How do you define success for yourself as a musician? How does your career look right now and how would you like it to look? If you’ve never had the benefit of working with a career counselor who specializes in the field of music, and you’re in need of the ultimate idea book, read Angela Myers Beeching’s book, Beyond Talent: Creating a Successful Career in Music.
Beeching’s book, published in 2005, begins in a general way with a revealing prelude, “Confessions of a Career Counselor.” It continues with 10 principles of success and an entrepreneurial checklist of the management and personal qualities necessary for a musician attempting to maintain an active career in music. Beeching herself is an accomplished cellist and has been director of the Career Services Center at the New England Conservatory since 1993. Beyond Talent is an invaluable resource book that features current information about the business of music, strategies for creating performance opportunities, sample documents, case studies, and website addresses for further research.
This self-help book for musicians is particularly helpful if ideas about self-promotion and networking are foreign to you. In the chapter “Making Connections: Schmoozing for Success,” Beeching gives her definition of networking: “Being neighborly, being open and being interested in meeting new people … exchanging information and ideas while getting to know people.” The author highlights the importance of creating a mailing list and database for your network—everyone you know, including relatives, friends, neighbors, colleagues, former classmates, teachers, mentors, doctors, lawyers, etc. These people make up your potential audience, says Beeching.
After compiling a list of people in your network, you may want to try a structured form of networking called an “informational interview,” a meeting with someone in your network, such as an artist manager, conductor, fellow singer, or artistic director. The purpose of an informational interview, says Beeching, is to gain information about the industry and obtain the names of at least two or three new contacts, not to request a job or audition. You can even contact a professional who is not within your network to request an interview, she adds. The book includes a sample business letter written for this purpose.
Another creative hint for networking Beeching’s book suggests: Host a brainstorming party of five or six colleagues and friends who have business savvy or musical knowledge and support your endeavors. These parties can help you set goals and define action steps.
Beeching devotes three additional chapters to marketing: “Building Your Image,” “Expanding Your Impact,” and “Online Promotion.” These pages feature a wealth of detail-oriented knowledge designed to introduce the reader to a more sales-minded approach towards getting work as a musician. For example, she provides a thorough discussion of promotional materials such as bios, publicity photos, letters of recommendation, reviews, and especially compelling recital programs.
Beeching also outlines the need for demo CDs and describes what is involved in the production of a solo recording for profit. She discusses the budget considerations involved in a recording endeavor, provides examples of text dealing with copyright and licensing issues, and even suggests promoting a CD with a release concert or party. Finally, Beecham encourages singers to use the Web for two purposes: as an information source for research (such as current events, grants, fellowships, commissions, auditions, and music jobs), and as a promotional tool (for e-newsletters, a personal website, etc.).
Each chapter ends with a “Suggestions for Moving Ahead” section, where Beeching assigns “homework” to the reader. She asks compelling questions to aid singers in self-evaluation and to spark creative thinking. Beeching also suggests action steps, such as giving yourself three career advancement tasks each week, or listing five local media outlets to which you could send a press release about an upcoming performance.
Throughout Beyond Talent, Beeching includes many sample documents that are helpful for singers who lack marketing or self-management experience. In the section on creating a press kit, for example, Beeching supplies samples of bios, headshots, quotes for a press kit, a repertoire list, a list of recent engagements, a program, and a list of possible workshops a typical singer might include. For singers who have just recorded their own CDs, Beeching provides a consignment contract for CD sales, a CD release party invitation, and a submission letter requesting a CD review.
The book also includes samples of a presenter information sheet (for research purposes), performance contracts, press releases, public service announcements, résumés, and a sample fund-raising letter. You can even learn the five elements of a “pitch”—a brief conversation piece about you or your group—in the chapter, “Booking Performances Like a Pro.” If you don’t find what you’re looking for within the book, you can look for other resources in the 12-page appendix.
Ultimately, Beeching challenges aspiring musicians to think in an entrepreneurial way.
“Musicians usually experience their careers as a series of projects, such as recordings, work with various ensembles, commissioning or grant projects, involvement with specific repertoire, [or] residencies …” she writes. Traditional ready-made jobs, such as gigs with an orchestra or opera company, certainly exist—but musicians are most likely to build a “portfolio career” instead, a lifestyle that entails several part-time jobs, both traditional and entrepreneurial. Maintaining a portfolio career requires understanding concepts such as management, booking a performance, and knowing how to create effective programming.
Armed with the knowledge Beyond Talent presents, singers can continue to go to auditions offered by opera companies, but they can also create performance opportunities and meaningful artistic experiences for themselves. Practice, a lot of research, and marketing savvy all make musicians more effective—and ultimately, more successful in the music business. It may take years of networking, grant applications, and growing an audience, but the first action steps are often the most important, says Beeching, adding that people move ahead when they’re ready. If it’s true that we create our own obstacles to fulfilling our goals, merely reading this book won’t effect change, but Beyond Talent guarantees to inspire and inform—and sometimes these two elements can take a career to the next level.
