No singer ought to be singing for free
I had the chance to help a great group of singers understand
that fact in New York City the night the record snow storm fell on the
metropolis.
I was truly amazed at how
quickly they comprehended this concept and got ready to go out and put to use
the idea that singers need Never Sing for Free Again.
Here’s a few of the paradigm shifts that must take place for
a singer to Never Sing for Free Again:
1.
Money and
Value. You have to get rid of the idea that money is the only way to get
paid. It’s not a word game. It’s a paradigm shift. Seeking a small payment for
a night’s work is short sighted and understanding this concept can lead, rather
quickly to larger pay outs of money. More value received for your talent. When
offered a job for no cash, the performer who knows this is his or her business
and knows Money and Value are distinctions without a practical difference in
the long run, will know how to discuss or negotiate with the producer and get
far more value from the producer and at the same time bringing more value to
the producer. To learn all of the various ways, either check out this blog as
they techniques are discussed here, or read my book, Marketing Singers and sign
up for 3 months of email consulting at
2.
Singers
are their own business. Keeping that paradigm active, a singer can parlay
their talent into making a living. Without an agent. Or, as some in the
audience Friday concluded, they could have their agent go after the kind of
work he or she is an expert in tracking down, and the singer could take their
career by their own hands and significantly increase the number of
non-theatrical jobs…which in turn can lead to more theatrical jobs.
3.
Becoming
a Performer not a Singer. Many producers and directors of the stage of
clearly declared that they no longer hire singers, but are looking for
performers. Enrico Caruso began as a singer at a pizza bar in Italy. In an
early performance a drunk ran into him just before he delivered his
“money-note.” That threw him so far off his routine that he had to recover and
restart the song. After many performances in that raucous mad house he became a
performer, and knew it when another drunk bumped into him and Caruso made him
part of the act without missing a beat. When he broke that barrier, he was
ready to be hired for the stage. To
become that kind of performer takes… many singing performances. It’s the
concept of Mastery so clearly illustrated in Malcolm Gladwell’s book, Outliers.
To achieve Mastery of any skill/talent he has found takes 10,000 hours of
practice, and performance. He demonstrates this in violinists, Mozart, the
Beatles and many other professions.
We’ll discuss this more in later blogs.
That’s it for now, I need to leave for the airport and
hopefully get out of LaGuardia Airport before it snows again and shuts down New
York.
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