How Do You Make The Next Step?
Now we get to the business of making your vision happen. You’ve identified where you are and what you need and why you are doing it and this section enables you to delve as deeply into the business side of your career as you want to. There will be information provided and suggestions for places to go to read about particular aspects or networks that you may want to join. Look at your short/medium/long term projection and dream a little. Don’t think about the road that you are going to take and the detail of the journey, focus instead on key points that you would like to have come into your reality. Remember to dream, some people find it easier to see the dream and others find it easier to focus on the landmarks, at the end of the day it doesn’t matter which way you approach it, as long as you start to create a picture for yourself of how you see yourself in your career and then things start to uncannily unfold and create a path, more often than not, a windy path.
Creative Output
Its more than likely that if you are in a position of collaborating with other musicians, running a band, making your own records, running an artiste driven record label, thinking of getting representation, then you are going to have to consider making agreements and contracts. This section looks at the main contracts that you may encounter and outlines the main points of those contracts and talks about setting up an artiste led record label. For further information read about Jazz and the law.
Writing music
If you write your own music then it’s important to know how the income stream works. Do you have your work copyrighted? If your work is being performed on a regular basis or played on the radio are you getting the royalties that are due to you. Are you a member of PRS? Would it be worth thinking about getting a publisher? If so what kind of publishing deal. For further information read about Copyright and music publishing.
Live work
You are probably wanting more gigs or different types of gigs, to help you on your journey we have written a section which covers the different areas of definitions of different live music promoters and producers, how to understand budgets and tips for negotiation. Once you’ve done the deal then you will need to exchange contracts and riders, and we’ve put down the key points of both along with a whose who in the venue. Full information can be found in the Live work section.
Promotion
There is loads of stuff out there on marketing and publicity. Here we are looking at promotion particular to the jazz musician. There are promotional tools that are important to have in your armoury but also it’s important to remember that your key area of promotion is when you are on stage. In this section we look at developing a promotion pack, building a website and digital and physical promotional possibilities. We’ve also added a FAQ to this section. Find out more in the Promotion section.
Financial
It’s important to set yourself up with a good financial record keeping system that you keep up to date. I always recommend that musicians have 2 bank accounts one for their personal income and expenditure and one for their business expenses and income. This way it keeps things clear and also helps you to see that you are a business, regardless of how small or large that income is. This is particularly important if you are getting into recording and selling a CD or receiving gig fees and paying out musicians as you need to be able to run a separate budget for these activities. This section looks at tax and the self employed musician and combining employed and self employed work. For further information, visit the page on Keeping Financial Records.