The Successful Musician

When you apply for a gig, the first email you send is the most important. The way you write it is as powerful as your recordings and resume combined.

The most common way is to prove that you have what it takes, and that you’re going to do a great job. It talks about all the similar gigs you’ve done, about all your degrees, and about all the things you can do.

On the other hand, let’s consider what the people hiring are looking for. They want someone who will provide them what they need. Obvious, and yet… When you really consider this sentence, you can see that it centers not around you, but around the person doing the hiring.

Think about it. When you want to hire someone, you are looking for someone who will give you exactly what you’re looking for. Of course you want that person to have the credentials, but that’s what their resume is for. What you really can’t tell from the resume is if that person understands what you need, and will be able to provide it. Would you give the job to the one who will tell you all about how great they are, or to the one who will tell you all about the things he or she will do for you?

When you write an email to get a gig, the most important thing to do is to focus it entirely around the person hiring. Start your phrases with “you” instead “I,” and you will stand out as the only one who cares enough about the gig to deserve it.

There are times in our life when we need more money. We’ve talked here before of how to ask for your money, what determines how much you make, and how to get paid what you want.

But how to raise our salary, when people are used to paying us a certain amount?

Work for people who can pay you more. To put it bluntly: rich people.

It’s basic math, and yet many of us have two problems with that. One, we think that there’s something wrong in wanting more money and actually going for it. That’s the misconception that can hold us back the most. You have to understand that the more you get, the more you can give back.

Two, even if we accept that we deserve more money, we don’t know what to do to get to the people that can pay us more. You have to join their circles, and wouldn’t you know it, it’s all about networking. It’s not going to work by posting ads on craigslist, or putting a sign in town. You have to meet them in person, and create a connection. There are many ways to do that, including the following two.

Become a board member: Figure out which boards exist in your city with a large amount of wealthy people in it. It could be a board music-related such as for an orchestra or a chamber music ensemble – or it could be non-music-related such as the board of your local museum, a historic site, or anything you have a particular interest in.

Play for events that cater to them: Reach the event organizers of the types of groups you’d like to play for, such as alumni associations, private clubs, monthly associations of a profession, etc.

As much as you’re putting a concerted effort into meeting new people,  don’t be a fake about it. Make sure to stay genuine and create real relationships in the process.

Even when you are a master sight-reader, some pieces still need to be practiced. Here are the steps I follow when I have a lot to learn in a short amount of time.

1. Listen to the music while looking at the score. Make a list of all the tough spots: those are usually the ones that you can’t wrap your head around right away. Mark as much as you can: surprise incidental, odd rhythmic layout, etc.
2. Practice the tough spots first. Get each of them up to tempo, and move on to the next one.
3. Play through the entire score up tempo. Things will fall apart at times, some from the tough spots you already practiced, some you never anticipated would be hard. Make a new to-practice list.
4. Practice the spots on your list. Get those up tempo.
5. Listen to recordings again, to check on style, tempos and just to get that music into your head as much as possible.
6. Repeat steps 3 and 4.

Sight-reading is one of the most valuable skills to have as a musician. That’s why it’s important that we teach it.

Here are the steps to the most efficient way to teach sight-reading during the lesson.

1. Pick an easy piece comparatively to your student’s level. It’s best if there is only one difficult aspect in it: rhythm, notes, alterations, etc.
2. Have your student look at it. There is no touching of the instrument here. Ask the student to scan the music for big changes and tricky spots.
3. Have your student play it, while you cover couple beats ahead of the music with a sheet of paper. This is a very important step, because students tend to stop when they do a mistake. This method will train their eyes to keep looking ahead at all times. The most important lesson is to get your student to keep on going, and even make things up if needed, rather than stop.
4. If there is extra time, go through the piece again. You want your student to learn to fix things quickly, so make sure they have a plan for the spots they’ve missed in the first reading.

The role of the piano in opera rehearsal is to sound as close to the orchestra possible.

But why not simply use a keyboard with patches instead?

Keyboards can do all of the needed sounds. Pizz and woodwinds? Check. String section? Check. Brass? Check. Harp? Check.

The keyboard would need to be programmed before rehearsals start, to match specific orchestrations.

But the transition to the orchestra would be much smoother for the singers if they were already singing along orchestral sounds rather than piano sounds.

Orchestra reductions are not reduced enough. If you’ve ever played at least one, you know what I’m talking about.

As much as I try to understand that the reason they’re not reduced enough is to give players the option of what to play, I have come to the conclusion over the years that it is not worth the pain.

I find myself spending more time reducing a reduction that actually practicing it. Here is what I wish would already not happen in reduced scores:

• No giant chords than no human hand can possibly play.
• No extra musical lines that would require a third hand. Either have them figured out with the rest of the reduction, and if not possible, then let’s not have them there.
• No doubling or tripling of melodies in fast sections. It’s ok for the left hand to be focusing on the bass lines, instead of moving back and forth to grab some parts of the melody that the right hand is already playing.
• No thirds, sixths and octaves to play at record speed in one hand. It’s not that it’s not possible ever, it’s just that it’s not a piano concerto. It’s called a reduction for a reason.

It’s time for publishing houses to start putting out into the world reductions that really meet the needs of the people who play them.

Auto-tune is a crutch for singers who can’t sing. Or so it was, but is it still?

Think about Baroque ornamentation. Do we think of it as a crutch for poorly written music? No we don’t. It is simply a style of the Baroque era.

Or think about keyboards’ sound patches, and electric guitar’s pedals. Are they a crutch for pianists and guitarists who can’t play? Not either. They are just extra options for contemporary music.

Auto-tune is not a crutch for bad singers anymore. Even if it started as such, it is now a style option for contemporary music.

Pianos come in one size. And we take it for granted.

But many other instruments come in different sizes. Which is really helpful for young students. Their instruments grow with them.

When students learn the piano, what they have to do to make a certain sound at the age of 10 is not what they will have to do to make that same sound once they’ll have reached their adult size.

Maybe it would make learning the piano easier if pianos came in more than one size.

David Grohl is so cool that even a video from him on how to write hit songs makes you feel good about being a musician.

There are two great lessons in it for all of us:

1. Have Fun
2. Music is not as hard as we think

The video starts at 0:22. Enjoy!

Being nervous before a performance can really be a drag. That’s why we try to learn to handle it better.

But being nervous is actually great news. Why?

Because being nervous means that we are not stuck in what we do. It means that we take risks. That we give ourselves a chance to grow.

We stop being nervous when we don’t care anymore. When our job has become stale.

And think about it:

The level of pride you get after a concert is proportionate to how nervous you were at first.

So instead of thinking of being nervous as something holding you back, know that it is actually the sign that you’re getting ahead.