Advice is easy to come by. Deciphering between good advice and bad advice is the hard part. There is a special thing about being an independent artist – it seems like everyone has some kind of advice to give. When I first started out, I found unsolicited advice to be annoying and I still do sometimes. However, through the years listening to unsolicited advice has become one of the most interesting things about being an independent artist. In the past I desperately tried to avoid these types of conversations. Now, listening to people share their thoughts about my career choices or career development provides me with knowledge about their mindset. It helps me gauge whether or not I can trust them in case I ever need advice in the future or just a shoulder to cry on. In some cases, it has even provided a bit of comic relief, especially coming from those who have no clue about what it takes to pursue a career as an independent artist!
My all time favorite bit of bad advice I’ve received is the one about getting a full-time job with benefits. I actually had a lady email me about this very thing. She said that Rob, my husband, should get a full-time job with benefits and/or I should take a part-time job and get gigs when offered until my career blows up. What is her definition of ‘blows up’ or why I need to wait until then, I don’t know. I responded to her email and it became a back and forth dialogue. Eventually she backtracked and said I should just do what makes me happy when she realized she wasn’t going to convince me. Check out that whole conversation here. Somehow people think advising you to get a conventional job is helpful. I disagree completely with this line of thinking. If you have a goal to be a full-time independent artist, I just don’t see the benefit in doing the opposite of that. This woman is not alone, though. I’ve gotten variations of this type of advice from many people. Ironically, these are all people who went the conventional route and spent their lives supporting the hamster wheel system of Corporate America. Can I be honest? I really think these people have some sort of pent up rage against people like me and readers of this blog. Because, how dare we get the idea to do something different and succeed at it?
These are not the kind of people you want to tell your hopes and dreams to. You don’t want to cry on their shoulder when you don’t get a call back after your audition. And, you certainly don’t want to share your wins with them. That’s precisely why I don’t avoid these conversations anymore. If you’re not on my team, I want to know about it in advance.
But I’m not the only one receiving routine bad advice. For the past month or so, I’ve asked artists in The Crafty Musician community to share some bad advice they’ve received along their journey. Below are a few more examples.
These two come from RightClubFoot…
“It’s incredibly difficult to make it in the music industry. You should probably do something that pays better.”
What we do with our lives are not for others to dictate. We’re artists and we create our own path. We don’t need permission from anyone to forge our own path. This next one, RightClubFoot also shared is not much better…
“You should consider paying for being on spotify playlists – earn you a lot of plays!”
Can someone tell me please, what’s the benefit or goal in getting on a Spotify Playlist for someone who earns a living doing independent music? Most importantly, what are the tangible results? I have been mulling over this ever since the ‘Spotify Playlist’ first came out. If anyone has some experience with this and has seen actual results in their bottom line, please share in the comments section. What kind of effort and resources did you put into it. What was your ROI? I along with a lot of others in this community would love to know.
It’s interesting how many people share these one liner tidbits. The people giving these little nuggets of advice seem to think they’re the only ones smart enough to think of that. My response to those little nuggets is always something to the effect of ‘Gee, why didn’t I think of that,’ with a sarcastic side eye.
This one comes from Lindokuhle…
“Sell CDs more.”
Yes, my friend. If only it were that simple.
Pamela has a classic one…
“You don’t need to play guitar just look pretty and sing.”
I’m going to go out on a limb and say that a man mansplained this to you Pamela? Ironically, hearing bad advice can actually be quite encouraging. Why? Well it can serve as a reminder to follow your plan. Most of the time, the people giving you bad advice don’t know what your plan is. They only have their own plan to go by. So hearing them tell you their plan can remind you of your own plan. If you don’t have a plan, I suggest working on that now. Start with this Ultimate Goal Setting Workbook and this Finding Your Musical Purpose Challenge to help organize your thoughts and overall goals. The good news is, advice is not a mandate. It’s just regular people telling you what they think. It’s up to you to decide whether it’s good for you or not.
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Special thanks to all who shared their experiences in this blog post. Sound off! Did you recently get bad advice you’d like to add to this list? What’s your policy when receiving bad or unsolicited advice? Share in the comments section below.
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May I add, first, that your perspective on this topic is very helpful. I have been that proverbial hamster my entire adult life knowing I’d rather be doing something else (music). I believe that being an artist has been devalued in our culture since the Industrial revolution. People believe that the only purpose of this god-given gift (life) is to produce a periodic pittance and step in line. Artists are simply a different breed and as a society we should re-learn to value, if not creativity, at least, performance. A performer deserves to be paid and paid well for their talents the same way a union auto worker earns for doing simple repetitive tasks. But you can’t drive your kids to school in a song or picture. So Kings like Leopold no longer raise kids like Mozart. We raise capitalists and worker bees on whom they capitalize. Some buy into the idea as if its the word of God.
Soon industrial jobs will disappear and professional service will be the principle way to earn. Musical performance skills (when sonically delicious) are as valuable as surgeons lawyers or athletes. But for your cream to rise to the top you must be creating your art, which is impossible when you are giving your best at a different effort altogether.
Hello Jack! Thanks for your thoughts on this. I agree 100%. As long as we continue to stand for arts and the appreciation of it, we can continue pushing the needle to that transition in society back to appreciating art as a modem of progress. Best wishes to you! 🙂
I get the “the music industry is hard/being a musician is hard” comment all the time at my gigs. It’s incredibly annoying! I totally related to all of the things you said in this article. Go us for going for our goals and not listening to these negative nancies, right? haha!
Hi Erin. You’re absolutely right! It’s our goals and personal achievements that matter. 🙂
Great blog post Anitra! I struggle with this one myself – most of my family members (90%) think like this and my Mom had the audacity to ask me if I should go back to school even though I already finished grad school! She is determined for me to do something with that degree as long as I’m not a musician haha. The truth of the matter is, this degree does help me with my music business. I can communicate effectively!
You are so right – so many people think that if you don’t make it big, then you haven’t achieved any success. These past few years had made me realize that there are so many ways to achieve your livelihood with music and it is not defined by hearing yourself on the radio.
Anyways, thank you for being so consistent with your blog posts. I love reading them when I can!
Hey Tara. Thanks for reading! It’s a crying shame that family members can be the loudest detractors when it comes to living free and independently based on your own code. They want so badly for you to get in “line,” right? We each get to live the life, choose our own path, and become who we’d like to be. It’s a personal thing. So many people just don’t get that.