Goal Setting

Goal setting can be seen an important and useful when it comes to the life of a freelance musician. By setting goals you will be able to plan ahead with milestones until you reach your ultimate goal, whether that’s wanting to own your own recording studio or being a world renowned musician. At the end of the day it is an overall plan to how you want your career to develop.

Some of you may be familiar with a Career Development Plan already, but it is basically a form where you can plan your self-development and skills & Knowledge for the next 10 years of your career. I like to set it out as if you’re climbing a mountain; which route is going to take you to the summit the fastest?

  

This is just a rough sketch on what you could do and where to put your goals. For a famous musician your first goal could be to play at a venue to more than 100 people, and your second could be to release an EP. You could see it as a musical bucket list but with working towards a main goal.

However this could become quite stressful for you, especially if your targets are related to a certain time period. If one of your targets for the end of the year is to write an album and you’re getting writers block, this could either motivate you to try harder or make you lose motivation all together and give up on the whole concept of a Career Development Plan.

Also throughout your career you might suddenly want to change your main goal, or maybe all the goals before that one as well. Nothing is stopping you from branching away from your original plan. For example, you might start off with wanting to be a session musician but then realise that you’d rather go into teaching music instead.

It is important to have at least one way to set your goals out on paper. As I said earlier, it will definitely motivate you to keep going and you can also see how much closer to the summit of the mountain you’re getting. And before you know it you’ll be standing on the top looking back at all the hard work you put into getting there -  and you’ll be thankful. 

Music CV

Acoustic Cover - N Sync - It's Gonna Be Me

Networking

Networking is key for us musicians. I think we can all agree that we would only have family and friends turning up to our pub gigs if we didn’t try networking.

 In case you weren’t sure, Networking is basically making friends with other musicians or music producers. This means you could end up getting more performances and a bigger crowd. The more links you have with the music industry the more likely you are going to get popular.

Social media such as Facebook or twitter and any other social media is a great way to meet other freelance musicians much like ourselves. Let us not forget the good old fashion way of talking to the acts you’re supporting. A friend of mine ended up talking to the headlining band at his gig and ended up getting 4 more performances!

Business cards are incredible for helping people remember your name. It also opens opportunities for them to get in contact with you or find you on your social media sites. You should link your mobile number and either a website or YouTube page (so they can listen to your other songs!) This is a quick example of a business card I would make

 As you can see it’s straight to the point and has my name, what I can do and a way of contacting me. (of course its not my real number!) I’ve also added an electric guitar so they know that I play guitar. Also, who doesn’t like pictures?!

I'm sure most of you have heard of Cilla Black. She was a good friend of Ringo Star and from that became friends with the whole band! Early on in their career she would perform on stage with them which made her become a lot more popular than she was before!

This might change as you become better known. Not only will your contacts have grown but so would your popularity! You’ll probably find people who were in the same position as you asking for help or trying to buy you a drink. And there’s a high chance someone you’ve kept in contact with could be in the top charts and doing a world tour! So maybe you should give them a call and see who else you can meet

10 Safety Tips For Musicians

So you want to stay safe when it comes to music? Follow these 10 tips and you should be a lot safer than you were before!

1) Setting up microphone stands

it is important to set microphone stands up correctly in the performance space. By wrapping the XLR cable around the microphone stand will reduce the risk of someone tripping over it. If there is still a lot of cable left after plugging it in make sure to neatly coil and place at the base of the microphone stand. If there are other microphone stands near the PA then run the cable 

underneath the legs of the other microphone stands. This means they aren't in the way of people moving around the area, so nobody should fall over and hurt themselves. It might be worth spending a little bit more money rather than buying microphone stands from Argos.

2) Checking sound levels on the PA and amps

it's very important that you're not exposed to sound levels that are louder than necessary. Exposure to high sound levels can lead to permanent hearing damage, an example of this would be tinnitus. Before plugging in your mic or guitar into the pa or amp make sure the volume is all the way down to 0! then when you turn on the pa or amp you won't hear that horrible, loud noise and you'll be able to get the right volume without having to panic or have a headache. An example of a musician who had his equipment on too loud for too many years would be Paul Gilbert. He now has to wear ear defenders whenever he performs on stage! And they're not as stylish as you'd think!

3) Coiling leads

I think we all know how annoying it is when you go to pick up a jack lead and all you can see are knots and tangles! This can easily be avoided by correctly coiling the leads. DO NOT coil by wrapping it around your elbow and feeding it to your hand as this will break the connections in the lead! Hold one end in your hand and do a neat loop, and then repeat until the whole lead has been coiled. To secure the lead into place, wrapping electrical tape around it is great however you can also buy velcro strips which do just as well

4) Taping down wires

there's no time to be tripping when you're suppose to be rocking out! If you're in a performance space and you're having to step over a lot of wires, taping them down is essential to stay safe. Imagine you're half way through a song and you fall over because your foot got caught around a cable! Gaffer tape is amazing to use when taping down wires as it's thick and strong, meaning it wont come off unintentionally any time soon. Or if you're just running a single wire around the side of the room like in the picture, electrical tape will do fine.

5) Putting instruments away correctly

leaning your guitar against the amp is not putting it away correctly. It is very likely that the guitar will fall over which could either hurt you or really damage your guitar. It could also detune your guitar which would cause a serious problem if you were just about to go on stage. To avoid this from happening, if you have a guitar or bass then equipment such as a guitar rack will ensure your instrument that your instrument is safe from falling. The picture shows the guitars being correctly put into a guitar rack where as the other picture is a bad example of where to rest a guitar when its not in use.

6) Food and drinks

if possible, try to avoid eating and drinking around musical equipment as it can be quite dangerous. If you were to spill a liquid all over some electrical equipment not only does it cause the equipment to 'blow' but it could also hurt you in the process (electrocution isn't that fun). If you have a bottle of water with the lid secure then keep it away from the area so nobody can get hurt and you are still able to have a drink. Do NOT do what is in the picture as this not only could damage the XLR cable but also make you look stupid

7) Don't overpower plug sockets

just look at that picture. You don't want to be that person who has to sort that all out, do you? So try to avoid doing it in the first place. If you're not using certain equipment e.g amps yet they are plugged in it is important to switch them off and unplug them. Overpowering plug sockets makes the area look messy and could even cause a fire if left like it for too long. It can also blow a fuse and that's the last thing you want mid practice. Only plug in what you need so you are not endangering anyone around you or the equipment itself.

8) Moving equipment

some equipment you'll have to move around can be heavy and dangerous if dropped. If you are moving any large, heavy equipment its essential that you ask yourself if you're capable of lifting it without help. If you can't then ask a friend or co-worker for assistance. If given the opportunity, use a trolley to carry equipment to and from your destination. Never try to lift it as you could strain your back which could leave you with permanent damage and health issues in the future. Also try not to drop the equipment. Dropping it could lead to it being damaged or even broken and this might not be cheap to repair or replace.

9) Testing equipment

at least once a year you should be testing your equipment with a PAT (portable appliance test) to ensure that your equipment is safe to use. Even if you think your equipment is fine and that there's nothing wrong with it, it definitely doesn't hurt to have it checked. Some venues will not let you use your own equipment if it has not been tested to prove it is safe as it could end up hurting you and they'll be the one in trouble. So make sure you get it done once a year so you and everyone around you can stay safe.

10) Don't go too crazy on stage

as someone who gets too carried away when it comes to performing, I can say that I have ended up hurting myself on stage. At the time I thought it would be a good idea to prance around the stage, left to right until of course I got caught in a wire and well, I think you can tell what happened next. You can still look like you're enjoying yourself on stage without getting too crazy, but of course you have to put the safety of yourself, your other performers and the crowd first. You also don't want to do a Billie Joe Armstrong and smash your guitar on stage, especially as freelance musicians like ourselves because a good guitar isn't cheap!

Here Without You Guitar Tutorial

Cash Flow

So I’m guessing a lot of you reading this are Freelance Musicians much like myself, so we all understand the stress we go through when looking over our cash-flow.

Cash-flow is basically the amount of money that is flowing throughout your business. Some people don’t notice how their cash-flow can affect their savings until it’s too late. My advice would be to prepare some form of a budget sheet such as a cash budget or possibly an income statement. A cash budget basically breaks down your cash expenses and cash revenue so you can see where you are making a profit or loss. Income statements manage your net profit and not just your cash. It will also help to be on top with your bank statements.

 This issue of cash-flow in the music industry is the fluctuating work, am I right? One month you could be a session musician and gigging, making £4000+ but then the next month you could be busking and teaching 6 year olds how to play a C chord and only making £800. The image below is a quick little excel spreadsheet showing an income throughout the year.

This is a perfect example of how your income can differ each month.

As you can see this person is making £4,700 in April and then £600 in August – It's completely unpredictable! When you see this you may think “that's not too bad” but this is before you take away your expenses and insurance.

That's a lot of red! Even after making £18,800 we have to pay £16,300 to our good old friend expenditure, which is clearly a love-hate relationship. That leaves us with only £2,500 for our savings account, and some guitars cost even more than that.

And even though doing this can be very depressing, you have to take into consideration how much this can help you. At least if you're managing your cash-flow regularly you're less likely to be in debt and have a large overdraft to pay back.

So to sum it all up, DEFINITELY keep an eye on your cash-flow or instead of making a profit each year you could be making a major loss. Next time you see a brand new, shiny instrument in your favourite music shop's window or that weekend festival you've been dying to go to - count your pennies before you hand them over and good luck