The top five unforeseen music career busters

As a musi­cian, it can take years to build a solid fan base that will sup­port your music and take you to the next level. There is no one that knows bet­ter than you, how much per­se­ver­ance and moti­va­tion it takes to max­i­mize CD and dig­i­tal down­load sales, land­ing big­ger gigs and posi­tion­ing your­self for that big break.

It’s an unyield­ing process to shine above all the tal­ent and get noticed. Sadly, the real­ity is that many bands get blind sighted, falling vic­tim to sit­u­a­tions that they just didn’t see coming…you know, the ones you just don’t think about until your drown­ing in ‘em.

With­out fur­ther ado, my top 5 unfore­seen career busters in your music career:

1) Rely­ing on oth­ers to feed your ego

Let’s face it: You like atten­tion. All musi­cians do. There is noth­ing like play­ing to a full house and every­one get­ting off on your music. But those moments are like a drug. The buzz doesn’t last. When it comes down to it — You need to stand firm upon your con­vic­tions about your music and where your career is going. If you rely on what oth­ers think as a barom­e­ter for who you are as a per­son, you are enslaved. This will result in unhap­pi­ness, depres­sion, lack of focus and in many instances, destruc­tive addic­tions. It would make for an inter­est­ing list of all the rock stars who have fallen vic­tim to this one.

2) The ultimatum

You’re on stage and the girl in the cor­ner doesn’t take her eyes of you. You approach her after the gig and your hooked. She is beau­ti­ful, super cool, loves your music and feeds your ego (dou­ble whammy). Fast for­ward a year later. Now that the rela­tion­ship is seri­ous, she wants sta­bil­ity. She gives you the choice: Your music, or her. Music, right? Sure…

3) Sign­ing a con­tract with a major record label

The major­ity of bands do not cater to the mass mar­ket busi­ness model that major record com­pa­nies engage in. Sim­ply put, if your music doesn’t have the capac­ity to seduce the masses, you won’t sur­vive on a major label, period. Even if you get to release your debut CD, you will have to be relent­less in your attempt to become a pri­or­ity artist (The good news is that there are plenty of bands mak­ing more money on their own then they would with a major label).

4) Chang­ing who you are to emu­late a trend

If your aren’t get­ting the major atten­tion you feel you deserve, don’t be so quick to dis­miss your style. Every­one has an opin­ion on what works and what doesn’t. You will not suc­ceed (at least in the long run) if you aren’t being true to what you do. Music fans can see through it and you will ulti­mately lose because your music will lack substance.

5) Refus­ing to sacrifice

You’re career suc­cess is pro­por­tion­ate to how much you are will­ing to sac­ri­fice to get there. Call of Duty 4 or song­writ­ing? Going to a party or prac­tic­ing? See­ing a movie or plan­ning your pro­mo­tional strat­egy? I know musi­cians who have a ridicu­lous amount of tal­ent, but fail to real­ize the con­cept of sac­ri­fice. With a non-committal atti­tude, the only thing mov­ing for­ward is time. Before you know it, you are in the same spot you were 3 years ago.

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