay off: your
body will adopt the relaxation response as a habit, a routine that you can
“turn on” as part of your performances.
W
The Relaxation Response
This is a simple practice that, once learned, takes ten to twenty minutes a day
and can relieve stress and tension and help you toward a healthier, more satisfying
life. The technique was developed by Herbert Benson, M.D., at Harvard Medical
School, tested extensively, and written up in his recommended book The Relaxation
Response. Regular elicitation of the relaxation response has been scientifically
proven to be an effective treatment for a wide range of stress-related disorders.
On the website for the Massachusetts General Hospital’s Benson-Henry Insti-
tute for Mind Body Medicine, there are resource listings as well as this basic intro-
duction to the Relaxation Response:
1. Pick a focus word, short phrase, or prayer that is firmly rooted in your belief
system, such as “one,” “peace,” “The Lord is my shepherd,” “Hail Mary full of
grace,” or “shalom.”
2. Sit quietly in a comfortable position.
3. Close your eyes.
4. Relax your muscles, progressing from your feet to your calves, thighs, abdo-
men, shoulders, head, and neck.
5. Breathe slowly and naturally, and as you do, say your focus word, sound,
phrase, or prayer silently to yourself as you exhale.
6. Assume a passive attitude. Don’t worry about how well you’re doing. When
other thoughts come to mind, simply say to yourself, “Oh well,” and gently
return to your repetition.
7. Continue for ten to twenty minutes.
8. Do not stand immediately. Continue sitting quietly for a minute or so, allowing
other thoughts to return. Then open your eyes and sit for another minute
before rising.
9. Practice the technique once or twice daily. Good times to do so are before
breakfast and before dinner.9
V
10. Meditation. Many meditation exercises begin with slow breathing.

The relaxation response above is a form of meditation and can be learned
and practiced either alone or with a group. Yoga and Tai Chi are disciplines
that are based on meditation and both can be tremendously helpful for mu-
sicians. The basic idea of meditation is to consciously empty the mind of
thoughts in order to aid in relaxation and focused concentration. People
practice meditation by focusing on their breath or on just one thing, such as
a single syllable mantra or visual image. When you regularly practice medi-
tation, you train your mind and body. Performance itself can be a kind of
meditation, as being in the zone or being in flow are kinds of meditative
states. So by practicing meditation, musicians can exercise the same state of
mind they need for peak performances.
11. Memorization. Knowing and performing a piece of music by heart
can be an aid to performers. It can ensure that the piece is thoroughly learned
and can give a performer a sense of ownership in his or her interpretation.

Unfortunately, fear of memory slips can contribute to performance anxiety.
If you are preparing to perform a piece from memory, there are strate-
gies that can help both the quality of your performance as well as your
memorization. In our long-term memories, we store music using multiple
representations:
• Conceptually—you know the piece’s structure, so that in the midst of
playing, you know where you are in the piece (such as at the exposition
or recapitulation, or first verse, chorus, or bridge).
• Auditory—you can hear the music and what comes next.
• Visual—you can visualize the printed sheet music or score in your
mind’s eye.
• Kinesthetic—your body memorizes the motions, the fingerings, the
position, the physical “dance” of the work.
You can work on each of these memorization strategies, taking small
sections of a piece one at a time and working through them silently. For in-
stance, you can play though a section or a movement, “hearing” the work in
your mind, to work on your auditory skills. For visualization, you can also
go through a section without performing it but instead “seeing” the score in
your mind’s eye and “reading” it through as you perform it in your imagina-
tion. As for your kinesthetic practice, you can perform the work again si-
lently but while imagining all the physical sensations involved. And
conceptual memorization is best worked on by analyzing the piece, to thor-
oughly understand its structure and organization (how the sections fit to-
gether). Because these practice techniques are worked on away from the
instrument, this is not only good practice for memorization, but for concen-
trated and focused work without the concern of overuse or performance
injury.
The most secure memorization relies on more than one method, so
that, for example, if you momentarily can’t hear what’s coming next, or can’t
see the page in your imagination, your body knows the motions. In Musical
Excellence: Strategies and Techniques to Enhance Performance, the memori-
zation strategy recommended by contributor Jane Ginsborg is to first ana-
lyze the music so that you can use conceptual memory of the structure of
the work as your overall framework. This is the metaphorical equivalent of
being able to see the forest for the trees. Ginsburg next recommends you
“chunk” the music and practice it in small structural sections, gradually in-
creasing the size of the chunks as you become more familiar with the work.
Then use rote, kinesthetic memory, along with either visual and/or aural
memory, to enhance the security of your memorization.10
12. Medication. Beta blockers are prescription drugs that stop the body’s
response to adrenaline. Inderal, commonly prescribed to musicians for per-
formance anxiety, is also used to treat high blood pressure, angina, certain
heart conditions, and migraines. However, beta blockers treat physical
symptoms only (they can reduce the sweating and slow down the racing
heart). They do not address the feelings and thoughts that cause perfor-
mance anxiety. Beta blockers may be psychologically addicting. They also
have varying side effects, and there are possible drug interactions with other
medication you may be taking. Because of this, don’t ever use someone else’s
prescription!
Some musicians rely on beta blockers only for special occasions, for im-
portant auditions or particularly stressful performances. The problem with
occasional and first time use is that you need to know in advance how your
body will react to the drug in a stressful performance situation. If your per-
formance anxiety is such that you feel the need to try medication, have a
thorough medical exam first and then try taking the medication in several
lower stress performance situations so that you can gauge your response.
Goal Setting X
In working on a performance anxiety management plan, it’s essential to

have concrete and reasonable goals so you can benchmark your progress.
For instance, setting a goal to be free of all performance anxiety at your next
performance two months from today is not a reasonable goal. Learning how
to cope with your performance anxiety is a process that takes time and prac-
tice. In thinking through and devising appropriate goals, many coaches and
consultants use the acronym SMART :
Specific—For example, you might set a goal to perform three low-risk
“warm-up” performances at a local church, elementary school, and
retirement home in advance of an upcoming formal recital to be
performed four months from now.
Measurable—Your goals might be quite basic, such as getting through
the three programs. But to help you measure how well you manage
the anxiety, have a friend or mentor attend each performance. Tell
this person in advance what you’re especially concerned about, and
tell them what to watch and listen for, so that you get useful feed-
back. Arrange to have the performances videotaped for study and
comparison. With objective feedback from a mentor and the
evidence from the video, you can measure your progress.
Adjustable—The performances will be organized in conjunction with
the community venues, so the time, dates, and length of program will
Goal Setting 245
all need to be adjusted according to the venue. The goals for each
performance may also need to be adjusted based on the experience
and feedback after each performance. That’s okay; it’s all a process.
Realistic—Depending on what your performance anxiety symptoms
have been, your goal may be to “stay in the present” while perform-
ing so that you notice what goes well. After each performance, stay
and speak with the audience members. When you get home, write in
your journal what went on in your head during the performance
and what you noticed about your focus and concentration. Also
write down all the comments you received from the audience
because this can be an important reality check as to how the
performance actually went.
Time Sensitive—The three performances might be scheduled for the
month before the formal recital (with each one a week apart). The
scheduling, programming, rehearsal times, and travel all need to be
worked out well in advance and confirmed a few days before each
performance. This will help to avoid any last-minute logistical
worries.
W
Sam Q.’s Story: Final Installment
Looking for answers, Sam Q. read several books about performance anxiety. Al-
though he found these interesting and informative, he felt he needed some individual
assistance, tailored to his specific difficulties. He worked with a therapist and a perfor-
mance coach and was able to analyze what was going on in his head around the start
of the performance. He worked on thought stopping, meditation, and visualization
techniques, and he developed a specific routine for pre-performance preparation.
In order to work on this program, Sam booked performance opportunities for
himself in low stress situations, by offering to perform both for the local middle
school and a nearby hospital. Sam now reports that he’s managing his performance
anxiety, feels much more in control, and often finds himself enjoying his perfor-
mances in a way that is brand new for him.
V
Putting Performance Anxiety in Context: The Bigger Picture

Celebrate your daily successes and small joys: a productive rehearsal, a use-
ful new contact, a good afternoon of teaching, a beautiful sunrise, or a
friend’s smile. You should feel good about how you choose to spend your
time; if you don’t, that’s a clear indication that you need to make some
changes. Benchmark your progress toward your goals by acknowledging the
daily progress you make.
You will need to experiment with a range of techniques to find the an-
swers to your own situation. This self-assessment and experimenting can
lead to more satisfying performances and to a deeper understanding of how
music can best fit in your life.
Performance Health X
To achieve peak performances, your body—not just your mind—needs to be

in excellent working condition. Musicians spend countless hours and years
training their bodies in very intricate, precise musculoskeletal movements
and positions, much the way athletes do. Unfortunately, musicians do not
usually give their bodies the same care that professional athletes do. Preven-
tive care for musicians is paramount. Taking good care of your body is essen-
tial for peak performances as well as your career itself and quality of life.
W
Performance Health Quiz
1. Do you warm up carefully each time you practice, rehearse, or
perform? Yes R No R
2. Do you take frequent breaks during practice sessions? Yes R No R
3. Do you evaluate your technique regularly? Yes R No R
(Check if your playing or vocalizing is tension-free. Are you using unnecessary
tension or force? Are you straining in any way while you practice?)
4. Do you videotape your practice sessions regularly? Yes R No R
(Practicing in front of a mirror is not equivalent. You need to see your playing
objectively, in action. Watching yourself on video can make it easier to spot
areas of tension.)
5. Do you have good nutritional habits? Yes R No R
(You need to fuel your body with a balanced diet.)
6. Do you smoke? Yes R No R
(Consider a smoking cessation plan.)
7. Do you have a plan to manage your stress and performance
anxiety? Yes R No R
(Take special care during high-risk times for developing injuries, such as in
preparing for an important audition, or when adjusting to a new instrument,
repertoire, or technique.)
8. Are you getting plenty of sleep? Yes R No R
9. Do you exercise regularly? Yes R No R
(Practicing does not count as exercise. Take a walk every day! Include
stretching and strengthening as well as cardiovascular exercise in your
routine.)
10. Is your attitude toward your music positive? Yes R No R

(Perfectionism and ambition can cause too much stress and tension.)
V
Musicians’ performance injuries are, unfortunately, common. Musi-

cians are a special risk group for repetitive motion injuries. Studies have
shown that as many as 82 percent of musicians have performance injuries.
Of instrumentalists, the most frequent performance injuries reported are
among pianists, violinists, cellists, and guitarists, but every musician is at
risk. So, if you are experiencing discomfort or pain, know that you are not
alone. Many instrumentalists and vocalists go through performance-re-
lated difficulties—once you start asking around you’ll fi nd many col-
leagues who have had injuries and many who have gone on to make full
recoveries.
What you experience as a performance-related discomfort may be caused
or aggravated by other activities. For singers, a day job that involves a lot of
talking can be a liability. For instrumentalists, computer and PDA use is often
a problem, but sports, hobbies, carrying children, and other daily activities
may also be contributors. Instrumentalists’ injuries are often the same as
computer overuse injuries. Carpal tunnel syndrome, tendonitis, and trigger
finger or thumb are particularly common among pianists, guitarists, flutists,
and string players. Singers may be at risk for vocal nodes and other difficulties.
Overuse, in combination with an inefficient technique, is often at the root of
these problems. Incorrect posture, excessive tension, and poor support can
contribute to chronic injuries and disability. Again, the good news is there are
preventive measures as well as effective treatment methods.
Warning Signs
Any kind of discomfort, muscle or joint pain may signal overuse or a need to
re-examine your performing posture and your technique. The first symptoms
may be a slight twinge, a dull ache, a sharp pain, a weakening or slowing of
dexterity, numbness, or a “pins and needles” sensation. Vocalists may notice a
limit to their range or an inconsistency in tone color.
If you experience any of these while practicing or performing, it is a sig-
nal. Your body is sending you a message, so pay attention. You need to stop
and to temporarily suspend all practice, rehearsals, and performances, and
call your doctor.
Sometimes the diagnosis is a simple matter of overuse, and all you need
is to rest your muscles, vocal chords, tendons, or joints for several days or a few
weeks. When you can start again, you may need to warm up more carefully
and limit practice time, and cut down computer use and text messaging.
If it is not simple overuse, the problem may stem from your perfor-
mance posture, the basic way you hold your body when you sing or play.
Minor adjustments can make major improvements. You may need to change
your posture to allow for more freedom of movement, more balance of
weight and muscle tension. However, sometimes the pain or discomfort is a
signal of something more serious. You will not know unless you get it thor-
oughly checked out by a doctor. It is very important lay off practicing and
performing until you can get the difficulty sorted out.
Unfortunately, many musicians who develop injuries wait before seeing
a doctor. Injuries often develop at the least convenient times (while prepar-
ing for important auditions or concerts), and musicians typically try to play
through the pain and “tough it out.” While a musician delays seeking help,
his or her injury only gets worse. Some people minimize or even deny the
fact that there is a problem. Or they assume that it’s simple fatigue, so they
continue to practice, which only compounds the problem. Do not wait and
worry; see a doctor. Early intervention is the best route to a quick recovery.
Your general physician is fine for starters. She or he can either deter-
mine what the difficulty is or at least rule out some possible causes (vocal
strain or simple overuse, as opposed to more complicated issues of vocal
nodes, focal dystonia, carpal tunnel syndrome, or bursitis). Your doctor
may refer you to a specialist, and you may want to get more than one opin-
ion. When being referred, it’s important to consult with people who treat
musicians, who will understand your particular concerns and difficulties.
There are medical clinics for musicians’ injuries in many cities; see Per-
forming Arts Medicine Clinics in the United States at http://yourtype.com/
survive/clinics_for_performers.htm, and there’s a terrific resource in the
Musicians and Injuries site, http://eeshop.unl.edu/music.html. In addition,
check out the Performing Arts Medicine Association (http://www.artsmed
.org) and the journal Medical Problems of Performing Artists (http://www
.sciandmed.com/mppa).
In addition to performing a thorough exam, a good doctor will take a
detailed history of your practice and performance habits, and ask about
which specific movements cause you difficulty. It’s important that your
health-care professional watch you play or sing. Your doctor should also ask
about your nutritional and exercise habits, your emotional state of mind,
your sleep patterns, and any other physical exertions beyond making music
that may affect or contribute to your injury. Your doctor may prescribe anti-
inflammatory medicine to reduce swelling and pain. Reducing swelling will
aid your body in repairing the injury, by improving circulation to the in-
jured area. So, even if you generally refrain from taking drugs, it is essential
to follow the doctor’s protocol of anti-inflammatory medicine. Typically,
doctors also prescribe a period of rest in order to allow your body to heal
and also to be able to gauge the severity of the difficulty. Then, depending on
the nature of the injury, your doctor may recommend a range of treatment
methods.
10 Suggestions for Preventing Musician Injuries

These are from Dr. Michael Charness, director of the Performing Arts Clinic
at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston, and associate professor of neu-
rology at Harvard Medical School. Dr. Charness (who is also a pianist) rec-
ommends the following:
1. Avoid playing more than twenty-five minutes without a five-minute

break. Try taping the last five minutes of a session, and use the five
minute break to listen critically. You may need to use a timer to make
sure you take breaks regularly.
2. Stretch, warm up, and work gradually into practice sessions.
3. Compensate for increased playing intensity (recording sessions,
preparation for an audition or recital, difficult program, stress, new
instrument, altered technique) by reducing total playing time.
4. Intersperse repetitive rehearsal of individual passages throughout a
practice session to avoid overworking one set of muscles. Learning and
safety may be enhanced by playing a passage five times every ten
minutes, rather than thirty times in a row.
5. Begin to increase practice time weeks to months in advance of recitals
or auditions.
6. Return to work gradually after a layoff.
7. Begin slowly, and increase gradually any unaccustomed use of the
hands (e.g., gardening, typing, sports).
8. Avoid unnecessary muscle tightness when you play. Excessive shoulder
elevation or neck twisting may lead to muscle spasm and reduce the
fluidity of movement in adjacent muscles. The burden of supporting
the weight of instruments can be reduced by straps, posts, pegs,
shoulder pads, and chin rests. Violinists and violists should adjust
their supports so that the instrument can be held without any eleva-
tion of the left shoulder.
9. Be attentive to posture. Slouching in a chair for hours daily will
eventually take its toll in back and neck problems. Good posture will
reduce the work of small forearm and hand muscles by enabling larger
shoulder and back muscles to support the combined weight of the
arms and/or instrument.
10. Don’t neglect your general physical and mental health.
Alternative Medicine/Treatments
Below is a range of treatment methods and practices that musicians have
found helpful. Remember, what works well for one person may not work
well for the next. Also, any treatments you consider must be checked with
your doctor so that you do not aggravate your condition. In general, most
musicians in recovery from a performance injury use a combination of
Western medicine and alternative treatments:
• Alexander Technique • Massage therapy • Acupuncture
• Chiropractic • Acupressure • Swimming
• Feldenkrais • Nutrition • Yoga
• Rolfing • Exercise • Physical therapy
• Reflexology • Tai Chi • Occupational/hand therapy
“Musicians tend to jump from a path of treatment before giving it time
to work,” says Judith Ciampa Wright, occupational therapist and certified
hand therapist in Massachusetts. Your recovery demands your patience! Ju-
dith explains:
Too frequently, musicians seek treatments that involve their passive
participation (like massages) without addressing posture, strength,
flexibility, and activity modification—all of which are necessary for
effective long-term injury management. A multifaceted treatment
approach is often the most effective. For example one might combine a
“bodywork” technique (such as massage therapy) with a direct treatment
technique (such as Physical Therapy or Occupational Therapy) and also
a great whole body exercise program (such as yoga or swimming).
Keep your doctor informed and thoroughly discuss ALL the treatment
methods and kinds of activities you engage in that might affect your injury.
If you jump from one treatment plan to another, experimenting with all
kinds of traditional and non-traditional treatments, you may never know
what is helping and what is actually adding to the problem.
Depending on what your doctor advises, you may need to take a break
from playing for a period of months and then resume practicing only at very
short intervals, five to ten minutes at a time, paying close attention to what
specific movements cause pain. You need to be a detective, finding clues to
what is not working right and searching for ways to perform without strain.
Reworking Your Technique

Most musicians, in order to recover from a performance injury, find they
must rework parts of their technique, change their practice habits, and ad-
just their performance posture. This is the part of healing that you are most
in charge of. Your doctor and a teacher may be able to assist, but ultimately,
it is up to you to find out what works best for your body, because only you
have direct body feedback. Think of the practice room as your own mini-
biofeedback lab. You’ll need to develop a finely tuned “body awareness” as
you experiment with ways to reduce tension in your performing. Patience
and a positive, open, and inquisitive attitude are necessities for the healing
journey.
About Recuperation
Typically, performance injuries are compounded by the accompanying
worry and stress. Musicians often feel as though they will never perform
again, that the injury signals the end of their career. Sometimes musicians
feel ashamed, as if they have done something “wrong.” In other words, we
can be our own worst enemy by becoming depressed and anxious, which
typically intensifies the pain. Talking to others about your situation is im-
portant—get advice and counseling. It’s essential to have a support system
during this difficult time.
You can also use your imagination, dreams, and visualization to help in
your healing. Before falling asleep, when your body and mind are very re-
laxed, you are in a suggestible state. You can say to yourself, to your subcon-
scious, “I’d like to know how it feels to perform with ease, without stress or
tension or pain.” Imagining the new improved method and “memorizing”
these kinesthetic sensations can help you reach your goals by creating a sen-
sory image to work toward.
Take care of yourself in this challenging time by getting enough sleep,
eating well, getting exercise, and keeping a positive attitude about your re-
covery. Because you cannot practice much, work on your inspiration. Ex-
pand your imagination by going to performances and listening to recordings
of music beyond your own repertoire. Get a sense of renewal from the other
art forms—visit museums, go to dance and theater performances—explore
the other arts as a way to enrich your music making.
Summary
In all three areas—stage presence, performance anxiety, and performance
health—the common denominator is the body/mind connection. Musi-
cians do well to cultivate their own awareness and curiosity about these is-
sues, to get reliable feedback and accurate assessments, and to be open-minded
and resourceful in looking for solutions to the challenges they may face.
Take care of yourself so you can have a lifetime of satisfying music making.
W
Career Forward
Write down your responses to the following to work toward more peak per-
formance experiences.
1. Describe how you want to experience your next performance. Imagine walking
on stage: How do you want to feel physically? What kinds of thoughts do you
want to be having? What emotions do you want to experience?
2. How would you like to come across to your audience? What image do you
want to convey through your stage entrances, exits, and bows?
3. Have you recently videotaped a performance and later watched it with a
mentor to discuss your stage presence? If not, when might you be able to do
this?
4. How do you experience performance anxiety? Describe your specific
symptoms:
a. physical
b. thought patterns (self-talk)
c. feelings
5. Of the interventions described for handling anxiety in this chapter, which do
you plan to work on?
6. Have you ever experienced discomfort during or after practice? What have you
done as a result of feeling this discomfort?
7. How often do you take breaks during practice sessions? How long are these
breaks? What do you do during these breaks?
8. To help ensure a lifetime of healthy music making, what else (beyond taking
breaks) can you do to help safeguard your performance health?
V
10
Freelancing
for Success
W
In this chapter:
To Specialize or Not?
Networking for Referrals
Researching to Get Work
Marketing for Freelancers
Musician Unions: Strength in Numbers
Negotiating Fees
Contracts
V
The majority of musicians spend at least a portion of their careers as self-

employed professionals, as freelancers. Being successful as a self-employed
musician means being in charge of your destiny. As a freelancer, you are, in
effect, running a small business. Freelancing can make for an exciting and
varied work life, with each week bringing new projects and collaborators.
However, not being a salaried full-time employee means doing without a
steady paycheck, benefits, paid vacation time, or a regular schedule. So free-
lancers need to be organized and professional in their transactions.
For many, developing freelance work can be made easier with informa-
tion, perspective, and networking. This chapter is intended to help musi-
cians avoid making blunders that could hurt a reputation or a career. The
following offers you a range of ideas and tips to try out.
W
The Tale of Joan V., Bootstrapping
in the Freelance World (Part 1)
Trombonist Joan V. started freelancing while in graduate school. It started
with her teacher and friends recommending her for orchestral gigs. Joan also played
253
254 Freelancing for Success
brass quintets with buddies and they gigged together, playing four weddings and
a funeral, plus a party for a local political bigwig. But once she graduated, Joan
found that this sporadic work was not enough to pay the bills. So she auditioned
for the sub lists of several regional orchestras. She also asked her former teachers
for the names of local contractors—the people who contract freelance musicians
to play pick-up orchestra gigs. Joan called these contractors, sent them her résumé,
and two of them asked her to audition. Things were looking good.
However, Joan was struggling to pay her bills, including her student loans.
Some weeks and months there was plenty of work and money coming in, and she
could afford to go out with friends. But at other times, she was doing what her
Aunt Lil called the “starving musician, ramen noodle thing.” To make matters
worse, Joan’s aging car had twice stalled on the way to performances and she
couldn’t afford a new one. Now things were now not so good.
Joan realized that though she was building her reputation and getting estab-
lished as a professional, it would still be a while before she could manage solely on
her freelance work. So she looked into getting private students, coaching the brass
sectionals for a local youth orchestra, and teaching in the community music schools.
A friend referred several students to Joan and told her about a part-time opening
at a music instrument repair shop. Joan got the job, and found that it came with an
added perk: she regularly met other freelancers and teachers who could refer more
students to her. With the income from her day job and teaching, Joan got her car
overhauled and started saving for a new one. Things were looking up again.
V
To Specialize or Not? X
Freelancing can be extremely varied, from orchestral and choral concert

work to session work and background music for social functions. Freelanc-
ers perform as substitute players or guest artists with various ensembles.
They may also play weddings, corporate parties, restaurant and hotel gigs,
musical theater, and festivals.
So one approach is to think broadly and to diversify your skills, because
the more you can offer, the more work you may be able to get. Do you per-
form only music of a particular period, style, or genre? For wind players,
doubling (being able to play several instruments) is an important consider-
ation, especially for those seeking recording and musical theater work. For
jazz players, do you know enough cover tunes to play a gig for a four-hour
corporate party? Can you write arrangements? For vocalists, what is the
range of repertoire you can offer? Do you sing gospel, musical theater, and/or
perform early and twenty-first century music? Flexibility and versatility are
good things for freelancers. But don’t overstate or promise what you can’t
deliver—offer the music you are skilled in and comfortable performing.
Networking for Referrals 255
The other approach is to specialize in a particular niche area, a specific

period, style, or repertoire. If you offer something distinctive and marketable,
it differentiates you from the competition and can help establish your reputa-
tion. The catch is that your specialty area needs a niche market, an audience.
For instance, for a group that plays early American music, it makes sense to
seek bookings at historical societies and house museums. And a group spe-
cializing in Swing may do well playing corporate holiday parties, cruise lines,
hotels, and wedding receptions. And some musicians try to get the best of
both worlds by having a specialty area but also being flexible enough to per-
form a range of other music. There’s no right answer here, just what’s right for
you, and it’s important to think through your intent and approach.
Networking for Referrals X
For any musician seeking freelance work, it eventually comes down to net-
working. It’s a matter of who knows you and your playing. What is your rep-
utation as a performer and collaborator? Are you known to be easy to work
with?
Talk to your colleagues and teachers, find out who is playing where, and
get to know the players who may be in a position to refer you. For instance, for
classical pianists looking for vocal accompanying work, it makes sense to net-
work with voice teachers, choral and opera conductors, and to investigate
work opportunities with voice competitions and festivals. In other words, the
kind of work you seek should determine your networking strategy.
One of the best things you can do to jumpstart your freelance work is
take a lesson or coaching session with a top freelancer in your area, someone in
a position to refer work to you. This can be a great opportunity to get feed-
back on where you stand in relation to other freelancers, and to ask for sug-
gestions on where to audition and how to get more work. What’s more, when
veteran freelancers need a last-minute substitute, you want to be the one
they think of to call.
You can also get to meet and know other musicians—and those who
hire them—by attending local and regional (sometimes national) confer-
ences and professional associations (there are membership organizations for
flutists, organists, string teachers, and many others).
W
The Tale of Joan V. (Part 2)
In her first freelance years, Joan noticed several things. She saw who got the
calls and the gigs, and who did not. At first she was surprised that it wasn’t always
the best players getting the work. But the more she freelanced, the more it made
sense. Some of the people not getting calls for more work were friends from school.
Though these were top-notch players, Joan realized that some non-musical issues
outweighed how well they played. Some of these friends had shown up late for a
rehearsal or two. One was a bit of a slob; even in concert attire, he looked dishev-
eled. And another one could be a “difficult” personality; he came across at times
as extremely opinionated, even argumentative. Joan saw that this behavior was
hurting her friends’ ability to get work.
Joan also paid attention to the folks who did get the work. Some of these “A”
list freelancers were also contractors for gigs. These pros got to gigs early, were al-
ways prepared, and somehow handled their busy schedules well. They all seemed
to know each other and were generally pleasant, no matter what happened in re-
hearsals or performances. No big egos or temper tantrums, even when a conductor
might be having both.
She asked one of these experienced freelancers for pointers, and was told,
“Never argue with the section leader. As a section player, your job is to make the
leader and the conductor look good.” Joan took note.
V
Timetable for Building a Freelance Lifestyle

Be patient. It takes time to build your reputation. For classical musicians
doing orchestral and small ensemble work, below is a rough timetable for
“getting connected” in a large culturally active city. This ballpark time
frame assumes that your playing and networking skills are excellent. Keep
in mind this is simply an estimate, and life doesn’t usually unfold according
to schedule.
One year to get your “sea legs,” to get started building a reputation and
getting to know key contractors, conductors, and directors
Three years to get hooked up in the new environment (paying your
dues)
Five years to get enough work to be in control of your life
Ten years to be subcontracting other musicians and to have stability
Researching to Get Work X
Think about gig opportunities in your local area. Listed below are general
occasions, locations, and organizations that hire musicians for their events.
Use the list to brainstorm specific prospects in your area. What local institu-
tions sponsor events that need music? Develop a targeted list of local pros-
pects that might be interested in hiring you or your ensemble.
Researching to Get Work 257
Next, look over your list of network contacts—especially non-musi-

cians. Where do these people work? What civic organizations are they in-
volved in? Look for personal connections to your list of targeted local
organizations.
Occasions for Gigs Organization That Hire Places to Perform
Anniversaries Chambers of commerce Convention centers
Association Meetings Civic clubs (Elks, Lions) Churches/synagogues
Bat/Bar Mitzvahs College student groups Coffeehouses
Expositions Country clubs Cruise lines
Fairs Government agencies Military bases
Fundraisers Hotels/motels Museums
Memorial services Local corporations Private parties
Political conventions Summer camp programs Private schools
Trade shows Teen clubs Public schools
Weddings Private clubs Radio stations
Holiday events Women’s clubs Resorts
Once you have identified these key contacts, call or e-mail, reconnect,
and ask whom they know at specific institutions. Ask if you can use your
contacts’ names when e-mailing or calling. Send an introductory e-mail
with basic information about your music, your ensemble, with links to your
website and sound clips (or Facebook or MySpace musician’s profile). Fol-
low up with a phone call or, better yet, schedule a face-to-face meeting, dur-
ing which you can offer additional marketing pieces. People like to hire by
word of mouth and like to know the people they hire, so it’s good to get out
and meet other people.
Here is a sample e-mail message to Julia Plotkin, your contact in the human
resources office at the HappyCamper Company. Your friend Mary Smith knows
her and told you that Julia helps organize special events for the company.
Subject line
Mary Smith suggested I contact you re: special events at the
HappyCamper Company!
E-mail text
Dear Ms. Plotkin:
Mary Smith suggested I contact you about your organization’s need for
live performances at special events. I am a local musician, the leader of the
Bergman Jazz Quartet (BJQ). We play a wide range of music, from well-
known standards and cover tunes to Latin jazz and blues. The BJQ has per-
formed locally at the Willow and the Potomac Jazz Clubs and for corporate
functions sponsored by the United Way and Kiwanis. Here is a link to our
site with more details: http://www.bergmanjazzquartet.com; and to hear
our sound clips: http://www.bergmanjazzquartet.com/sounds. I will call
next week to speak with you about your music needs and how we might be
of service to you at the HappyCamper Company.
Cordially,
Diane Bergman
Marketing for Freelancers X
Do you have the appropriate marketing materials for your freelancing? The
rule of thumb is to tailor your materials to the potential employer’s interests
and to the situation. When auditioning for conductors and contractors, have
a performance résumé that emphasizes your freelance work first and fore-
most. Singers need a résumé with photo and a bio. For everybody’s day-to-
day networking and gigging, an online presence (with your bio, sound clips,
and photo) and business cards are essentials.
W
Beware of Bridezilla
Think about it from the prospective client’s point of view. A bride looking to
hire a string quartet for her wedding is not interested in the same details as a pre-
senter who books a subscription concert series.
For wedding work, ensembles’ online profiles should include photos, a bio, and
a menu of appropriate repertoire with sound clips. In addition, it’s a good idea to
provide prospective clients with details on the booking process: discussing special
repertoire and requests, handling deposits, and contracts. The idea is to emphasize
the professionalism and helpfulness of the group, how you can make the wedding
planning easier, by “enhancing the couple’s special day with just the right music” (or
words to that effect). Look online at how other groups tailor their marketing materi-
als to wedding clients: borrow creative ideas, and adapt them to fit your own site.
It can also be helpful to have a postcard or an inexpensive one-sheet for your
wedding work. This can include a photo, brief bio, a list of appropriate repertoire,
and a few quotes from satisfied customers. One-sheets can be used for networking
and mailings to wedding planners, caterers, church music directors, and function
room managers.
“People booking music for weddings often need a lot of help in understanding
what they want. This is an important part of a musician’s service,” says veteran
freelancer John Steinmetz. “Some clients know what they want but can’t describe
it. Others think they know what they want and are asking for, when in fact they
may be mistaken. Others are confused, conflicted, or unsure. The musician’s job in-
Marketing for Freelancers 259
cludes helping clients feel confident about their choices. It’s a lot like the work ar-
chitects do to help clients clarify their priorities.”
And once the gig is booked, make sure it goes smoothly as planned. Guitarist
Bob Sullivan recommends arriving extra early for wedding gigs, because clients are
typically stressed and nervous about all the arrangements. At wedding gigs, Bob ar-
rives early, checks in with his contact, and reviews with them where they want the
musicians set up, as well as the timings and cues for performing during the ceremony.
The idea is to help keep things calm and on track to make the event a success.
V
Performance Résumés
Performance résumés are used to request auditions and in applying to com-
petitions and grants. Résumés should provide the reader with a blueprint of
your most relevant qualifications, skills, and experience. Detail the high-
lights of your background that are specifically relevant to the situation. The
one-size-fits-all approach won’t do. The challenge in writing a résumé is to
write it from the perspective of the employer’s needs. Try to take on the point
of view of the person you are addressing. If you can understand what that
person needs and values, you can better show that you are the person to
meet those needs.
Most musicians have several versions of their résumé—different ones
for performance, teaching, arts administration, or “day” jobs. Generally,
performance résumés should not include teaching or arts administration
experience because it’s usually not relevant to the employer or situation.
However, if you’re seeking an orchestral or opera audition and the organiza-
tion has an extensive community education program, then listing your out-
reach experience may be useful.
Résumé Construction
1. Keep it short and simple. Studies show that employers typically spend
less than ten seconds reading a résumé, so the design and format should
allow the reader to take in your most important credentials at a glance.
Limit your résumé to one page (multiple page résumés and CVs are used
only for college-level teaching). Your résumé should not include everything
you’ve done—it should include only what’s most relevant to the reader in
this particular situation. Keep in mind that your résumé is always a work in
progress. As you gain more experience, you will add new listings and delete
the less impressive.
2. Make it easy on the eyes. Use an eye-catching, professional-looking
typeface in your letterhead design (see chapter 3). For the body of the text,
use an easy-to-read, standard serif typeface such as Palatino, Garamond, or

Times New Roman. Keep the eye distractions to a minimum. Use these very
sparingly: underline, parentheses, bullets, bold, all caps.
3. Divide and conquer. Organize your information into categories, and
use bold to highlight the headings. The category titles you use should be de-
termined by the job for which you are applying. For instance, if you have per-
formed a lot of early music or contemporary repertoire and this is relevant to
your intended reader, these would be categories to include. Place the category
sections in the order that reflect the employer’s priorities. For instance, if you
want to be considered for an opening with a string quartet, don’t send in a ré-
sumé with the first category listing Orchestral Experience.
Typical résumé categories for listing performance and composition ex-
perience are:
For classical vocalists: Full Roles, Partial Roles, Musical Theater,
Choral Experience, Solo Recitals, Church Positions
For jazz musicians: Clubs, Other Venues, Jazz Festivals, Has Per-
formed with . . . , Recordings, Ensembles
For classical instrumentalists: Orchestral Experience, Chamber Music
Performances, Solo Performances, Soloist with Orchestras, Com-
munity and Education Performances
For composers: Original Works, Selected Compositions, Premieres,
Selected Performances of Original Works, Current Projects, Ar-
rangements/Transcriptions, Commissioned Works
For pianists: Solo Recitals, Soloist with Orchestras, Chamber Music
Performances, Collaborative Performances with . . . , Accompanying
Positions, Church Positions, Premieres
4. To date or not to date? Dates (years only) are used when listing roles
for vocalists, ongoing church or accompanying jobs, orchestral experience,
degrees, scholarships, and awards. In using dates, items should be presented
in reverse chronological order, meaning list the most recent first and work
backwards in time.
5. It’s all about the details.
• For solo and chamber music performances, list where you performed:
the name of the venue (the performance hall) or the concert series (if
well known), the city, and state (or country, if outside the United
States).
• If you have performed with impressive individuals, in chamber music
performances or in a jazz ensemble, you may want to list these names
Musician Unions: Strength in Numbers 261
in a separate category titled “Has Performed with . . .” or “Ensemble

Collaborations.”
• For orchestral experience, include your position (principal, section
player, substitute) after the name of the orchestra and before the city
and state (or country).
6. References anyone? Your references are the people who have agreed to
provide feedback about your skills and abilities to prospective employers.
You can add a line at the bottom of your résumé page, “References available
upon request,” to signal that you have a contact list of these people and are
ready to send the list when asked.
7. Proofread! Before sending it anywhere, have someone else proofread
your résumé carefully. Spell-check is not enough. Double-check the spelling
of the names of teachers, conductors, and awards. There’s nothing worse
than finding an embarrassing mistake in your résumé after sending it out.
8. E-mail it right! When e-mailing your résumé as an attachment, the
software program you use matters. Your recipient may not have the same
program or format and may not be able to open your document. Moreover,
some of your formatting and typefaces may become altered, depending on
your recipient’s computer and software. The safest way to ensure that the
reader will see what you intend to present is to send your résumé as a PDF
attachment.
The examples on the following pages are performance résumés geared
toward freelance work, both instrumental and vocal. These examples are
composites of various musicians’ résumés, and are designed to illustrate a
variety of formats and styles. Notice on each example what is emphasized,
what details are provided, and the order of the categories and the listings.
Instead of following these as templates and trying to make your résumé look
like someone else’s, use these as suggestions for rethinking your own ré-
sumé. Get feedback on your draft from qualified professionals, particularly
those who hire musicians regularly.
Musician Unions: Strength in Numbers X
Musician unions exist to protect your rights and interests. The primary
work of unions is to negotiate collective bargaining agreements (CBAs) be-
tween employers (such as orchestras or opera companies) and workers (the
musicians) to establish equitable levels of compensation, benefits, and work-
ing conditions. Union membership is typically required for the better pay-
ing ongoing freelance gigs, from opera and chorus work to orchestras,
Ippei Takahashi, Violinist
100 Canadian Terrace Ste. 3 • Toronto, Ontario A1A 2B2 • (647) 555-1234 • [email protected]
Orchestral Experience
Tanglewood Music Center Fellowship Orchestra, 2011
Schleswig-Holstein Symphony Orchestra, Concertmaster, 2010
Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum Chamber Orchestra, Boston, 2010
Boston Modern Orchestra Project, substitute, 2009
Boston Philharmonic Orchestra, 2008-09
Hartford Symphony Orchestra, substitute, 2007
Columbus Philharmonic, IN, 2006, 07
Evansville Philharmonic, IN, 2005-06
Solo / Chamber Recitals

Merkin Concert Hall, NYC
King’s Chapel Concert Series, Boston
Longy School of Music, Cambridge, MA
Ichigaya Lutheran Center, Tokyo, Japan
Education
New England Conservatory of Music, Boston, MA
Graduate Diploma in violin performance, 2011
Indiana University School of Music, Bloomington

Bachelor of Music in violin performance, 2007
Principal Teachers Coaches Masterclasses

Malcolm Lowe Eugene Lehner Miriam Fried
Stanley Ritchie Louis Krasner Michèle Auclair
Honors
Fellowship, Asian Cultural Council Award, 2008
Prizewinner, Japanese American Association Music Award, 2007
Completely fluent in both Japanese and English; International student with legal permis-
sion to work in the U.S. under the curricular practical training program.
Example: Orchestral performance résumé. Note: for international students seeking work in
the United States, it can be helpful to include extra information in the résumé and cover letter
about both your language skills and visa status. This can help relieve a prospective employer’s
concerns about any difficulties in hiring you.
262
James Fortunato, Guitarist — Flamenco, Jazz, Classical
6435 21st Ave. NW, Seattle, WA 98195 cell: (206) 555-1234 [email protected]
sound samples at: www.jamesfortunatoguitar.com
Solo Performances
Zeitgeist Gallery, Cambridge, MA
Peabody-Essex Museum, Salem, MA
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
First Church Congregational, Wellesley, MA
Ensembles
Amaya, Flamenca Sin Limites, flamenco
dance troupe
Hankus Netsky Klezmer Ensemble
Carlos Campos Afro-Cuban Ensemble
Flamenco Performance Venues
Boston College, MA
Palace Theater, Manchester, NH
University of Massachusetts, Amherst
Boston Ballet
Boston Center for the Arts
Westbrook College, Portland, ME
Jazz Performances
Middle East, Cambridge, MA
Ritz Carlton, Boston
Copley Plaza, Boston
Dance Class Accompanist
Boston Conservatory, MA
Dance Complex, Cambridge
Walnut Hill School for the Arts, Natick, MA
Education
New England Conservatory of Music,
Boston, MA
Bachelor of Music in Contemporary
Improvisation, 2011
Principal Teachers Master Classes

Robert Paul Sullivan Eliot Fisk
Hankus Netsky Sharon Isbin
References Available Upon Request
Example: Performance résumé geared toward solo and ensemble work
263
Janet Park, Pianist
14 Pinckney St. Boston, MA 02108 (617) 534-1112 [email protected]
performance video clip: www.janetparkpiano.com
Solo Recitals Gardner Museum, Boston

Kings Chapel Concert Series, Boston
All Saints Episcopal Church, Salt Lake City, UT
Harvard Musical Association Concert Series
Concerti New England Chamber Orchestra, Boston

University of Utah Symphony Orchestra
Chamber Music Brookline Public Library Concert Series

First Presbyterian Church, Salt Lake City, UT
All Newton Music School Young Artists Series
Accompanying Studio pianist for Lucy Chapman, violin faculty,

New England Conservatory, 2010–11
Studio pianist for Russell McKinney, trombone faculty,
University of Utah, Salt Lake City, 2007–09
Recording Music of the Baroque, Educational DVD, for Oxbridge Records, 2009
Awards/Honors Scholarship, New England Conservatory, Boston, MA, 2010–11

Prizewinner, Harvard Musical Association Scholarship Award, 2010
Education New England Conservatory, Boston, MA

Graduate Diploma in Piano Performance, 2011
University of Utah, Salt Lake City

Bachelor of Music in Piano Performance, 2009
Principal Teacher Patricia Zander
Master Classes Stephen Drury, Wha Kyung Byun
Coaches Irma Vallecillo, Kayo Iwama
Example: Performance résumé for solo, chamber, collaborative work
264
Vicky Vocalist, Soprano
4444 W Walton St. #2
Chicago, IL 60622
(773) 773-7349
[email protected] Insert
Headshot
www.michellesantiago.com here
Performance Experience
Roles Performed
Pamina The Magic Flute Utah Opera 2012
Adele Die Fledermaus New England Conservatory 2011
Jenny Down in the Valley Boston Lyric Opera 2010
Laeticia The Old Maid and the Thief New England Conservatory 2009
Witch Hansel and Gretel Milwaukee Opera Theater 2008
Celie Signor Deluso Lawrence University 2008
Scenes Performed
Polly The Threepenny Opera New England Conservatory 2009
Donna Elvira Don Giovanni New England Conservatory 2009
Belinda Dido and Aeneas Lawrence University 2008
Musical Theater Roles

Maria West Side Story Papermill Theatre, Lincoln, NH 2006
Meg Little Women Papermill Theatre, Lincoln, NH 2006
Anne Anne of Green Gables Papermill Theatre, Lincoln, NH 2006
Concert Performances, Boston Area

Handel Messiah, Trinity Church
Mozart Requiem, St. Paul’s Episcopal Church
Solo Recital, Federal Reserve Bank Concert Series
Education
New England Conservatory, Master of Music in Vocal Performance, 2011
Lawrence University, Bachelor of Music in Vocal Performance, Cum Laude, 2008
Principal Teachers Coaches Masterclass

Patricia Misslin John Moriarty Martin Isepp
Susan Clickner Dale Morehouse
Awards/Honors
Prizewinner, Rose Palmai-Tenser Scholarship Awards Competition, 2007
Second Prize, NATS Southern Regional Competition, Graduate Division, 2007
Special Skills
Fluent in German and Italian; 14 years of piano, 7 years of dance training
Example: Performance résumé geared toward opera auditions
265
touring musicals, radio, TV, and recording work. Union members pay an-
nual dues, and with membership comes guaranteed wage minimums, pro-
tection against infringement of contracts, and legal assistance in the case of
contract disputes. Musician unions also offer members various benefits
such as health and instrument insurance, and a pension plan.
There are several musician unions, specialized by type of work. The
primary union for instrumentalists and the largest musicians’ union is the
American Federation of Musicians (AFM). But for vocalists doing opera or
musicals, and for all musicians working in recordings, television, fi lm, radio,
or nightclubs, there are other unions, described below. Many musicians join
the appropriate union once they win an audition for an organization that
hires union musicians.
Some musicians note their union membership on their résumés, signal-
ing to contractors and conductors in the audition process a certain level of
experience.
Musician Unions
AGMA, the American Guild of Musical Artists, primarily represents
singers and singing actors in opera, ballet, oratorio, concert, and
recital work. Musicians join AGMA when they have been offered a
contract with a production requiring AGMA membership. See
http://www.musicalartists.org.
AFTRA, the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists,
covers live and taped TV programs, taped commercials, radio
shows, and recordings. AFTRA is for all performers in these areas
except instrumentalists. See http://www.aftra.org.
SAG, the Screen Actors Guild, is for feature film work, filmed TV shows,
filmed commercials, or industrial films. See http://www.sag.org.
AEA, the Actors’ Equity Association (AKA: Equity), is for performers
in live theater productions, either musicals or dramas. A singer
seeking work in musical theater must first win an audition for an
equity show, apply to be an equity candidate, perform for the length
of their contract, and earn credit toward their equity card and full
membership. See http://www.actorsequity.org.
AFM, the American Federation of Musicians, is comprised of more
than 90,000 members and 250 local affi liates in the United States
and Canada. AFM publishes International Musician, a monthly
magazine (available online) listing auditions worldwide for orches-
tral and other work. This is the union for most instrumentalists’
work. AFM offers a number of benefits and services with member-
ship, including a pension plan, instrument and health insurance,
plus legal, travel, and financial services. Your local chapter of AFM
can be an excellent networking resource. Local chapters often have
their own publications with listings for local auditions, classifieds,
and jobs, and some locals provide gig referral services as well. See
http://www.afm.org.
Negotiating Fees X
For freelancers seeking to play “gigs,” such as weddings and corporate

events, it’s important to establish an hourly rate per musician to quote to
clients. Make sure the rate is appropriate and competitive with what simi-
larly experienced musicians are charging in local area. Call the local AFM
chapter, and ask other musicians what they charge. For example, as of 2010
the New England Conservatory Music Referral Service (the school’s gig of-
fice) quoted clients the rate of $125 per musician per hour for wedding gigs
and corporate events.
The rates in various regions differ and change over the years, so ask around.
You can be flexible with your fee, but you should know what your absolute
minimum is and stick to it. Don’t sell yourself short. If you’re traveling a dis-
tance for a gig, you should charge extra to compensate for the time and cost.
Clients hiring a musician for a gig may be unfamiliar with standard
fees and may question your rate. You need to be able to handle these con-
versations diplomatically and professionally. It is helpful to have a sentence
or two ready and to be able to calmly—without getting defensive—explain,
“I’m an experienced performer, and my rate is based on the musician
union’s standard rate for professional work in this region.” Sometimes this
is all that is needed, but also having a website (or social networking site) to
refer prospective clients to is especially helpful. This way they can easily
hear your sound clips, read your bio, and look through the list of places
you’ve performed.
Guitarist Robert Paul Sullivan has performed as a freelancer with the
Boston Symphony Orchestra as well as with most of the New England area
orchestras and contemporary music groups. A veteran freelancer, Bob plays
acoustic and electric guitar, banjo, mandolin, mandola, and lute. He has
performed in Irish pubs, hotels, jazz clubs, and for opera productions, wed-
dings, and wine tastings—you name it, he’s done it. In terms of negotiating
fees, before quoting a fee or rate to a client, Bob makes it a point to ask a lot
of questions. He asks about the location, travel, any special repertoire re-
quests, and the performance site itself. He does this because it is the details
that will, in part, determine his fee (the distance he will need to travel, and
any special repertoire, arrangements, and equipment needed).
Bob doesn’t haggle with clients. If a client doesn’t like his price, Bob
cordially says, “Let me give you the names and numbers of some other ex-
cellent guitarists, and maybe you will find what you are looking for with
someone else.” He gladly refers work to others, and they reciprocate.
Because he is in demand as a freelancer, Bob has had gig date conflicts
occur a number of times. For example, he may get a call to do a wedding gig
two months from now. It’s nothing special, he’s free, the money’s okay, and
he says yes. A few days later, he’s offered a much better gig for that same
date—in one case, the second gig was with the Boston Symphony at Tangle-
wood. What does Bob do? He makes it a point to honor his first commit-
ment. He turns down the second gig because he had already given his word
to the first client, and because his word is a big part of his reputation as a
professional. What does he say to the second client, the contractor? Bob ex-
plains that he is already committed for that date and refers them to someone
every bit as good, if not better, than he is. The contractor is the pipeline for
future gigs. Bob wants to be remembered as reliable and professional, so that
the next time around, the contractor will again call Bob.
It’s All in the Details

A big part of being a pro is handling details. Once you have a client wishing
to hire you for a gig, you need to clarify many details and then come to an
agreement. To make sure you cover all the details, a checklist can be helpful;
tailor one to fit the kind of music and gigs you perform. You can keep a copy
of your list on your iPhone or PDA and fill in the particulars each time you
book or confirm a gig by phone.
You and your client need to clarify the following:
R Date and time of the gig (for non-concert performances, clarify lengths
of sets and stop times).
R Repertoire: make sure you are clear on the type and genre of music the
client is expecting and any specific requests. If you agree to play
repertoire that demands that you produce your own arrangements,
you should charge extra for this work.
R Dress: make sure you know what the client specifically means by
“formal” or “casual.”
R Breaks: beyond a concert situation, it’s typical for performers on a gig
to need and take a ten-minute break for every hour played. Make sure
your client understands this and agrees.
R Lighting: make sure it is adequate.
R Seating: is there adequate space for your ensemble and appropriate
chairs (armless)?
R Piano: is it a grand, upright, or electric? Will it be tuned?

R Acoustics: will you need to be amplified? If yes, what equipment will
you need to bring?
R Extras: do you need electrical outlets, extension cords, adapters? Are
these available at the venue?
R Satisfactory working conditions: for outdoor performances, you may
want to specify that the musicians will perform under a canopy or
roofed deck to be in the shade. Here is contract language you may
want to add: “The client shall provide adequate shelter to protect the
artist and the artist’s equipment in the event of inclement weather”
and/or “The temperature in the performance area should not exceed
(85 degrees F) or drop below (65 degrees F ) , for the protection of the
artist(s) and their equipment.”
R Contact info: the client and performers need to know how to reach each
other, so be sure to find out the phone numbers, e-mail addresses, and
the correct spelling and pronunciation of names. Ensembles should elect
one member as point person to handle dealings with clients.
R Directions and parking arrangements: get the street address and explicit
directions to the gig. Always leave plenty of extra time for traffic.
Double-check the directions online, and keep a detailed atlas with
street index in your gig bag. A GPS system is a smart investment.
R Payment: agree on who will pay you, when, how, and how much.
Consider the travel involved; if it’s beyond thirty minutes, add a little
extra to your fee. Most giggers prefer to get paid at the gig, directly
before the performance. Specify in your contract if payment will be by
check, cash, or money order. Most often, the client will pay the group
leader, who then divides the total amount to pay each member. For
government or other agency clients that must requisition funds,
payment may be delayed. Make sure you discuss this explicitly in
advance.
R Deposit: get a nonrefundable deposit from the client to secure the date
(typically fifty percent of the gig fee). Have the client send the check
along with the signed contract. Then, should the gig be cancelled, at
least you are partially compensated.
Remember that the key is to discuss all of these details in advance by
phone. Be explicit. Don’t assume that the client will know to provide any-
thing—from electrical outlets to advance deposits—unless you ask for it
and they agree to it when you negotiate the deal.
Then, after you’ve worked all of this out by phone, you can create the
written contract to confirm the agreement. The use of a contract is a sign of
professionalism. It ratifies the details you have negotiated, and it assures

both parties that the gig will go as planned, so that there will be no unpleas-
ant surprises for either party.
W
The Tale of Joan V. (Part 3)
Another big lesson Joan learned in her first years freelancing was about using
contracts. Joan found out the hard way just how important these are. She’d been
called for a pickup orchestra gig: two rehearsals and a concert at a church in a
nearby suburb. Bartok and Brahms—no problem. But two weeks after the concert,
Joan still hadn’t been paid. She called the contractor several times over the next
month, and the check was always “in the mail.” Joan never got paid, and, because
there was no contract and this was not a union gig, there was nothing she could do
about it. After this experience, she joined the AFM, and from that point on, when-
ever Joan booked her own gigs—whether for a wedding, a community perfor-
mance at a preschool, or a memorial service—she made it a point to use a contract
and to get a deposit in advance.
V
Contracts X
Once you have gone over all the details on your checklist with the client
(usually by phone), you need to draw up a written contract to confirm your
agreement. Using contracts for weddings and corporate events is especially
important because often these clients are unaccustomed to hiring musi-
cians, and they may need further explanation about the details of your pro-
spective gig.
A contract is a musician’s security for getting paid. With a properly exe-
cuted contract, if a client refuses to pay, you can take her or him to small
claims court and sue for the money you are owed. Without a contract, you
have no proof of the agreement and no recourse. And although it’s conve-
nient to communicate by e-mail and phone, to make a legally binding agree-
ment, both parties (you and the client) must sign the contract, and afterward
each party needs to receive a copy of the fully executed contract. This can be
done by fax, mail, or electronically by using a scanner and PDFs.
So, once you have agreed to play the gig and ironed out the particulars,
you simply write the details into your contract template and send the client
two unsigned copies (or you can e-mail a PDF). The client signs both copies
and mails both back to you. Then you sign both and return one to the client.
If you are producing the contract, make sure you sign both copies last, after
Contracts 271
your client does. This is to ensure that the client does not amend or modify the
document after you have signed it. This business of who signs when is impor-
tant because a contract becomes legally binding only after both parties sign.
Use the general simple performance contract below as a model for cre-
ating your own; it can be easily modified for each gig. The details added for
each particular gig are those from your checklist (the client’s name, date of
the gig, the time, location, fee, special requests, and so forth).
Make It Easy on Your Client

To ensure that your client sends back the contract with the deposit promptly,
you can send a note that subtly applies polite pressure. Maurice Johnson, the
author of the excellent Build and Manage Your Music Career, recommends
sending your client two copies of the contract with a self-addressed, stamped
envelope and including a brief cover letter with something like this:
Dear Ms. Smith:
Thank you for selecting the Mirabeau Quartet for your upcoming
event. We look forward to performing for your guests. When you have
a moment, please sign both copies of the enclosed contract and return
one copy along with your deposit check. I am anxious to confirm your
event in our calendar as soon as possible. If you have questions, please
contact me at (617) 534–9999.
Sincerely,
Jessica Smith
The Mirabeau Quartet
With your contract signed, you are ready to play the gig. Before leaving
home, what should you make sure you have with you? Instead of frantically
grabbing things on your way out the door, how about having a “gig bag”
ready in advance? Buy a bag to use specifically for gigs, and pack it in ad-
vance, the morning of every gig, using a checklist. This will help you stay
organized.
W
Pack Your Gig Bag!
R Copy of the contract
R Street address, map, and directions
R Cell phone
R Client’s contact phone number(s)
R Phone number of the place you’re playing in case you get lost
Contract for Performance
________________________, herein referred to as “the artist,” agrees to perform

musician or ensemble name
for ___________________, herein referred to as “the client” on _________________

client’s name date
from __________ to ____________at ___________________________________.

time time location
The artist will arrive no later than ____________________.

time (AM / PM)
The client agrees to pay the artist $ _______ per hour for playing time/time on site, and the
total fee will be $ _____________. A deposit of _____________%, or $_________, is
required______days in advance, and the balance is due on the day of performance, payable
by money order, cash, or check.
Signatures:
_______________________________
Client
_______________________________
Musician
The agreement of the musician(s) to perform is subject to proven detention by sickness, ac-
cidents, riots, strikes, epidemics, acts of God, or other legitimate conditions beyond their
control. On behalf of the client, the artist will distribute the amount received to other
member(s) of the artist’s group as necessary.
By executing this contract as client or artist, the person executing said contract, either indi-
vidually or as an agent or representative, has the authority to enter into this agreement, and
should she or he not have such authority, she or he fully and personally accepts and assumes
full responsibility and liability under the terms of this contract.
Sample performance contract. Your letterhead design with all your contact information
goes at the top.
272
Contracts 273
R Appropriate performance attire

R Folding music stand(s)
R Any other equipment needed, such as keyboard, amps, adapters, extension
cords
R Sheet music for all performers, plus extra emergency copies
R Music stand clips or clothespins for windy outdoor performances
R Clip-on stand lights (for poor lighting situations and emergency blackouts)
R Instrument repair basics (extra strings, reeds, valve oil)
R Tuning device
V
In sum, with a gig bag, a contract template, a performance résumé and

any other marketing materials you need for your freelance work, you’re
ready to put your talents into action. With networking and research, you too
can be a working professional musician.
W
Career Forward
Writing out your responses to the following will help you better manage gigs.
1. Who are three people you could contact to network with about freelance
opportunities in your region? (Hint: these may be colleagues, former teachers,
conductors, and/or contractors.)
2. List five organizations in your area that are likely sponsors or clients for your
future gigs.
3. If you do not have an updated performance résumé, write one. If you have
one, how might you improve the layout or the format to better highlight your
experience and accomplishments?
4. If you have not been using contracts for gigs, create a contract template for
upcoming performances, with your letterhead and any specifics needed for
you or your ensemble. Have this handy template ready to use.
V
11
Balancing Life:
Managing Time
and Money
W
In this chapter :
Time Management
Managing Projects
Effective Practice
Financial Management
Taxes 101
Special Issues for Ensembles
V
There are some universal issues that apply to everybody, not just musi-
cians. People need to manage their resources—their time and money. One
way to think about this is to realize that when we manage our time and
money well, it reduces stress. This plays an important role in our quality of
life and the quality of our music. Life is short. Let’s make the most of it.
Time Management X
There are many time management tools—day planners, scheduling sys-

tems, software calendar programs—but none of these will give you more
time in the day. You still only have twenty-four hours. All of the time man-
agement methods get at one essential point: to manage time effectively, you
need to make conscious choices about what you will and won’t do. Most
people make unconscious choices of how to spend their time. They may be
busy all day but end up leaving important things undone because they tack-
led other, less important tasks first. The alternative is to choose what to do
and what not to do.
274
Time Management 275
Ultimately, time management is about planning—but planning based

on your chosen priorities. Creative artists sometimes bristle at the idea of
managing their time. It can feel restrictive. After all, inspiration doesn’t
come on demand and no one likes to live according to a regimented sched-
ule. Don’t worry; time management is not about policing your time. It’s
about being more effective. Composer/freelancer John Steinmetz says, “The
most important thing is not the schedule itself, but clarity of intentions.
What do you want to accomplish and how are you going to do it—clear in-
tentions are needed for both.”
W
The Time Management Quiz
How well are you managing your time?
1. Are you frustrated by frequent interruptions and

distractions? Yes R No R
2. Do you constantly feel tired? Yes R No R
3. Are you often late for appointments or rehearsals? Yes R No R
4. Do you get enough practice time in? Yes R No R
5. Are you making time for your priorities, your most important
projects? Yes R No R
6. Do you have enough downtime, to retool, recharge, and
refresh? Yes R No R
7. Are you making time for exercise and other activities important to your
well-being? Yes R No R
Be honest. Did you answer “yes” to any of the first three questions or “no” to
any of the last four? If so, you may want to take a closer look at the way you man-
age your time.
V
French hornist Jean Rife, freelancer and music educator, says this about
trying to balance her busy life: “It requires being clear about your priorities,
and these have shifted over the years. I used to do a lot more freelancing but
just now, my sixteen year old daughter is my first priority.” Jean also teaches
yoga and found that this has been a big help to herself and her music stu-
dents. Jean says, “Yoga teaches you to be in the present moment so you are
always aware that you have a chance to choose.” You can choose how to use
your time, react to stimuli and stress, and ultimately, these choices deter-
mine how you live your life.
The larger question in all this is: Who is the person you want to become?
What you do in the present determines your future. So how you spend your
276 Balancing Life: Managing Time and Money
time this week has everything to do with what you may be able to accom-
plish next month and next year. Make sure you’re investing time in working
toward your goals.
W
The Tale of Joan V., Continued (Part 4)
Our freelance trombonist Joan, from the previous chapter, found that as she
got busier, managing her time became one of her biggest challenges. It was getting
increasingly difficult to make time for her own practicing in addition to the free-
lance work, teaching, and her part-time job. Joan asked some veteran freelancers
how they fit everything in, how they organized their schedules. An oboist medi-
tated every day for thirty minutes to clear his mind and to focus; a percussionist re-
served two hours each morning for practice—no matter what; and a soprano
swore by a time management system programmed into her iPhone. All three musi-
cians said they’d struggled with managing their time and balancing their work lives,
and each had found a different method that helped.
V
Reality Scheduling
Planning saves you time, energy, and worry. Instead of each morning think-
ing, “What do I have to do, and when will I fit it all in?” you can plan a real-
istic weekly schedule. With a schedule that works, you can devote your
thoughts and energy to living, instead of constantly making lists in your
head or rearranging your daily timetable. The idea is to schedule your regu-
lar, recurring activities (lessons, rehearsals, day job, perhaps your weekly
laundry, groceries, exercising) so that you are able to choose how to use the
rest of your discretionary time.
Dana Young, a time management consultant and organization specialist,
presented a workshop at New England Conservatory years ago and offered a
version of the exercise below, which is excellent for helping with scheduling.
Time in Four Quadrants

On the chart below, write down your regular weekly activities. The grid di-
vides these into four quadrants. List your scheduled, fi xed activities (non-
discretionary), as well as the as yet unscheduled (discretionary) ones you
want to fit in. Be realistic! It’s helpful to see your regular commitments and
activities laid out, to see clearly what you can control in scheduling and what
you need to schedule around.
Now with your activities down on paper, the next thing is to organize a
schedule that accommodates these. On the weekly schedule below, write in
Time Management 277
Nondiscretionary: Discretionary:
Career/professional Career/professional
(i.e., time determined activities: (i.e., practicing, career projects,
teaching, day job, fixed rehearsal networking)
times)
Nondiscretionary: personal Discretionary: personal

(i.e., scheduled healthcare (i.e., socializing, groceries,
appointments, childcare, etc.) laundry, etc.)
your fi xed commitments, your nondiscretionary activities, both profes-

sional and personal. Dana Young suggests that you write these in ink. Next,
add in the discretionary activities using pencil so that you can rearrange as
you think best.
In fitting in your activities, think about your daily highs and lows of en-
ergy. When is your concentration best? What time of day is best for practic-
ing? You may not be able to get in a three-hour block for practicing each day,
but you can do an enormous amount of good work with a regularly sched-
uled hour of peak concentration. And to fit in the less challenging activities,
like laundry and groceries, schedule these to fit your periods of lower energy
and concentration. There’s no need to schedule everything down to the
minute, but by plotting out these basics, you can discover what extra time
you actually have and make good choices about how to use it.
Good time management is like juggling tennis balls, keeping up with
each area of your life. If you drop one, you feel out of balance. As in jug-
gling, the trick is adjusting your attention so that you can see the bigger
picture and keep track of all your priorities. So, if you’re practicing six
hours a day but neglecting exercise, friends, and your nutrition, things
aren’t in balance. Likewise, if you’re taking care of all the basics but never
seem to fi nd the time to practice or to work on managing your career, you’ll
have very few opportunities to perform, and your longer-term goals won’t
be achieved.
Sun. Mon. Tues. Wed. Thurs. Fri. Sat.
6 am
7 am
8 am
9 am
10 am
11 am
noon
1 pm
2 pm
3 pm
4 pm
5 pm
6 pm
7 pm
8 pm
9 pm
10 pm
Avoiding the Tyranny of the To-Do List

Besides a weekly schedule of recurring activities, we all have specific daily
errands to fit in, from family calls and visits to picking up the dry cleaning,
Time Management 279
handling household chores, and networking. This is the stuff of to-do lists,
and the problem is that is they can quickly get out of hand. To-do lists have
a way of becoming unmanageable, with dozens of items, none of them pri-
oritized. Many to-do tasks are never completed, but simply transferred from
one day’s list to the next.
The best antidote is to keep your to-do lists short, specific, and doable
for that day or that week. If you find yourself writing the same thing down
list after list and never getting it done, either schedule a time for the task and
complete it or decide consciously to let it go.
Urgent versus Important

An urgent task is one that requires immediate attention (such as paying the
electric bill because the company has threatened to shut off the juice unless
they get the check tomorrow). Or, my favorite, you need to do laundry be-
cause you’ve run out of clean socks and underwear.
Important tasks, on the other hand, are those nonscheduled activities
that are necessary to achieve your career or personal goals. These are the
things that you need to make time for, such as grant research, making booking
calls for concerts, updating your mailing list and promo kit, and networking.
These tasks are easy to push aside unless you make them a priority.
It’s all too common to have your schedule spin out of control because
you’re constantly taking care of the urgent, and never getting to what’s im-
portant. Take a look at your schedule, and make sure you have made time
for taking care of both kinds of business—the urgent and the important.
Time Management Tips

1. Find a calendar system that works for you, and then use it! This can be a
handy paper or electronic date book calendar. Even with these, many people
get into difficulties because their habit is to consult their daily or weekly
schedule, and they fail to look further ahead. You may need multiple versions.
What I found I needed—after much experimenting—was a weekly desk
planner for the office, plus a smaller date book I could carry with me. But my
big discovery was finding a wall calendar that displayed three months at a
glance. This has enabled me to see the longer-term deadlines well in advance.
2. Before making any new commitment, consult your schedule and look ahead to
upcoming deadlines so you can avoid overload. And once you agree to any
new commitment, record it in your calendar(s). Build a reputation as a
professional—be true to your word by showing up on time as promised, and
arriving fully prepared!
3. Use the first and last ten minutes of your day to your best advantage. At the
beginning of each day, it’s helpful to look over your schedule and organize
your plans, looking ahead at upcoming deadlines. Then, at the end of each
day, review what you did and what you need to do tomorrow. Give yourself
credit for your accomplishments, and give yourself a chance to rethink your
schedule and your to-do list. This “bookending” of your day can help you stay
on top of your commitments and reduce stress over deadlines.
V
Managing Projects X
Beyond scheduling, the other important element to time management is

handling long-term projects. Whether it’s recording an album, planning a
tour, or applying for a grant, the trick to managing larger projects is to break
them down into smaller-sized daily or weekly tasks.
Use “backward planning.” This is a necessary technique (described in the
first chapter) for all wedding planners and self-managing musicians. Start
with the due date of a large project (an audition, performance, or commission
deadline), and work backward from it to determine “benchmark” deadlines.
The idea is to break down a large project into manageable pieces, each with its
own deadline. For example, if the project is a performance four months from
today, then, working backward from the performance date, plan specific in-
termediate goals with deadlines. When would you want to schedule a com-
plete run-through of the program? By which date would you want to have the
repertoire memorized? Figure out when to take particular pieces in for coach-
ings, so that you can plan your rehearsal times accordingly. You can also set
due dates for handling the promotion of the performance, for sending press
releases and invitations. Instead of being overwhelmed by the pressure of a
looming deadline, it’s much easier to plan strategically and work steadily to-
ward the smaller, more immediate goals. This way you can avoid procrastinat-
ing, having to cancel performances, or miss deadlines.
Dana Young suggests thinking of a project as a Tootsie Roll—you can
break it up into bite-size pieces and deal with these one at a time. Keep
things simple. Your daily or weekly to-do list should consist of the most
strategic things that need to be done by a given date—so choose carefully. In
terms of your career project to-do lists, I recommend for busy musicians
writing a list for the week with no more than three concrete, specific career
advancement tasks. These should be simple and practical, such as making
particular phone calls, compiling or updating your network list, or schedul-
ing time to research grants. Write down your weekly list, and tape it to your
Managing Projects 281
refrigerator, bathroom mirror, or dashboard—wherever you will notice it

regularly.
Completing the tasks and crossing them off your list by the end of each
week will feel great, and you will be energized to take on next week’s tasks.
Setting mini-deadlines, getting feedback and support along the way, and re-
warding yourself regularly are all good ways to keep focused and productive.
The first hurdle is to get started, and then there’s the sticking to it. Ask
yourself, what’s a reasonable starting point, a to-do item to accomplish this
week? Schedule some time for this task, and write it down. Not sure where
to start? Ask people who’ve done similar projects or simply start with your
best guess—because the action itself will lead to more steps, and other peo-
ple, information, and resources.
True Confession
Writing (and revising) this book has been by far my largest project to date.
It has taken more time and effort than playing concerts, writing grants, or
organizing conferences. The writing, researching, editing, and revising has
taken many years and has taught me more than I ever wanted to know about
managing projects.
Writing the book had been a long-term goal of mine, but having the
goal as an idea was a lot easier than actually getting it done. My “day job”
(running the Career Services Center at New England Conservatory) is busy
and more than full time. So to get the writing done, I had to make the time
for it outside of my job.
At first I tried writing in the evenings and on weekends. But after work
I was often too frazzled to write, my mind cluttered with other concerns, or
else my competing social plans would win out over the writing. The work
was not getting done. I knew that in order to finish, I would need to write
every day in small installments, just like practicing. Eventually, I realized
that the only way this would happen would be if I wrote fi rst thing each
morning. So I got up at 5:00 a.m. (ouch!), Monday through Friday, and
wrote for about an hour and a half. I’m not a morning person; I’m not good
for conversation at 5:00 a.m. But my mind is clear, and my energy at that
hour is better than it is after a long day at work. If I write at 5:00, it means
that I can still fit in my morning walk before going off to work. Surprisingly,
I have found that on the mornings when I missed doing either the writing or
the walking, I simply didn’t feel as good during the day. The regular pattern
of writing and walking helped me start the rest of my day with less stress.
What else did I do to manage the book project and keep focused? The
deadlines from my editor helped motivate (and scare) me into working. I
also went to several writers’ conferences—the equivalent of summer music
festivals—to gain perspective and inspiration. Like practicing, writing is

solitary, often isolating work. Without regular feedback and support from
others, it’s easy to lose all perspective on a project, to become discouraged
and fi lled with self-doubt. So one of the best things I did was to join a local
writers’ group. We meet twice each month to critique each other’s work and
cheer each other on. To cope with the “overwhelm” factor of the project, I
concentrated on just one chapter at a time (my bite-size piece of the Tootsie
Roll) and set deadlines for completing each one. I had the added incentive of
submitting each chapter to my writers’ group, and I also sent chapters to my
musician colleagues for more feedback. My reward for meeting these dead-
lines was the comments, advice, and support I got from others.
How might this apply to you? Perhaps early morning practice sessions
would provide you with the consistent, concentrated work time you need.
Perhaps finding colleagues or a mentor to play for regularly will provide
needed feedback and support. And along with long-term fundraising or re-
cording projects, you may need to work toward short-term goals and give
yourself deadlines in order to stay focused and motivated.
Effective Practice X
The ultimate time management question any musician has to face is “Am I
using my practice time effectively?” Practice time is elusive. We never have
enough of it, and yet we’re never sure we’re using it wisely. Most of us are not
actually taught how to practice and so we spend our careers trying to figure
out how best to work at our playing.
Much of practicing is a kind of internal conversation. We imagine what
we’re going after in a given phrase or section, analyze what we hear ourselves
perform, and devise ways to work on improving and refining our “output.”
When we practice, we are enforcing habits—physical habits, as well as habits
of hearing and thinking.
Musicians spend a significant portion of their lives in practice rooms, so
we imagine we should be experts at practicing. But by regularly examining
how we’re actually spending our practice time, we can improve the results
we get.
12 Practice Room Questions: You’re the Expert

Take a specific musical passage you’re working on and ask yourself the fol-
lowing:
1. How do you want this phrase to sound? Can you hear it clearly in your
imagination exactly the way you want it?
2. How does it feel as you play or sing it? Could you be more at ease?
3. Once you have isolated a particular difficulty in a passage, what do you
do to solve the problem? If a passage isn’t working as desired, do you
have the patience and creativity to take it apart, find the specific
stumbling blocks, and build it back up again?
4. In playing through this passage, what are you focusing on? Can you
focus on one specific area at a time (intonation, rhythm, articulation,
or tone quality)?
5. What is going on in your head? Is your attention wandering?
6. Do you really know and hear when the passage you have worked on
has improved? Do you leave practice sessions with a clear sense of what
you have accomplished?
Going beyond how you practice a particular passage, here are some
bonus questions for considering your practice time in general.
7. How accurately do you hear yourself? Do you record your practice
sessions regularly? This is one of the best ways to improve your
listening skills and your music making.
8. When and why do you use repetition as a practice strategy? How
conscious are you when you’re repeating a passage?
9. How do you approach learning a new work?
10. What is your practice routine? How much of this is conscious work?
What parts of your practice are being done on autopilot?
11. How are you managing your practice time? How much time do you
spend on warm-up, sight reading, études, technical work, and problem
solving of the toughest parts of your current repertoire?
12. Do you practice with specific goals?
Financial Management X
This next section explores how to manage money, an important concern for
most musicians. On top of paying their living expenses, many musicians
also cope with student loan payments and credit card debt. Managing money
is not easily done on freelance income, because work from month to month
is unpredictable and there’s no steady paycheck. So it’s important for musi-
cians to have a workable system to manage their finances.
First, it’s essential to know how much you spend and on what. This
means tracking all of your expenses to get an accurate picture. Most people
don’t know where their money goes; it just seems to disappear. And people
are shocked to learn how much they actually spend on daily “nothings,” on
lattés, small daily non-essentials, and on eating out.
W
How Much Do You Spend?
The easiest way to track your spending is to make sure you get (and keep) re-
ceipts for everything you purchase. Each evening when you return home, empty
your pockets of all your receipts and tally them in a notebook. It takes sixty seconds
to do. If you do this for several months and add in your fixed expenses (from checks
or automatic bank transfers), you will know exactly where your money is going.
You can do this with paper and pen or with any financial software program, such
as Quicken or QuickBooks (both offer free versions online). However you choose to
track your spending, group the expenses in appropriate categories such as shown
below.
Monthly Spending
Rent/mortgage _________
Heat _________
Electricity _________
Water _________
Internet connection _________
Phone _________
Cable _________
Groceries _________
Dining out _________
Movies _________
Clothing _________
Laundry/dry cleaning _________
Home insurance _________
Car insurance _________
Car maintenance/repair _________
Gas _________
Other transportation _________
Health insurance _________
Health-care appointments _________
Prescriptions _________
Health club membership _________
Loan repayments _________
Credit card debt payment _________
Retirement contribution _________
* Music/scores _________
* Recordings _________
* Instrument maintenance _________
* Lessons/coachings _________
* Instrument insurance _________

* Concert tickets _________
* Professional dues _________
Other _________
Total = _________
*Examples of music career-related tax-deductible expenses (there are many

more).
V
Once you have tracked your expenses for three or four months, you
should have a reliable monthly spending average. Beyond giving you an ac-
curate tally of your spending, tracking serves to make you more conscious
of your purchase choices, and that’s good.
Take a look at your spending patterns. Most people are surprised to
learn how much they spend on non-necessities: coffee, casual meals, and
countless little “splurges.” How often to you eat out? Do you really need an-
other cashmere sweater or that extra pair of boots? These small-scale luxu-
ries can add up to large-scale problems.
Now look at the amount of money you have coming in each month.
Tally your income from freelancing, teaching, and any other work. Are you
spending more than you make? If so, it’s time to cut back on your discre-
tionary spending. By bringing to work a brown bag lunch and a thermos
with your morning coffee, you may save $6–$15 per day, which can amount
to as much as over $3,700 per year.
Reducing Debt
If you’re spending more than you make, the problem may be with your
credit card use. A good rule of thumb is to avoid using a credit card to buy
anything you can eat, drink, smoke, or wear because these are discretionary
and are typically impulse purchases. To rein in your spending, only spend
what you actually have in your checking account. Studies show that when
people pay with cash or debit card (without overdraft privileges), they spend
significantly less. Some people keep a credit card but don’t carry it, keeping
their card locked up at home or even frozen in a block of ice in their freezer
(so that they’ll think very hard about making any purchases with it).
If you’re carrying debt on your card every month and making only the
minimum payments, you can easily get into serious financial difficulties.
Here’s the problem with credit card debt. Say that you have a $1,000 balance at
17.99 percent interest, and you’re making only the minimum payment of $20
per month. At this rate, it will take you ninety-one months (7.5 years) to pay it
off and you’ll have paid $802 in interest—nearly double the original debt.
However, if instead you pay $40 a month, you can eliminate the debt in thirty-
one months—five years sooner—and you’ll pay $239 in interest, saving $563.
Again, the best thing is to spend no more in a month than you make.
If you’re not sure about your total debt and credit card interest rates, find
out. Unfortunately, introductory rates are designed to lure in new customers,
and it’s all too easy to have one late payment result in a substantially higher
interest rate. See if you can transfer your balance to a credit card with a lower
rate, but read all the fine print and be careful about transfer fees.
For debt-reduction advice on consolidating loan payments and negoti-
ating reduced payment plans with lenders, visit the National Foundation for
Credit Counseling at http://www.nfcc.org or the American Consumer
Credit Counseling site at http://www.consumercredit.com. Financial guru
and television advice show host Suze Orman also has an extensive online
resource listing, with information and links for a wide range of financial
questions, at http://www.suzeorman.com.
Checking your credit history and score periodically is also important.
This is to make sure that you have not been the victim of identity theft. But
also check that there are no mistakes in your credit report that might jeop-
ardize getting credit for future large purchases, such as a car, home, or in-
strument. You can get a free copy of your credit report each year through
http://www.annualcreditreport.com.
To understand your options and to create a plan for your long-term fi-
nancial health, it can be very useful to meet with a financial planner. This
can be a one-time appointment or a yearly financial “checkup.” At the meet-
ing, the planner can review your financial situation and map out a plan for
budgeting expenses, reducing debt, and/or handling savings and invest-
ments. If you meet with an independent, fee-based financial planner, you
will be charged an hourly rate for the appointment to get a professional as-
sessment and unbiased recommendations for how to handle your money.
Financial planners who work on commission for investment companies rec-
ommend only those stocks or mutual funds for which they receive a com-
mission. To find a fee-based financial planner in your area, ask your friends
and colleagues for recommendations. You want to find an excellent finan-
cial planner through reliable personal referrals.
Savings
With limited income, the idea of saving money may seem impossible. But
even if you have to start small, the essential thing is to start! The best way to
make sure you start saving is to arrange for it to be automatic. If you get a
regular paycheck, have your bank set up an automatic payroll deduction.
This will divert funds to a savings or investment account. This way, you
Taxes 101 287
won’t be tempted to spend the money because it won’t show up in your

checking account.
If you’re just starting to save now, your first goal is to set up an emer-
gency fund. Suze Orman, the financial expert mentioned earlier, recom-
mends keeping such an account funds for eight months of living expenses.
For many, the thought of being able to raise this much can seem impossible.
But it can be built up incrementally. Your emergency fund should be depos-
ited in a safe place with easy access, such as a money market account or “liq-
uid” certificate of deposit (CD). Once this starts to accumulate, you may be
tempted to use it on a vacation or a special project. Don’t. You need to save
this for actual emergencies.
After you’ve got your emergency fund saved, the next goal is to start on
a long-term savings plan, again using an automatic deposit system. Many fi-
nancial planners recommend saving at least 10 percent of your income. If
you hope to own a home, pay for your children’s college education, and be
able to retire, then saving more than 10 percent is necessary. Each month
you want 10 percent or more going into a long-term investment account.
You might want to start with a Roth IRA or a no-fee mutual fund account—
something you cannot easily make withdrawals from. If you start the habit
now, and your earnings are compounded and invested well, you will be able
to reach your goals.
Record Keeping
We’ve discussed tracking all your expenses for a few months in order to get a
handle on your budget. But beyond this, freelance musicians need to keep on-
going income and expense records for tax purposes. Why do this? For musi-
cians who keep good records and are tax savvy, there are significant tax
savings. And for those who do not keep ongoing, accurate records, there’s the
threat of being audited. The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) can and does ask
citizens to produce their records and receipts as evidence of their financial sit-
uation. The IRS will also, if necessary, examine bank accounts as part of the
investigation. If found in the wrong, you have to pay not only a fine plus the
back taxes owed, but the interest on these as well. The IRS can garnish wages,
taking money directly from your account in order to get what is owed. If you
are having difficulties with your tax payments or bills, see the taxpayer advo-
cate service at http://www.irs.gov. This is a free and independent service for
individuals and businesses experiencing hardships resolving tax issues.
Taxes 101 X
How much do Americans pay in taxes? For many, their total federal and
state taxes amount to roughly a third of their income. To keep this in per-
spective, tax dollars pay for roads, schools, national parks, social service
programs, welfare, Medicare and Medicaid, Social Security benefits, na-
tional and state defense, federal and state arts programs, and more. A third
of your income is plenty to pay Uncle Sam, but many musicians—because
they don’t understand the deductions they’re entitled to—actually overpay
their taxes. Don’t let this happen to you.
W
Tale of Joan V. (the Final Installment)
Our freelance trombonist Joan did her own taxes that first year as a freelancer,
and she got clobbered; she found she owed the IRS a thousand dollars. So she
asked friends about handling finances. That’s how she first learned about making
a budget, keeping receipts for business deductions, and visiting a recommended
musicians’ accountant for help with her taxes. That next year, her “day job” boss,
the music instrument shop manager, added bookkeeping duties to Joan’s work-
load, and consequently Joan became more skilled with handling her own finances.
The payoff came years later, when she was able to afford a new instrument, buy a
new car, and even put a down payment on a condo. Joan’s first years were tough,
but she figured it all out and has since done well.
V
How do taxes work? Every April 15 in the United States, federal and
state taxes are due on income earned during the previous calendar year
(January 1–December 31). If you have a full-time job or an ongoing orches-
tra or opera contract, most likely you receive paychecks with some taxes al-
ready taken out. When you started the job, you fi lled out a W4 form that
included your Social Security number and the amount in taxes you wanted
withheld from each paycheck.
Each year, sometime during the month of January, the employer mails
you (and the IRS) a W2 form, which states the total amount you were paid in
the previous calendar year and how much was withheld in state and federal
taxes. You use the W2 to fill out your taxes. Because musicians typically have
multiple employers and jobs, you most likely will receive multiple W2 forms.
Besides the W2 income (which has taxes withheld), freelance musicians
typically work a variety of shorter-term freelance gigs, and for these, they
receive pay with no taxes withheld. If an employer pays you $600 or more for
freelance work during the calendar year, the employer is required to submit
to the IRS (and send you a copy) a 1099 form stating how much you were
paid and the fact that no taxes were withheld.
So every January, organizations fi le with the IRS the appropriate W2 or
1099 for each worker paid the previous calendar year, and they send copies
to the worker to be used for tax fi ling purposes. What you are taxed on is
Taxes 101 289
your combined total income, from 1099s, W2s, and any other income re-
ceived in cash and personal checks.
W
The Musician’s Tax Quiz
Did you know?
1. You are obligated to file a tax return if you made at least $400 after expenses
as a self-employed individual.
2. You need to declare the income from all your gigs and teaching, whether or
not you received a 1099, because the employer may have notified the IRS even
if you did not receive the copy.
3. The IRS may audit you up to three years after the fact—and charge you three
years’ interest and penalties in addition to the taxes owed—so make sure there
are no mistakes on your tax return.
V
Tax-Deductible Receipts = Substantial Savings!

How much you pay in taxes for your freelance income has everything to with
the records you keep. Here’s how it works: the IRS considers freelance work to
be self-employment, and you—as a musician—are an independent contractor
or small-business owner. The IRS recognizes that self-employed individuals
must invest in their businesses, that they need to spend money in order to
make money. Consequently, the IRS allows musicians to deduct necessary
business expenses form their reported income and pay taxes only on the re-
maining amount. This includes all music career-related expenditures, such as
music equipment, scores, recordings, and the cost of traveling to gigs and
auditions.
However, you cannot take these tax-deductible expenses unless you
keep records and receipts, and fi ll out the correct tax forms. You can deduct
these business expenses from your taxes only if you use the 1040 (long form)
with Schedule C for self-employed workers. Tracking business expenses
means keeping receipts and records, but the savings are well worth it.
Help from an Expert

Because these forms can be complicated and the rules about what you can
and cannot deduct are confusing, it’s best to have your tax return prepared
by a professional who specializes in working with musicians. The folks who
work at the large chain tax preparation firms are generally not aware of all
the deductions available to musicians. The fee for getting your taxes done by
a musicians’ tax specialist is a good investment, because you can save tens of
thousands over the course of your career. The accountant can also advise
you on how best to track your income, expenses, and deductions (and yes,
your tax preparation fee is also deductible).
To Declare or Not?
Many musicians mistakenly think they can get ahead by not declaring all
the income they earn. If they are paid in cash for lessons, they may avoid de-
claring this. But the musician tax specialists at Donahue and Associates in
Boston report the downside of this. Musicians who fail to declare parts of
their income are typically the same musicians who fail to declare many le-
gitimate expenses as deductions, either out of ignorance or poor record-
keeping habits. In order to take all of your deductions, you need self-employed
income to declare against it. You are better off avoiding tax audits by keep-
ing accurate records and reporting all of your income so that you can de-
clare all your deductions. Your tax return should reflect that you are a
professional musician. It should show your full income and full deductions,
whether or not you also do any other non-music work. Without declaring all
your music income, the IRS may question whether your music is a hobby—
as opposed to a profession—and this may have dire tax consequences.
And there can be even worse consequences for not reporting (or under-
reporting) your actual income. Eligibility for retirement and disability ben-
efits is based on your work history and reported income. Taxpayers qualify
for Social Security benefits by earning credits based on their reported in-
come each year. As of 2009, each credit is accrued when $1,090 is earned and
reported, with a maximum of four credits awarded per year. You need at
least ten years and forty credits to be eligible for full benefits (disability, re-
tirement, Medicare, etc.). So for those just getting started, not reporting in
the first years of your career, say in your twenties, may cost you eligibility for
full benefits—should you need them—in your thirties. Don’t risk it! (See
http://www.socialsecurity.gov.)
W
Musicians’ Business Expenses
Tax-deductible items include the following:
Membership dues/fees for professional organizations and associations

Instruments, repairs, and supplies
Music scores and parts
Books on music: history, biographies, theory, career guides (this book, for
example)
Home office supplies: computer and repairs, software, printer, toner, paper,
plus domain name, ISP costs
Music-related journals and magazines
Taxes 101 291
Publicity: photos, brochures, promo kit materials, flyers, posters, website

design
Concert attire and cleaning, along with stage cosmetics
Recordings: CDs and downloads
Recording equipment and studio stereo equipment, iPod
Agent/management fees
Union dues
Accompanist fees, substitute fees
Tickets to concerts (for professional development)
Recording fees, CD manufacturing, printing, design, promotion
In-home studio expenses (percentage of rent, utilities, repairs, insurance; this
is for those who teach and/or practice in a dedicated portion of their
home—this space can only be used for your music).
Meals (during which professional music career issues are discussed and/or
while on tour)
Travel (air, bus, taxi) to your gigs, auditions, concerts, festivals
Self-produced concert expenses (hall and equipment rental, promotion,
printing, reception costs)
Telephone (percentage of your bill to cover music-business-related long-
distance calls)
Postage, mailings (of promo kits, press releases, postcards, recordings, grant
applications)
Business gifts (thank-you gifts to accompanists and colleagues)
Lessons, coaching, workshops, classes, seminars (these are considered
professional development for established professionals). Note that
undergraduate tuition is not deductible as a professional development
expense, nor is graduate tuition unless you established a professional
career after a bachelor’s degree and then returned to school. However,
there are other specific tuition tax credits; see a professional tax preparer
for help with all this
V
It’s in the Bag

For tracking expenses, musician tax specialist Ed Donahue recommends the
beautifully simple “paper bag in closet” technique. This involves saving re-
ceipts for all business-related expenditures each day. At home at the end of the
day, empty your pockets and wallet of receipts, and write a short explanatory
note on any receipts that do not list details. Then, put all of these business-
related receipts in an open paper bag on the floor of your bedroom closet. At
the end of each month (or year), you can sort the receipts into categories by
purchase types using a file folder system. Come tax time, your life will be
much, much easier.
All this is necessary because if you’re audited, the burden of proof is on

you to substantiate your declared income and deductions. You should also
save credit card records, but note that these do not suffice for receipts because
they do not detail what specifically was purchased, so you absolutely need to
get and save store receipts and print and save your online purchase receipts.
Checks
Cancelled checks can be used to document your professional expenditures.
Keep your monthly bank statements, so that if requested, you have a record
of the expense in question. Some musicians open a separate bank account
(or use a separate credit card) strictly to track their business purchases. This
is certainly the route to go if you are handling the finances for your own
ensemble.
Date Book
For expenses where you do not receive a receipt, such as tolls, gas, parking,
mileage, or business meals under $75, your calendar date book may suffice
for keeping records. Simply enter the amount you spent, or number of miles
driven on the appropriate day, with an explanatory note. If you keep accu-
rate records of these small expenses in your date book, you will be surprised
at how fast they can add up to large deductions and substantial tax savings.
Whatever system you use for tracking, you need to be consistent with it, and
if it’s an online system, you’ll need a backup.
Ledgers
The purpose of keeping records is so that you can know where you stand fi-
nancially—what you’re earning and what you’re spending. A ledger is a sim-
ple way to track your business expenses and income. Programs such as
Quicken and QuickBooks can be used for this purpose, a simple spread-
sheet, or the old pen-and-paper method.
For tracking expenses, set up a basic expense sheet ledger (or spread-
sheet). This can be a chart with columns to record the date, an explanatory
note about the purchase or expense, and the amount. This way, you can
track your business-related spending by the week, month, and year. To de-
termine the appropriate categories for your expense sheet and history, see
the list of deductions earlier in this chapter and list the ones that apply to
your spending habits.
Income Records
Next, set up an income spreadsheet or chart to record all the music-related
payments you receive. With a tracking system, you’ll know what you can af-
Special Issues for Ensembles 293
ford to buy and do, and be able to make better decisions about savings or in-
vestments. Include columns that reflect the types of income you have coming
in (lessons, gigs, recordings, royalties, or commissions). Simply record the
date received, from whom, the type of income, and any special notes.
A good reason to keep records of your income is so that you can track any
seasonal patterns in the ebb and flow of your freelance income. For many
freelance musicians, there are certain predictable months (August and Janu-
ary) with little work. With a tracking system, you can reliably forecast the
leaner months to help manage your finances and time to best advantage.
Special Issues for Ensembles X
It can be helpful to have a separate bank account and credit card that you use
exclusively for an ensemble. In addition, here are some specific tips for en-
sembles from jazz bandleader Lucinda Ellert:
• Set up a database to record all of the band’s finances: deposits, ex-
penses, revenues, and payments to band members.
• Use a written ledger as well as a computer backup.
• Include tracking of all revenue made from sales of recordings.
• For leader-driven groups, the bandleader should take a leader’s fee as
compensation for handling all of the management. This may be
“invested” into supporting band expenses (it’s your prerogative).
Groups eventually need to decide about incorporating as a nonprofit, a
limited partnership, or as a type of corporation. The time to decide this is
once the group is stable, committed, and performing regularly. As for choos-
ing which legal entity is best for an ensemble, this depends on the group’s
existing finances and its future plans. There are tax and accounting ramifi-
cations for each choice, so it’s essential to get good legal advice for your par-
ticular situation.
In some cases, the corporate formalities can be eliminated entirely with
the use of a “Band Members Agreement.” This is a contract among the ensem-
ble members, to clarify questions such as how the ensemble is managed, who
owns the ensemble’s name, how any royalties from recordings or publishing
should be distributed, and under what basis the ensemble can write checks or
borrow money. At the start of a new ensemble, when everyone is getting along
well, it can seem strange to draw up a formal contract. This is not unlike a
prenuptial agreement, in that its purpose is to safeguard against possible fu-
ture claims or disagreements. In the event of a member leaving, or a new
member joining, or a dispute over payments, there needs to be a written agree-
ment in place. To draw up an ensemble contract, you need qualified advice
from a trained entertainment lawyer. Consult with the national service orga-
nization Volunteer Lawyers for the Arts (http://www.vlany.org) to inquire
about pro bono or reduced-fee legal help in your area.
Overall, the best resource for ensembles of all genres is the national
service organization Chamber Music America (CMA; see http://www
.chamber-music.org). CMA membership includes professional development
consultations and resources, an annual national conference, access to and
discounts on instrument and health insurance, subscription to Chamber
Music magazine (which covers all aspects of the field), as well as access to
grant programs for commissioning and residency work. You can call or e-
mail CMA for contacts, resources, and ideas. The professional staff knows
the field—the ensembles, presenters, managers, and how the business
works—and can either provide you with the advice you seek or connect you
with others who can.
Conclusion
In managing time and money, musicians need to pay attention to both the
small details and the big picture. In the end, it’s all about the direction you
want to take in life and the everyday actions you take to get there. In orga-
nizing your schedule and tending to your finances, make sure you’re head-
ing toward your goal, to be the person you intend to become.
W
Career Forward
Writing out your responses to the following will help you manage your time
and your money.
1. What challenges have you had in managing your time? What are you spending
too much time on? What are you spending too little time on?
2. Write out your schedule for next week. Put the fixed scheduled items (nondis-
cretionary) in ink, and use pencil to organize the discretionary activities. Make
sure you have reserved time for your top priorities. Pay attention to when you
schedule in the work that demands high energy and concentration.
3. How might you make your practice time more effective? Remember, it’s not
about the hours you put in, but what you’re actually accomplishing during the
time you have.
4. Track your spending this week. Save receipts from every purchase you make,
and add these to your expense ledger. At the end of the week, calculate the
amount you’re spending on average each day. Do you see ways you could be
saving money?
V
12
Funding for Music
Projects
W
In this chapter:
Mapping Your Project
Researching Grant Opportunities
Grant Applications
Fundraising 101
The Development Continuum
Making the Ask
Fundraising Letters
Commissioning New Work
Corporate Sponsorship
V
Charlotte’s been accepted to a prestigious overseas festival and needs

funds to cover travel and living expenses.
Matt is recording a CD and needs money for the graphic design and
studio time.
Rachel needs to buy a new instrument.
Casey’s ensemble wants to commission a new work from a young
composer.
Musicians often have great plans and ideas for projects, but just as often
lack the funds to complete them. The good news is that there are ways to
raise money for projects and many musicians are successful doing this. The
bad news is that raising money takes more time and effort than most people
realize.
There are generally two routes to pursue when seeking money for proj-
ects: you can either apply for grants or raise the funds from individual do-
nors. For any particular project, one route may be more appropriate than
the other. But most often, musicians use a combination of the two.
295
296 Funding for Music Projects
Mapping Your Project X
No matter how you pursue funding, the recommended first step is to “map”
the specifics to help organize your project and your thoughts. A project map
is a detailed description of your intended venture, with your goals, qualifi-
cations, timeline, and the resources needed. The more concrete and detailed
you are with this, the easier it is to get and stay organized, and to success-
fully complete your project. You can map your project by answering the fol-
lowing questions. Write your answers down because this can serve as the
framework needed for grant proposals and fundraising efforts.
1. What is the goal of your project? Why are you seeking funds? What
specifically do you want to accomplish?
2. Why are you doing this project? What need or problem does your
project address? Who will benefit from this project? If the grant is for
your own studies or for a recording or instrument, then you’ll need to
describe why the project is essential to your career development and
your long-term career goals. If your project is for an ensemble or an
organization, then you’ll need to also include how the project will
benefit others and how it will impact the community.
3. What specific activities will take place as part of your project? With this
funding, what will you be able to do? The more concrete and detailed
you are, the more you will enable others to imagine it and be inspired
by your vision.
4. What is your “track record” so far? Detail what you have done in the
past that demonstrates your ability to succeed with this project. List
relevant awards, honors, degrees, performances, and teaching
experience.
5. Who will help or participate in the project? Include details of your
collaborators’ backgrounds and credentials (short bios), and explain
the nature and level of their participation.
6. When will it be completed? Include a timeline: make sure that what you
plan is feasible given your schedule.
7. What is your desired outcome? Explain how you will measure the
success of the project (how you will know that you have succeeded).
8. How much money is needed? Write out a detailed budget listing all
anticipated expenses. You may need to “guesstimate,” but do some
research to be as accurate as possible. Some needs may end up being
covered as in-kind donations or bartered services, such as the use of
performance and rehearsal spaces, or services such as printing,
editing, and catering. But include these in your budget anyway so that
others can understand the full requirements of your project.
Mapping Your Project 297
W
Money Talk: Clarifying Terms
Development: the cultivation of relationships—the process of building others’
involvement and commitment to your project.
Fundraising: the organized activity of soliciting and collecting funds for a
project, organization, or cause. The success of any fundraising effort
depends entirely on the development work that precedes it.
Grant: a sum of money given by an organization for a specified purpose or
project. Grants are awarded by national and local foundations,
community, civic, and religious organizations, as well as federal, state, and
local governments, and by corporations. Grants are used to fund arts
education and research projects, as well as recordings, commissions, and
residencies. Grants are typically awarded through a competitive process,
and usually require an application, proposal, and supporting materials,
such as letters of recommendation and recordings.
Nonprofit organization: the nonprofit (or not-for-profit) status is a specific
legal and tax designation, also referred to as 501(c)(3) status. Nonprofits
are mission-driven organizations; they exist to improve communities.
Nonprofits are structured with a board of trustees and a director who
work together at determining the mission, goals, and long-range plans for
the organization. Most performing arts organizations and music schools
are nonprofits. They depend on charitable donations and grants because
ticket sales and tuition cannot cover all the expenses of running these
organizations.
V
For Ensembles
There are many foundations that fund only nonprofit organizations. So
ensembles often struggle with whether or not to incorporate as nonprofits
in order to be eligible for grant funding. Becoming a nonprofit takes time,
effort, paperwork, and, more often than not, a lawyer. If your ensemble is
just starting out, it’s probably best to first get some experience before
incorporating.
In the meantime, ensembles can access grants restricted to nonprofits if
they partner with a fiscal agent—a nonprofit organization that agrees to sub-
mit a grant on the group’s behalf and then turns the awarded funds over to
the group, often for a small administrative fee or percentage of the grant.
Think about your network, your mentors and colleagues who work at non-
profit organization. They may be willing and able to help. Also, the arts
service organization Fractured Atlas (http://fracturedatlas.org) regularly
serves as fiscal agent for artists. To investigate these options, check out Vol-
unteer Lawyers for the Arts (http://www.vlany.org), a national organization
with regional offices. The VLA offers helpful publications and “To Be or Not
to Be” workshops on the issue of nonprofit status.
Note that some grant programs for ensembles stipulate that groups
must be together for a certain length of time at the point of application, be-
cause they’re looking for stability and a track record of success. Research
carefully to find the grant programs for which your group is eligible.
What’s Next?
With your project mapped, the next step is deciding whether to apply for
grants or to raise the needed funds from individuals. Most people imagine
that applying for grants is the easier way to get funding, but this is not true.
There is limited grant funding available, and yet there are always many
worthy applicants, so grants are highly competitive. Foundations have
specific priorities, requirements, and deadlines. Researching to find an ap-
propriate grant takes time, and then the writing of the proposal also takes
considerable time.
The types of projects that may be grant eligible include the following:
• Undergraduate or graduate study in the United States and abroad
• Research projects, such as studying original manuscripts, the tradi-
tional music of a particular culture, or a specific music education
methodology
• Technical support for arts organizations and ensembles (consultation
assistance on topics such as marketing, management, Web design, and
strategic planning)
• Commissioning new works
• Producing a recording
• Creating a concert series, festival, or after-school lesson program
Researching Grant Opportunities X
There are specialized grant research libraries across the United States. These
libraries house the most detailed, current information on funding opportu-
nities. The Foundation Center is the main headquarters for a network of co-
operating grant research libraries. It publishes helpful guides for grant
seekers and, along with its cooperating libraries, hosts workshops on grant
writing. (See http://www.foundationcenter.org.)
As for searching online, the New York Foundation for the Arts (NYFA)
has an extensive database of artist resource listings nationwide (see http://
Researching Grant Opportunities 299
www.nyfa.org). For scholarship funding for undergraduate and graduate

study, see http://www.fastweb.com and http://www.finaid.org. Note: you
should never pay for grant or scholarship searches because there are plenty
of free resources and databases available.
Grant databases and directories typically list each grant program’s pri-
orities for funding, the amounts awarded, geographic or discipline restric-
tions, requirements, deadlines for applications, and contact information.
You can search grant programs by areas of interest. You can use both broad
search topics such as music, education, arts, as well as more specialized cat-
egories such as music performance, recordings, ethnomusicology, compo-
sition, and so forth. Beyond the area of interest, each grant program has
specific criteria for the kinds of projects it funds. These program restric-
tions are based on the mission of the grant foundation. Some programs are
open only to applicants from a specific region or state, or to individuals of
a particular ethnicity, nationality, or age range. Pay close attention to the
restrictions. Read carefully to know whether or not you and your project
are eligible.
W
Hot Tip #1
Searching online is too often like looking for a needle in a haystack. Consult
with a search expert: visit your local public or university library and ask a profes-
sional librarian for help. There’s no charge, and this will save you much time and
stress. Librarians can teach you some of the secrets to conducting a more targeted
and productive online search, as well as help you gain access to specialized data-
bases. Having the help of a skilled librarian is like having a professional detective on
your side.
V
Don’t overlook the possibility of funding options in your local commu-

nity and your family’s hometown. Civic groups and community associa-
tions (such as Rotary, Kiwanis, and Lions clubs) often have scholarship
programs and may fund special projects. Local religious associations may
also fund community projects. So your research might include checking
with your local hometown library and the chamber of commerce as well.
W
Hot Tip #2
Be on the lookout for grants mentioned in other musicians’ bios. Keep a run-
ning list—a tickler file—of the names of these grants, and then look them up.
V
Narrowing the Field: Finding Your “Best Bets”

After researching your options, you should have a list of possible grant programs
that are potentially a good match for your project. The next step is to get com-
plete program and application details for each grant. Some of this may be
online, some not. You can call or e-mail to request needed information.
Once you have the guidelines and the detailed program restrictions,
read them carefully. If your project seems like a viable match, but you’re not
absolutely sure, call or e-mail the funding organization. Briefly outline your
project, and ask specifically about its eligibility. Grant administrators can be
very helpful to you before submitting your application. After all, they want
to get appropriate applications, so talking to you beforehand helps them,
too. Having this conversation will make your proposal more memorable
when it is submitted; the grant administrator will have that positive “Yes! I
spoke with her” moment. Just don’t call the day before the deadline when
the foundation staff will be swamped! And don’t waste your time—or
theirs—by applying for programs that are not the right fit.
Research all your leads. You may find more than one program for which
your project is appropriate. Applying to several may improve your odds of
getting funded. However, a few highly targeted proposals carefully tailored
to each grant program will get you further than using a shotgun approach
and sending out multiple one-size-fits-all proposals. Keep in mind that
grants are highly competitive. Professional grant writers consider one pro-
posal acceptance out of every five submitted to be a good success rate.
Grant Applications X
There are some benefits to applying for grants regardless of whether or not
you receive the funding. In the highly recommended book Art That Pays,
authors Adele Slaughter and Jeff Kober offer this perspective: “Grant appli-
cations require you to define yourself and what you do, as well as how you
plan to spend the money you’re requesting. This process can be extremely
useful and even cathartic. It can serve to clarify your goals and objectives,
open your mind to new and different ideas and introduce you to resources
in the community you did not know existed.”1
Successful grant writing is a straightforward process of making a clear
and detailed case for the legitimate match between your proposed project
and the funder’s mission. A successful grant proposal is essentially a com-
pelling, well-reasoned case for why the granting organization should fund
your project. To be effective, a grant proposal should describe a need or
problem and then outline the proposed project that provides the solution.
And your proposal should clearly explain who will benefit from the project
and how. The basic idea is to present the problem, the proposed solution, and
the anticipated impact.
Whether you’re applying for a grant to study abroad or one to fund a
local after-school program, there are essential components to all grant ap-
plications. To be convincing, a proposal should answer the questions below.
(This is where the earlier project mapping exercise comes in handy.)
• What specifically do you plan to accomplish through this project?
• What are the expected outcomes: for you, for others, for the
community?
• What evidence do you have that you are qualified to succeed with this
project?
• What specifically do you need in order to complete the project? (Detail
the needed funding, resources, assistance, and projected timeline.)
• How does this project match the interests and priorities of the funding
organization? The challenge here lies in seeing your proposal from the
funder’s perspective. Throughout your proposal, emphasize the ways
in which your project goals line up with the funder’s priorities.
Organizational Grants
Grant applications for community projects, ensembles, or organizations are
more detailed than those for individuals. Typical organizational grant pro-
posals include the following:
1. Summary: a concise statement of the project. (Best written after the
rest of the proposal is completed.)
2. The need: what is the societal or community need that your project
will directly address? Who will this project serve, and how will they
benefit? For example, with a project to start an after-school music
program in which students learn to compose, perform, and record
their own music, the need may be to address a specific low-income
community’s lack of after-school options and mentoring and arts
programs for teens.
3. Project description: the details of the project, complete with goals and
objectives. This includes the details of what the funding will be used
for and how the project will be implemented. The review committee
needs to understand exactly how a project will unfold.
4. Background: the credentials of all those participating in the project.
5. Budget and timeline.
6. Outcomes: the measurable indicators for successful results, such as
numbers of students taught or coached, performances, audience
members, or publications of the project research. More difficult to
measure are the qualitative results, the value of a performance,

workshop, or recording in terms of emotional and intellectual experi-
ence. Grant programs typically require an evaluation process, which
may include an evaluation portfolio with video clips, testimonials, and
thank-you letters from project participants.
Warning: Thoughts to Avoid

Musicians sometimes think that grant writing is some mysterious or intimi-
dating skill demanding professional training, that is beyond their reach. It’s
not, so don’t let this fear prevent you from trying. Grant writing demands
carefully following the program guidelines and employing your clear think-
ing, organizational skills, and attention to detail.
On the other end of the spectrum, some novice grant seekers make the
mistake of thinking, “Oh, this application is simply paperwork: I’ll just whip
this sucker off. Besides, it’s the recording and letters of recommendation
that really count.” Wrong! Don’t underestimate the importance of having a
well-written and compelling project statement. For funders, it’s essential.
Nitty Gritty
A grant proposal is not a term paper. There’s no need to be overly formal or
to use a three-syllable word when a single-syllable one will do. Write natu-
rally, as though you’re explaining the project to a potential donor, because
you are. Be concise; volume and verbiage will not win you points. Keep in
mind that not everyone on a grant selection panel will be intimately familiar
with your specific area of interest. Don’t use technical jargon—describe
your project in a way that an intelligent nonspecialist would understand it
and find it compelling. Remember that your proposal will be one of hun-
dreds, so be detailed and persuasive but concise.
Grant applications often call for supporting materials, such as letters of
reference, demo recordings or DVDs, and scores. If the application states that
you should submit a certain number of copies of your recording, or that the
recording be labeled a particular way (for ease of evaluation and to guarantee
impartiality), follow the directions. Supporting materials are crucial, so take
pains to represent yourself well. Make sure that what you send to the selection
committee meets all their specifications. Each grant program has its own ap-
plication format, so read the details and follow the directions carefully.
W
Top Five Reasons Grant Applications Are Rejected
1. Project is inappropriate to the funder’s stated priorities and interests.
2. Late! Didn’t meet deadline.
3. Unconvincing project description. The need, the solution proposed, and the
projected outcomes all must make a compelling case.
4. Didn’t follow directions with either the written portion of the proposal or in
preparing the supporting materials.
5. Incomplete: missing one or more of the required support materials.
V
How Are Grants Awarded?

Most grant programs use a panel process to select winners. The granting or-
ganization invites qualified, impartial professionals to serve as panelists.
Each panelist receives copies of the applications and supporting materials to
review. If there are too many applications, then these are divided into sets
and each panelist reviews and presents her or his set of applications to the
entire panel at the selection committee meeting. At these meetings, panel-
ists present and discuss each application one at a time, and then votes are
cast to select the awardees.
A grant program makes an investment with each award. Panelists have
tough decisions to make, because there are always many more deserving
proposals than there are awards.
So, if your proposal is not selected, don’t take it personally! Wait a week
or so to get over your disappointment, and then call the grant program offi-
cer and ask for feedback on how you might improve your proposals in the fu-
ture. Program officers are generally very willing to have these conversations,
but you need to park your ego and any lingering defensiveness. This is your
chance to learn how to make a better case for the next proposal you write.
True Confession
I’ve written a number of grants for various projects, and each grant had its
own lessons to teach me. But here’s my Fulbright grant story. As a grad stu-
dent, I wanted to study in Paris with the cellist Roland Pidoux. The Ful-
bright application requires two essays; one asks the applicant to describe
the project plan in detail; the other, to cover one’s background in detail. I
wrote my essays and thought I’d done a fairly good job of covering all the
points. I asked a friend to read my draft. He was a Ph.D. candidate in musi-
cology, a smart, experienced writer, and I valued his opinion. Because I’d
always done well with writing in school, I expected him to be supportive
and encouraging.
Boy, was I wrong!
He calmly told me that my proposal was lousy (although he did this in
more colorful language). He said it was unconvincing, that my plan of study
wasn’t specific enough, and that I hadn’t detailed my qualifications. He said

the writing was unfocused and that no one would fund a project described
this way. For me, this was a harsh wake-up call for which I will always be
grateful. Up until this point, I had never really considered how important
writing could be to a performer, or that written communication skills could
affect a performer’s career opportunities.
I didn’t get the Fulbright and was very disappointed. And I would not
have tried again if my friend hadn’t encouraged me. So, the next year I wrote
a new proposal. My revised essays detailed what is specific to the French
school of string playing and how this would enhance my American training.
I detailed the repertoire I planned to work on and listed possible perfor-
mance venues in Paris where I could give recitals. I described my specific
long-term career goals and how a year of study in Paris would provide es-
sential experience. I also included my relevant background credentials—
festivals, repertoire, degrees, and concert venues where I had performed.
The good news is that I got the Fulbright the second time around!
Lessons Learned
1. For your drafts of grant proposals, get detailed, critical feedback early
on and be prepared to revise!
2. Yes, the “paperwork” really matters. The way you describe your goals
and project will have a big effect on the outcome.
3. If you don’t succeed at first, try again!
Fundraising 101 X
What can you do if there is no grant program for which your project is eli-
gible? Or if your project is rejected and you cannot afford to wait to re-ap-
ply? Or the application deadlines and your project timeframe are not in
sync. The good news is that you are for more likely to be successful raising
money from individual donors—from supporters close to you—than by
“gambling” on the competitive grant process.
People are typically resistant to the idea of doing their own fundraising.
Most are horrified at the thought of asking others for money. They think of
this as “begging.” But talk to any experienced fundraiser and you will hear a
very different perspective. Fundraising work is all about connecting with peo-
ple and building relationships. It’s helping people put their interests and values
into action for a cause they care about. Like music itself, fundraising boils
down to creating community. A grassroots fundraising campaign can rally
individual supporters into a close-knit community galvanized by a project.
Fundraising 101 305
Why Do People Give?

Think about your own behavior. If you’ve ever participated in a walk-a-thon,
put money in a church collection plate, tutored a child, donated blood, or
contributed to a political campaign, ask yourself why.
People give for a number of reasons. For some, it’s because they have a
personal connection to the cause, the organization, or the person making
the “ask.” People are also inspired to give when the project or organization
connects with their own ideals, their personal values. And some people con-
tribute in part for social reasons. They may want to be acknowledged as a
valued partner in a worthy endeavor.
When you have contributed to cause, how did it make you feel? You
probably felt good! People like to help, and they like to see positive results.
So when the student you tutor passes an exam or the church you played the
benefit concert for meets its fundraising goal, most likely you felt proud that
you were a part of this process.
When people give time, money, or expertise to a cause they care about,
they get something important in return. They get to feel good about them-
selves. This is the real return on their investment. Self-worth is a great re-
ward. As you imagine your future fundraising campaign, remember that
fundraising is an exchange. When you ask people to contribute, you are of-
fering them something valuable in return.
W
Hot Tip #3: Think Beyond Cash
In-kind donations are noncash contributions, such as equipment (computers,
pianos, PA systems); space for rehearsals and performance; or services such as
printing, graphic design, and website development. Think about the people in your
network who might help with your project on a noncash basis. If you have an e-
newsletter, this can be a great medium for requesting in-kind donations or asking
for volunteers. Newsletters are also great places to acknowledge and thank your
growing circle of supporters.
V
It’s Personal: People Give to People

The first reason that people would contribute to your fundraising campaign
is because of their relationship with you. Arts consultant Steve Procter ex-
plains what will motivate people to contribute to your project, “your exciting
and valuable artistic ‘product’; a compelling idea, bold vision, and credible
plan; and a feeling of connection with the project and the people involved.”
Who are your prospective supporters? They are people you share com-
mon interests with, who have similar values, ideals, and goals. They are
people with a capacity to give and an inclination to help. This is not about
being fake or kissing up to people you hardly know. This is about genuine
relationships. The more you and your project matter to a prospective donor,
the more they will be willing to give.
As you read this, you may be thinking, “But I don’t know any rich peo-
ple. The people closest to me either don’t have anything to give or won’t.” The
truth is that the vast majority of people in your network have some discre-
tionary funds, money they use on a variety of nonnecessities. There are peo-
ple in your network who could contribute $500 to a cause they believe in
without it adversely affecting their finances. For some people, $50 is the limit
of their comfort zone; for others, it may be $5,000. The bottom line is that
people won’t give unless they’re asked. Nothing ventured, nothing gained!
The Quickie Campaign

Nick and Nora each needed to raise $1,000 to participate in a summer tour
with an orchestra going to South America. They had a deadline of one
month to raise the money. Their immediate families couldn’t help, so Nick
and Nora started thinking about their network, the family friends who had
shown interest in their musical development over the years. Nora thought of
her family doctor and dentist, who both were avid music lovers. Nick thought
of his high school band director—with whom he’d kept in touch—and
knew he was a generous fellow who contributed to community charities.
These potential patrons were not rich, but all three were certainly well off.
Nick and Nora had a reasonable expectation that these people could afford
to and might want to contribute at least a part of the needed funds.
Nick and Nora each called their potential patrons to set up lunch dates,
explaining that they wanted to catch up and to discuss an opportunity they
had been offered. They practiced these conversations beforehand. Initially,
they both felt awkward and nervous about asking someone directly for
money, but once they practiced describing the orchestra tour opportunity
and visualizing talking with these family friends, they both felt more confi-
dent. As for how they made out, the conversations were much easier than
they had imagined. Their donors were enthusiastic. Nick and Nora got the
funds they needed and had a terrific tour!
Your best prospects are people already in your network, those closest to
you and your family, who already know you well and who can easily be brought
up to date on your project and plans. It’s easier to ask two people (with good
potential) for $1,000 each than to raise your total in $20 increments.
Do It Right!
There’s an old saying in fundraising: you have to have the right person ask
the right prospect for the right amount for the right reason at the right time.
In other words, if you haven’t written to or spoken with your Aunt Ida in
ten years, and she gets a phone call or letter from you out of the blue asking
her to cough up $5,000, it probably won’t go over well. This doesn’t mean
you shouldn’t ask her at all, but you need to first reestablish a relationship
with her.
Success Factors: The Five “How’s”

The success of your fundraising campaign depends on these factors:
1. How much money you need to raise
2. How much time you have to raise it
3. How compelling your project is (how appealing it is to the people in
your network)
4. How you present your project
5. How (and how often) you interact with the people in your network
The Development Continuum X
To put this in perspective, people contribute in proportion to their sense of

involvement. The more invested they are in you and your project, the more
likely they will be to invest financially. The development continuum below
is a useful way to graph the level of involvement of your supporters. And the
continuum illustrates the process—the how, why, and when people become
patrons. This concept comes from workshops that fundraising gurus David
Bury and Steve Procter have presented for the Chamber Music America and
Arts Presenters conferences.
On the chart below are headings representing the possible relationship
stages between you and members of your network. Farthest to the left is “ig-
norance,” which is the category for people who are as yet unaware of you,
your music, or your project. Development work is essentially about moving
people, over time, from left to right along the continuum—from awareness
or lukewarm interest in you and your project to involvement, commitment,
and finally “ownership.” Don’t be put off by that last word. It doesn’t mean
people in this category “own” your project or you. Rather, this is the cate-
gory for your strongest supporters and allies, your advisory board. These are
the people who will feel a sense of partnership, pride, and identification with
the success of your project.
Your Development Continuum

Using the chart below as a worksheet, write in the names of those in your
network’s inner circle, placing each name under the category appropriate for
the current state of your relationship. You probably have twenty to twenty-
five good contacts, people who have expressed some degree of interest in you
and your future. Include your extended family, former teachers, and anyone
else who cares about you and your career. Think about family, neighbors,
colleagues, and old friends.
Levels of Relationship
Ignorance → Awareness → Interest → Commitment → Ownership
Not sure where to place members of your network on the continuum chart?
At the awareness stage, people have attended one or more of your concerts, or
bought your CD. The need to collect e-mails at every performance should be
apparent, because without a mailing list to alert folks about upcoming perfor-
mances and other news, you cannot move them along the continuum.
At the interest stage, you’re getting to know these people and they’re in-
terested in your music and potentially in getting involved with your project.
They may be interested in helping out with future concerts. If you don’t ask,
you’ll never know. You can announce in the program, on your website, and
from the stage that you’re looking for people to assist with organizing the
next concert or perhaps with the next recording project.
The most important way to move people along the continuum is to get
them to your performances, talk to them afterward, and invite them to par-
ticipate in support activities appropriate to your level of relationship. It’s all
about getting people actively involved. Once you have your strategic net-
work contacts listed in the appropriate spot on the chart, the next step is to
plan what development activities will help you develop these relationships
and move people further toward the right.
W
Hot Tip #4: Want Money? Ask for Advice!
(And if you want advice, ask for money!)
With your list of closest supporters, choose a few to have individual meetings
with. Ask to take them out for coffee or lunch, and explain that you want to get
their advice about a project you have in mind. It’s best to do this in person, so you
can get their full attention and response to your project.
Be prepared—have your project mapped out in a concise written form, and

practice your verbal presentation in advance. It’s not a speech, but you do need to
feel comfortable describing it to your potential donor. Part of the development
process is educating your network about your career plans. Non-musicians are
often unaware of the costs and procedures of producing concerts, recordings, or
advancing a music career. They most likely don’t know why it’s important to go to
festivals or why you might need a better instrument. Your presentation should in-
clude a summary of your career path, your successes so far, and a description of
how this project fits into your overall career plan. Include a detailed budget of all
anticipated costs plus a listing of the resources you already have in place.
The goal of these meetings is to gather support and ideas, and in doing so, to
deepen the level of involvement of your supporters. Be prepared for advice and
suggestions, and be open to these. You don’t have to necessarily act on any of the
advice, but you should be receptive to considering new ideas and perspectives.
Fundraising projects are most successful when they are a group effort, when you
pool the talents and expertise of your network.
The best-case outcome is to have your advisor listen to your project description,
get interested, take out a checkbook, and say, “How much do you need?” That’s
wonderful, but it doesn’t always happen like this. Instead, your advisor may suggest
changes to your project or plan, or may refer you to others for additional advice. Or
your conversations may yield volunteers for hosting and organizing a benefit house
concert. But in order to have any results at all, you need to have the in-person
meetings.
V
Fundraising consultant Steve Procter writes, “Beyond inviting support-

ers to lunch, the other powerful development tool is your artistry in action.
Everything you do—concerts, school programs, coaching of ensembles—is
a development opportunity. The surest and most powerful way for people to
get on board is to see you doing your work. All that’s required is that you
make a personal invitation.”
Consider organizing a series of house concerts for your inner network
circle, and have them invite their friends. What about master classes, lecture
demonstrations, or clinics in your hometown? You could also perform a
benefit concert for a local community charity. You would benefit by having
your concert announced and promoted to the entire mailing list of that or-
ganization. The concert could be good exposure, generate potential media
coverage, and yield useful networking contacts.
Consider creating an event that pairs great music and great food. This
could be a recital program of musical bonbons with an elegant catered des-
sert buffet-reception. Local caterers might participate, or you could do this
as a local competition for most elegant dessert. Or it could be a musical
“feast” with pieces performed between courses of a fabulous dinner. Use

your imagination.
Making the Ask X
In the course of your “advising meeting,” you should get a sense of the level
of interest of your potential patron. If she or he does not volunteer to con-
tribute, you need to “make the ask.” Have a specific amount in mind to ask
for that’s appropriate to your supporter’s income and to her or his level of
interest in your project. The amount should be specific because if you say,
“I’d be grateful for whatever you can give,” people may give $20 or $50 in-
stead of $200 or $500.
Do some research in advance of your meeting. Ask your family and
friends—people who know your prospective donor well—what they think
an appropriate amount might be. If your potential donor is well off and reg-
ularly contributes to community arts organizations, this should inform
your thinking. You can look at donor lists of other arts organizations. They
often have tiered giving levels with specified amounts, so you may be able to
determine whether your prospect gives elsewhere and at what level.
Practice first. Practice your presentation with a mentor, teacher, or fam-
ily member. A run-through will help you feel more comfortable in talking
about yourself, presenting your project, and in “making the ask.”
Let’s say that you plan on asking ten people from your network for do-
nations. Where should you start? Start with whomever you feel most com-
fortable. And keep in mind that the more you do this, the easier it gets.
In your presentation, after you outline your project for your potential
donor, answer questions, and talk about the budget and how the project will
benefit your career in the long run, you need to actually ask for their finan-
cial support. You can say something like, “I’m hoping you can assist me with
this project. As my budget shows, the total cost is $3,000 and I’ve already
raised $800. I would really appreciate a contribution of $ [appropriate
amount].” Then PAUSE . . . and this is crucial . . . don’t fi ll in the silence! Out
of discomfort, you may be tempted to fill in the silence with “But actually,
whatever you can manage is fine” and end up undermining your own ef-
forts. Give your supporter a chance to think and respond. They may take out
a checkbook or tell you it’s too much but that they can give X amount. Or
that they need to think it over and get back to you. Whatever the answer,
thank them for their time, advice, and interest.
Keep in mind that no one “owes” you anything. It’s their money to do
with as they choose. Essentially, you are presenting a kind of investment op-
portunity to which your supporters may say yes or no. If the answer is no, it
Making the Ask 311
doesn’t mean that the potential donor won’t say yes to future projects. So if
you’re turned down, let go of feeling resentful. In the end, your deepening
relationship with supporters is what matters. It’s all about relationships.
Fundraising and development, when it’s done right, is not about a quick fi x
for funding one project. It’s about your long-term career, about having a
community of friends and supporters with you for the long haul.
Why Are These Meetings Done in Person?

You may imagine that this would be easier—or less awkward for you—if
done by phone, e-mail, or letter. But fundraising is by far most effective
when done in person, because you get more time and the full attention of
your supporter. In-person meetings allow you to “read” the response of a
potential contributor—facial expression, body language, and tone of voice.
What’s more, people find it much harder to turn someone down in a face-to-
face meeting, especially when they know you and you’ve just presented a
compelling invitation for their support.
The Art of the Thank-You

When is the last time you received a handwritten thank-you note? These
days, it’s so rare that getting one is a special occasion and you think very
positively of the person who sent it. That’s exactly why you should send them.
E-mail, phone, and even in-person thank-yous just don’t pack the same
punch. Send thank-you notes to everyone who helps with your project. This
includes the people with whom you had networking and advising meetings,
those who helped you organize or cater the post-concert reception, and any
others who contributed time, expertise, or money to your project.
Write more than simply the words thank you—explain how much you
appreciate the help and the helper. Make it personal. This is part of cultivat-
ing relationships with people in your network. Any thank-you letter is an
opportunity to deepen a relationship, so include reminders about upcoming
performances or projects and any planned future get-togethers.
If your ensemble or organization has nonprofit status, donor contribu-
tions are tax deductible. Because the letter may be used for tax fi ling pur-
poses, a more formal, typed thank-you letter is recommended (although
adding a handwritten note is always a good idea). Below is an excerpt from
a sample donation thank-you letter, which appeared in an article by Laurie
Shulman, “The Power of Thank You,” in Chamber Music America’s CMA
Matters, 2006. It’s a letter from the general manager of the fictitious ABC
chamber ensemble, a group that manages its own performance series.
Dear Mr. and Mrs. Johnson:

We were so pleased to have received your donation of $50.00. It comes at
such a great time for us! As you may know, we’re just about to embark
on our [significant Anniversary/Composer] celebration, and your
contribution brings us that much closer to achieving our goal . . .”
[The letter continues with an opportunity and invitation for the
Johnsons to get even more connected, to move them along the devel-
opment continuum.]
We are planning a pre-concert event to give friends of the ensemble
an inside peek at preparations and planning. We want you to hear
guest artist John Doe in conversation and musical demonstration with
our artistic director, Jennifer Miller. Please mark your calendar [or:
save the date] for Tuesday evening, 17 October. We’ll be in touch as
soon as we have details. As you know, the performance itself is
scheduled for 19 October.
Thanks again for your help in making our forthcoming celebration
possible. Your support is crucial to our success, and we are lucky to
have you among our supporters.
Yours cordially,
Susan Brown
General Manager, ABC Ensemble
Send your thank-yous out right away—the day after the meeting, the concert, or
when you receive a check. Your donors will appreciate your thoughtfulness.
You can also acknowledge and thank supporters in your printed con-
cert programs and CD liner notes. But ask them how they would prefer to be
listed, as “Dr. and Ms. John L. Smith,” as “Jane and John Smith,” or if they
prefer to remain anonymous. If a local business provides you with in-kind
donations, ask whether they would like their logo in your concert program
or on your posters. If you keep your supporters happy and interested, they
will want to continue to invest in you.
Thinking beyond Your Current Project

The development continuum is an ongoing process. Development work
takes time because relationships are built over time, through shared experi-
ences and one-on-one meetings. As you add new people to your mailing list,
you will want to find ways to move them along the continuum. Think about
what might help potential donors get to know you better and how you might
draw more interested people to your concerts. Use occasional informal
newsletters and e-mail updates to keep your network informed and con-
Making the Ask 313
nected to you and your work. Engage them with stories about your latest
project or upcoming concert. Keep the long view—consider your current
project in the context of your long-range career plans so that your actions set
the stage for both immediate and future possibilities.
Benefit Concerts 101

An undergraduate, soprano Charlotte T. received an acceptance and scholar-
ship offer to a summer program in Italy. She was thrilled but didn’t have the
funds needed—$2,000 to cover the travel, room, and board. Charlotte received
the acceptance notice in May, and the festival began in July. Time was short.
Charlotte decided to give a benefit recital back home, in the small town
in Maine where she’d grown up and where her family had strong ties in the
community. Charlotte thought she could offer the concert in early June at
the town’s high school auditorium, a small venue with good acoustics. Need-
ing help, she talked by phone with some key people back home fi rst, to get
ideas and support. The help of her former teacher, friends, and family was
essential because Charlotte was planning this at a distance.
Charlotte made a list of people to invite, people who knew her and her
family well, and who were interested in her development as a singer. She
sent personalized, handwritten letters to everyone on the list a month be-
fore the performance, updating them on her accomplishments so far and
outlining the festival opportunity in Italy. In the letters, Charlotte ex-
plained the importance of this experience, how the training and perfor-
mances would contribute to her education and future career. Charlotte
included the specifics, explained the budget total, how much she needed to
raise, how much she’d gotten as scholarship, and how much she was cover-
ing from her savings. She wrote that she looked forward to seeing her
friends and family at the recital and how much she appreciated their en-
couragement over the years.
To promote the concert, Charlotte’s mom wrote and delivered press
releases to the small local newspapers and submitted listings to local
church bulletins. The whole family helped spread the word about the
event: they made posters, sent e-mails, and, most important, they invited
people personally.
Charlotte had a great turnout—about 100 people came, and this worked
well for the venue. Charlotte’s former teacher graciously welcomed everyone
at the start of the program and spoke briefly about Charlotte’s opportunity
to attend the festival, reminding people of the call for donations. Charlotte
sang a terrific program and verbally introduced each piece, engaging the au-
dience throughout the concert. Afterward, there was a reception that her
family and friends had organized.
Many people contributed at the reception, placing donations in enve-

lopes in a basket. Many others sent checks in the week following the perfor-
mance. All totaled, Charlotte raised close to $3,000 and exceeded her goal!
After the recital, Charlotte sent thank-you notes to everyone who con-
tributed and assisted. Then while she was at the festival, she sent e-mail up-
dates with photos and descriptions of the performances and her training.
After the festival, she sent another e-mail newsletter, again thanking every-
one and detailing all that she got out of the experience. Her net gain from
the benefit concert was far more than the dollars: Charlotte now had a circle
of supporters invested in her future.
Fundraising Letters X
We all get direct-mail appeals asking us to contribute to a wide range of

causes, from local homeless shelters to the Red Cross, to cancer and AIDS
research organizations. If you imagine that it would be much more effective
to write a fundraising letter and send it out—think again. Direct-mail cam-
paigns have a very small return rate (1–4 percent), whereas personal, face-
to-face meetings have a much better rate of return. In person, you get an
even shot at succeeding, a 50 percent chance of scoring a “yes.”
That said, cultivation letters may be very useful tools to reconnect you
with your existing supporters and friends. Letters can be sent to prepare
people for in-person visits and to invite them to benefit concerts (as Char-
lotte did, above). When the potential donor is too far away, a very personal-
ized letter can be tailored to the situation. Below is an example of such a
fundraising letter. But note that this letter was appropriate because there
was both a strong family connection and a recent one-on-one meeting. And
the $500 “ask” was based on what Rachel’s family thought would be appro-
priate for these supporters in this situation.
Crowdfunding
As discussed in earlier chapters, musicians are harnessing the power of their
fan bases to help fund recordings and organize concerts. On the website http://
www.kickstarter.com, you can read about projects that were successfully
funded by various individuals and ensembles. The way Kickstarter works is that
you create a profile with information about the project you’re seeking to fund,
including an engaging video invitation to participate. You send e-mails de-
scribing your project with a link to direct people to your Kickstarter page. Each
project has a goal amount and a deadline. Donors pledge the amount they
choose, but no donor’s credit card is actually charged until the goal is reached.
April 10, 2011
Dear Jane and John,
Thanks so much for coming to my concert last week—it was so nice to see you again! I’m
glad we had a chance to visit during the reception and to catch up a little. I was happy to
hear Emily’s doing so well in Chicago.
I appreciate the interest you’ve shown in my music, and I wanted to fi ll you in on my current
plans. As you know, at the Conservatory I have a wonderful teacher, Donald Weilerstein. He
has been very encouraging and is suggesting I apply to several prestigious festivals and
competitions next year, including the Young Concert Artists competition in New York City
this fall. He also tells me that I need a better violin. I’ve grown past the stage of having a
“student” instrument and I need a professional-quality violin that will allow me to compete
successfully in competitions and orchestral auditions. Unfortunately, these instruments
are expensive.
The good news is I have found an excellent Italian violin made in the mid-19th century. It
costs $11,000, and I have raised $4,000 so far (savings from part-time jobs and contribu-
tions from my family). I am contacting close family friends, such as you, to participate in
my “new instrument campaign.”
In June I will be back home and I’m planning a “new instrument” benefit concert for Sun-
day, June 20, at 3 pm at the Unitarian Church. I’d love to have you come, and I’d love to list
your names in the concert program with the others who’ve contributed to the fund. Would
you consider a contribution of $500 toward the purchase of a professional-quality violin?
I very much appreciate your encouragement and support! And I look forward to seeing you
both, along with Emily and Kate, this summer. I will be in touch in the next few weeks.
Best Wishes,
315
Commissioning New Work X
Commissioning new work is one of the best kinds of projects that musicians
can take on. Commissioning projects can attract media attention and can
help connect performers and composers with new audiences. In collaborat-
ing with composers, performers are often rewarded with an expanded musi-
cal perspective. It can be liberating to premiere a new work, to be the first
interpreter, because there’s no history or tradition against which to measure
one’s performance. For the composer, the benefits of working closely with
performers include the chance to experiment and refine their ideas.
Which composers should you approach with a commissioning project?
Many emerging performers, when they imagine commissioning new work, think
only about commissioning “name” composers, imagining that the composer’s
name might cast luster on their own. And the project idea rarely goes anywhere,
because the emerging artist can’t afford to commission a celebrity composer.
Think differently—start locally. Go to the websites of the new music
ensembles and series in your area. Sign up for their mailing lists, and start
going to their concerts. It’s a terrific way to become connected to the new
music scene in your community. Attend the post-concert receptions, and
network with the composers and the performers who champion their work.
This may lead to future collaborations as well as information and ideas for
funding the commissions.
In “shopping” for a composer, you want to find one whose music moves
you—you need to either be in love with it or perhaps infuriated and fasci-
nated by it. You need to be energized and enthusiastic about this composer’s
work because you’ll need to engage others in wanting to fund the project.
Beyond your immediate community, you can use the searchable data-
bases on the American Music Center (AMC) site (http://www.amc.net) and
on the American Composers Forum site (http://www.composersforum
.org). Online you can browse composers’ scores, listen to sound samples,
and read bios. The databases allow you to search by ensemble type or instru-
ment, composer name, title, and duration of work.
Another option, through AMC and ACF, is issuing a call for scores—a
notice that you, or your ensemble, are looking for scores (naming whatever
instrumentation you have and an approximate length of piece). Composers
will send you their works, but be prepared for the deluge! This can be a good
way of finding out about composers you wouldn’t otherwise meet, and from
this pool of works you may find a great collaborator.
Funding for Commissions

Assuming that you’ve now found a composer whose work you love and
whom you’d like to commission, there are a number of possible routes to
Commissioning New Work 317
funding. Chamber Music America, Meet the Composer, and the Associa-
tion of Performing Arts Presenters offer commissioning grants, as do many
state arts agencies. In addition, many presenting series, festivals, orchestras,
choruses, opera companies, schools, and competitions commission new
works. Individuals also commission music, sometimes to honor a loved one
or commemorate an anniversary. You may have friends and family who
would want to contribute to your commissioning project—they may just
need to be brought on board and have a chance to get to know your chosen
composer’s music and to share in your excitement about the potential new
work. Meet the Composer has a terrific online brochure, “An Individual’s
Guide to Commissioning Music,” to give you great ideas (see http://www
.meetthecomposer.org).
Consortium funding is a form of crowdfunding, with multiple contrib-
utors participating. Bang on a Can’s People’s Commissioning Fund allows
folks to contribute $50 to $1,000 to become members, and this entitles them
to a range of benefits, from tickets to the annual People’s Commissioning
Concert to bound scores of their commissioned pieces.
The publicist Amanda Ameer suggests reaching out to your community
and offering people the opportunity to invest in portions of a new work.
One hundred dollars might buy you thirty seconds of a new piece, or per-
haps a certain number of measures. The participating contributors could be
credited in concert programs and on the published scores. Just think, an in-
dividual can make possible a particular favorite phrase!
Violinist Jennifer Koh was able to commission composer Jennifer Hig-
don to write a concerto with the funding support of a small group of univer-
sity presenting series. Jennifer approached presenters who knew her work
and found they were enthusiastic about participating. The result was not
only a terrific piece, but each of the partnering presenters had the opportu-
nity to host his or her local premiere of the work. This model not only helps
defray the burden of the cost of the commission by sharing it among part-
ners, but it also ensures that the new work has multiple performances and
the possibility of multiple reviews and audiences. Think about the present-
ers you know well and ask for their advice!
An alternative approach is the brainchild of saxophonist Ken Radnof-
sky, who founded the World-Wide Concurrent Premieres and Commission-
ing Fund, a nonprofit organization that selects individual composers to
write a new work and then helps coordinate same-day world premieres of
the new work by multiple performers in different locations worldwide. The
costs are shared and logistical tasks are delegated among the participating
performers, and this has made it possible to commission works by Chris
Theofanidis, Michael Colgrass, Gunther Schuller, John Harbison, and many
others. The idea is that the new work doesn’t get just one premiere, but many.
And the piece has a much better chance of becoming part of the repertoire
if it’s being performed at forty or seventy premieres. For the performers,
they don’t have to raise the entire commissioning fee, just a fraction of it.
And the story of the consortium effort often helps attract media attention to
each individual premiere. With this model, everyone wins. (See http://www
.kenradnofsky.com.)
As for the logistics for commissioning: the cost depends on the length of
the piece, its size (whether its for solo harmonica, bassoon quartet, or full
orchestra and chorus), and the reputation and career level of the composer.
For mid-career composers, the going rate is often $1,000 per minute for
smaller chamber works, and more for full orchestra and opera scores. Emerg-
ing composers may be willing to negotiate far lower fees, depending on the
opportunity for performances and recording.
Once you have a composer willing to write for you, confirm your agree-
ment in writing. A contract for a commission should include at least the ba-
sics, as detailed in “The ABC’s of Commissioning New Music,” by Amanda
MacBlane (in Chamber Music magazine, October 2003). These basics are
“identification of the parties involved, description of the prospective work
[length and instrumentation], delivery dates for work and parts, fee and
method of payment, commitment to perform the work within a specific
time period, and cost allowances for part extraction and/or recording pro-
duction.” Typically, composers are paid 50 percent at the signing of the con-
tract and the balance at the completion. It can be good to use a lawyer in
arranging the contract, but it’s possible to do without. A written agreement
is an absolute necessity; for more pointers on these, see “Commissioning
Music: A Basic Guide” on the Meet the Composer site (http://www.meetthe
composer.org).
Corporate Sponsorship X
In some ways, corporate sponsorship lies halfway between grants and fund-
raising. According to HighgateGlobal arts consultant Liam Abramson, au-
thor of the recommended e-book, Writing the Perfect Sponsorship Proposal,
corporations invest in projects for three main reasons: identity, ideas, and
involvement.
Identity: most corporate giving is dependent on “identity return.” The
corporation wants to invest in your concert or project in exchange for pub-
licity, standing within the industry, or its reputation among the company’s
clients and customers. Abramson writes, “The return the sponsor wants for
their financial assistance is some form of ‘signage’ in order to promote their
business to a particular sector of the market.” So, a corporation that chooses
Corporate Sponsorship 319
to sponsor a sports franchise or the building of a theater will typically have

its name on the building and in all the associated publicity. The corporation
chooses either the sports franchise or theater based on which audience de-
mographic it wants to reach. On a smaller scale, local businesses might buy
ad space in a concert program, or a print shop might agree to produce the
posters, tickets, and programs for a concert series, and in return the com-
pany will be acknowledged as a sponsor in all the series’ press releases, in the
program, and on the posters. But again, the business needs to perceive value
in reaching that particular audience.
The second reason that corporations sponsor arts projects is to be asso-
ciated with good ideas. The good idea might be an arts project that provides
access to musical instruments, lessons, and ensemble experience to schools
in an underserved community. Or the idea might be an ensemble’s precon-
cert lecture series that pairs business and arts leaders to discuss creativity.
By being associated with good ideas, the business enhances its reputation
with the public and its customers.
The third reason Abramson cites is personal involvement: individual
company leaders may be classical or jazz music lovers and may already be
attending your concerts. You can get to know these people at post-concert
receptions. Because these folks like feeling connected to the music making
and to musicians, some might feel honored to be asked to serve on an advi-
sory committee for your project. Involvement of key individuals—such as
the managing director of a corporation—can help open the door to that
company’s sponsorship.
The preparation for approaching a potential corporate sponsor is simi-
lar in some ways to preparing a grant proposal (although there may or may
not be guidelines and application formats). The smaller the business or cor-
poration, the less likely it will be to have a formal process. Instead, you can
write out a corporate proposal using the mapping exercise at the start of this
chapter. Key components to include are as follows:
• Information about you and your experience
• Description of the music project or event
• Benefits you are offering to the particular corporation
• The financial investment sought in exchange for these benefits
• Ideas for furthering the sponsorship relationship in the future
Abramson advises to make sure that you promise the sponsor only what
you can actually deliver. Benefits might include free tickets to employees,
access to a special reception or house concert for VIP donors, signage on all
the programs and posters, as well as mention in all press releases. But prom-
ised benefits should not include reaching a particular number of audience
members, newspaper readers, or radio listeners, because you cannot control

how many people will actually come to the concert or which news media
outlet will print or broadcast your press releases.
The process of cultivating a relationship with any corporate contact is
exactly the same as described in the development continuum earlier in this
chapter. So don’t pop the question too early in the relationship. If you have
not done the necessary development work, it’s the same as proposing on a
first date—it’s not recommended.
Lessons Learned
Lack of money or resources need not stop you from succeeding with your
projects. Whether you write grants, raise funds from individuals, or do
both, you’ll need to be organized, resourceful, and creative. And you’ll be
far more likely to succeed if you enlist others to help. Brainstorm for fund-
raising ideas with the people in your network inner circle. Host a brain-
storming party—make it fun!
W
Career Forward
By writing down your responses to the following prompts, you can prepare to
successfully raise funds for your project.
1. What project needing funding do you most want to work on? If you have
multiple projects, prioritize. Choose the one that makes the most sense to
tackle now, at this point in your career. If you’re stuck on which project to
commit to, make an appointment with a mentor or advisor and talk it over to
clarify your goals and priorities.
2. Map your project—write out your answers to the mapping questions at the
start of this chapter.
3. Research grant programs appropriate for your project. Use online resources or
those at a nearby public or university library. Get expert help from a profes-
sional librarian.
4. Make a list of your supporters, the inner circle of your network. Where would
you place these people on the development continuum chart shown earlier in
this chapter?
5. Of the people on your list, choose the person you’d feel most comfortable
asking for advice about your project. Write out a sample “script,” an outline
detailing how you would describe your project to this person in a face-to-face
meeting. Then call and schedule your meeting, and go for it!
V
13
Getting It Together:
Your Career, Your Life
W
In this chapter:
Portfolio Careers
Transferable Skills: What Musicians Have to Offer
The Day Job Dilemma: Five Key Considerations
Teaching Opportunities
Arts Administration Opportunities and Music Industry Jobs
Long-Distance Job Search
V
The previous chapters have focused exclusively on the specifics of moving

ahead with your musical goals and projects. But these goals and projects do
not exist in a vacuum. It’s essential to consider these goals in the context of
your total life experience. This includes your social and family life, health,
finances, as well as your living situation. The focus of this chapter is on that
bigger picture, putting together the total package.
Developing a career in music takes time. As you develop your career, you
still need to put food on the table, pay rent, and take care of yourself, body and
soul. How do musicians pull it all together? The majority of professional mu-
sicians do not make their livings solely from performing. Unless you win a
full-time position with a top orchestra or chorus of a top-tier opera company,
your performance work—especially as an emerging artist—will most likely
be part-time. The good news is that musicians are multi-talented and that
there are many ways to use your talents to do good in the world.
Portfolio Careers X
Almost all musicians have what can be described as “portfolio” careers,

meaning that their professional work is made up of multiple strands of jobs
321
322 Getting It Together: Your Career, Your Life
and projects. There’s an amazing variety in the ways musicians combine

freelance work with teaching, entrepreneurial projects, and various day
jobs. This diverse work package can tap into a musician’s full range of tal-
ents and skills to make for a satisfying life.
How do musicians create niches for themselves in the professional
world? How do they end up with satisfying careers? The answer is typically
through experimenting. Musicians try out various music-related and non-
music projects and part-time jobs. Through trial and error, luck and calcu-
lated risks, they explore and test themselves in the professional world. The
more exploring they do, the more options they uncover.
W
Career Profile
Vic Firth, the legendary Boston Symphony Orchestra timpanist, retired in 2003
after fifty years with the orchestra. Conductor Seiji Ozawa said Vic was one of the
two musicians in the BSO from whom he’d learned the most. Five decades with the
same employer sounds like a very traditional career, but this same Vic Firth has had a
“side” occupation. His drumstick manufacturing business (http://www.vicfirth.com)
has evolved into the leading percussion equipment company in the world.
Vic started making drumsticks because he was dissatisfi ed with the available
equipment. He began by modifying drumsticks, then experimented in making his
own, fine-tuning the process to make superior sticks, perfectly balanced and preci-
sion matched in pairs. His products are now used and endorsed by classical, jazz,
and rock musicians, and his company employs more than 140 people. With its
manufacturing facilities in Newport, Maine, the company produces 85,000–90,000
drumsticks per day. As reported on the CBS Sunday Morning program, Mar. 29,
2009, “Vic Firth offers four hundred different models of drumsticks, all made from
Appalachian hickory from Tennessee, dried in Firth’s own kilns, shaped and molded
and measured to his own strict specifications, then computer-matched by weight
and pitch, and shipped all over the world.”
As for the secret of his success, “The key word for me is persistence,” he said.
“Whatever you set out to do, you have to have a magnum passion for it, and you’ve
got to work beyond what you ever dreamed you’re gonna work to succeed at the
level that you want to succeed at.” What else? Vic adds, “Persistence, persistence,
persistence!”1
V
Project-Based Career Advancement

As detailed in earlier chapters, music career exploration typically takes the
form of projects, from various recording projects to forming or joining dif-
Portfolio Careers 323
ferent ensembles, launching concert series or festivals, commissioning works,

or starting a private teaching studio. Musicians’ careers are often a series of
such projects, one leading to the next, through collaborations and freelance
work. These projects may last days or years, overlap or conflict, but they are
sustained by the interest and enthusiasm of the musician. From month to
month it can seem—to both the musician and others—that there’s no big
plan or career direction with these projects. It’s usually only in hindsight that
a musician can look at a series of projects and trace a path and a progression.
The connecting threads of interests and skills that run from one project to
the next are a kind of through line, a sustaining passion. The accumulation
of talent, skills, experience, and contacts help musicians advance in their
projects and create satisfying portfolio careers.
W
Building a Portfolio Career
Stephen Beaudoin is a multi-talented and entrepreneurial young tenor. While
completing his bachelor’s degree, he served as an administrative intern for the Gay
Men’s Chorus of Boston, working on grant writing and fund-raising projects—a real
education for an undergraduate! Stephen then used the skills he developed as an in-
tern to find funding for his own project. He collaborated with a colleague, composer
Martin Near, to write an opera dealing with the AIDS epidemic. Stephen applied for
a grant from the American Composers Forum and was able to produce the opera at
both Roxbury Community College and at the Boston Center for the Arts.
After graduating, Stephen juggled several part-time jobs. He performed with
a professional choir, wrote classical music articles and reviews for two small Boston-
area newspapers, and worked both at Starbucks (good benefits, flexible schedule)
and at the American Composers Forum. He then went on to a full-time day job
doing development work at a local cultural alliance. This allowed him to hone his
skills in grant writing, event planning, donor development, and project presenta-
tion. The skills he has developed in his day jobs have helped him with the perform-
ing side of his career.
Stephen also performed regularly in the area with a classical guitarist, handling
the duo’s booking and promotion. The duo started a concert series at a local historic
mansion. How’d they do this? They made an appointment to visit the director of the
mansion. They presented their concept for starting a series, offering their proposed
programs and their promo kit. The director loved the idea, gave them an extremely
reasonable rental fee for use of the hall, and promised to help with the publicity.
Stephen found ways to knit together his varied interests and skills to make a
busy and satisfying career path. Staying flexible and being open to possibilities
brought him new opportunities.
V
Making It Work
If you’re building your repertoire, launching a new ensemble, and/or pre-
paring for auditions and competitions, then most likely you will need to
consider ways to earn money while you pursue these projects. Many musi-
cians struggle with trying to balance the need to make a living with the need
to pursue their passion. There is no easy way around it. The process of devel-
oping your professional career and earning income as a musician takes time.
So most musicians, at some point in their careers, work “day jobs.” As you
network, ask musicians what kinds of work they have done outside of per-
forming and composing—you’ll be amazed. Ask them what work they liked
or didn’t and why. Ask what jobs fit well with their musical pursuits, and ask
what they might recommend you explore.
Transferable Skills: What Musicians Have to Offer X
Music training builds a wide range of skills and abilities that have practical
applications in many professional disciplines. In other words, musicians
have transferable skills. Below is a list of the assets that trained musicians
typically possess. This is what comes with music training, what a music edu-
cation provides:
Skills
Communication Listening
Analytical Creative problem solving
Arranging/synthesizing Teamwork/collaboration
Leadership Interpersonal
Organizational Presentation
Critical thinking
Abilities
Analyze/interpret ideas and emotions Work well under pressure
Assess/synthesize large amounts of data Attend to details
Concentrate/work intensely for long periods Develop ideas
Conceptualize/work with abstract concepts Relate to people of
varying backgrounds
W
Hornist Debbie Engel has played with the Delaware Symphony for more than
twenty-three years. Her career “package” has also included working as both the
orchestra’s and opera company’s librarian and director of education, overseeing an

extensive community outreach program. She’s had all this plus three (now teenage)
children! How did she manage? Ms. Engel pointed out four key factors: her sup-
portive family, extreme organization, her faith, and her positive attitude.
V
The Day Job Dilemma: Five Key Considerations X
In looking for the right fit for your work/life balance, there are some impor-
tant questions to consider:
1. Do you want to work at a day job within the arts or beyond? Some musi-
cians want to have all of their working hours connected to the arts, to be
around others who think and talk as they do. These musicians look for day
jobs with various arts organizations, within the recording industry, or with
music retailers, publishers, or music schools. For networking and feeling
connected, this route can be a plus.
Other musicians prefer non-arts-related day jobs that give them some
distance from music. They want to explore other skills and interests, or they
find that with a non-music day job, they can conserve their creative energies
to be used on their own time. There’s no right answer here. Do what’s right
for you.
2. What skills, experience, and interests do you have? What skills would
you like to develop? If you’re going to spend a significant amount of time
working a day job, it probably ought to be doing something you find inter-
esting, satisfying, or meaningful. What are you curious about? What are
your hobbies? For clues, think about courses you have found interesting, or-
ganizations you belong to, the kinds of books you read, and the type of news
stories you follow. Musicians find meaningful and satisfying day jobs in all
types of settings, including religious institutions, political campaigns, and
grassroots community organizations. Some musicians choose day jobs in
which they can gain specific skills useful to their music careers, such as posi-
tions in fund-raising, marketing, or public relations. What sort of work have
you already done and found interesting? Summer and part-time school jobs
can often lead to other opportunities.
Of course, some musicians prefer to fi nd work that’s stable and pays
enough, but that also provides enough downtime on the job to allow for
studying scores, or memorizing or writing new work. This might be a secu-
rity position or receptionist work. Again, there’s no right answer here, but
it’s important to weigh what you get out of any job (money, benefits, and
more) against whether the job leaves you with time and emotional energy to
work on your music.
3. What kind of schedule, hours, and flexibility do you want? Do you need
certain nights free for rehearsals and performances? Do you need early
mornings for practicing? Many musicians seek work with maximum flexi-
bility, and this leads some to start their own services and side businesses.
These can range from dog walking to recording, editing, massage therapy,
catering, day care, website design, or tutoring. Other musicians find jobs
that dovetail their music schedules. And depending on the work involved, a
company or organization may be able to offer flextime as a benefit. But
whatever the situation, in order to balance a day job with a music career, ex-
cellent time management skills are required (see chapter 10).
4. What about health insurance? The main reason most American free-
lance musicians take day jobs is for the health insurance. Some part-time
jobs offer prorated benefits, which can turn a not-so-hot salary into a very
good deal. If your spouse or partner can cover you on her or his health plan,
that’s great. If not, you need to get your own coverage. Without it, even a
minor hospital visit or unexpected health issue can mean a debt of tens of
thousands of dollars. Everyone needs ongoing preventive health care, but
especially musicians, whose bodies need to be working well in order to per-
form at their best.
Freelance musicians often try to make do without health insurance, re-
lying on “free care” programs at local hospitals and clinics. But many musi-
cians are unaware that by law hospitals have to provide the uninsured only
the most basic emergency care, not ongoing rehabilitation. This means that
without insurance, the hospital will stabilize you, treat you until you are out
of immediate danger, but that’s it, even if you have a serious, life-threatening
illness.
For freelance musicians, there are various associations that offer mem-
bers preferred group rate health insurance. Some of the music service orga-
nizations that offer health insurance rates are Chamber Music America
(http://www.chamber-music.org), ASCAP (http://www.ascap.com), Early
Music America (http://www.earlymusic.org), and the Music Teachers Na-
tional Association (http://www.mtna.org). For additional ideas, check the
Artists’ Health Insurance Resource Center (http://www.actorsfund.org/
ahirc), the Freelancer’s Union (http://www.freelancersunion.org), and
eHealthInsurance (http://www.ehealthinsurance.com).
5. What about the money? How much income do you actually need each
month? To make good choices about work, you need to know how much you
actually spend each month (not how much you think you spend). If you
haven’t written out your detailed monthly expenses, it’s not too late (see
chapter 10). Track your spending for at least three months to calculate a reli-
able monthly average.
Thinking through the questions above should help you explore and
consider your work options. Consider your priorities to find a day job that
works for you. The rest of this chapter details the two most popular catego-
ries of musicians’ day jobs—teaching and arts administration / music in-
dustry work.
W
Tips on Shopping for Health Insurance
Jack Garrity is an insurance broker who specializes in working with musicians
and other independent contractors. The musicians’ union in Boston regularly refers
their members to Jack, and here’s what he recommends for people who’re looking
for insurance on their own:
Shopping (and that’s the key word—shopping) for health insurance isn’t
brain surgery but does require some patience and organization. Listed below
you’ll find what I (try to) do with everyone who contacts me.
Do your homework. Get prices from three companies (if possible). You might
start with major national insurers—Aetna, Cigna, and United. Or get quotes through
any of the musicians’ service organizations or associations. Compare the following
nine items:
1. Primary Care Physician (PCP) Visits—how much per visit? What about for a
specialist? Referrals needed?
2. Emergency Room (ER)—how much per admission?
3. Prescriptions (Rx)—co-pay for generics/name brands/rare name brands?
4. Outpatient Surgery (OPS)—covered 100%? Or must a deductible be paid first?
5. Hospitalization—see OPS.
6. Maximum Payout—is there a limit or cap per accident or policy? Massachu-
setts HMOs, for example, are unlimited.
7. Coverage Area—worldwide for emergencies and crisis care? What happens if
you are injured outside of your resident state?
8. Network—are the doctors and hospitals offered in the network acceptable to
you?
9. Monthly premium—and of course, and how long is the rate fixed for?
See if you can reduce the monthly premium by dropping the Rx, if not needed,
and taking a deductible and co-pay on the OPS/hospitalization coverages.
Please note that health insurance is regulated on a state-by-state basis, and

so the procedures, coverage, prices, and applications can vary widely. In
Massachusetts, being a small business gets you “business/commercial/
group” rates that are much better than non-business rates. Ask if this is true
in your state, too.
Jack Garrity, Diamond Benefits
1–888–635–4402 (Mass. only)
1–781–477–9048 (outside Mass.)
V
Teaching Opportunities X
For many musicians, teaching is a satisfying and rewarding complement to

their performing or composition work. Musicians often report that teaching
helps make them better performers. At its best, teaching is challenging and
creative.
Annie Fullard, violinist of the Cavani Quartet, relates how her group
balances performing and teaching. She describes Cavani as “equally com-
mitted to performing and teaching chamber music, as we feel one directly
enhances and influences the other.” In an article in American String Teacher
(November 1998), Fullard says, “Teaching is one of the world’s oldest art
forms. The more you teach the more you learn—it’s a very simple thing.”
There is a range of possible teaching opportunities available. These are
private studios, public and private schools, community music schools, col-
leges, conservatories, plus teaching artist work in a variety of settings. Some
musicians find they work particularly well with certain age groups or in
teaching master classes, group lessons, or in the classroom. Part of explor-
ing to find your niche may involve sampling a variety of teaching experi-
ences. Below are suggestions for either starting or expanding your teaching
options.
Private Studio Teaching: Attracting

Students through Referrals
The most efficient way to recruit students is through referrals. These can
come from local schools’ band, orchestra, or choral directors, and from
other teachers—and especially from your satisfied students and their par-
ents. If you don’t already have such contacts and you’re interested in teach-
ing children, research the schools in your area. Find the ones with strong
music programs. Ask your colleagues, and call the schools: get the names
and telephone numbers of the music directors. Then call the directors and
introduce yourself with something like this:
Hello, my name is Janet Smith. I’m a local flutist and I perform

regularly with the ABC Chamber Orchestra and have a master’s degree
from XYZ School of Music. I’m looking to add more private students
to my teaching studio. I’ve heard very good things about your program
from parents in the neighborhood. I was hoping to set up a time to
come in and meet you. It would be great to hear your students in
rehearsal. I’d be happy to offer a sectional or coach an ensemble and
for you to get to know my teaching a bit, too!
School music directors are far more likely to refer students to you if they
have actually met you, observed your teaching, and like what they see. Beyond
referrals, there are other smart ways to attract students. Mimi Butler is the au-
thor of a series of recommended books, including The Complete Guide to Run-
ning a Private Music Studio and The Complete Guide to Making More Money in
the Private Music Studio (see http://www.privatemusicstudio.com). She ad-
vises carrying and using business cards, and sending letters each May to local
school music teachers about your summer studio. It’s also wise to get involved
in local music camps and youth music ensembles, to join professional music
organizations, and to advertise strategically. See the companion website http://
www.oup.com/us/beyondtalent for more resources.
Home Studio or Not?

If you plan to teach out of your home or apartment, consider whether your
teaching space is appropriately comfortable and professional. Is your place
in a safe neighborhood, and is parking or public transportation an issue? If
you do use a portion of your home strictly for rehearsing and teaching, note
that you can claim a portion of your rent and related costs as a deductible
business expense. Consult a musicians’ tax specialist to make sure you take
all the appropriate deductions (see chapter 10).
An alternative to teaching out of your home or apartment is to travel to
your students’ homes. But travel time and scheduling complications usually
make this a last-resort option. Instead, there may be a local religious, com-
munity, or civic organization open to your using the facilities for a teaching
studio. Many public schools organize after-school lesson programs and hire
local instructors. Check out your neighborhood, and ask everyone in your
network.
A mezzo-soprano with a regular church job, Beatrice H. needed a place
to teach but could not afford to rent a studio. She was friendly with the church
choir director and asked whether it would be possible to use the church base-
ment rehearsal room two afternoons a week to teach voice. It worked out
well. Beatrice bartered for the use of the space, agreeing to handle some the
choir’s performance library and scheduling duties. Because of the good rela-
tionship she built, Beatrice is now also co-presenting a recital series at the
church and starting a children’s choir as well.
Have a Studio Policy

As a trained musician with performance and teaching experience, you are a
professional. If you want to be treated as such, you need to represent your
teaching as a business. To avoid frequent cancellations of lessons and late
payment, you need a written studio policy.
Having a studio policy that clearly details a payment schedule and can-
cellation guidelines will save you many headaches. Private teachers often
use monthly or six-week “semester” systems, with students paying in ad-
vance for each new block of lessons. A typical cancellation policy requires
two weeks’ notice in order to have a lesson rescheduled. The teacher may
schedule an extra week of make-up lessons every three months or so, with
one makeup lesson offered to each student. When a parent and student come
to meet you initially to discuss private study, that’s the time to explain your
studio policy and hand the parent a copy.
How Much Should You Charge?

Find out the going rate for lessons in your area. Ask other musicians and call
local community music schools to find out their rates. You should charge an
amount that’s appropriate to the local rates and to your level of experience.
In the Boston area, excellent young musicians with little teaching experi-
ence may charge $40 per hour, whereas some members of the Boston Sym-
phony Orchestra charge more than $150 per lesson.
How to Develop and Expand Your Teaching Skills

Most performers learn to teach on the job, with little or no formal training in
pedagogy, music education, or developmental psychology. Typically, perform-
ers simply repeat the way they were taught. But not all of your students will be
like you were as a youngster. A narrow repertoire of teaching methods limits
your ability to meet the needs of your students. You can do better! It’s impor-
tant to develop a variety of tools and strategies for teaching students with vari-
ous learning styles. Below are four ways to expand your skills.
1. Observe. Find the most experienced, creative, and successful teachers
in your area. Call to introduce yourself, and explain that you’re a new teacher
hoping to develop your skills by observing excellent teaching in action. Ask
if you can observe them teach for an afternoon. People are generally flat-
tered and willing to help. It’s good to observe experienced educators work-
ing with a range of ages and abilities, and to observe teaching in a variety of
situations—in lessons, coachings, and master classes.
Look to see what a teacher focuses on with each student and how this
instructor tailors her remarks to each student’s personality and stage of de-
velopment. Most likely, the educators you observe will spend some time
with you afterward, answering your questions and discussing their ap-
proaches. And ask for recommendations of teaching books and videos.
2. Find a mentor. If you hit it off with any of the teachers you observe, you
may be on your way to having a longer-term connection—to having a mentor.
If you’re learning a lot, ask to continue. Later on, you might ask this person to
observe you teaching a few of your own students, to get feedback and coach-
ing. Mentors may refer students to you when their own schedules are full, or
they may ask you to do some substitute teaching. Eventually, a mentor may
take you on as her or his teaching assistant. This can lead to added experience
on your résumé as well as letters of recommendation, helpful when you apply
for teaching jobs.
3. Attend master classes. Take every opportunity to attend master classes
so that you can observe a diversity of teaching methods and approaches. Is
there a conference for your instrument or specialty area? Organizations
such as the National Flute Association (http://www.nfaonline.org), the In-
ternational Trombone Association (http://www.ita-web.org), and the an-
nual American String Teachers Association conference (http://www.
astaweb.com) offer master classes with world-class artist teachers. Observ-
ing great teaching is an opportunity to see how master teachers approach an
array of student abilities, issues, and repertoire. When observing someone
else’s master class, ask yourself, what would you focus on with this student?
What would you say? And what would you ask the student to do?
4. Take a class. Effective music teachers are constantly improving their
skills and experimenting with new approaches. Don’t get into a routine or a
rut. If you stay curious about teaching, you’ll continually seek out new ap-
proaches and methods, and your students will benefit.
Find out whether there are pedagogy courses for music educators in
your area. Some music schools offer specialized summer courses on meth-
odologies such as Kodaly, Orff, or Dalcroze Eurhythmics. Or take a course
in developmental psychology or a general education class to find out more
about how to deal with students at different ages.
W
Music Teacher Resources
American Choral Director’s Association, http://www.acda.org
American String Teachers Association, http://www.astaweb.com
College Music Society, http://www.music.org
Kennedy Center’s Arts Edge, http://www.artsedge.kennedy-center.org

Music Educators National Conference, http://www.menc.org
Music Teachers National Association, http://www.mtna.org
National Association of Teachers of Singing, http://www.nats.org
National Conference on Keyboard Pedagogy, http://www.francesclarkcenter
.org
National Guild for Community Arts Education, http://www.nationalguild
.org
Suzuki Association of the Americas, Inc., http://www.suzukiassociation.org
V
Types of Teaching Positions

Outside of setting up your own private studio, there are teaching opportuni-
ties at various types of institutions, from community music schools to pri-
vate and public schools, and colleges and universities.
Community Music Schools

These institutions offer after-school, weekend, and evening music instruc-
tion to children and adults. Community music schools hire teachers to give
private lessons, coach ensembles, and teach theory, ear training, composi-
tion, and other classes. Most instructors are hired part-time and paid hourly
rates with no benefits. The majority of such teachers are paid $25–$40 per
hour. Parents pay tuition by the semester, and the school takes a portion of
these tuition fees to cover overhead costs for the facility, advertising, and
program management. The advantage to teaching at these schools is that the
organization handles all the scheduling and billing, and provides the facili-
ties. You can find listings of these schools at the National Guild for Com-
munity Arts Education see http://www.nationalguild.org.
In major metropolitan areas where teacher supply is great, community
music schools often have their pick of qualified candidates, hiring only ex-
perienced teachers with proven track records. These schools often do not
advertise openings, so musicians apply directly, sending a cover letter of in-
troduction and résumé. Having good letters of recommendation from re-
spected teachers can be a big help in getting hired.
Public Schools
Public K–12 schools hire music teachers to direct band, orchestra, and cho-
rus, and to teach group lessons and general music classes. Teaching in the
public schools demands abilities beyond musicianship skills. Public school
teachers need to have effective teaching methods, an understanding of child
development stages and learning styles, and classroom management skills.

In addition, the work demands the ability to create and implement lesson
plans that meet the school’s and the state’s education requirements. These
are all skills that musicians can develop through coursework, including eve-
ning and summer workshops.
Public music school teachers can earn fairly good salaries, with excel-
lent benefits and summers off. Starting salaries in the more affluent states
are in the low $30,000s, and salary raises can be substantial with experience
and additional training. Maximum salaries in some states can go to over
$70,000. Because of the recent shortage of music teachers (especially in
strings), public schools hold substantial opportunities for musicians.
The experience of teaching in public schools can vary widely, depend-
ing on the size of the class, grade level, and the school’s funding, facilities,
and administration. To explore the possibility of teaching in the public
schools, it’s best to observe at least five music teachers working with a variety
of grade levels in different schools. Ask people in your network for contacts.
Observe classes and rehearsals and talk with the teachers to get a sense of
what these jobs are actually like.
To be hired by a public school, you must have teacher certification, a li-
cense to teach in a particular state. Because of the shortage of teachers, many
states have streamlined the certification process to make it easier for people
to enter the profession. To find out the current specifics for certification in
your locale, contact your state’s department of education. For job listings,
check the Music Educators National Conference, http://www.menc.org, and
the sites for your state department of education, any specific school districts
you may be targeting, as well as the best local online job listing service.
Private Secondary Schools

Unlike K–12 public schools, which are funded by tax dollars, at private
schools, parents pay tuition fees. Private schools include college preparatory
or prep schools, parochial, and other specialized schools. They are generally
for grades 9–12, though there are K–8 programs as well. Some prep schools
offer both day and boarding options. Boarding students live in dorms on
campus, whereas day students commute from home.
Private secondary schools hire musicians to teach lessons, coach and
conduct ensembles, and sometimes to teach music appreciation, theory, and
music history classes as well. Most private school music teachers work part-
time and are paid at an hourly lesson rate, generally $30–$60 per hour. Class-
room instructors are paid on a different scale, on a per-course and semester
basis. The full-time positions typically include non-music assignments as
well. At boarding schools, some faculty may live on campus as resident
counselors in exchange for free room and board in addition to their teach-
ing salary. There are teacher placement companies such as Carney, Sandoe
and Associates (http://www.carneysandoe.com) that help private school
job seekers and employers connect. See also The Education Group and the
National Association of Independent Schools. Note that private secondary
schools do not require teachers to have state certification, the way public
schools do.
College-Level Teaching
Teaching positions in higher education can also be extremely varied. Musi-
cians teach at community colleges, at liberal arts schools and universities
where music is an elective, as well as at colleges and conservatories where
students earn degrees in music. Colleges hire musicians to teach private les-
sons, to coach or conduct ensembles, and to teach courses in music appreci-
ation, theory, history, pedagogy, and more.
These teaching positions can range from full-time, tenure-track posi-
tions (with full benefits and lifetime job security), to adjunct or part-time
teaching for low pay and no benefits. Most full-time college music teaching
positions involve more than private lessons. Typically, a faculty load will in-
clude ensemble coaching, master classes, and, depending on the number of
studio lessons assigned, teaching one or more classroom course.
W
Where to Find Listings for College-Level Teaching
Bridge: Worldwide Music Connection, the New England Conservatory’s
online database of over 2,800 music listings of teaching, performance, and
arts administration openings, plus grants, audition, and competition info.
Available by subscription: http://www.necmusic.edu/bridge
Chronicle of Higher Education, http://www.chronicle.com/jobs
College Music Society’s music vacancy listings, http://www.music.org
Higher Ed Jobs, http://www.higheredjobs.com
V
Generally, the job openings for full-time positions at universities list

“doctorate required” or “doctorate preferred.” Search committees may con-
sider candidates without the doctorate if they have extensive and successful
college-level teaching experience and/or extensive professional performance
experience. At conservatories and highly competitive schools of music,
search committees seek artist-teachers with significant national or interna-
tional reputations and the ability to recruit advanced students.
Tenure-track jobs at universities are full-time positions with multi-year,

renewable contracts leading to tenure—guaranteed permanent employ-
ment. Candidates in these positions are typically hired as assistant profes-
sors, and if successful, they may, over a number of years, advance in salary
and status to the position of associate professor, and full professor, and may
be granted tenure as well. Starting full-time salaries (depending on the loca-
tion and budget of the school) are often in the $40,000–$70,000 range, al-
though the better funded schools sometimes compete to hire “star” faculty
at much higher salaries.
College-level music teaching positions are highly competitive, with
many more qualified and experienced candidates than there are openings. A
posting for a desirable job can attract 100–200 applicants. The less competi-
tive opportunities are the part-time “adjunct” and “lecturer” positions,
which are often not well-paid. These positions may be fi lled by people with-
out doctorates. Working part-time at a college or university is an excellent
opportunity to gain valuable experience and therefore become more mar-
ketable for full-time positions elsewhere. Part-time university teaching work
can also serve well to complement a portfolio career.
Violist Kenneth Martinson is an assistant professor of music at the Uni-
versity of Florida. Earlier in his career, as a member of the Rackham Quartet,
he took part in a Chamber Music America rural residency program—living
and teaching in King City, California. In “Flying Together,” a February 2002
article he wrote for Chamber Music America’s CMA Matters, Martinson de-
scribes the effect of his early teaching experience on his subsequent career:
Teaching 64 string instrument beginners certainly proved to be an
immensely valuable experience for me. That year of teaching provided
me with enough patience to deal with any student, at any level, for the
rest of my life! The experience also forced me to re-evaluate every aspect
of my technique from scratch . . . because of my residency experience, I
have a rare combination to offer my students: highly developed per-
forming skills and the knowledge I’ve gained in music education.
Teaching Résumés
An effective résumé can get you in the door for an interview. It’s typical and
recommended for musicians to have several versions of their résumé—one
each for performance, teaching, and arts administration, or other “day”
jobs. Each one should be geared specifically for that type of work.
The challenge in writing any résumé is to tailor it to the employer’s
needs. Your résumé should highlight the qualifications, skills, and experi-
ences relevant to the particular job to which you are applying. Put yourself in
the employer’s shoes. Think about what he or she would want to know about
you as a candidate. Use the job description to tailor a version of your résumé
to the particular job.
Statistics show that employers typically spend less than ten seconds
reading a résumé. So the design and format is important. It should be one
page only. Longer teaching résumés and CV’s are used only for college-level
teaching.
Details
In applying for teaching jobs, the most important portion is “Teaching Ex-
perience.” So it’s a good idea to include more details here than in other areas.
In listing your teaching experience, include a bulleted list underneath each
job listing to detail your teaching accomplishments and convey what is dis-
tinctive about your teaching. Specify the age range and level of your stu-
dents; describe any of their accomplishments, such as winning competitions,
attending festivals, or winning scholarships to music schools; list the range
of repertoire you teach; and describe what you emphasize in your teaching.
Without these details, an employer has no way to distinguish your teaching
from the other applicants. Consider including a “Professional Profi le” or
“Skills Summary” at the top. This works as a brief commercial for the pack-
age you have to offer the employer.
After teaching experience, your performance experience is the next
most important thing an employer will want to know about. In one page,
you may be able to list only selected credits—make sure you emphasize the
range of your performance experience and impressive venues where you’ve
performed. See the example on the next page.
Note that in some countries, it’s common to list age, marital status, and
photos on résumés, but the United States is generally litigious, and employ-
ers must be careful about any potential appearance of discrimination, so it’s
best to leave these items off your performance, teaching, and arts adminis-
tration résumés. The exception is for classical singers, who use photos on
their performance résumés (to aid in casting for roles), and sometimes also
include these for teaching résumés as well.
Arts Administration Opportunities

and Music Industry Jobs X
Beyond teaching, many musicians gravitate toward arts administration and
music industry jobs. The term arts administration covers a wide range of ad-
ministrative, management, and leadership roles with arts organizations. Most
often the term is used in conjunction with nonprofit arts organizations such
John Doe, trombonist/teacher
1 Anonymous St. #2 Y Brighton, MA 02135 Y cell (617) 555-1212 Y [email protected] Y www.johndoe.com
Profi le
Teaching experience includes private lessons, beginners to intermediate, ages 10-37; lessons emphasize ear
training, applied music theory, & development of independent & critical thinking skills. Has coached
mixed chamber ensembles (strings & brass), conducted choir, & arranged works for choir & instrumental
chamber groups. Performance experience includes diverse musical styles from classical to funk & soul.
Teaching Experience
Private Trombone Studio, Salt Lake City, UT, & Boston, MA, 2006-present
• Beginners to intermediate, ages 10 to 37
• Lessons incorporate applied theory, ear training, and improvisation
• Emphasis on students’ development of critical thinking skills by analyzing their own playing
• Variety of styles of music including big band, concert band, solos, & etudes
Choir Director, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, Cambridge, MA, 2010
• Conduct amateur, volunteer choir, SATB, 15 voices
• Prepare for monthly performances; select & arrange music
• Emphasis on balance, blend, & diction
New England Conservatory Summer Festival Youth Orchestra, Coach, Boston, MA, 2008
• Coach brass section and chamber group daily (repertoire included Mozart’s Musical Joke)
• Emphasis on group interaction, communication, & intonation
New England Conservatory of Music, Teaching Assistant, Music History Dept., Boston, MA, 2007-08
• Presented selected lectures on music of Stravinsky and neo-classicism to undergraduate classes
• Tutored students in Romantic & 20th century music in preparation for exams
• Students who attended review sessions increased test scores by 10-25%
University of Utah Marching Band, Field Assistant, Salt Lake City, UT, 2005-06
• Coached trombone & low brass sectionals twice weekly
Selected Performance Experience
Orchestral Concerto Performances
Utah Symphony Orchestra Philharmonia, University of Utah
Rhode Island Philharmonic Wind Symphony, University of Utah
New Bedford Symphony Orchestra
Chamber Music Performances Non-classical Performances, Salt Lake City area
Casals Festival, Puerto Rico The Zephyr Club (Ska, Salsa)
Boston Public Library Utah Arts Festival (Ska)
Boston University Green Street (Funk, Soul, Ska)
Longy School of Music Utah State University (Jazz)
Education
Longy School of Music, Performance Diploma, Trombone, Cambridge, MA, anticipated 2010
New England Conservatory, Master of Music, Trombone Performance, Boston, MA, 2008
University of Utah, Bachelor of Music, Trombone Performance, Salt Lake City, UT, 2006
Principal Teachers Conductors Chamber Music Coaches

Norman Bolter Gunther Schuller Charles Schlueter
Russell McKinney Stanislaw Skrowaczewski Donald Palma
Larry Zalkind Keith Lockhart Anthony Plog
Sample teaching résumé

as music schools, orchestras, opera companies, festivals, and foundations. The

term music industry typically refers to the for-profit sector, including the re-
cording industry, music publishing, technology, and retail markets.
Arts administrators and music industry professionals are the people who
make things happen. They run concert series, performing arts organizations,
music software companies, and online music businesses. They include the
people who handle publicity, marketing, fund-raising, and programming.
Many musicians work these part- or full-time jobs because they want to con-
tribute to a larger effort—beyond their work as individual performers—to
help the arts grow in their communities. Many musicians value the opportu-
nity to use the full range of their skills and abilities in service of a larger
cause.
Types of Organizations with Music Industry and Arts Administration Jobs
• Performing organizations (symphony orchestras, opera companies,

choruses)
• Presenting organizations (concert series, jazz festivals, performance
venues)
• Arts service organizations (such as ASCAP, BMI, American Music
Center, Chamber Music America, Opera America)
• Foundations (state and regional arts councils, private and corporate
foundations)
• Arts education institutions (community music schools, conservatories,
college music departments)
• Arts research and consulting organizations (groups that work on
audience development, marketing, assessment, and management
issues for arts organizations)
• Music publishing companies (such as Belwin Mills, Schirmer, Hal
Leonard, and Carl Fischer)
• Radio/TV (includes programming and research work)
• Recording industry (major and indie labels)
• Music technology (including music software development, online
music services and distribution systems)
• Music retail (instruments, accessories, scores)
• Music instrument design, building, and repair
• Artist management firms
• Media relations companies
Typical entry-level positions are administrative assistant jobs. Employ-
ers seeking to hire for such positions generally look for candidates with
communication, teamwork, computer, and organizational skills, the ability
Arts Administration Opportunities and Music Industry Jobs 339
to multitask, and a knowledge of music and the arts. Entry-level, full-time

position salaries can start (depending on the region) in the mid to high
$20,000s. As people develop skills and experience, better pay is available. At
the high end, top executives at leading symphony orchestras, record labels,
and major service organizations routinely earn six figure incomes.
To explore arts administration opportunities, check for job postings on
the websites of any of the arts organizations in your area. Your state arts
agency may provide lists and contacts for these organizations. You can then
arrange for informational interviews (described in chapter 2) with staff
members at these organizations.
W
Where to Find Job Listings
ArtJob, http://www.artjob.org
Arts Presenters, http://www.artpresenters.org
Bridge: Worldwide Music Connection, http://www.newenglandconservatory
.edu/bridge
League of American Orchestras, http://www.americanorchestras.org
New York Foundation for the Arts: http://www.NYFA.org
Also, check your state arts agency’s website and your alma mater; many music
schools offer job listing publications/online listings
V
Whether you’re exploring a day job to pay the rent or to gain specific
skills, you need to know your priorities, explore your options, and keep an
open mind. Talk to lots of people, and gather ideas. Keep in mind that we
cannot always see how the work we do today will benefit us in the future.
W
What Can Come from a Day Job?
Just out of college, French hornist Jean Rife took a clerical position in the tex-
tiles department at the Smithsonian in Washington, D.C. The important thing about
that job was that it was down the hall from the musical instrument collection. Jean
became friends with the department members, played their horns, and when they
started an early music ensemble, she was right there. Thus began a career-long in-
terest in early music and in playing the natural horn.
Jean moved to Boston, taught part-time at the Weston Public Schools, and
took a part-time job at the MIT music library. There, she became friends with violist
Marcus Thompson, who would stop by to talk. During one of their discussions, he
mentioned that the woodwind chamber music coach he had hired couldn’t come
that semester after all. Jean was there to say, “I’ll do it!” Marcus hired her, and
she’s taught at MIT ever since. These days, Jean’s career package includes freelanc-
ing and teaching chamber music and horn part-time at MIT, New England Conser-
vatory, and at the Longy School of Music.
What makes Jean’s career especially interesting is that she is also a yoga instruc-
tor and has combined yoga practice with her horn teaching and coaching. Jean first
found that yoga was incredibly helpful in her own playing and then as she incorpo-
rated it in her teaching, found it was also a great learning tool for other musicians.
Musicians are often multi-talented, but Jean has found a productive and cre-
ative way to connect her wide-ranging interests and skills.
V
Opportunities
This list below includes job titles from a range of music-related jobs. Some
of these jobs require additional specialized training, whereas others are ap-
propriate for musicians who get on-the-job training. There’s a world of op-
portunities if you think broadly about how to use your music training and
knowledge.
Architectural music consultant Festival manager

Music software programmer Concert series presenter
Music retail store manager/owner Instrument builder/designer
Royalties broadcast monitor Instrument repair specialist
Music licensing specialist Piano tuner-technician
Copywriter/clearance administrator Media relations coordinator
Film music editor Fund-raiser
Lyricist Music publicist
Record producer Orchestra/opera company manager
Recording engineer Ticket services director
Copyist Director of orchestral education
Music publisher Music librarian
Tour coordinator/road manager Concert hall manager
Radio show host Music therapist
Artist manager Music journalist/critic
Booking agent Arts researcher
Below is a sample arts administration job description and following it a

cover letter and résumé used in applying for the position. Note how the
cover letter and résumé specifically address the employer’s needs as stated in
the job description.
ABC College of Music
1 Fictitious Ave.
New York, NY 10020
Administrative Assistant wanted for the Recording and Video Conferencing Department at
ABC College of Music.
9-5 M-F plus occasional evening and weekend hours as needed
Job Description
Assist in daily running of busy office;
Interact with students, faculty, staff;
Schedule of special events and equipment use;
Handle questions/customer service;
Schedule repairs and equipment updates
Duties
Front office work, reception duties, handle correspondence, scheduling of equipment,
troubleshooting
Qualifications
Knowledge of classical and jazz; Bachelor of Music preferred; customer service and office
administrative experience; computer skills and technical abilities; organization and com-
munication skills.
Send materials to:

George Pinkerton, Director
Human Resources
1 Fictitious Avenue
New York, NY 10020
341
Jane Doe
cell (617) 555-1212 [email protected]
Temporary (good until May 30, 2010): 33 Gainsborough St. #714, Boston, MA 02115
Permanent: 1 Main St., Irvington NJ 07111 (973) 555-1212
May 7, 2010
George Pinkerton, Director

Human Resources
1 Fictitious Avenue
New York, NY 10027
Dear Mr. Pinkerton:
I read with interest about the Administrative Assistant position opening for the
Recording and Video Conferencing Dept. at ABC College of Music in the May 3rd Sunday
edition of the New York Times (found on http://www.monster.com). Enclosed is my résumé
in support of my application. I am very enthusiastic about the possibility of working at the
ABC College of Music because of its fi ne reputation and because this position seems to be a
good match with my background, interests, and experience.
My relevant computer skills include MS Word, MS Office Windows, Excel, Clar-
isworks, and Finale Windows. I am well acquainted with work in music school environ-
ments and have held two work-study positions at the New England Conservatory in Boston,
where I will receive my bachelor’s degree in Jazz Performance later this month.
Outside of the Conservatory, I work part-time as an Administrative Assistant at
the Algonquin Club, an exclusive private social club where I have handled a wide variety of
administrative responsibilities. Through this work I have developed excellent customer ser-
vice, organization, and communication skills, and I learn quickly. I have acquired a broad
knowledge of both jazz and classical music through my studies at the Conservatory, and I
am interested and motivated to learn more about distance learning, video conferencing,
and audio technology.
Although I now live in Boston, I am planning to move back to the NYC area this
summer. I will be traveling back and forth in the coming weeks and would be happy to meet
with you to discuss the position. Thank you for considering my résumé. I will call next week
to follow up.
Sincerely,
Jane Doe
Enc. résumé
342
Jane Doe
cell (617) 555-1212 [email protected]
Temporary (good until May 30, 2010): 33 Gainsborough St. #714, Boston, MA 02115
Permanent: 1 Main St., Irvington NJ 07111 (973) 555-1212
Profi le
Office experience with excellent organization, communication, and customer service skills.
Computer skills: MS Word, MS Office Windows, Excel, Clarisworks, Finale. Broad knowledge of
jazz, classical, popular music. Motivated team player with willingness to learn.
Arts Administration Experience

Bindery Assistant, work-study position, New England Conservatory, Spaulding Library,
Boston, MA, 2007-10
• Assisted in the repair of damaged books and scores
• Processed books and scores for shelving
• Organized and sorted catalogued scores and parts for processing
Audience Service Assistant, work-study position, Jordan Hall, New England Conservatory,
Boston, MA, 2006-07
• Assisted with ticket sales
• Fielded customer service complaints and concerns
Telemarketer, New Jersey Symphony Orchestra, Newark, NJ, summer 2006

• Sold season ticket subscriptions
Related Administrative Experience

Administrative Assistant, Algonquin Club, Boston, MA, 2007-present
• Revised and updated daily and weekly function schedules
• Compiled weekly staff timecards and monthly inventories on spreadsheets
• Managed busy switchboard and all reception duties
• Handled office billing and communications
Program Assistant, Boys and Girls Club, Boston, MA, summer 2007
• Assisted in supervising 7 high school student counselors
• Taught folksongs
• Supervised 40 six-year-old children for field trips and all program activities
Computer Skills
MS Word, Clarisworks, Finale
MS Office, MS Excel
Education
New England Conservatory of Music, Boston, MA
Bachelor of Music in Jazz Performance, Voice, 2010
Honors/Awards
Scholarship, New England Conservatory 2006-10
References available upon request
343
Long-Distance Job Search X
If you are considering a move to a new city or region, the key to making an
easier transition is researching and establishing contacts in the target area in
advance of your move. The site http://www.findyourspot.com provides an
online survey to help identify cities that match your needs, interest, and
lifestyle preferences. The survey assesses your preferences as to cultural
amenities, public transportation, climate, recreational activities, housing
costs, and more, to arrive at a list of suggested cities. These are issues to re-
search and consider no matter where or why you are moving, because your
quality of life matters!
Once you have a target city, you can get lots of preliminary information
about your potential new location online. You can use the city’s chamber of
commerce and its travel/tourism sites, as well as Wikipedia, to find a wealth
of information about the community as a whole and its arts offerings. You
can find online cost-of-living comparisons and salary surveys and you can
always read real estate classifieds to get a sense of housing costs. For relocat-
ing abroad, do an online search for the target country’s ministry of labor,
embassy, and immigration sites.
Based on your research, create an estimated monthly budget of your
anticipated expenses. This information will help you make decisions about
the type and amount of work to seek in your new community.
To find relevant music organizations and venues, search online for the
city’s arts calendars. Contact the city and state arts agencies to get a list of music
organizations and performance venues. Find the local chapters of relevant
national arts organizations, such as the Music Teachers National Association
(http://www.mtna.org), Suzuki Association (http://www.suzukiassociation.
org), or the American Composers Forum (http://www.composersforum.org).
Beyond the online information, make good use of your network con-
tacts. Ask family members, colleagues, and friends for contacts and leads in
your target city. Check your school’s alumni office for names and e-mails of
the alumni living there. You want to find out about freelance opportunities,
the local rates for teaching, and the names of conductors and contractors in
order to inquire about auditions.
By doing your homework in advance and establishing contacts, you can
make the transition to your potential new home much less stressful.
The Big Picture in Focus

The healthiest approach is to look at the whole of your life as a journey. Life
is more than a series of achievements and accomplishments. My friend and
colleague Derek Mithaug, former director of career development at the
344
Long-Distance Job Search 345
Juilliard School, has a perspective on this. He writes, “You can avoid years
of frustration by focusing now on how to create a journey that will allow
you to combine all of your talents and interests. People who create their
own paths become the directors of their careers and lives; they are in a po-
sition to choose the types of paths they wish to travel.”
Keep your values and goals front and center. Gather your courage, your
persistence, and patience for the journey ahead. You are ready!
W
Career Forward
1. Write out the types of work you have considered doing to support your music
career.
2. What other interests would you like to investigate for possible supplemental
work opportunities? (Do you like to cook, garden, mentor kids, repair cars, or
help with political campaigns?) Where can you get more information about
these options?
3. Make a list of the skills and experience you have now that might lead to
supplemental work.
4. Do you know musicians who have “portfolio” careers? Have you talked with
them in detail about how they put it all together? Invite people out for lunch
so you can learn from hearing their stories. It’s fascinating and inspiring to hear
musicians talk about how they got started, overcame challenges, and created
their own paths.
V
Postlude:
Five Career
Counseling Secrets
Revealed
With the information from the previous chapters, you have a great advan-
tage over most musicians—you have the tools to build your success. Of
course, information isn’t all that’s needed. As an added boost, here are five
professional career counseling “secrets,” some of what I’ve learned over the
years, that you can use on your own.
I typically spend a fair amount of time during an advising session lis-
tening to and watching the client. This is part of practicing the first career
counseling secret:
1. Look for the light in the eyes.
In most advising sessions, career counselors encourage clients to talk
about their accomplishments and the choices they’re considering. The trick
comes in watching the clients talk, noticing when their eyes light up, when
they are charged with energy and enthusiasm. It’s obvious when clients are
talking about a career direction or opportunity they really fi nd engaging.
The light in their eyes is the clue to their passion.
Although it’s not easy to watch for the light in your own eyes, your
friends and colleagues can give you valuable feedback. You can also listen
for the enthusiasm in your own voice when discussing career issues that
capture your imagination—you’ll “hear” your eyes light up.
Once a client identifies areas of interest, the next thing is to figure out
an action plan. Unfortunately, many people get stuck in the process right
here because of all the “stuff” that’s in their way—the shoulds, buts, and if
onlys. This brings us to the second career counseling secret:
346
Postlude 347
2. We often create our own obstacles.

Identify your baggage—the actual and perceived obstacles that are
blocking your path. Getting a client to acknowledge or discover what is
standing in the way can be difficult. Sometimes I simply ask, “What’s pre-
venting you from moving forward?” The answer may be a litany of rational-
izations and extraneous issues. The actual obstacle may be depression, or
unrealistic expectations, a lack of information about the industry, or the cli-
ent may be chasing someone else’s dream (a spouse’s or a parent’s). You may
need to do some soul-searching to identify your obstacles, but once you can
see them clearly, you can devise strategies to get around them or get over
them.
After identifying obstacles, it can be relatively easy to figure out the next
logical action steps needed, and this leads to the next career counseling
secret:
3. With any goal, the first steps are the most important.
Making a good start is key. Break down your goal into small practical
action steps. To avoid becoming overwhelmed, use short weekly to-do lists,
and keep your action steps simple, measurable, and practical. What needs
doing next? It’s important for your motivation to succeed in your first action
steps and feel the resulting sense of accomplishment.
How can you tell whether your action steps are appropriate for your
goal? Feedback from people working in the field is helpful. Get connected to
get the information you need. Networking and researching will help inform
your goals and plans.
Although it’s very important to get the best information to make the
best decisions, you also need to trust yourself and your intuition, which un-
derlies the fourth secret:
4. You already have the answers.
That’s right, your mentor or a career counselor is not the one who sup-
plies the answers. It’s you. Talking through your ideas and plans with pro-
fessionals can help. But in the end, you are the person who determines what
is best for you. Make sure you’re acting in your best interests. Your daily
small decisions—about how to spend time, what projects to focus on, and
with whom to network—these determine your career.
And although career counselors always look for ways to motivate their
clients and keep them pushing forward, when push comes to shove, the
truth is . . .
348 Postlude
5. People move ahead when they’re good and ready, and not a moment
before.
Clients may look and sound like they’re ready for action steps, and they
may have a great plan, resources, support, and opportunity. It won’t matter.
If they’re not ready emotionally or psychologically, they won’t budge. To
move forward, you have to be ready and willing—no one can do it for you.
So with these do-it-yourself techniques, do you really need a career

counselor? My best advice is to tap all the resources and support available to
you. Check out what’s low cost or free in your community—the local job re-
source center, public library, or college career center may all offer great ser-
vices, including career advising. And armed with these career counseling
secrets, you can make better use of whatever resources you do have. It’s your
future, go out and make it happen!
Notes
Chapter 1
1. http://www.oxingale.com, March 2009.
2. The Orchestra Musician Forum, Virtual Discussion Panel: “Entrepreneurs
in Music” (March 24–April 4, 2008), http://www.polyphonic.org.
3. Roger Chaffi n and Anthony Lemieux, “General Perspectives on Achieving
Musical Excellence,” in Musical Excellence: Strategies and Techniques to Enhance
Performance, ed. Aaron Williamon (London: Oxford University Press, 2004), 20.
4. Malcolm Gladwell, Outliers: The Story of Success (New York: Little, Brown
and Co., 2008), 50.
5. Ibid., 50.
6. National Association of Schools of Music, Higher Education Data Service
report (Data Summaries, 2008–2009), chart 1–4.
7. The International Conference of Symphonic and Operatic Musicians,
http://www.icsom.org/pdf/orchestrasalaryfacts.pdf
8. National Association of Schools of Music, Ibid., chart 2–11.
9. Statistics from Sarah Lee, arts researcher at the Cultural Policy Center at the
University of Chicago, who compiled data using 2005 records from the U.S. Census
County Business Patterns and the U.S. Census Non-Employer Statistics (which
counts self-employed musicians).
10. http://www.wordlessmusic.org, March 2009.
11. U.S. Census Bureau newsroom press release, June 25, 2007.
Chapter 2
1. Mike Jolkovski, “How Bands Die,” http://www.musiciansatlas.com/
newsletter/ju107/howbandsdie.asp, March 2009.
2. Ibid.
3. Janice Papolos and Howard Herring, Can This Marriage Be Saved? Interper-
sonal and Organizational Guidelines for Ensembles (Chamber Music America, 1986)
17.
349
350 Notes
Chapter 3
1. Artist’s bio, http://www.joshuaroman.com, March 2009.
Chapter 4
1. “Sex, Drugs and Updating Your Blog,” New York Times, May 13, 2007,
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/13/magazine/13audience-t.html.
2. “ArtistShare Taps Web, Fans to Earn Its Musicians Money, Grammy,”
Wall Street Journal, Feb. 7, 2008, http://www.livemint.com/2008/02/07233946/
ArtistShare-taps-Web-fans-to.html.
3. Joan Jeffri et al., Taking Note: A Study of Composers and New Music Activity
in the United States (New York: Research Center for the Arts and Culture Teachers
College Columbia University, 2008), 31–32.
Chapter 5
1. “Second Life Finding New Life,” ABS-CBN News, Mar. 16, 2009, http://
www.abs-cbnnews.com/technology/03/16/09/second-life-fi nding-new-life.
Chapter 6
1. Robert Besen, “The Quest for Management,” CMA Matters, October 2007
2. Ibid.
3. Ellen Highstein, Making Music in Looking Glass Land (New York: Concert
Artists Guild, 2003), 160.
4. Bradley Sowash, “Self-Marketing for Artists,” http://www.artjob.org/
cgi-local/displayPage.pl?page=article_template.html&sid=PUT_SID_HERE&
article_number=3.
5. Ibid.
Chapter 7
1. Paul Somers, “Getting Ink,” CMA Matters, August 2004.
2. Ellen Highstein, Making Music in Looking Glass Land (New York: Concert
Artists Guild, 2003), 138–139.
Chapter 8
1. David Wallace, Reaching Out: A Musician’s Guide to Interactive Performances
(New York: McGraw-Hill, 2008), 20.
2. Ibid, 17.
Chapter 9
1. Karen Hagberg, Stage Presence from Head to Toe: A Manual for Musicians
(Oxford: Scarecrow Press, 2003), 2.
2. Ibid., 5.
3. Ibid., 15.
Notes 351
4. David Templeton, “Stressed for Success,” Strings, October 2003, No. 113,
http://www.stringsmagazine.com/article/4/4,82,BodyandMind-1.asp.
5. “Ten Tips on Becoming Fearless,” Indiana University, January 3, 2008,
http://newsinfo.iu.edu/web/page/print/6937.html.
6. Ibid.
7. “Stressed for Success.”
8. “Stressed for Success.”
9. Benson-Henry Institute for Mind Body Medicine, “Eliciting the Relaxation
Response,” Massachusetts General Hospital, http://www.mbmi.org/basics/whatis_
rresponse_elicitation.asp.
10. Jane Ginsborg, “Strategies for Memorizing Music,” Musical Excellence:
Strategies and Techniques to Enhance Performance, ed. Aaron Williamon (London:
Oxford University Press, 2004), 137.
Chapter 12
1. Adele Slaughter and Jeff Kober, Art That Pays (Los Angeles: National Net-
work for Artist Placement, 2004), 70.
Chapter 13
1. CBS Sunday Morning television segment, “The Beat Goes On,” March 29,
2009, http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/03/29/sunday/main4901084.shtml.
Index
Music Organizations by Abbreviations

ACDA American Choral Directors Association, 331
ACF American Composers Forum, 219, 316, 323, 341
AEA Actors’ Equity Association (AKA: Equity), 266
AFM American Federation of Musicians, 266–67, 270
AFTRA American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, 266
AGMA American Guild of Musical Artists, 266
AMC American Music Center, 132, 316
APAP Association of Performing Arts Presenters, 219, 316
ASCAP American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers, 93, 103,
113, 114, 149, 175, 188, 326, 338
ASTA American String Teachers Association, 331
BMI Broadcast Music, Inc., 93
CMA Chamber Music America, 38, 43, 119, 157, 212, 215, 217, 219, 294,
316, 326, 335, 338
MENC Music Educators National Conference, 332, 333
MTC Meet the Composer, 219, 316, 317, 318
NAPAMA National Association of Performing Arts Managers of America, 156
NASM National Association of Schools of Music, 6, 349n8
NEA National Endowment for the Arts, 10, 144, 217
NYFA New York Foundation for the Arts, 298, 339
PAS Percussive Arts Society, 195
SAG Screen Actors Guild, 266
SESAC Society of European Stage Authors and Composers, 93, 113, 114, 175
Aaron Copland Fund, 109 administration. See arts administration

Abramson, Liam, 318, 319 opportunities
accomplishments administrative assistants, 160, 338
promotional use, 45–49, 86, 111, 181, 183 administrators, networking with, 161, 215,
success defined as, 2–4, 142–44 222, 300, 338
accountability, as success factor, 214 adult residency programs, 213–14
acknowledgements, including on CDs, 312 advance sales, of CDs, 109–10
acoustics, during recording, 98–99 advertising. See promotion entries
activities, time management of, 274–80, 326 advisors, networking with, 24, 307
353
354 Index
agreements (see also contracts) Art That Pays, 300, 351n1

collective bargaining, 261–62 artwork, for CDs, 110
confirmation for freelance work, 288 artwork and graphics, recording of, 102–3
album review, 120–21 assistants, administrative, 160, 338
Allison, Ben, 130 Astral Artistic Services, 158
alternative medicine, for performance inju- attire (see also clothing)
ries, 250 convert attire, 229–30
alumni, networking with, 88–89 for men, 231–32
ambition, motivation behind, 144 pre-performance checklist, 231–32
Ameer, Amanda, 124, 317 for photo shoot, 72
Anacapa String Quartet, 39 for women, 230–31
anti-inflammatory drugs, for injuries, 248 attitude(s), 22
Appel, Andy, 163, 215 performance anxiety and, 225, 232–37
applause, stage tips for, 227 positive, as trade secret, 11, 38
artistic success, 142 when talking to audience, 208–10
artist management audience
booking of attitude toward, 236
concerts, 165–66 engaging of, 164–65
regional tour, 172–74 and presenters, ways of engaging, 164–65
fee negotiation, 169–71 publicizing for attracting, 199–200
function of, 155–57 skills for talking to, 208–10
music performance contract, 173 strategies for drawing, 183, 243, 283
Myths about, 153 total concert experience of, 78, 145
and self-management, 152–76 ways of attracting, 179–81
artist managers audience partnerships, 145–47 (see also resi-
role of, 155–57 dency work)
work of, 153–55 auditions, 154, 238
artist-run labels, 91, 179 beta blockers for, 244
ArtistShare, 110, 111, 114, 350n2 authorship, proof of, 91–92
arts administration opportunities, 336–40 awards, promotional use, 54, 55, 184
comparative data, 338–39
day job, opportunities, 339–40 backstage, dos and don’ts for, 36–38
job listings, 333, 336, 339 backward planning, 18, 120, 260, 280
music-related job, list of, 340 balancing life, 274–94
portfolio-based, 7, 321–24 financial management, 283–87
range of work, 336–38 project management, 280–82
salary range, 333–35, 341 taxes, 287–93
skills needed, 325–26 Banerdt, Rhiannon, 58, 61
types of organizations, 338–39 Bang on a Can, 130, 158, 159, 317
arts agencies, work opportunities, 217, 219, bar code, on CDs, 103, 104–5
341 Beaudoin, Stephen, 323
arts coverage, 177–79 behavioral changes, with performance anxi-
arts industry ety, 235
careers, 340–45 benefit concerts, 313–14
administrative, 336–40 benefit package, union established, 8, 103,
day job dilemma, 325–27 321, 322, 324–25, 336, 340
teaching, 328–36 Berklee College of Music, 49, 60, 225
types of, 11, 291–94 Besen, Robert, 157, 350n1
trends and issues, 179, 184 beta blockers, for stress management, 232,
Art Spirit, The, 226 244
Index 355
bio basics, 49–52 Brown University, 3

bio hazards, 53 budget
bios, 49–52 for CD production, 107
for composers and improvisers, 65 for freelancers, 267–68
dos and don’ts, 56–57 for grant applications, 299, 300
for ensembles, 57–58 for performances, 160
examples of, 59–64 for recording, 105–7
excerpts from, 66–67 fundraising projects and personal
Biss, Jonathan, 49, 128, 130 loans, 107–8
Blanchard, John, 50, 57 recording project budget, 107
Bob, Sarah, 14, 189 Build and Manage Your Music Career, 271
body language, during conversations, 39, business, freelancing as, 267–68
227, 228, 311 business cards, 29–30, 40, 258
booking agent, role of, 154, 156, 340 business expenses
booking conferences, 78, 154, 156 date book, 292
booking performances, 152–76 income records, 292–93
artist managers ledgers, 292
role of, 155–57 tax-deductible items, 290–91
work of, 153–55 Butler, Mimi, 329
traditional management, alternatives to, “buzz,” creating, 116, 119, 182–83, 184, 199,
160–61 200
“booking potential,” 155
booking performances, 45, 49, 152–76 calendars
calls, 166–68 listings by media, 183, 195
call back messages, 168 on websites, 120–21, 180, 183, 195
follow-up calls, 168 calls. See cold calls
presenter calls, possible outcomes to, cancellation policy, for private teaching,
169 171, 330
concerts, 165–66 career advice, websites for, 11, 24
promotional materials for, 45, 49, 50, 74 career counselors, 5, 40, 346
for residency work, 218–19 career development
regional tour, 172–74 artist manager’s role, 46, 124, 153–54
self-management for, 159–60 goal setting as essential, 244–45
bookkeeping, financial, 115, 161 as journey, 5, 20, 345
checks, 292 online technology impact, 112–14
date book, 292 mapping the project, 296–98
income records, 292–93 self-management of, 159–60
ledgers, 292 suggestions for, 16, 41, 238–42
tax-deductible items, 290–91 truth about, 158–59
booklet insert, for CDs, 107, 180 career move, timing of, 348
Bookspan, Janet, 227 career opportunities, 340
Booth, Eric, 203 arts administration as, 336–40
Borromeo String Quartet, 91, 146 day job dilemma, 325–27
Boston Modern Orchestra Project, 15, 262 in music industry, 336–40
boutiques, CD sales through, 116 niche creation, 163, 184, 322, 328
bowing, tips for, 227–29 portfolio, 321–22
brainstorming party, 40–41, 44, 320 project-based advancement, 322–23
breathing exercises, 100, 241 suggestions for, 328–31
and meditation, 242 teaching as, 330–32
brochures, 67, 77, 128, 180, 219, 223, 291, 317 traditional versus entrepreneurial, 322
356 Index
career stress, competition and, 233 collaboration

stress busting tips, 233–34 community engagement, 203
career success, debunking myth behind, 5–7 for networking, 184
carpal tunnel syndrome, 247, 248 Collage New Music, 192
cash donations. See fundraising colleagues
catalog number, including on CDs, 89 feedback- from, 11, 36
Cavani Quartet, 328 for interpersonal skills, 11
CDBaby, 90, 94, 97, 105, 111, 112, 113, 115, networking for referrals, 255
132, 136, 195 networking with, 21–22, 184
CDs reconnecting with, 24–25
booklet insert for, 180 in recording plan, 247
copyright issues, 91–92 collective bargaining agreements (CBAs),
cover artwork and graphics, 103–4 261
finance issues, 105–8 commercialism, 112
image building with, 45–49 of American music, 109
importance of, 116 and musician union, 266–67
licensing issues, 92–93 recording in studio, 98, 101
networking with, 21–22 venues, and booking agents, 154
promotion costs, 95–96 commissioning new work, 314–16
promotion strategies, 117–19 commissions, of new works, 10, 52
publicity of, 119–20 classical artist managers, 154
record industry basics, 130–33 funding for, 316–18
recording options, 98–99 communication
repertoire choosing of, 96 with audience, 202
reviews of, 188, 195 as management skill, 326, 333
sales strategies, 111–12 and music, 37, 47, 66, 142
cell phones, 27, 29, 36, 271 and photos, 67
certification, for teaching, 214, 333–34 community engagement activities, 143,
change, positive, as critical, 8, 11, 147, 148 202–3, 217 (see also residency work)
Chase, Claire, 2 community making
checks, as financial record, 155, 292, 293 fundraising and, 325, 338
childhood prodigy, 157 development continuum, 307–10,
children’s programs, beyond school, 216 312–13
Christensen, Nancy, 212 Internet impact, 139
churches, 108 meaningfulness of, 147–49
performance opportunities with, 22 personal success with, 307, 322
and recording location, 99 Community MusicWorks, 3, 130
circle of excellence visualization, as coping, community organizations
240 for booking residency work, 217
Classical Singer, 38, 195, 336 grants for recording, 108–9
Cleveland Institute of Music, 1, 51 community resources, for stress manage-
clothing (see also attire-) ment, 238
for publicity photos, 72–73 compensation levels. See salaries
stage presence tips, 230, 232 competition(s)
clubs, work opportunities, 266 career stress and, 233
cognitive indicators, 234 live performance recordings for, 96, 110
cognitive therapy, 240 truths about, 158–59
cold calls use in promo kit, 86
in booking concerts, 166 complaining, 9
and traditional management, 160 Complete Guide to Making More Money in
Colgrass, Michael, 240, 317 the Private Music Studio, The, 329
Index 357
Complete Guide to Running a Private Music contentment, success defined as, 144
Studio, The, 329 contractors, freelancer auditions with, 254,
compliments, acceptance of, 37 258, 270–71
composer rights, 95 contracts, 270–73
composers and confirmation, 171–72
and agreement, 318 for freelance work, 270–71
commissioning new work, 316 performance contract, example of, 272
and improvisers recording contracts, 89–90
bios for, 65 reminders for clients, 271
excerpts, 66–67 conversations (see also people skills)
for recordings, 90–92, 112 for making new friends, 29
for rep list, 79 and manners, 36
series recordings, 89 openers, 39
computer programs, database for strike up, 39
for mailing lists, 26–28 coping with performance anxiety, 232–33
for tax records, 287–88 interventions and treatment methods,
computer skills, in administrative work, 103 237–38
Conant, Abbie, 149 copyright, 91, 92, 94, 95, 179
Concert Artists Guild, 158, 161, 198, 350n3 copyright issues, 91–92
concerts. See performance(s) with CDs, 87–92
concert series, 174 for Internet technology, 111
in portfolio careers, 7, 321–22 copyright law, U.S., for photos, 71
building of, 323 Copyright Office, U.S., 92
publicizing strategies, timeline for, corporate sponsorship, 318–20
199–200 costs
conductors of mechanical licenses, 93, 113, 114
bowing tips, 227–29 of photo shoot, 71, 72
and freelancers, 254–55 of professional CD production, 105
conferences of publicity, 71
for booking, 154, 156 for recording, 105
for teaching skills, 331 of universal product code (UPC), 104–5
confidence, 67, 77, 101 of website development, 131–32
and positive feeling, 241 Coulton, Jonathan, 66, 67, 94, 125
and preparation, 238 cover design, for CDs, 102
for self-assessment, 235 Cowperthwaite, Janet, 161
confirmations, of work agreements, 171–72 Creative Commons (CC), 93–95, 125
connections. See communication; network- creative programming tips, 165
ing creative voice, 225–26
conscious decisions creativity and motivation, 13
for overcoming performance anxiety, credentials, description in bios, 34, 56, 58,
235–36 259, 296
in time management, 274 credibility, of bios claims, 56
consignment agreement, 116–17 credit financing, for freelancers, 105
consignment stores, for CD sales, 116 credits, 50, 104, 198, 290, 336
consortium funding. See crowdfunding critics, inviting to your concert, 196–97
contact information, 49, 58, 78 crowdfunding, 319
for contracts, 171 consortium funding, 317
in letterhead design, 272 in financing recording, 110–11
for marketing, 220 in fundraising letters, 314
for press release, 187 curriculum vitae. See résumé
on website, 104 curtain calls, 228, 229
358 Index
cyber safety, 127 doctorates, for teaching, 7, 334

Cypress String Quartet, 160 “do it yourself ” (DIY) recordings, 46, 90, 98,
100, 131
Daly, Adrian, 22 domain name, for website, 130, 132, 290
database management, 27, 191, 200, 293 Donahue, Ed, 291
datebook, as expense record, 287 donations
day jobs reasons for, 305
arts-related, 259, 247 in-kind, 170, 296, 305, 312
key considerations, 325–27 downloading, of CDs, 90–91
outside the arts, 325 dress rehearsal, 231
in portfolio careers, 321–22 Dubber, Andrew, 124
Dead Cat Bounce, 66
decisions Edberg, Eric, 174
for time management, 293 editing
deep breathing, 241–42 career data, 326
demos, 85–120 of recordings, 97, 98, 101, 122
artwork and graphics, 102–5 education and educators (see also residency
copyright issues, 91–92 work; teaching careers)
finance issues, 105–10 as career opportunity, 328–36
importance of, 85–89 as entrepreneurial strategy, 13–16
licensing issues, 92–95 freelance marketing focus, 258–59
promotion costs, 88, 122 informational interviewing with, 30–31
promotion strategies, 116–20 publicity on trends and issues, 179, 184
record industry basics, 87–90 in recording plan, 76, 78, 95
recording options, 98–102 teaching artist, 203–5
repertoire decisions, 95–98 eighth blackbird, 78, 129
reviews of, 120–22 electronic press kit (EPK), 137
sales strategies, 111–20 electronic promo kits (EPKs), 74
suggestions for, 121 Elegua Duo, 162
deposit payment, for freelance work, 269 elevator speech, 33–35
depression, impact on job search, 347 elitist musicians, 36
desensitization, as stress management, 238–39 Ellert, Lucinda, 42, 293
designers, professional e-mail
for CD artwork, 103–5 CD release event invitations, 118, 139
of websites, 103, 131–32 networking with, 26–28, 128, 133, 138, 279
developmental psychology, in teaching, newsgroups and, 133–34
330–1 promotional use, 47, 49, 133, 137, 138,
development continuum 139, 179, 180, 181, 191, 196, 200
in fundraising, 307–9, 311 Emery, Mark, 218
patronage, 307–8 emotional baggage
relationship levels, 311–12, 320 anxiety indicators, 233, 235, 237
diaries, personal, on your website, 135–36 coping methods for, 237–38
digital audiotape (DAT), 96 encores, 229
disabled people, arts accessibility to, 219 energy
disc graphics, content on CDs, 102 positive, success and, 11, 39, 47, 67, 325
discretionary money, 108, 285, 306 time management and, 276–77, 281
discretionary time, 276–77 e-newsletters
distinction creating your own, 27–28, 133–34, 305
promotional use, 46–48, 134 networking with, 133–34
distributor, of recordings, 97 Engebreth, Aaron, 69f
Index 359
Engel, Debbie, 324, 325 feedback

engineer, of recordings, 89, 97–98 drafts of press releases, 183
ensembles from friends, 11
including name on CDs, 104 objective, 17
stage presence tips, 226 public speaking skills, seeking, 208
entrance bow, 227–29 from teachers, K–12 School Programs, 215
entrepreneurism fee negotiation, 175
as career opportunity, 13–16 for freelance work, 267–68
checklist for, 14–16 by phone, 65
musicians as, 13–14 fees
in recording industry, 90–91 for artist managers, 153–54
Epic Brass, 161 compulsory mechanical license, 93
equipment digital performance, 113
donations of, 305 digital performance royalty, 114
for DIY recording, 98 for photo shoot, 71
rental, 97 for performance, netotiating, 267-68
Ethel, 129 versus self-esteem, 160
evaluation materials, for K-12 residency for studio recording, 98
work, 220–22 fellowship programs, 3
events, freelance gigs at, 267–68 festivals
excitement, 237 applications for, 65
executive director career, 206–7 bios, performance venue, 52
exercise, for performance injuries, 250 opportunities through, 10
expenses recordings, use of, 86
of artist managers, 156 fight or flight response, 234, 241
of performing, 172 film work
tax deductible, 290–91 musicians, unions for, 266
expertise, hard work behind, 4–5 orchestra job versus, 8
eye contact recording projects and, 122
with audience, 228, 229 financial management, 283–87
during conversations, 39 ensembles, special issues for, 293–94
eyeglasses, in publicity photos, 72 monthly spending, 284–85
record keeping, 287
facial expression reducing debt, 285–86
and bowing, 228, 232 savings, 286–87
in in-person meetings, reading, 311 financial planners, 286–87
for publicity photos, 72–73 Finckel, David, 90
in stage deportment, 226 Firth, Vic, 322
failure, fear of, 236Falzone, James, 95 fiscal agent, 297, 298
fame, success defined as, 142–43 Fischoff Association, 216
family flyers
programs related to, 177 for CD release
networking with, 181 budget, 106
fan base, cultivation of, 133 project planning worksheet, 122
FAQs for fan base cultivation, 133
on copyright office website, 92 Kitchen Table Test, 77
mechanical licenses, 93 in marketing plan, use of, 150
performance license, 175 for publicity, 391
on your website, 94, 138 using desktop publishing programs, cre-
Fasano, Jeff, 68, 70f ation of, 77
360 Index
follow-up contracts for, 255–56

contacts, 168 occasions for, 257
on calls to presenters, 168–69 opportunities through, 256
on opportunities, 10, 12 residency work and, 212
on networking, 24 résumé for, 258
former colleagues, reconnecting with, 25–26 sales at, 115
Foundation Center, 298 union membership for, 261
Four Nations, 163, 215, 216 giveaways
Fractured Atlas, 297–98 of promotional products, 78
freelance lifestyle, 256 at the sales table, 115
fee negotiation, 267–68 Givoney, Ronen, 12
portfolio careers with, 321–22 Gladwell, Malcolm, 4, 5, 349n4
résumé strategies, 258 glossary, 297
friends goal realization, through daily choices,
networking with, 18, 21–22, 23, 24 18–20
making new, 29 goal setting, for success, 244–45
obtaining feedback from, 11, 30 grant applications, 300–304
recommendation from, 27 for community projects, 301
reconnecting with, 25–26 musicians, warnings for, 302
support system, 8, 23 rejection, reason for, 302–2
Fulbright, 303, 304 grants
Fullard, Annie, 328 application for, 298
funding award selection methods, 303
for commissions, 316–18 for recordings, 108–9
for ensembles, 297–98 researching grant opportunities, 298–300
fundraising, 101, 304–7 graphic designs
campaign for, 306 for CDs, 102–3, 104
direct-mail appeals, 314 for websites, 134
letters, 314 grass root community organizations, day
crowdfunding, 314 jobs 325
personal relations, 305–6 grass root fundraising campaign, 304
personal meeting, reasons for, 311 Greer, John, 11
projects and personal loans, 107–8 Guild Trio, 213
quickie campaign, 306
reasons for contribution to, 305–6 Hagberg, Karen, 226, 228, 350n1
requests for, 310–11 Haimovitz, Matt, 2, 91
success factors of, 307 hair styles
thank-you, art of the, 311–12 and photo shoot, 71
future goals success, dressing for, 230
action steps towards achieving, 18–19 Han, Wu, 90
clarity on, 18 handshakes, 227–28
and planning, 19–20 hand therapy, for performance injuries, 250
Future of Music Coalition, 113 happiness, success defined as, 143–44
Harlan, Evan, 109, 110
Garrity, Jack, 327, 328 Harris, Kevin, 60, 207
gender issues, in stage presence, 230–31 Harry Fox Agency, 93
gifts, small, networking with, 26 Hart, Freddie, 160
gig bag, packing checklist, 269 Harvard, 19, 192
gigs (see also freelance lifestyle) “headshots,” 67
contracting other musicians for, 14 health insurance, tips for shopping, 327–28
Index 361
Herring, Howard, 43, 349n3 interaction

Highstein, Ellen, 161, 198, 350n3 with others, review on, 11
historical societies Internal Revenue Service (IRS), 287, 288,
bookings at, 255 289, 290
residency work in, 218 Internet, impact on industry and careers,
hobbies 30, 111–12, 120, 130–31, 139 (see
as contributors, 247 also websites)
description in bios, 53, 54 Internet service provider (ISP), 130
recharging through, 13 interpersonal skills (see also people skills;
home studio, debates on, 329–30 skills)
Honens Competition, 158 for ensembles, networking, 41–44
“hook,” promotional use, 112, 119, 211 business, taking care of, 42–43
hotels choosing partners, 42
freelance gigs at, 254–55 rehearsals, 43–44
as local sources, 163 tips for, 11
HTML code, 131–33 interviews, tips for, 197–99
human interest articles, in promo kit, 76, invitations
119, 179 for attracting audience, 103–6, 115–16
Huntington Brass Quintet, 217, 218 to CD release events, 117
Hyatt, Ariel, 77, 120, 134, 184 for critics, 196–97
crowdfunding and, 214
ICE (International Contemporary Ensem- party, 49
ble), 2, 3 and sending mails, 27–28
image building, 45–49
bios for, 49–52 Jacques Thibaud String Trio, 119
letterhead for, 74, 78, 259 James, Jeffrey, 183, 188, 193
photos for, 45, 67–68 jewel boxes, content on CDs, 103
projection of, 45 jewelry, for photo shoot, 71–72
promo kits for, 74–79 job postings, websites for, 333
Imani Winds, 70, 129 for college-level teaching, 334
income. See salaries job search, long-distance, 341–45
income records, 292–93 Johnson, Maurice, 271, 311, 312
informational interviewing, 30–22 (see also Jolkovski, Mike, 42, 349n1
networking) Juilliard School, The, 345
injuries, performance, 232–36
alternative treatments, 250 K-12 audiences
assessment of, 235–36 designing programs for, 214–16
interventions and treatment methods, teacher preparations, study guides for,
237–41 220
recuperation and, 251 Kamins, Ben, 6
relaxation response, 241–44 Katsenelenbogen, Rani, 103
reworking technique for, 250–51 Kickstarter, 110, 314
suggestions for, 249 Kitchen Table Test, promo materials, 76–77
warning signals, 247–49 Knabe, James, 190
in-kind donations, 170, 296, 305, 312 Koh, Jennifer, 317
innovative programs Kronos Quartet, 161
in college-level educational programs,
213 labels, importance of, 88–89
gaining media attention by, 178, 208 Larson, Catharine, 220
in residency work, 215 lawyers, entertainment, 90, 294
362 Index
League of American Orchestras, 339 mail campaigns, for fundraising, 314

“lecturer” positions, 335 mailing lists, 26–28
ledgers, 292 mail order
Lee, Sarah, 349n9 for CD sales, 109–11
“letterhead design,” 47–49 sales tips, 116
letters of recommendation, 74–75, 79 makeup, for publicity photos, 71–72
libraries Making Music in Looking Glass Land (High-
artist managers, finding listing of, 156 stein), 161, 350n3
for grants for recordings, approaching, management (see also artist management)
108–9, 320 of money, 283–87
obtaining local media list from, 195 of projects, 280–82
researching alternative performance sites, of time, 274–80
162–63 Manhattan School of Music, 50, 57
licensing, 87, 91, 94, 103, 113, 114 manners
licensing issues, 92–93 on phone, 36
lifestyle habits (see also freelance lifestyle) on stage, 228–29
for injury prevention, 243, 251 mapping success, 1–20
for stress management, 238–39, 241–42, 246 Marinescu, Ovidiu, 110
lighting Marketing, for freelancers, 258–59
for photo shoot, 71–72 Martinson, Kenneth, 335
for recording session, 100 master classes, 26, 53, 76, 172, 309, 328,
for stage presence, 231 330–31
Lincoln Center Institute, 215 master recordings, 97
listening skills, cultivation of, 205, 283 mechanical license, 92–93, 96
Live the Life You Love, 40 rates, composer’s payment, 113–14
loans, 111 media (see also press entries)
fundraising and, 107–8 arts coverage, 177–79
personal, 108 coverage, types of, 183–84
local media list, 195 interview, tips for, 197–99
location local media list, 195
importance during recording, 98–99 media list, compilation of, 191–96
photoshoot, 71 regional and national exposure,
travel budget and, 172 195–96
lodging media relations versus paid advertise-
contract consideration of, 171 ments, 181–82
negotiating fees, 170, 171 music-related events, coverage of, 177
logos, for image building, 27, 47, 78, 116 newsworthy items, views of, 177–79
long-distance job search, 341–45 next concert publicity, timeline for,
long-term goals, value of, 13, 18, 19, 20, 199–200
281, 296 paid advertisements versus media rela-
tions, 181–82
Ma, Yo-Yo, 88, 98, 125 performances
MacBlane, Amanda, 318 inviting critics for reviewing, 196–97
magazine releases about, 196
calendar listings through, 183 press releases, 185–90
promotions through, 67, 88, 119, 180, examples of, 188–90
181–82 formatting tips, 187
getting reviewed, 122 tips for writing, 185–87
and media coverage, 183 publicist, need for, 182–83
paid advertisements in, 181–82 media kit, 180 (see also press kits)
Index 363
media list, compilation of, 191–96 music careers

regional and national exposure, 195–96 career advancement, project-based, 16–17
media relations versus paid advertisements, creating partnerships through, 145–47
181–82 growth path of, 200–201
medication, for performance anxiety, 244 important qualities of, 8–9
meditation, for performance anxiety, 242, 245 meaningful, views on, 147–49
Meglioranza, Tom, 128 and thought associations, 144–45
memorial services, freelance gigs at, 257 young performers, questions for, 149–51
memorization, 242–43 musicians
mentors, 97 fundamental questions for, 141–48
consultation with, 183 and industry, 87
discussing career plan with, 44, 320 indie labels, 88
with management contacts, 158 major labels, 87–88
networking with, 197 unions for, 261–67
practicing with, 310 young performers, questions for, 149–51
for teachers, 331 Musicians of the Old Post Road, 118
metronome, for recording session, 100 musician’s job, definition of, 5
military bases, performance sites, 257 musician unions, 261–67
Miró Quartet, 25 music industry jobs
Mirvish, Edward, 11 and details, 336
Mithaug, Derek, 341 home studio, debates on, 329–30
mixing, of recordings, 97 private studio teaching, 328–29
money for projects, 107–8 (see also fund- rates, 330
raising; grants) studio policy, 330
money management, 274–94 teaching positions, types of, 332–32
Monk, Meredith, 29, 60, 66 college-level teaching, 334–35
Montbach, Jennifer, 15, 164, 189 community music schools, 332
Morris, Angela, 68, 79f private secondary schools, 332–34
motivation public schools, 332–33
career sustenance by, 13 teaching skills, way of expanding, 330–31
and goals, 208 types of organizations with, 338
personal examination of, 141, 148 music performance contract, 173
movie visualization, 239–40 music projects, funding for
mugs, promotional, 132, 116 benefit concerts, 313–14
muscle injuries commissioning new work, 314–16
performance injuries, warnings signs of, corporate sponsorship, 318–20
247–48 crowdfunding, 314
prevention strategies, 249 development continuum, patronage,
museums 307–8
alternative performance sites, 163 donations, reasons for, 305
publicizing CD release, 120 funding
and residency work, 206, 207, 218 for commissions, 316–18
teaching artists at, 203 for ensembles, 297–98
Musica Angelica, 125 fundraising, 304–7
Musical America, 156 campaign for, 306
regional and national exposure through, reasons for contribution to, 305–6
195 grant applications, 300–304
Musical Excellence: Strategies and Techniques for community projects, 301
to Enhance Performance, 4, 239, 243, musicians, warnings for, 302
349n3, 351n10 rejection, reason for, 302–2
364 Index
music projects, funding for (continued) newsletters, 133–34

grants CD release announcements, 119
application for, 298 e-mail strategies, 27
award selection methods, 303 networking through, 133–34, 312
researching grant opportunities, obtaining local media list through, 195
298–300 newspapers
organizational grants, 301–2 CD promotion by, 183
project mapping, 296 under local media list, 195
researching grant opportunities, 298–99 media coverage by, 183
direct-mail appeals, 314 press releases, 185
personal meeting, reasons for, 311 examples, 187
requests for, 310–11 for publicizing performances, 67, 88,
success factors of, 307 181–82
thank-you, art of the, 311–12 newsworthy items, views of, 177–79
music-related events, coverage of, 177 New World Records, 89
music skills, 7–8 next concert publicity, timeline for, 199–200
Myron, Kevin, 194 niche projects, 163
funding of, 112
Nakahara, Kazuha, 203 nondiscretionary time, 276–77
Nakano, Koji, 10 nonprofit organization, 297, 317
Navok, Lior, 10, 13 national, 219
Naxos, 88, 89 Norsworthy, Michael, 7
Near, Martin, 323 numbness, with repetitive motion injury,
negative self-talk 247
cognitive therapy for, 240–41 nutrition, alternative treatment through, 250
Nelsen, Jeff, 235, 236
networking Obalil, Deborah, 76
attitude and intent, 22 obstacles
backstage, dos and don’ts for, 36–38 identification of, 347
brainstorming party, 40–41 stage presence and, 226
business cards, 29 to success, removal of, 141, 246–347
don’ts of, 24 occupational therapy, for performance inju-
elevator speech, 33–35 ries, 250
ensembles, interpersonal skills for, 41–44 online presence, social networking by,
former colleagues, reconnecting with, 123–51
25–26 current developments, knowledge of, 124
importance of, 23 online promotion, 45, 179 (see also career
informational interviewing, 30–22 opportunities; e-mail; Internet
mailing lists, 26–28 opportunities)
making new friends, 29 “on location,” as recording option, 98
making use of, 24–25 orchestras
online presence and, 123–51 major labels, recording contracts with, 87
performance invitations, 28–29 musician unions and, 261
phone reminders, 36 negotiating contracts with, 156
phone success, tips for, 35–36 performing with, 6–7, 8
for referrals, freelancing, 255–56 organizational grants, 301–2
suggestions, asking for, 30 organizational skills
“working a room” tips for, 38–40 in grant writing, use of, 302
New England Conservatory, 7, 13, 32, 59, self-management and, 159–60
60, 61, 62, 64, 98, 190, 209, 265, 267, organizations (see also specific type)
276, 281, 334, 337, 340, 343, 344 networking with, 40, 44, 109
Index 365
Osborne, William, 179 live recordings or reviews of, 96

Outliers: The Story of Success, 4, 349 media coverage and, 183–84
outreach programs, 202–3, 235 (see also media list for, 191–96
community engagement work; resi- newsworthy publicity about, 177–78
dency work) next concert, timeline for publicizing,
Outwater, Edwin, 130, 135 199–200
Oxingale Records, 2, 91 peak, 224–25
possibilities and opportunities for,
packaging, of CDs, 102, 105 161–64
paid advertisements versus media relations, promotional use, 36, 57–59
181–82 publicist role, 182–83
pain, with repetitive motion injury, 247, releases about, 196–97
248, 250 sites for, 161–62
Papolos, Janice, 43, 73, 182, 183, 349n3 stage presence for, 226–32
partnerships for stress desensitization, 238
of artist and managers, 156–57 performance anxiety, 232–36
with audience, 145–14 (see also residency in concert, 245–46
work) interventions and treatment methods,
part-time jobs, 322, 323 237–41
for “lecturer” positions, 335 mechanics of, 234–35
in portfolio careers, 7 relaxation response, 241–44
prorated benefits by, 326 self-assessment of, 235–37
in schools, 325 audience, attitude toward, 236
party stress, 233–34
brainstorming, 40–41, 320 performance health, 246–52
for CD release promotion, 109, 116–17 alternative medicine and treatments, 250
gigs for, 254 preventing musician injuries, suggestions
patience, value of, 42 for, 249
in managing performance anxiety, quiz for, 246–47
232–33, 251 recuperation, 251
in recording session, 100 reworking technique, need for, 250–51
payment, 269 warning signs, 247–49
credit card debt, monthly spending, 284 performance invitations, 28–29
for debts, 285–86 performance résumés, 259–65
dispute over, 293 for solo, chamber, collaborative work,
studio policy and, 330 264
tax, 287 geared toward opera auditions, 265
pay scales. See salaries geared toward solo and ensemble work,
peak performance, 224–25 263
people skills, 22 orchestral performance résumé, example
perfectionism of, 262
performance anxiety and, 235, 238 performers. See musicians
and ambition, stress by, 247 Performing Artist’s Handbook, The (Papo-
performance(s) los), 73, 182
alternative sites for, 163 permission, of composer, for recordings, 93
anxiety about, 233–34 personality
booking for, 165–66 letterhead design communicating, 49
confirmations for, 171–72 photos communicating, 67–68, 69
invitations for, 28–33, 115 success and, 14
inviting critics for reviewing, 196–97 typefaces and, 48
licensing issues, 175 websites conveying, 128
366 Index
personalization, 236 promotional use, 47, 77, 115, 291

of greeting, 27 recording project, budgeting for, 107
of invitations, 199 post-concert receptions, people skills and,
of letters, 313 36–37, 316
of mailing list, 29 posters
of pitch letters, 121 promotional, 120, 133, 180, 216, 291,
of postcard invites, 181 313, 319
personal representative publicity photos for, 67
hiring, 161 posture
role of, 154 repetitive motion injury and, 247–48,
phone reminders, 36 249, 251
phone success, tips for, 35–36 stage presence and, 227–28
phone tag, 35 practice sessions, 99
phone voice, 35–36 breaks during, 246
photographer early morning, 282
professional photographer, views on hir- re-creating performance in, 239
ing, 70–71 warming up before, 249
selection tips, 68–70 preparation
photos for audition, 249
attire for, 72 for grant proposal, 329
communication by, 67–68 for performance, 199, 238
cost of, 71 for photo session, 71–72
during and after, 73–74 for recording session, 99–102
tips for, 71–73 for teacher, K–12 Residency materials,
physical therapy, for performance injuries, 220
250 for touring or recording projects, 43
“Pick of the Week” performance articles, 67 tax, 289–90
Pidoux, Roland, 303 pre-performance checklist, 231
Pine, Rachel Barton, 129 presenter, 128
pitch letters, 121 and audiences, ways of engaging, 164–65
planning calls to, 169
for attracting audience, 179–80 community engagement, views on, 202–3
backward, 18 residency work, primary goals of, 206
for recording projects, 120–21 role of, 154–55
for residency work, 208 press coverage. See media
time management as, 275 press kits, 180, 182
for website creation, 128 electronic, 76, 78, 137, 180, 182
Platz, Eric, 168 press release, 185–91
playing technique, reworking for injury for CD promotion, 118–19, 120
recovery, 250–51 examples, 188–90
Pliska, Greg, 215 formatting tips for, 187
Poor Man’s copyright, 92 by publicists, 155
portfolio careers, 7, 321–25, 345 steps for writing, 185–87
positive attitude, as trade secret, 251, 325 when to send out, 174
positive change, 8, 11, 148 preview articles, on performances, 183
positive energy, success and, 11, 47 priorities, in time management, 275
positive self-talk private studio teaching, 328–29
for addressing audience, 38, 228 Procter, Steve, 305, 307, 309
postcards producer, of recordings, 89, 97, 155
personalization of, 181, 199 profits, from sales, 111–12
Index 367
programming public relations specialist. See publicist

engaging strategies for, 75 purchase page, on your website, 136–37
in residency work
for adults, 213–14 quality control, 220–22
beyond school, 216 for residency work, 182–83
for children, 214–16 Quintet of the Americas, 186, 188
K-12 teacher study guides, 220 quotes
project-based careers, 16–17, 322–23 in bios, use of, 53
project funding. See fundraising; grants on blogs, 135
project management, 280–82 on flyers, 77
project statement, for grant applications, from mentors, use of, 137
302 from presenters, press release, 186
promo kits, 74–76 press, 55–56
additional promotional pieces, 74–78 promotional use, 74–75
organization of, 78–79 from satisfied customers, 259
promotion, online. See e-mail; Internet
promotional materials, 19, 45–79 radio play, 121
bios as, 49–67 radio stations, 87, 193, 200, 257
for composers and improvisers, 65 CD releases by, 119
do’s and don’ts under, 56–57 mailing albums to, 111
examples of, 59–64 online, 121
for ensembles, 57–58 posting online CD reviews, 195
photos, communication by, 67–68 press releases to, 180
and steps, 52–56 regional NPR, performance site, 162
branding, 46–47 Radius Ensemble, 15, 138, 164, 189
examples of, 58–64 Radnofsky, Ken, 317
image, projection of, 45 Raney, Barbara, 161, 170, 172
importance of, 45–46 Reaching Out: A Musician’s Guide to Interac-
kits of, 74–79 tive Performances, 210, 350n1
letterhead as, 47–50 receipts
photos for deductible expenses, 287–88, 289
attire for, 72 stores, consignment sales at, 116, 291
cost of, 71 tracking spending by, 284, 291–92
during and after, 73–74 receptions, 38–39
photo shoot attitude at, 232
professional photographer, views on gigs, sales at, 115
hiring, 70–71 postperformance, 36, 146, 311
selection tips, 68–70 learning from, 37
tips for, 71–73 text messaging after, 126
photos as, 67–71 wedding, 255
product giveaways, 78, 116 recitals, 229, 244, 309, 330
Pro Musicis, 158 benefit concert by, 313–14
publications. See magazine promotions; booking for, 79
newspapers degree, live recordings of, 85, 95
public domain, 93 recommendations. See letters of recom-
publicist, need for, 182–83 mendation;
publicity photos, standard, 67–71 record contracts, 85–86, 88, 153
publicizing recording
CD releases, 119–20 artwork and graphics, use of, 102–3
need for, 182–83 DIY route, 99
368 Index
recording (continued) referrals

financing for, 105–7 attracting students through, 328–29
fundraising projects and personal choosing photographer from, 68–69, 74
loans, 107–8 e-mail exchange of, 40
recording project budget, 107 finding financial planner through, 286
grants for, 108–9 gig, 23, 267
in studio, 98 graphic designer, 103
information to be included in, 103–4 informational interviewing, e-mail
on disc, 104–5 request for, 32
on location, 98–99 networking for, 255–56
preparing for, 99–102 residency work, tips for, 212, 219
profit, ways of making, 111–12 rejection
promotion of, 116–19 attitude in handling, 8, 10
reasons for, 86–87 and success, 14
in studio, 98 as pitch call outcome, 169
tips for, 95–96 relationships (see also networking)
recording industry, 87–90 with corporate contact, 320
career opportunities in, 325, 337–39 development continuum, 307–8, 320
contract with fans, 94, 135
perspectives on, 89–90 fundraising and, 304–7
reasons for, 86–87 with managers, 156–57
copyright issues, recording industry, and networking, 21–22, 23, 24, 29, 30
91–92 with presenters, 153–54
engineer selection process, 97–98 and social media platforms, 26–27,
entrepreneurial solution, recording 124–25
industry, 90–91 with supporters, 310–11
fundraising projects and personal loans, Relaxation Response, The (Benson), 241–44
107–8 release concert, 167
issues in, 179 booking fee(s) associated with, 106, 122
labels, importance of, 88–89 for CD promotion, 118
licensing issues, 92–93 repertoire
lingo used in, 96–97 questions for choosing, 95, 96
musicians and industry, 87 for recording, 99–100, 101, 122
indie labels, 88 repertoire list, 139
major labels, 87–88 for promo kit, 75
profit, ways of making, 111–12 example of, 80
performances, CD sales at, 114–15 repetitive motion injuries, 247
through online retail services, 112–14 reputation building, 177–201
stores, consignment sales at, 116 audiences and, 179–82
tips for, 115 by media coverage, 183–84
project evaluation approaches, 88–89 media list for, 191–96
sales, recording press releases for, 185–91
of advance copies, 108–9 publicist role, 182–83
record labels, 87–90 publicizing performances, 199–200
record stores, CD consignment sales, 116 research, 256–58
recuperation, 251 on alternative performance sites, 162–63
references on booking opportunities, 165–66
letters of, 302 career exploration, 19–20
from trusted colleagues, 98 on composer names and publishing
“reference shots,” for publicity photos, 71 information, 103
Index 369
under entrepreneurial checklist, 14–15 construction, 259–61

finding residency work partners, brain- for freelance work, 258, 273
storming for, 222–23 for managing gigs, 273
grant opportunities, 108–9, 298–99 performance résumé, 259
for media list, 184, 195, 199 example of, 262, 263, 264, 265
on performance sites, 19 teaching résumé, 335–36
project-based career advancement, 16 example of, 337
on recording location, 98–99 retailers, 97
success by, 10 digital, 90, 133
for website creation, 128–29 online, 94, 112
residency work, 202–3 selling album through, 104–5
adult programs, 213 retainer fees, 161
children programs, 216 reviews
encompassment of, 206–8 inviting critics for, 198–97
gains in performing, 203–5 of your work, 119, 120, 191, 194, 200
getting hired, 217–18 Rice University, 6
K-12 audiences Richmond, Annette, 19
designing programs for, 214–16 Rife, Jean, 275, 339
study guides for, 220 rights
national funding sources for, 219 copyright issues, 91–92
necessity of, 205–6 licensing issues, 92–93
possible community partners for, 218 of reproduction of images, 71
questions for exploring, 208 website building, 130
senior programs, 213–14 Rios, Daniel, 58, 62
structuring programs, 211–12 Rodriguez, Santiago, 91
talking to audiences, 208–10 Roman, Joshua, 51, 215
entry point, ways of finding, 210–11 Ross, Alex, 3, 124
points to consider, 210 rude behavior, stage, 228
teaching artist, 203 Ruth, Sebastian, 3
tips for, 212 Rutirisari, Chokdee, 131
resiliency, for success, 8, 10
resources (see also websites) salaries, 341
for ensembles, 294 for teaching, 333–34
on financial questions, 286 for tenure-track jobs, 335
on grant opportunities, 298–99 sales, recording
on injury management, 248 of advance copies, 108–9
for networking, 267 through online retail services, 112–14
relaxation response, 241–42 performances, CD sales at, 114–15
for teachers, 331–32 profit, ways of making, 111–12
for web designers, 132 stores, consignment sales at, 116
respect through website, 132
for conductor, 228 tips for, 115
for copyright, licensing issue, 92 sales skills, 8
for deadlines, 180 Sandow, Greg, 124, 136
for music, stage presence, 226 savvy, success and, 9, 18
success and, 12, 27, 243 schedule C, for income tax, 289
responsibility of artist, 113–14 scheduling, 245, 277
and managing projects, 280
restaurants, freelance gigs at, 254 schmoozing. See networking
résumé Schneckenburger, Lissa, 118
370 Index
Schneider, Maria, 110, 111, 225 small talk, 29

scholarships Sobule, Jill, 130
bios, mentioning in, 52, 56 social graces. See people skills
grants, recordings for, 108–9 social media, 124–26
undergraduate and graduate study, 299 basics of, 126
schools, performance opportunities with, Second Life (SL) music, 125–26
163, 164, 166, 172 social networking, online, 123–51
Schuller, Gunther, 91, 317 current developments, knowledge of, 124
Schween, Astrid, 143 fan base, cultivation of, 133
scores of music, 290 newsletters, 133–34
search engines, for online resources, 128, social media, 124–26
132, 134 basics of, 126
Seidler, Reinmar, 12, 83, 84 Second Life (SL) music, 125–26
self-assessment website
for career advancement, 17–18 common items on, 135–39
on meaningfulness of work, 147–48 creation of, 130–39
for overcoming anxiety, 235–36, 246 overview of, 128
self-consciousness, 224 (see also perfor- site analysis, 129
mance anxiety) sites to peruse, 129–30
self-employment. See freelance lifestyle social responsibility, of musicians, 147
self-employment taxes, 289–93 software programs
self-esteem, 53, 160, 235, 236 financial, 284
self-management. 159–60 (see also freelance for mailing lists, 261
lifestyle) for website development, 131–32
artist management and, 152–76 soloists
self-talk, 236–37 bowing tips, 228
negative, 240–41 radio stations and 121
positive, for coping, 38, 228 So Percussion, 130
“selling points,” for CD release events, sound clips, 19
117–18 freelancers, marketing for, 258
senior programs, 213–14 for performance release, 196
senior residency programs, 213–14 on your website, 128, 134, 136
Shaham, Gil, 128 South by Southwest, 38, 64
Sher, Barbara, 40 Sowash, Bradley, 163, 169
shipping methods, for CD sales, 116 specialty retailers, CD sales through, 111,
Shortcuts to Rekindle the Fire in Your 116
Career, 23 Spellman, Peter, 49
short-term goals, value of, 13, 18 Sphinx Competition, 158
and career plan, 19–20 stage entrances, tips for, 226–29, 232
for fundraising, 282 stage presence, 226–32
Shulman, Laurie, 311 bowing tips, 227–29
signature, 49 concert attire tips, 229–30
sign-in book, at performances, 117 ensembles tips, 229
Sikes, Toni, 15 Stage Presence from Head to Toe, 226, 350n1
skills (see also specific type) Steinmetz, John, 203, 205, 210, 258, 275
for ensembles, interpersonal, 44 stress, dynamics of, 233
of entrepreneurs, 13–16 stress management, 233–34
for interpersonal relationship, 11 String Trio of New York, 213
Slim, Pamela, 22, 23 structuring programs, 211–12
small claims court, for nonpayment, 270 studio policy, for private teaching, 330
Index 371
“studio shock,” 90 deductible receipts, 289, 290–91

studio teaching careers, 323, 328–30 expert, getting help from, 289–90
study guides, for K-12 residency work, 220 expense records, 287
substitute player, freelancing as, 254 income records, 287
success musician’s tax quiz, 289
definition of, 142–44 overpayment of, 293
success, freelancing for, 253–73 reporting forms and process, 289
contracts, 270–73 Taxes 101, 287–88, 291
performance contract, example of, 272 taxpayers, benefits, 290
reminders for clients, 271 tax preparation experts, 289–90
fee negotiations, 267–68 tax records
freelance lifestyle, timetable for, 256 for CD sales, 291
handling clients, tips for, 268–70 for freelancers, 287, 289
marketing, 258–59 tax return, 289, 290
musician unions, 261–67 Taylor, Andrew Kohji, 124, 200
performance résumés, 259–65 teacher certification, 214, 333
referrals, networking for, 255–59 teacher resources, 331–32
research, 256–58 teaching artist, 203
résumé construction, 259–61 teaching careers
specialization, views on, 244–55 adjunct positions, 334, 335
success factors, five how’s, 307 college-level, 335, 336
success principles, 9–13 community schools, 332
interpersonal skills, tips for, 11 comparative data, 331–32
suggestions entrepreneurial, 13–16, 90–91
asking for, 30 home studio, 329–30
for expanding teaching option portfolio-based, 321–22
charges, 330 private secondary schools, 333–34
home studio, 329–30 private studio, 328–29
private studio teaching, 328–29 public schools, 332–33
skill development, 330–32 rates to charge, 330
studio policy, 330 resources for, 331–32
making note of, 41 skill development, 330–31
for preventing musician injuries, 249 studio policy for, 330
Sullivan, Bob, 23, 259 university-level, 335
summer camps, residency work with, 216 teaching résumés, 335–36
superlatives, avoiding in bios, 186 team approach, 40
support system clear directive, 40–41
friends and mentors as, 8 inviting people, 41
need for, 251 planning of, 41
network as, 22, 24 suggestions, noting of, 41
Synergy Brass Quintet, 160 thanking, 41
technical rider, for performance contracts,
takes, during recording, 100–101 170, 171
talent, 323, 345 (see also music skills) technology careers, 90, 93–94, 338
and hard work, 8 telephone skills, 19 (see also cold calls)
tasks, urgent versus important, 279 television careers, 266
tax deductible expenses, 284–85, 289–91, tendonitis, 247
311 1040 form, for income tax, 289
taxes, for freelancers 1099 form, for freelance income, 288–89
declaring income, 290 tenure trackteaching jobs, 334, 335
372 Index
testimonials, for freelance marketing, 74, Uniform Code Council, Inc., 105
110, 137, 220, 302 unions, musician, 266–67
text messaging, 126, 181, 247 universal product code (UPC), on CDs,
thank-yous, 33, 104, 200, 311, 312 104–5
third party endorsements, 167 U.S. Copyright Office, 92
Thomas, Kelland, 60, 198 “us versus them” thinking, 145
Thompson, Brooke, 220
thought stopping, 238, 240, 245 values, success and, 143
time and timing information Van Cliburn Competition, 158
on CDs, 103 Ventre, Ginevra, 162
on radio play, 121 versatility, freelance marketing of, 254
timelines videotape assessment, of work, 221, 227,
for grant applications, 301 244, 246, 252
for publicizing performances, 199–200 visualization exercises, 239
after the concert, 200 circle of excellence, 241
time management, 274–94 directing own movie, 239–40
four quadrant scheduling, 276–78 re-creating performance, 239
practice, efficiency of, 282–83 Voicemail messages, 27Volunteer Lawyers
project management, 280–81 for the Arts, 90, 294, 298
quiz for, 275 volunteers, 133, 166
reality scheduling, 276 and volunteering, 128
regular weekly activities, organization VSA Arts, 219
of, 276–78
tips for, 279–80 W2 income, of freelancers, 288–89
to-do lists, 278–79 W4 form, 298
tools for, 274 Wallace, David, 211
urgent versus important tasks, 279 warm up, for recording session, 100, 237,
titles, on disk, 104 244, 247, 249, 283
Tokyo Quartet, 43 web calendars, 120–21, 180, 183, 195
total concert experience, of audience, web page, 134, 138
146 websites
tours and touring, 162 common items on, 135–39
trade shows, manager’s role, 143–44 creation of, 130–34
traditional career opportunities costs, 131–32
entrepreneurial versus, 291–92 designing, tips for, 134
portfolio combinations, 292–94 site construction, 131
traditional jobs, competition for, 6–8 traffic analysis, 132–33
traditional management, alternatives to, web hosting, 130–31
160–61 overview of, 128
transferable skills, 324–25 site analysis, 129
transportation, 3, 170 sites to peruse, 129–30
contract consideration of, 171–72 weddings, freelance gigs for, 18, 254–55,
and lodging arrangement, 171 267, 268
travel expenses, 170, 171 Wilson, Ransom, 90–91
for regional tour, 172 Wilson, Susan, 68, 69f, 70, 71
trigger finger or thumb, 247 Wordless Music Series, 12
Triple Helix, 160 Worgaftik, Mark, 99
t-shirts, promotional, 78, 116, 132, 137 “working a room,” tips for, 38–40
tuning order, for ensembles on stage, 229 workshops, 76
TV stations, media list of, 195 offerings, 84
Index 373
Wright, Judith Ciampa, 250 Young Concert Artists, 158, 315

Writing the Perfect Sponsorship Proposal, young performers, 46
318 21 questions for, 149–51
Yale University, 158 Zeltsman, Nancy, 139

Young, Dana, 276, 277, 280 “zone,” being in the, 242
Young Audiences, Inc., 31, 32, 33, 34, 212, Zorn, John, 91, 189
217, 219 Zukofsky, Paul, 91

Beyound Talent PDF

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Beyound Talent PDF

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Beyound Talent PDF

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Praise for the first edition of Beyond Talent

“Beyond Talent: Creating a Successful Career in Music provides practical ad-

“Beyond Talent is full of valuable information for students as well as pro-

“The students were truly inspired by it . . . They told me on a regular basis

“Beyond Talent is a wonderfully helpful book for the professional future of

Creating a Successful Career in Music

Angela Myles Beeching

Oxford New York

Copyright © 2010 by Angela Myles Beeching

Published by Oxford University Press, Inc.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Resources are available online at www.oup.com/us/beyondtalent

Is This Book for You? X

What This Book Includes X

Drawing on my years of experience as a music career counselor, educator,

How Is This Book Organized? X

As much as possible, topics are presented in a first-things-first, step-by-step

how to book performances. So, although chapters can certainly be read on

Where Do the Musician Examples Come From? X

Bonus Item: The Dirty Secret about Career Planning X

Tricks of the Trade X

2 Cultivating Your Support Network:

3 Developing Your Image:

4 Expanding Your Impact: Making Recordings 85

5 Building Your Online Community:

Interlude: Five Fundamental Questions 141

6 Booking Concerts: Artist Management

7 Telling Your Story: Attracting Media Attention

8 Connecting with Audiences:

9 Performing at Your Best 224

10 Freelancing for Success 253

11 Balancing Life: Managing Time and Money 274

Effective Practice 282

12 Funding for Music Projects 295

13 Getting It Together: Your Career, Your Life 321

Postlude: 5 Career Counseling Secrets Revealed 346

“This is such an exciting time in the world of music—musicians and

Today’s Musicians Profiled: Success Redefined X

What characterizes the newest generation of musicians? What kinds of suc-

What Does It Take? Part 1 X

Defining the Profession: What’s a Musician’s “Job”?

Debunking the Myth of Music Career Success

an international “star,” making a living as a soloist, and performing with

The Big Picture X

What Does It Take? Part 2 X

Musicians, like most people, are fond of complaining. It is easier to

Ten Success Principles X

5. Cultivate an attitude. Be positive, resilient, flexible, and professional.

7. Think like an entrepreneur. This means thinking creatively about what

8. Communicate what makes you distinctive. In order to get bookings,

9. Have both short-term and long-term goals. Articulating your goals is

Advancing in your career involves fine-tuning your goals, assessing

The Entrepreneurial You X

Musicians do not usually view themselves as entrepreneurs, even though

R Budget/finance R Personal integrity

Project-Based Career Advancement X

Self-Assessment: Where Are You Now? X

What Are Your Strengths?

What Needs Improving?