Quick Tip #16: Have a Better Backup Plan
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If your first hope was to be a composer, why wouldn't your backup plan be performing on your instrument, or doing audio engineering, or something else in the field?
I attended a master class once in college, where the professor asked several people in the audience what their backup plans were, if music didn’t work out.
And people said things like, you know, go to med school or get an MBA.
I think one person even said they would be a barber.
And his response after hearing a few of them was, why wouldn’t your backup plan be something else in music?
If your first hope was to be a composer, why wouldn’t your backup plan be performing on your instrument, or doing audio engineering, or something else in the field?
Why would you just give up and leave the business altogether?
And that really made something click in my mind.
You see, I had really struggled to choose a major because it seemed to me like no one in the music industry was ever doing the thing that was in the name of their degree.
They’d study violin and become a conductor, or they’d do music ed and then end up composing full time, and so on.
And I think this concept is something that a lot of aspiring musicians get stuck on, because they have this sort of tunnel vision and they only think about the type of music that they want to do, and that causes them to miss or turn down other opportunities.
So my point is, anything you do in one corner of the business, if you do it well, will help you achieve success in other parts of the industry.
And I think this relates to sheet music publishing as well.
You may start publishing one type of music, realize it’s not working.
So instead of giving up, or worse, continuing to just do the same thing, think of what else you could do.
Try a different type of music, and see where that takes you.c
Garrett Breeze
Garrett Breeze, host of Selling Sheet Music, is a Nashville-based composer best known for his catalog of more than 1,500 choral arrangements of popular music, including more than 1,000 written for competitive show choir.
Visit garrettbreeze.com for more information or to book Garrett for a commission or other event.