On today’s topic I want to discuss how we as musicians and artists need to work with other people within the music and entertainment industry. This topic is for both new musicians and long time working musicians alike. There’s a great quote from Raylan Givens Justified “If you run into a jerk in the morning, you ran into a jerk. If you run into jerks all day, you're the jerk”. We will come back to this quote in a minute but I want it to sit with you for just a moment. There are so many times within our music communities we have difficulty communicating, just like in regular life. You should always make it your goal in life to be kind to people whether you have something to gain from them or not. I can tell you from personal experience not only will you feel good from being kind but it comes back 10 fold. But you have to be genuine with it. So let’s get started with the 3 tips on how to work with others in the music and entertainment industry.
The first tip is to respect other people’s time. Are you working with a producer or recording engineer? Do you have an appointment with a manager, graphic designer, or some other person who is trying to assist you with your music or music career? Do you have a gig that night and need to make it for a sound check? Are you getting my point. Nothing is more frustrating than having your time wasted waiting for someone. Always RESPECT OTHERS TIME! Be a few minutes early, allow yourself some time for traffic. Be ready to answer a planned meeting phone call. If something does come up for you and you need to reschedule, be respectful and contact them as quickly as possible. But also be prepared that they may not want to work with you after that. I have and hear countless stories of people being “flakey” or “ghosting”. If someone doesn’t respect your time, you have every right to walk away. You don’t have to be rude to them or even call them out on it. You totally can but that also could lead to problems further down the line if they know others in the industry. Take the high road. Moral of this first tip is be kind and respect others with their time.
The 2nd tip is when working with anyone pertaining to your music, project or career get them everything they would need to complete the work, the task or the job for you. Imagine if you were writing a song with others and they didn’t get you the necessary parts for you to complete your parts of the song. Instead you had to keep going back and asking for things to make the song complete. For example if working with a graphic designer to design an album cover or flyer go above and beyond getting them all the information they would need or all your ideas nice and clean exactly as they need. Another example if working with a producer, make sure you get them all the details (how many instruments, how many tracks you want them to work with you on, samples of how you would like the music to sound, etc). they will need this information to get started producing and recording your songs or music and it makes it much faster, saves you money and they will love to have you as a client which possibly could lead to other connections.
The 3rd and last tip is to lose your ego but still be confident and believe in your artistic vision. There’s a difference between ego and confidence. Confidence is to have faith in your own abilities and believe in yourself, and the ego operates out of self-interest. Your ego is the conscience side of you. The part of you that tries to be something bigger than you are or you try to identify yourself as something you are not. The ego seeks approval, accolades and validation at all costs in order to be seen as “right”. It is resistant to feedback and assigns motive where there isn’t any. Confidence is being humble, listening to good advice, knowing your flaws, not being afraid of them and working on them, it’s working with the right people that really support you and are honest with you. We all want to have the cool guy rockstar att
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