Category: Music Career

  • How to Structure a Music Lesson

    How to Structure a Music Lesson

    When teaching music lessons one-on-one, you have limited time. You want to share knowledge, ingrain skills, and inspire students to make music. You spend only 30-60 minutes per week with each student. In this time, you are teaching them how to practice during the other 167 hours of the week. How do you use lesson time effectively? How do…

  • 4 Reasons Why More Musicians Should Be Blogging

    4 Reasons Why More Musicians Should Be Blogging

    Musicians spend time doing many things: practicing, performing, teaching, composing, and scheduling gigs. Why would a musician add blogging to the list? There are many possible motivations. Here are 4 reasons why you should consider starting a blog:

  • How to Decide Whether to Major in Music

    How to Decide Whether to Major in Music

    How do you know whether to major in music?  Many high school students considering a music career ask this question. College students who have already started a music major may wonder whether to stick with it. After all, it’s hard to make a living in music, right? Your parents said it would be better to…

  • How to Get Wedding Gigs and Enjoy the Experience

    How to Get Wedding Gigs and Enjoy the Experience

    Many musicians play wedding gigs. Some enjoy them. Some do not. A popular YouTube video demonstrates the type of wedding gig musicians complain about. For years, I frequently played wedding gigs, and I enjoyed most of them; I also had my share of unusual experiences. I remember one outdoor ceremony at dusk on a summer evening. Chairs…

  • How to Attract More Students to Your Guitar Program

    How to Attract More Students to Your Guitar Program

    In last week’s post, I described how I got a full-time guitar teaching job at a university. In response, one of my friends asked how to recruit guitar majors. The foundation for attracting excellent students is being an excellent performer and teacher. One who works in a great school of music. Of course, all of…

  • How to Get a Full-Time Guitar Job – #6 Will Blow Your Mind

    How to Get a Full-Time Guitar Job – #6 Will Blow Your Mind

    I recently asked my Facebook friends about the biggest frustration in their music careers. The answer that rose to the top was the scarcity of full-time guitar teaching jobs at universities. Many guitar faculty are employed part-time. Professors who do have full-time positions often keep them for twenty or thirty years, making new job openings rare. While it’s hard to…

  • One Guitarist’s Journey to Starting a Podcast

    One Guitarist’s Journey to Starting a Podcast

    This week, I had the chance to catch up with Matthew Cochran, who recently started Goes2Eleven, the weekly podcast about the world of the guitar (Note: The podcast contains some explicit language). I got to chat with Matthew about life, Goes2Eleven, and the world of podcasting. Matthew earned degrees in classical guitar performance from the Eastman School…

  • How a Guitar Student and His Wife Earned 4 College Degrees With No Debt

    How a Guitar Student and His Wife Earned 4 College Degrees With No Debt

    The estimated worth of a bachelor’s degree is around $900,000 in increased earnings over a lifetime. Graduate degrees are estimated to add hundreds of thousands of dollars in additional earnings. But these days, college debt is increasing rapidly as well. Making payments on college loans can be a drag on personal finances for 10 or 20…

  • Why You Should Stop Wishing For a Better World

    Why You Should Stop Wishing For a Better World

    It’s easy to wish for a better world. There are a lot of things wrong with this one. But simply wishing won’t make it better. Action is required. It’s great to tell others about your vision for the future. But there’s a difference between advocacy and simply complaining. Too often, I hear musicians say things…

  • How Do You Get Great Music Students?

    How Do You Get Great Music Students?

    A young music teacher recently asked me how to get great students. After teaching for a couple of years, he was looking for the spark that would take his studio to the next level. He wanted a strategy that would instantly motivate a group of budding virtuosos to seek his guidance. As I talked with him, I shared ideas that…