Desire is a mighty beast, It’s only the first step though. If you could make it just from wanting it… why haven’t most people made it? Don’t be naive and say its because they didn’t want it enough. You’re better than that. If you’re serious about pursuing a career in music as a musician, you need to be doing these things.
Who am I to write this? I’m a nobody, that’s who! I’m a “failed musician” just like you. I failed for a few reasons. These reasons seem like common sense. That because they are just that, common sense. Doing these things doesn’t guarantee the level of success you’re dreaming of. But failing to make these things as part of your routine guarantees you will not make it.
Craft your personal workout– You need to be picking up the instrument EVERY SINGLE DAY! What you do during your practice routine is up to you, which is how it should be. You can get ideas from others around you, but ultimately you need to create what you’re doing every single day. Maybe it’s speed running scales for 10 minutes, working a new song, then practicing technique for 10 minutes to finish it out. The workout needs to be personal, a mix of fun and tedious interval training. If you’re not playing at least 30 minutes every day, you’re not taking this seriously.
Learn something new– By this I mean you need to do something you feel a little uncomfortable doing. If you feel uncomfortable with improving over a track. (That’s a common thing) Dedicate a few minutes every day to learning the circle of 5ths. Start from the beginning. Youtube “Circle of 5ths for beginners,” the internet is overflowing with videos on theory, watch with a pen and notebook in hand. To sincerely study, relay the information to someone who knows very little about what you learned. If they can relay the information back to you, then you really know what you are talking about, and you are learning and growing!
Push yourself to listen to new music every week– Create an album of the week, study the greats in your field. Subscribe to a new playlist, if a song really sticks out to you, learn how to play that song!
Write Down Goals– Spend a few minutes every day writing down your goals for the day, week and month. Write them down EVERY DAY! You want to be repeating yourself here. You want to say the same thing every day, when we do this, it means we’re focused. We have that same goal in our mind for an extended period of time. If we have this same vision for a month, for a year, for three years. We will improve past what we are able to conceive! I find the problem is we lose sight of these goals. We write it down once in a notebook, then we forget about that notebook. Write down the simple, primary goals every day. It might seem silly. But it has real power over how we improve!
Have someone hold you accountable – If you can find a master of your craft, someone you can aspire to be. That’s great, but sometimes a mentor is hard to find. We need someone who can hold us accountable. A person we respect, maybe it’s a brother, an aunt, a grandparent, or even a fellow musician. It doesn’t matter, just someone you can contact every few days that will hold you accountable for keeping on track. There will be days you don’t feel like someone zapped all of the ambition out of your body. This is the day we need the champion of our dream to step up and help us through!
Dean Nelson 