Latest Posts  •  february 22, 2021

If you’re serious about making music your career, you should take a broad approach and get comprehensive training. Musicians who only focus on stage appearances and dream of a big breakthrough are missing out on many opportunities. In this article, I clear up the prejudices surrounding the profession as a musician and show you what really matters when training to become a professional musician in order to be able to make a living with the supposedly unprofitable arts.

Rock star or unprofitable artist?

Many parents are convinced that their child will learn an instrument one day. It’s practically a matter of good manners. And after all, music promotes many skills far beyond making music itself. But when the child becomes so enthusiastic about music that he or she expresses the desire to become a professional musician, most parents throw their hands up in horror.

The image of a musician is tainted by many clichés. In the minds of most people, someone with the career aspiration of a musician seems to end up either – with a lot of luck and “talent” – as a big rock star or otherwise as an unprofitable artist.

Most people are not aware that becoming a musician is a tangible profession with which you can earn good money if you do it right.

Unfortunately, this is often not clear to the prospective musicians themselves. Anyone who decides to study music in the hope of perhaps being employed as an orchestral musician one day, or to somehow get a chance to perform, is already approaching the matter with the wrong prerequisites.

A musician is always also an entrepreneur 

As a prospective musician, you have to be aware that musicians rarely end up in a permanent position. Most musicians are self-employed and thus also always entrepreneurs. This in turn means that it is not enough to just be a really good musician. You also need to know how to market yourself, run your small business, and consider which options there are besides stage performances to ensure a regular income.

In particular, the current corona crisis has shown how critical it is for musicians to rely on stage performances as their main source of income.

Important: the practical reference to professional life
A classical music degree program is very academically oriented. It lacks the practical connection to the professional world. That’s why we at the MMS also created our Professional Program. The Professional Program offers a profound musical education at the highest level and also comprehensively prepares participants for a professional life as a musician. That’s why the Professional Program not only includes music, but also business lessons, personal development and marketing. Participants can also train to become music coaches

Conclusion

As a musician, you don’t just need to master your instrument perfectly. You also need more than creativity, your own style and the necessary theoretical background. As a professional musician, you should also be familiar with topics such as music management and entrepreneurship. Since teaching is an important mainstay for most musicians, you should know how to pass on your skills and experience didactically, methodically and pedagogically in order to also help your students.