Taking Steps to Become a Full-Time Music Teacher

If you’re lucky enough to be able to do this full-time—because you’ve already established a regular roster of students, or have some money saved up—working as a full-time music teacher can be a great gig.  However, if you can’t do this full-time, you might want to consider switching jobs, if feasible.

Before I was teaching full-time I worked at my local music store.  The store was a great place to meet new students and get my name “out there.”

I strongly suggest that once you have some money saved up—make the switch to teaching full-time, even if your schedule isn’t completely filled yet.  When you do this, you’ll be at a considerable advantage: you can accommodate potential students on any day of the week.  For example, I work Monday thru Saturday, 10AM to 9PM, so I can fit in even the most demanding student.

Along those lines, I’ve found Microsoft Outlook to be great for scheduling.  I even use the iCloud Calendar inside of Outlook because it syncs via Bluetooth with my iPhone.  For invoicing, I use Excel spreadsheets.

The Problem with Teaching at Students’ Homes

When I first began teaching full-time, I made one mistake that most teachers make: I agreed to teach students at their homes.  While it was convenient for them, I didn’t realize that I was shooting myself in the foot.

In the end, I was spending hours stuck in traffic, way too much money on gas—and ultimately, stressing myself out—because I wasn’t maximizing my time.  Once I made the decision to only teach in my own home studio, however, I never looked back!

I strongly encourage you to teach from your own home—even if that means less work at first.  If you can take bookings back-to-back in your home office you can make more money—and use your downtime to promote your business, too.

Looking back, it’s unbelievable how much time I wasted teaching at my students’ homes!  I’d spend about 10 minutes finding a wall plug, getting situated in a chair, tuning up, perhaps taking a few moments for a bathroom break. After that, the student would often make an impromptu request to be taught a new song—if I didn’t know the tune I’d spend another 5-10 minutes learning it on the fly.  Before I looked up, half the lesson would be over!  Meanwhile, I was being graded by how much they could learn in that hour.  It didn’t take me long to realize: I give much better lessons at my place—where all these hassles are under control!

Get Your Gear in Order

Now is a good time to get your home office rockin’.  When I started years ago, I made the mistake of not having all the right gear—and ended up wasting time, money and energy.

To start, you’ll need a computer with high-speed internet access to download, stream and play audio files.  Also, you’ll need a professional-quality computer sound system (I use the Bose Companion 5).

Additionally, you’ll need to have some additional instrument-specific equipment.  For guitarists, for example, it’s important to have a good teaching amplifier: I like Peavey’s Vypyr 15-watt model amp because it doesn’t disturb my neighbors too much, yet the sound is still top-notch.  Tuners and any other pedals are great; they make the entire experience more professional and accommodating for students.

A great website for buying top-flight gear is www.guitarcenter.com.  They sell quality equipment, ship anywhere and are really affordable.

Get Your Studio in Order

Nothing screams out amateur-hour more than having a messy, unorganized place of business.  People judge you for how you keep your place, and this impacts your business.  Don’t make this mistake.

Always make sure your home office is always clean and orderly.  Additionally, it always helps to protect yourself—particularly if you are a guy teaching women and / or children.  If students are coming to your place alone, it is absolutely essential to set-up a video camera and record all lessons on a DVR.  (In most states, it is legal to record only visual—but not audio records—without the other party’s consent).

I installed a 24-hr camera recording in my teaching office and a monitor that reminds students that they are always on camera: they are constantly reminded to be on their best behavior.  If there is ever an accusation of inappropriate behavior, it’s comforting to know that you have a true version of events recorded and saved on the DVR.

Money & Payments

When I first started, I was really flexible with payment terms—trying to be a nice guy, and make it easier for my students.  Big mistake.

Before all else: make sure that your lessons are paid in advance.  Today I ask students to buy prepaid packages of 5, 10 or 20 lessons.  I also use a staggered pricing system that gives a greater discount for larger packages. Before each last ‘paid’ lesson, I email my student and remind them to bring a renewal check to their next lesson.

Also, always enact a cancelation policy.  Sad to say, but some people will try to see what they can get away with—particularly when they sense that you need their business.  They might cancel at the last moment, and then beg & plead not to be charged for it: never mind that you kept their lesson time and turned down other bookings.  While it’s not always fun to be the ‘tough guy,’ stick to your policy. Personally-speaking, I have a strict 48-hour cancelation policy.  If a student cancels within 48 hours they will be charged for the full lesson price.

Be sure to type and print out your policy for all students to see.  I have my new sign-ups sign the agreement and initial my 48-hr cancelation policy.  I retain the signed copy for my records, hand them a hard copy, and even email them a version. Remember, the more professional you are, the better you will be treated by your students.

Always do your best to book your lessons back-to-back.  It’s good business for your students to see you teaching other students.  Doing so helps enforce the idea that they are not the only student you have—and will do much to improve their attitude.  If your student senses that you are an extremely-popular, heavily-booked teacher, they will be more respectful of you and your time—and more diligent in keeping up with their payments!  If they don’t have that respect for you, your bottom line will suffer.

I can’t repeat it enough: Excel is a great program for invoicing & billing.  I can get specific breakdowns on different billing plans, attendance (if they were a no-show and got charged for it, etc.) and more. It’s not something that I liked doing initially—but now that I’ve gotten serious about my billing & invoicing, I actually make more money, and enjoy teaching even more!

Promote Your Business

For many music teachers, this is the difficult part…for years, I was a great teacher—with lots of students, but was having problems growing my business.  That’s when I realized that teaching music lessons is a two-part process: you have to work as a teacher AND on growing your business.

With that in mind, start getting proactive about growing your business.  Print business cards, flyers and posters.  Book a photo-shoot for yourself.  Create a website.  Film a few YouTube videos of your playing.  When a new student is inquiring about your lessons (and comparing you to other teachers), you want to put your best foot forward.  Make the decision easier for them by showing them how much you have it together.

Also, always think one step ahead: type up directions to your home, and put them in document form, which you can easily attach to an email.  Also, the YouTube videos you’ve made that showcase your talents can easily be included in an email—and will hopefully seal the deal (!)  Include a picture of yourself or a link to your website, blog, or social media site (Twitter, Facebook, etc.)  The more information you can give potential students, the better the results.

Leverage Free Online Resources to Promote Yourself

When I was first starting out, I was a little intimated by the web.  I had no idea how to start a blog, or upload videos.  But trust me, these things are easy to do—and if you’re not doing them, you’re losing money!  Google, YouTube, and WordPress are three great places to start.

At Google, create a business address and immediately get some friends to review your lessons.  This helps tremendously, and costs nothing.  Get at least one new review per month, so your page is always current.

Start a blog at WordPress and update it regularly.  It’s a great way to stay in touch with potential students, grow your business and present yourself as expert.

Check out YouTube and create a video of yourself—and then upload it.  Embed some YouTube videos of your playing, and upload new YouTube videos regularly.  Check out other teachers: figure out what makes a good video, and do the same.

Creating regular videos makes you a better teacher—doing so forces you to make your ideas more understandable and teachable.  Also, your teaching improves when you have a repertoire of preplanned lessons / videos for a range of students: if you’re having an uninspired teaching-day you can switch on ‘autopilot’ and rely on video (use the lesson verbatim, and email the student a copy, too).  Videos inspire students, and that’s good for business:  when they improve faster because of the video, they’ll stick with you longer, and refer friends.

Always use a good camera: I use a Logitech 9000 in HD, and it is relatively cheap.  This little bit of investment goes a long way.

Get Offline & Get Outdoors!

The powers of the internet may make some teachers focus on online marketing.  It also helps to shut off your computer and get out in the real world to promote yourself!

Network at your local music store: sit down, try out a few instruments, and let everyone that works there hear how good you are. Always be polite and professional to everyone so that your reputation remains stellar.  Don’t be shy: set up a commission system with sales associates, rewarding them each time they refer you a new student.

As a side note, I give almost 100% of the money from my first lesson with a new student to the salesman who referred me (a lot more than most teachers give).  It pays to be generous.  In fact, most teachers have NO reward system for referrals—and they suffer for it (!)

What’s Next: Making the Move

If you’re like me and you love playing & teaching music, you’ve probably already asked yourself: why not get paid to do it all day?  With some dedication—and by using this article as a guide—there’s no reason why you, too, can’t become a full-time professional music teacher.

Remember, there’ll always be people out there who want to learn how to play—so there’ll always be a need for talented teachers—just like you.

I wrote an article talking about how I got my current gig, and I gave the advice that younger musicians shouldn’t over-emphasize their theatre experience when hustling this job. Broadway, in my opinion, prefers musicians that have learned different musical styles from outside of Broadway. Here’s the section:

Whether its true or not, Broadway music is largely seen as a derivative art form among the Broadway musician community. Look at shows like Jersey Boys, Million Dollar Quartet, In the Heights – these shows showcase rock n roll, country, hip hop and salsa – none of which originated on Broadway.

The last thing you want to say, therefore, is that you learned to play R’n’B by playing a summerstock version of Dream Girls. Broadway wants authentic players that have learned music styles from the source, not from itself.

I really think this is true. I just don’t feel like you can learn jazz by playing musical theatre scores. You have to learn jazz by playing jazz.

And so, M.’s question to me was this:

I am classically trained and I personally feel any style other than classical has been learned from playing MT repertoire. I feel that I am very limited because of this. I feel intimated and do not know where to even begin learning these styles.

[Do] you have any advice on how to learn jazz, blues, gospel, latin etc…?

That’s a good question, M.

Commercial Music in Theatre

First off, there are plenty of good gigs for classically trained musicians in the New York theatre scene. Shows that are in the traditional theatre style might be a good fit – for instance the current revival of Porgy and Bess or the long-running Mary Poppins. These shows showcase old-school theatre or operetta styles and need great classical players.

However, Broadway’s musical styles have always followed popular music trends, and you can see that with today’s shows as well. Most of the shows on Broadway today are shows that require commercial musicians that understand how to play jazz, rock, funk and world styles.

Anyway – M., here’s my answer (and I’m sure others will have valuable answers in the comments below).

The thing about commercial styles of music – by which I mean most non-classical styles – is that they can’t be learned from books and sheet music. The rhythm, groove, and feel of commercial styles needs to be heard and felt.

So my best advice is to transcribe different styles directly from recordings.

Recordings

And – these days – there’s no excuse not to transcribe. When I was coming up it was difficult to get access to recordings of different styles – recordings cost money back then (imagine!). Now you can get a Spotify subscription for $10/month and have almost anything you’d ever want.

For example – just the other day I found a Spotify playlist for every song in the Real Book. Are you kidding me? Do you know know how hard it would have been to gather all of those recordings together when I was in jazz school? Now there is no excuse to not have intimate knowledge of several different versions of each jazz standard.

Actually – I’ve thought a lot about this recently – I’m anxiously awaiting a new breed of musician to come out of the Spotify generation. There are kids growing up today who have unprecedented access to every style of music recorded over the last 100 years. I can only imagine what kind of musician I would be if I’d been listening to Miles at birth instead of discovering him – like most white, suburban kids of the 1990s – as a teenager in my high school band room.

The musicians that come out of music school in 20 years will have no excuse not to be monster players. What kind of jobs will be available to them…well that part is anybody’s guess.

Transcribe

Back to transcribing. M., transcribing gets better as you go. It’s tortuous as first, but addictive as you get the hang of it. Here’s how you should start:

Find a recording of a new musical style that you really dig. Put in on your phone and listen to it over and over. Listen to it as you’re walking to class, while you’re eating, when you wake up. Sing along to all of the solos, know the form, figure out the instrumentation. Get to know that recording really, really well.

Then – after that listening phase – sit down at your instrument and start playing along. Figure out the key, the harmonic structure, pick out of a few key notes. This is how I like to start – I just get a cursory feel for the harmonic content of the song. Some musicians are much better at this part – even without perfect pitch they can start picking out almost all of the song on the first go. Personally, I’m much slower at this, especially when I started out.

Then take sections of the song and learn every note. For example, I was once trying to learn to play a better jazz blues. I took the recording of “Freddie the Freeloader” from Kind of Blue and transcribed Wynton Kelly’s solo from 0:45 to 2:13. That’s a great solo to transcribe, actually, because you get to play along with Paul Chambers (bass) and Jimmy Cobb (drums) and their swing is so killing on that whole record.

And that’s the thing with transcribing – you are picking up not just the notes, but the rhythm, groove and feel that I mentioned before. You’re picking up on all the thing that sheet music can’t teach you.

Then transcribe more. Learn the difference between Basie swing and Ellington swing. Listen to the play between bass and kick drum in disco music. Listen to where the open strings are on Simon and Garfunkel recordings. Figure out what the hell that voicing is that Chick Corea is using on [insert Chick album here].

Write It Down

Under NO circumstances are you allowed to even glance at any published sheet music during this process. You’ll quickly find that sheet music is a poor representation of music, anyway.

However, that said, the next step is to write down what you’ve transcribed. This part can be particularly difficult – especially on, say, Charlie Parker transcriptions…so don’t start with that. But it gets easier.

Here’s an example of something I transcribed a few years ago. Jason Crosby plays a great Hammond solo on Susan Tedeschi’s version of Don’t Think Twice. I loved it so much I had to transcribe it and play it myself. Here’s a copy of my transcription.

Of course, you don’t have to write it out in Finale like I did – but it doesn’t hurt to practice those Finale chops. You’ll need those, too, when you get out of college.

Keep It Up

I think any commercial player will agree that learning musical styles by ear is the best way to absorb them into your playing. And I think everyone can all agree that it’s not an easy thing to start to do if you’ve been classically trained and haven’t learn music that way before.

But it’s invaluable. It’ll change your playing. And more importantly, it’s absolutely necessary. It would be nice if, instead, we could just go on tour with a great swing band like our past legends did…but those days are long gone. The best thing we can do is learn the recordings inside and out.

Although – by all means start a band and go on tour making new music. Then write an indie rock musical so I can play it.

(In 20 years.)

Are some musicians druggies and alcoholics? Yes, but so are some lawyers and doctors.

There are very few harder working and dedicated professionals than those working in the music business. It’s important to differentiate between the star market and the professional market. I’m talking about the people who have dedicated a substantial part of their life mastering their craft. I’m not looking at many stars whose success is solely based on appearance and image. And as it stands today, we now have to handle music, promotion, booking, brand building, creativity, performance and a host of other tasks.

The profession of music requires the same hard work that success in any business demands. It is an entrepreneurial industry in which we have to generate the product and the means by which it’s sold.

Let’s make the marketplace aware of the fact that musicians are successful people who have incomes, homes, cars, investments and can put their kids through college.

Not every one is a “success”. Every profession in the world has its share of “failure”. Musicians in general love their work and that’s more than I can say about most people I meet who dread going to work and would quit their job in a heart beat if they could.

Let’s try to create a more accurate picture of the profession of music in the public at large.

Mike has completely re-designed and restructured his website, Hip-BoneMusic.com and he’s looking to get the word out. I told him that I would tell you about the site and recommend that you check it out.

Aside from the Stones, Mike has toured and recorded with a huge list of legends like Frank Sinatra, Michael Jackson, Sting, Aerosmith, Tony Bennett, Sheryl Crow, Jay Z, Buddy Rich, Bob Dylan, Sarah Vaughn and Bob Mitzer. He’s also has his own signature trombone made by the S.E. Shires company.

I’m serious. They made a trombone and named it after Mike. He’s, like, totally famous.

Mike’s website is a great example of how modern musicians can use the power of the internet to connect with other musicians, create a brand and sustain a career. It’s also a great example of the transition that a lot of A-level recording-industry players have made in the past 20 years.

From Mike’s blog:

The New York free­lance music scene, like the rest of the world, has under­gone dra­matic change in the past 10 to 15 years. At first glance it can seem over­whelming and a bit scary, but on closer inspec­tion we come to realize that this change is our best oppor­tu­nity for growth. It may seem a bit harsh, but the expres­sion “change or die” has never been more applicable.

Some of the most enjoy­able work I do is recording music in a studio. These recording ses­sions can be for a cd, a motion pic­ture sound­track, a tele­vi­sion theme or com­mer­cial. Coming out of col­lege, my goal was to become what was then called a “studio musi­cian”. Everyday you were pre­sented with a new, fresh musical chal­lenge that you were seeing for the first time. A chal­lenge that you had to deliver on imme­di­ately. A pres­sure packed envi­ron­ment for sure, but also an extremely rewarding one at times. As the music busi­ness has evolved over the past decade, the role of the studio musi­cian has con­tracted. While I still get calls to record on a reg­ular basis, it’s def­i­nitely less.

For­tu­nately, New York has a thriving musical the­ater scene also known simply as “Broadway”. Most free­lance musi­cians in the com­mer­cial end of the busi­ness find them­selves playing in the pits of Broadway. You either have a full time posi­tion, which enables you to per­form 8 shows a week, or you are in the very tal­ented pool of sub­sti­tutes who fill in for the reg­u­lars when they take off to do other work.

Check out more at Hip-BoneMusic.com

So I can’t exactly tell you how to get a gig with Cirque, but I can tell you how to audition (and, maybe, what not to do).

It was January, 2010, when I got a call from a colleague of mine. He had previously worked as a keyboardist for Cirque in Vegas and had since operated, now and then, as one of their recruiters. He told me Cirque was looking for a new music director for a tour they had in Asia and my colleague had recommended me for the spot.

He wasn’t sure what the pay would be, but he estimated that it would pay about as much as a music director on Broadway would earn, which is somewhere around $150,000+/year. Of course I said yes. I told him I would go through the audition and recruiting process and make him proud.

My colleague forwarded me the music that I would need to learn for the audition. That included 9 selections from the show, along with demo recording of the songs and backing tracks that I could record to.

Registering with Cirque’s Jobs Website

The first step with Cirque, though, is to register for their online application system, located here:

www.cirquedusoleil.com/jobs

I want to emphasize this – they seem to be very strict about their application process, and there are no exceptions – you have to follow the rules exactly as they present them or your application will be disregarded (or simply lost in their system).

So I registered for their jobs site, then set about to make my demo video.

The Demo Video

Cirque du Soleil is smart about it’s videos. They don’t want professional-videographer-quality videos for auditions. I think they know, like everyone, that professional quality videos and recordings can include a great deal of smoke-and-mirrors – including punch-in overdubbing, auto-tune, huge reverb, and all the other tech tools that can turn an otherwise average musician into a virtuoso.

They don’t want any of that. They just want you to put a camera in the corner and hit record.

So, for my video I used a regular ol’ digital camera – my Panasonic DMC-FS15, a 12-megapixel point-and-shoot camera that I got for Christmas the year before. I used the built-in microphone and edited the video (minimally) with Mac’s stock iMovie application. Nothing fancy.

It took me 5 days to learn the songs and make the video, working from morning to night. I would practice a song until I had it polished, then hit record on the camera.

In the video instructions they requested that I talk a little about my background and why I wanted to work for Cirque. So I also videotaped myself talking (which I now find impossible to watch without cringing).

Here is my final audition video that I sent to Cirque:

The Application

Applying for Cirque also requires some paperwork. In addition to the video demo I needed to send them:

1. A cover letter (PDF)
2. Resume – including date of birth, nationality, contact info and all school and experience marked by year (PDF)
3. 3 photos – 2 headshots and 1 full-length shot (jpg/PDF)
4. One audio demo (mp3)
5. One 5-minute video from a recent rehearsal

I sent them my grid-based resume that you can read about here. I found 3 photos and sent along my standard demo recording. Here is a copy of the cover letter I sent (with specifics blacked out).

For the 5-minute rehearsal video I brought my little point-and-shoot into the gig I was doing at the time and hit record. Back home I edited out a 5-minute block of time that showed me playing and interacting with singers. I would show you that, but some of the performers there were equity actors and rules are rules – I can’t post the video without their consent. Anyway, it doesn’t matter – I’m sure you can picture it.

Submission

Once I had all of this material together I submitted all of it to Cirque through my profile on their jobs website. I remember finding that process a little confusing – the job site’s interface can be difficult to use – but eventually I was able to submit it.

Altogether it took me 6 days to put together and submit my application to Cirque. I worked on nothing else for that time. It was very time consuming.

After successfully submitting my materials I called my colleague and let him know. He then alerted his contacts at Cirque’s headquarters in Montreal and we were all finished.

Basically, that’s the end of this article. That’s how you audition for Cirque du Soleil.

But perhaps my experience might help you with yours, so I’ll tell you the rest of the story.

A Call from Cirque du Soleil

Normally it can take Cirque a long time to get back to applicants. I’ve heard of people being called out of the blue, 4 years after their application, for a gig. I imagine it was because I had been recommended, but this is not how it went for me.

I got a call from Cirque’s headquarters 3 days later. They told me that the job that I had applied for was no longer available. In fact, they told me that someone had been in negotiations for that job for some time.

All I could think was…geez, I just wasted nearly a week on this thing – and in the end we’d been given bad information?

It was a nice phone call, though. I was still grateful for the opportunity to be recommended and apply anyway. They said they liked my playing and would keep me in mind in the future.

Another Call From Cirque du Soleil

Three weeks later Cirque called back again. They said the position was, suddenly, available again and they would like to consider me for the job.

Great!

The next step was a Skype interview with the higher-ups in Montreal, which we scheduled for a few days later. At the interview I met with, if I remember right, three people who were all from the recruiting/human resources department of Cirque. It was a nice interview – we spoke primarily about chain-of-command issues and management styles. Like any music director gig, it’s always less about music and more about how best to manage people. I felt very confident coming out of the interview.

They told me that they were considering 3 candidates for the job, and they would advance only 1 candidate from this round of interviews. That candidate would basically have the job, but would need to fly to Japan to meet the tour and make sure it was a good fit.

A few days later they called again and told me I’d advanced to the next round! Great, I thought, that means I’ve basically got the job!

This was on a Monday or Tuesday, and they asked if I could fly the Japan the following Monday. I cleared my schedule, told all my friends I’d (basically) landed a job with Cirque and packed my luggage.

The Catch

The catch was that I would need to agree to the terms of the contract prior to flying to Japan. There was good reason for this, of course. They didn’t want to pay for me to take a trip to Japan only to find, when I returned, that I wouldn’t sign the contract.

This is where things got weird, though.

They were reluctant to tell me what the pay or benefits of the job actually were. They weren’t entirely sure, even, where the tour was going over the next two years (which was the length of the contract).

I thought that was a little weird, but I didn’t worry too much. I called my colleague for advice and we both agreed that I should just have my lawyer take care of this part of the negotiations. What do I know about contracts this big anyway? This is how it’s done on Broadway (the scene I know most about) – when you are hired to be a music director you have your lawyer negotiate the contract.

So I called my lawyer. To my complete surprise it turned out that my lawyer was the same firm who had been negotiating the previous candidate’s contract – they told me that those negotiations had fallen apart when Cirque offered too little and the candidate had walked away from the table.

I was in a better position, though, as I had less credits than the previous candidate and would probably be much better suited to the results of the previous negotiation.

Great!

However, the offer from Cirque was considerably less than I expected. It was more in the $60,000/year range…which you might remember is less than half of what I’d expected all this time.

My lawyers worked to get the offer increased, but Cirque seemed reluctant to budge. By the end of the week they’d moved a little bit and I’d accepted the terms. It wasn’t as much as I expected, but it was enough. I was excited about the job.

Japan

On Monday I left for Japan. My friends (and employers) all figured this was the last they’d see of me for awhile and they wished me well. I found subs for all of my gigs.

On Monday morning, while I was at the airport, Cirque called again to let me know that the other candidate and I would be staying at the same hotel, and perhaps we could meet up at the airport in Japan.

The other candidate?

I’ll spare you the drama that followed. I’m not entirely sure how things went down, but the story I ended up with was something like this: 2 days before I left for Japan they called another candidate who hadn’t previously been part of the process and told him to get ready to leave for Japan. He was being considered for a music director job with the same tour in Asia.

Why did they do that? I’ll never know. My guess is that they didn’t like that I’d lawyer’d up…but I had only meant to do the professional thing. Perhaps they just didn’t like my lawyer? I really don’t know. For whatever reason they started to get a bad read on me – and, actually, that part doesn’t bother me. Why they still took the time and expense to send me to Japan for a week is the part I can’t understand.

What followed was 5 days of interviews, meals and meetings. It was really tense, to be honest. The other candidate and I knew that we were competing with each other for this job, both of us wanted it, and we were thrown together in this strange situation in the middle of Japan.

There were personality tests, auditions on tape, auditions with the music director, meetings with the crew, lunches with the artistic director, dinners with the other band members, more interviews late at night.

I’ll admit it – I really wasn’t mentally prepared for all of this. I thought I was going to Japan to meet my new co-workers, not fight with a stranger for a job that paid half of what I expected it to.

You can imagine about how well this all went. I did my best, but I’m sure they saw a little shadow in my eye that hinted at my misgivings. I don’t fake emotions well. I’m sure I seemed a little put off. I was.

Back Home

We left Japan without any indication about who had won the job. It was a full week before I got the call from Cirque that told me that they had given the job to the other candidate. My reaction was a mix of disappointment and relief. I felt bad that I’d lost the gig, but the Japan experience had left a bad taste in my mouth that I wasn’t eager to revisit.

I had to rebuild things here in NYC after that. Obviously I’d made a big deal about how I was very close to working for Cirque du Soleil, and I had to retract all of that, apologize to subs and employers and get my old gigs back. It wasn’t as hard as it sounds, I think I just found it a little embarrassing.

Final Conclusions

I still think that Cirque du Soleil is an incredible company that puts on high quality shows. I’m not sure if the situation I went through with them was a normal recruiting process, but I’ll say this – they are a private corporation that has grown and seen a lot of success. Corporations don’t make a cake that big without breaking some eggs, you know? They do what they have to do to get the best product possible. And I think I just caught the bad end of that stick back in 2010.

Bottom line, they are a major employer of musicians and other artists worldwide – and for working artists that is something that can’t be ignored. I recommend auditioning for Cirque. Once you get the gig they really seem to take care of their people.

If you’re interested in the Cirque gig, take my story with a grain of salt. Sign up for their jobs site and make your own story.

We’ve had the jobs board, in one form or another, on MusicianWages.com since the beginning. At first it was fed by RSS feeds from Craigslist and other jobs that listed musician jobs. But the quality of jobs varied greatly. Sometimes real gigs would pop up – but often the feeds listed crappy no-pay jobs that we would never recommend that our readers should ever seriously consider.

So last year we upgraded that portion of our site to a fancy new jobs board. We invited employers to post to the board and brought together all of the stakeholders that we could think of. For many months I personally hand-curated the jobs that we listed on the board – which was a lot of work and eventually I became too busy to continue.

We had some employers come to use the site, including Proshop, who would often post available cruise ship musician jobs. Also, Geraldine Boyer-Cussac curated a list of music director jobs on the board for a long time (that list has moved to this link now). We also had some independent employers come to the site looking to hire musicians.

But with the exception of those outliers, the quality of the gigs that found their way to the jobs board has been remarkably low. We’ve often thought that the quality would improve as traffic grew – but traffic has grown and grown and the quality of jobs has never really changed.

We’ve decided that it’s time for us to throw in the towel and admit this truth to ourselves: the best musician jobs are not posted online.

I work on a Broadway show. The other musicians in my pit are incredible. We have the trombone player for the Rolling Stones, the trumpeter for Paul Simon, Frank Sinatra’s guitar player, our percussionist worked with Ron Carter, Bill Evans, k.d. lang, Luther Vandross – and dozens of others. It’s incredible to play with these guys – they are the absolute best of the best.

You know what? These guys don’t look for gigs on internet jobs boards. And neither did I when I got my gig.

So, then, I can’t in good conscience recommend that you do it either.

There are some gigs that you can find online. Church gigs, cover band gigs, military gigs. You can find those in pockets of the internet. And some of them are cool gigs. I’m not discounting that.

But the best jobs – the jobs that you can build a career out of – seem to reveal themselves in their own ways. As my wise friend Cameron says, “The hard part isn’t really finding the gig, the hard part is getting to the level where those gigs become available to you.”

Perhaps the truth is that you can’t find the best musician jobs. Maybe they find you.

So we’re dropping the jobs board. A traditional jobs board is just not how our industry works, and I suspect it never will. We want to bring the highest quality content to our readers, and the jobs board just wasn’t up to our standards.

So how to you get a gig? We have lots of advice about that. Just about everything we’re written on this site (400+ articles) is about how to find work. Click on the blog archives and take a look around, you are sure to find something.

Here’s a list of 10 articles that I recommend you could start with, and you’ll find many more like this:

1. Getting Started As a Musician
2. Getting Started As a Musician Part 2
3. How to Find Work As a Gigging Musician
4. How to Get a Musician Job at Disney World
5. How to Get a Job as a Pianist
6. How to Get a Cruise Ship Musician Job
7. How Do I Get a Job After Music School?
8. How I Became a Broadway Musician
9. A Guide To Being a Successful Sideman
10. How to Actually Make $50,000 a Year as a Musician

Thanks for reading!

Here’s what the village came up with:

1. The Miller Machine

   These guys are lifesavers for pit players. They allow one handed triangle and finger cymbal playing. Comes in handy when you’re in the middle of 315 bars of time and there’s invariably that one triangle note out of nowhere.

2. Tangereens Percussion Sticks

   Plastic casings surrounding either a shaker or jingle bells. Great for creating different textures at lower volumes. And they come in handy at all of those corporate holiday party gigs.

3. Muffbone

   It’s not what you think it is….You can use this clever little device for quick bass drum muffling. It fits between your pedal and batter head and provides a pretty broad range of options when you don’t have a lot of time to tune to the room.

4. Drumbal

   Cruel twist of irony? Rise of the machines? This groovy little gadget helps replicate drum machine sounds such as white noise, hand claps, and electronic snare on your acoustic kit. I know, right?

5. Manhasset Drummer Stand

   The ultimate ‘didn’t know I needed it but I’m sure glad I have it’ invention. This stand comes with a multi clamp and will attach to any tom or cymbal stand allowing you to always have the music between you and the conductor. Which they apparently appreciate.

Let us know in the comments if you have any other cool gadgets for drummers or for musicians in general.

Sometimes, though, people get upset and send nasty emails. Most of them are ignored, but I felt this recent one deserved a response. The author is upset because we’re selling some contact lists from the Chronicles of a Cruise Ship Musician blog. Since he didn’t include a valid email address, prohibiting us from writing him back, we decided to respond publicly.

These lists are the first products we have ever sold from the site, and perhaps all our readers deserve an explanation of why we’ve opened the MusicianWages Shop after four years of giving away all our information for free.

Here is the email from “Joe” and our response.

You suck. I have been at your site before and you were all cushy cushy with all the agents. I thought your site was a cool idea at first. But you really don’t have a clue as to what real musicians wages in the real world are. I’ve been pro for 25+ years and know a lot of musicians. And now I see you are selling the list of cruise ship agents. Well there goes any respect I have for you. Obviously your not making enough money as a musician. You’re going to end up working for an agent before too long. Sad. Last time I visit the site.

Well Joe, sorry you feel that way. I hope you’ll read this response and have a better understanding of what Dave and I do, what MusicianWages is all about, and why we’re selling these lists.

Dave and I keep very busy working as full time musicians. Dave plays keyboards and conducts on Broadway, which is one of the best paying steady gigs a musician can get these days. I’m a freelance guitarist playing with different bands, subbing on musicals, and earning income from my own recordings (sales, royalties, licensing, etc.). We’re both members of our local AFM chapter and are well aware of union and non-union wages for a variety of musician jobs.

While continually building our careers, Dave and I have written extensively on everything we know about being musicians. We’ve shared all this information for free, on MusicianWages. We are the only people that run the site, and we do it for the love of sharing practical advice and helping others.

The website does generate some money, but not very much. We are far better professional musicians than we are professional bloggers! For the last several years we’ve basically been breaking even, making enough to cover monthly maintenance costs and hire professionals to help us with things beyond our skill set. However, we aren’t trying to make a living from this website, we’re trying to make a community of musicians.

When the two of us started MusicianWages four years ago, Dave’s articles about working as a cruise ship musician were a central part of the website’s launch. He had written extensively about the gig while playing on ships in 2004 because before he got the gig, there was simply no information online to prepare him for life as a cruise ship musician. His articles filled a void, which has made them very popular, and everybody researching cruise ship gigs finds MusicianWages in the top of their search results.

Dave’s only experiences on ships, though, were contracts in 2004 and 2007. I’ve never played on ships. We really don’t have any new information on the scene, with the exception of some contributions by other cruise ship musicians. Nonetheless, that section of the site has always been popular and we regularly receive emails from people wanting to know how to get a gig on a cruise ship.

In response to the many emails asking us, “How do I get do I get a cruise ship gig?” and all the resumes and links we receive from readers thinking we can place them on a ship, we decided to create these lists.

The Cruise Ship Talent Agency Directory and The Cruise Line Entertainment Department Directory were both created through time intensive research. The How Do I Get A Cruise Ship Musician Job eBook is a collection of articles from our website compiling answers to the 30 most asked questions about the cruise ship gig.

All of the information in these resources is freely available online for those who take the time to do their own research. Because we invested our own time and money compiling the information and presenting it in clean, easy to read eBooks, we decided to make them our first products to sell. We are charging for the convenience, for the time we’re saving you, not for exclusive information.

No agents, agency, or cruise lines were involved in or benefit from the creation and sales of these lists. We receive no commission on any cruise contracts signed by anybody that buys these lists. Most of the money we make from these lists goes back into the site or helps us develop other projects that we hope will help us and our fellow musician.

The musician industry isn’t the only place you’ll find these kinds of resources. After college my wife was applying for a very specific job in an industry where she had little experience. She bought a book that taught her about the industry, the position she wanted, and how to prepare for the interview. She studied the book cover to cover, tidied up her resume, nailed the interview, and got the job.

Similarly, we believe these lists are a very valuable resource for talented musicians that have everything it takes to play the gig, but don’t know much about it.

If you don’t want to work on a cruise ship there are plenty of other ways to make a living as a musician. Dave and I both have steady careers on land, as do many of the site’s contributors. We strive to keep MusicianWages full of pragmatic, useful information culled from the experience of professional musicians. This information will always be available for free.

The website is a central hub for news and career resources related to music directors in the theatre industry. The site includes a jobs board, blog, forums and events page.

Dave has often written about the music directing career here at MusicianWages.com. In 2009 he started the Theatre Music Directors Facebook Group and Yahoo Group, which now include over 500+ active members. Geraldine founded the Theatre Music Directors LinkedIn Group, YouTube channel and Twitter handle. The new website is a project to bring together all of these online groups and continue the growth of this community. More about the creation of the website can be found at Dave’s article, Why We’ve Built This Site.

The site is launching in BETA mode today and we encourage everyone, especially music directors, to visit and give feedback.

A New York City meet-up for music directors is being organized by TheatreMusicDirector.org for May 27th. See the events page for more info.

Editor’s Note: This article is part 4 of a series by Dave Jolley, an accomplished drummer who recently moved to New York City and is settling into a new life and a new scene.

“It’s like this. Did you ever have a fish tank as a kid? Remember when you would bring a new fish home you would have to put it in the tank in the bag that it came in so that the temperature of the water could normalize and the other fish could get used to the new fish? That’s you right now, man. You’re in the bag and the other fish are looking at you to see if you’ll make until the water reaches homeostasis.”

A friend with a splendid little gift for metaphor laid this on me recently. Pretty good, right?

Legwork

I had one tiny foot in the door of a pit in that I had just finished a tour of a show that was still running in New York. I had worked with the MD of that show years ago which helped a lot. He was also the music supervisor for the tour.

I was able to sit in the pit once before the tour went out and once after I moved here. Both were great experiences and I met two drummers who have been here doing what I want to do for many years. Both were very gracious and answered every question this tenderfoot threw at them.

Some important advice came out of this. Common sense stuff for sure, but it certainly bears repeating.

• Take every gig (at least at first), and treat it like you’re at Carnegie Hall. Makes sense. No matter what the gig is, you never know who is on it that can hire you or who is in the audience listening.
• Don’t pigeonhole yourself. Just because I moved here to do theater does not mean I should be turning down any other kind of work.
• Don’t leave town. I was told you can be a tour guy or an in town guy, but not both. Once people find out you’re out of town they lose your number. A harsh reality, but there are thousands of people vying for very few jobs. Half the game is outwaiting the competition.

I’ve found that all of these are difficult at times for different reasons. Nobody likes to play for free but I have to balance the lack of pay with the possibility of exposure and playing with some great people. It bears mentioning that the highest profile gig I’ve done here with the heaviest players was for free.

I’m pursuing theater gigs because it’s what I have the most comfort and experience with. It’s also the neck of the industry woods that I know the most people and that I am best networked. However, some of the best paid and most fun gigs I’ve had here are completely outside of that realm and frankly outside of my comfort zone.

The idea of turning down work outside the city has been a tough one to come to grips with. I was offered nearly a year’s work on the road with a much higher compensation package than I had ever been offered a few months ago. It was hard to turn that down so that I could remain here and have no real steady income. I’ve never had much if any success with making decisions based purely upon the fiscal. A right choice ultimately, but a tough one to say the least.

The Cold Call

An interesting point was made by one of these guys related to marketing oneself. He said that when he got to town a few years ago, he didn’t do much ‘cold calling’ or calling and emailing strangers that were doing the work that he wanted to get into. In this case, playing Broadway shows.

I have to admit that his approach is more my style. I’m uneasy with the whole idea of the cold call and like to meet people more organically. And this guy has had great success going about it in this way. There are, however, innate problems with this system of networking that I have run up against.

Anyone I have contacted in town has been through at least one mutual friend. If we don’t have at least that commonality, you haven’t heard from me. Problem is, it’s been slow going.

There are people cold calling people systematically who are getting work and moving up the ladder. There is an excellent article on this very website telling you in explicit detail how to go about doing just that.

Trusted friends have told me I need to lose the timidity and start knocking on doors. In an effort to not offend or bother people who don’t know me, I have successfully managed for those people to not know me. Or call me. Or let me sit in their pits and watch them play the book.

So, it’s with all of this in mind that I begin to bother strangers who in all likelihood bothered strangers to get to where they are. Sausage making can be ugly. However, if my protein starved vegetarian brain recalls correctly, the end result can be quite delicious.

Growth

My strategy of non-aggression has gone about as well as Chamberlin’s same tack in Munich, if I may delve into hyperbolic historical equivalencies…

Faux intellectualism aside, I have to admit that when I turned in my bio for the first installment of this series and wrote, “David Jolley is a freelance drummer/percussionist in New York City.” there was a shocking mixture of unadulterated pride of arrival and pure and poignant terror. Now it’s out there in the world, now I really have to do this.

I’m happy with the progress I’ve made these past months but not satisfied. I’ve come to the conclusion that by pursuing my own path, it’s become about pursuing many different paths at once. It’s been testing and stretching my boundaries and reshaping long held ideas about the way things worked and where I fit.

I’m rediscovering an idea that I’ve known for a while but chose to ignore: Growth in career is endlessly and intimately intertwined with personal growth. This is not an easy idea for most people. It involves figuring out what I like about myself and what I need to change. A heavier idea than ‘how do I get that job?’.

It also calls into question my system of values. What am I willing to do to get to where I want to be? And what is the motivation?

Part of this you’re witnessing firsthand. I had to be ceaselessly goaded into writing about my experiences and putting it out there in the world for strangers to read. I guess from here it’s not that far of a reach to email someone privately and ask to buy them a coffee. Worst case, they don’t respond.

I can probably live with that.