What It Takes: The Formula for Success in Music

First, let’s finally put to rest the myth of the instant success: the idea of being “discovered” or “having that one big lucky break.” The truth is, when musicians are interviewed in depth, the overnight success invariably turns out to have been ten or twenty years in the making. There is substantial research that shows that it takes 10,000 hours, or roughly ten years of study, work, and experience, to become an expert in any field.

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 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 necessary 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 connected with a local promoter who had 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 “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.”

The point is that success is a process, a journey, and you need to be in it for long haul. Long-term career goals are realized through everyday choices about the use of time, energy, and money.

Are Talent and Hard Work Enough?

The second myth that fuels many young musicians’ dreams goes like this: “If I practice really, really, REALLY hard, do everything my teacher tells me, go to the best school, and win competitions, then with luck (and maybe the connections my teacher has), I will ‘make it.’” For many, making it means becoming 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 realities of the “real world.” Unfortunately, the bubble also keeps musicians uninformed 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 soloists. 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 satisfaction, 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 Kamins, faculty at Rice University, former principal with the Houston Symphony, and active freelance chamber player. “There is a misconception amongst music students that you get a job in an orchestra and you live happily ever after. It’s incredible to get and keep that job, but it doesn’t guarantee artistic satisfaction.”

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 performing. Musicians’ careers are multidimensional. Working musicians typically “wear different hats” over the course of their workweek and over the course of their working lives. In talking with most active professional musicians, you will find they have multiple ongoing projects that involve performing, composing, recording, teaching, or other arts-related activities. What’s more, musicians are often involved in handling performance contracts, 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 education and public funding for the arts, and serve their communities on advisory boards and as consultants.

When they don’t find ready-made work opportunities, or when they simply want something other than what’s available, musicians create their own entrepreneurial 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 series, and, in the process, they build audiences and transform communities.

Ask your mentors or other 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. 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 Success Formula?

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 actual formula, there are 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 themselves. You need more:

• A winning attitude: You are motivated, focused, and resilient; you can handle rejection.
• Sales skills: You communicate and present yourself well; your enthusiasm 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 implement your plan.
• Adaptability: You have a range of skills and the flexibility to adapt to your circumstances and the changing marketplace.

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. Once you determine what needs work, it’s a matter of building skills and creating new habits over time, working purposefully toward becoming the person you intend to be.

Musicians who do well professionally and have the least trouble with the realities of the music profession are those who have most of these qualities or who have an overabundance in one area that may compensate for a lack in another. And by collaborating with others in group projects and ensembles, you have the possibility of making the most of each other’s skills and traits to strengthen the whole.

In sum, the best thing musicians can do for their career development is to define success for themselves and then reflect on their goals, challenging the myths, and exploring ways to advance towards those goals. Musicians have much to offer, so consider all the ways you might play an active and positive role in your community. Your career will go through many stages – it’s a process – a journey of a thousand steps. For many, enjoying the journey is the most important kind of success in life.

Beyond Talent is readily available on Amazon.com Trained as a cellist, Ms. Beeching formerly directed the Career Services Center at New England Conservatory and is a consultant to the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music. Angela maintains a thriving private practice based in Boston and is committed to helping musicians and institutions build paths to success through project-based coaching and consulting.

Copyright, Angela Beeching, May 10, 2011. http://angelabeeching.com