Turning Minuses Into Plusses

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Apr 24, 2001

TURNING MINUSES INTO PLUSSES

Every musician goes through tough times—it comes with the territory. You lose your day job, your band breaks up, the label you are signed with drops you, the computer dumps all the work you just did on that arrangement—all have happened in one form or another to any successful musician. The trick is to take the handicap and somehow turn it around into something positive. If you don’t have that drive, the industry can and will eat you up—only the strong survive, and you need to have that tough outlook or fall by the wayside as another “might have been.” Let’s see a few ways you can overcome a few common problems, and turn the dark cloud into one with a silver lining.

FINANCES TAKE A DOWNTURN

This is a common problem. As a musician, you probably don’t have too many job skills—many of us have done turns as wait staff, office help, retail sales persons or other menial jobs, because we spend so much time trying to make music that we don’t have many other marketable abilities. Trying to keep up our stage appearance, too, makes it hard for some of us to get jobs—many is the rocker I’ve seen passed over for work because his/her hair was too long, not corporate-enough looking, had piercings, dressed too casual for most businesses, and so forth.

True, you can put your instruments in a pawnshop to make expenses, but then you won’t have your equipment when it’s needed, and the interest rates are horrible. Sadly, it is often better to sell off equipment that you aren’t using or don’t expect to anytime soon—if it’s old, you should be able to buy similar equipment to replace it cheaply later when money is better. Check out the rates at your local music stores—many will sell your items for a percentage, and you’ll get a lot more customers selling at a consignment store than you will probably get running an ad, you avoid sales taxes, and they can take credit cards, usually—all making it easier for your items to be moved quickly.

Many cities allow playing acoustically for tips on the street and ask you to register with a permit to do so—this is how several of my friends have made the rent when they were in a bind—and there are often venues that will allow you to play there for food/coffee/drinks as well as tips, so check the local coffeehouse and music scene out.

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The copyright of the article Turning Minuses Into Plusses in Writing Music is owned by Cindy Lee Haddock. Permission to republish Turning Minuses Into Plusses in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.