Okay. Let’s start with what should be a very simple question:
What do you do?
“We’re a record label” or “I’m a distributor” or “I’m a singer/songwriter” or any similar kind of variation on that theme is The Wrong Answer. I didn’t ask what you are, or how you describe your job. I asked what you do.
Let’s not even think about the question “how do you make money?” yet. That’s not step one. Step one is just, very simply, “what is it that you do?”
Get out a piece of paper or open a new text document and just see what you come up with.
How do you spend your time? In that part of the day when you’re being a record label exec, a producer, manager, luthier, sound engineer, concert promoter, arranger, drummer, publisher or whatever… what physical and mental activities are you engaged in?
Let’s take stock. Do you rehearse? Do you compose? Are you on the phone? Do you hold discussions? Are you typing? Listening to records? Putting up posters? Plugging in cables? Meeting with the accountant? Networking? What have you spent the majority of your day doing so far? What are you likely to spend the majority of the rest of your day doing?
Is there some sort of structure to that? Do you have a start time? Do you have a place to be? Is it pre-determined, or does it just sort of happen? Do you know what you will be doing this time tomorrow? On the same day next week? Is it always in the same place or do you move around? What time is your next meal break? When do you go on holiday? Is there even such a thing for you?
It’s not necessary that you have answers to any of these questions just yet. It’s likely that the answers that you do have start with the phrase “Well, actually, it’s complicated…” — but it’s really important to ask the question and start to get a feel for the answer.
My guess is that there are about 20 and 50 things that you do with any real regularity. Get them all down. They can include taking the bus to the record shop, signing £1m licensing deals and just noodling on the guitar. Try for as many as you can.
Don’t just jot down all the things you feel someone like you should be doing — make sure you capture everything you actually do. You can leave out breakfast, phoning your mum (unless, say, she’s your manager) and having a shower. We’re looking for activities that are directly related to your professional creative enterprise. Try and remember everything you’ve done over the past week, and skip through your diary, if you have one, looking for clues about other things that you’ve been engaged in.
Write them down.
This is, of course, only the very start of a process that will lead us to the ways in which you improve your independent music business — but I’ve found that this simple exercise quite often reveals immediate opportunities for improvement. Responses range from ‘Wow – I’m quite busy with unimportant stuff…’ to ‘Oh my God – I’m such a slacker…’ to ‘Hey, we don’t actually ever practice!’.
I’d be keen to hear about any surprises you turn up in the comments… and we’ll continue this exercise once you’re done.
Tagged: Advice, business, entrepreneur, music industry, tips
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10 Comments
A very bright friend of mine (he was the CTO at a last mile telecomm company for a couple of years) asked me this a few years ago, and I was frustrated that I couldn’t put my answer into a few words.
I don’t want to take the easy out of dyslexia or Acquired ADD — I do a bunch of things, some related to computers (coding, databases, support, architecture) and some to other areas (music, cooking, carpentry).
I’m going to be 50 this spring. Time to get organized. Again. :) Thanks for a thought-provoking post.
Alex
Thanks for the idea… this should help getting organized. I realized I spend too much time using my computer to mix/produce my music, rather than writing the music or practicing my instruments =/ Thanks!
Found the “done” tab in Thinking Rock to be quite useful for this exercise :-)
I’m not entirely sure if spending a *lot* of time reading RSS feeds about music industry happenings and developments as well as being engaged in email conversations with other professionals is a bad thing – but it’s not the most productive thing in the world and I do seem to spend a lot of time doing it…
I’m wondering out loud if all this reading is valuable, or if it’s stopping me from *doing*.
I try to merely be a waiter/bartender/cook however if I sit and answer those questions of yours I find that most of what I do falls into the following categories
Research new music strategies or opps
Advise music fans (doesn’t matter if they are musicians tons of people want to know how to get music legally)
I would have thought that looking over those questions I might say write about music but other then my music blog which can be said to fall into the second one listed above writing does not take up as much of my time as I thought.
Great idea! Being organized is important. looking through your questions, I just realized that I spend much of my time searching for different music rather than composing my own music… :(
I noticed I spend more time in front of my computer trying to share my music and find people to help me share it than actually making music of my own.
Every morning I wake up at 9 AM, I’m in front of my computer at 9.30, spend there at least two and half hours searching the web for new ears for my music and existing ears to work with. Occasionnally I’ll pick up the guitar and play some tunes I made, very very occasionnally (once a month?) I’ll write a new song.
Then it’s 2PM and I have to go to work (part-time job to pay the bills). When I come back at 7.30PM it’s the same thing all over again (Internet most of the time, and sometimes some guitar playing).
On a regular basis my band and I gig (once a month), and we rehearse (once a week).
What I do realize it’s that this “job” I have is actually made of very very counter-productive efforts to spread the word…
Poor me!
:-D
Hi Andrew, another thought provoking post! I probably spend too much time thinking about music, reading about music, and checking out the latest software and VSTs and stuff. End result is I lack the time, energy and focus to actually keep *making* music. Sometimes the endlessness of all the options out there can feel paralyzing. For instance learning new software while using it to make music can be a tough thing. So my approach for now is to do things im small bite-size chunks. I’ve already been doing this with the new Ableton Live release — new software to me but I just started working on a track with it and getting a feel for how useful the SW could be.
Nick: “I’m wondering out loud if all this reading is valuable, or if it’s stopping me from *doing*.”
AMEN BROTHER.
Cool Play Tribute King: “I spend much of my time searching for different music rather than composing my own music…”
AND AMEN AGAIN.
KM…just an overall “HALLELUJAH” to everything you’ve said.
Hi:
I have been/am a musical director from the Philippines since 1978. My areas of expertise include Orchestral Conducting, Music composition and arrangement, Midi sequencing and recording. I have approx. 45 movies under my belt: 2 of which are award winners and 5 of which were produced by US film companies. Would like to know if any of you are interested in outsourcing any type of music productions my way.
Wish you all a gainful 2008:
JUN LATONIO
I found that my bigest issue is:
“NOT FINISHING WHAT I STARTED”
I think most of us can relate to that.
Boris Segal