Recently, a young singer wrote an agonized account of her efforts to start her career responsibly. She had taken time off after graduating to solidify her technique and stabilize her finances, putting off voice lessons and headshots and living on rice and beans while keeping up to date on her bills and loans. Then she was laid off from her job. Struggling to put food on the table and to pay off her relatively modest student loans while on unemployment, she can’t afford audition fees or grad school. She wonders if she will ever be able to afford the career she’d trained for and worries that her responsible life choices mean that she isn’t passionate enough to deserve a singing career.
This young singer, like so many others, fell unwittingly into a trap. Even though she has been responsible and realistic about her finances, unfortunately she chose and pursued a course of study without understanding enough about the realities of the career she was training for. Many young people do this, of course—not just singers. But singers are not training for a 9-to-5 job with benefits and structure and some degree of stability. There is a huge part of the picture that is missing from both the student perspective and, sadly, most of their musical education.
When a singer graduates with a music degree and the intention of becoming a professional soloist, he is for all intents and purposes starting a small business. Any startup has expenses and requires funding. Because most singers don’t think of themselves as entrepreneurs, they don’t prepare adequately for this all-important stage of getting the business started. You need to understand how the business works at the time when you graduate—and that means doing a lot of research on your own, because most schools provide little to no meaningful business training for musicians. You need a business plan: an idea of your goals for your career and how you intend to achieve them.
And last but not least, you need startup funds. You need money for advertising (résumés, bios, headshots, website, sound clips and, yes, audition fees, because auditions are essentially publicity), business travel (airfare, ground travel, lodging, food on the road), business attire (audition and performance outfits with all the accoutrements), employees (audition accompanists), continuing education (teachers, coaches), facility rental (practice/warm-up space), supplies (scores, mailroom items, folders, etc.), and so on. All of these are business expenses, and I don’t know a single singer—myself included—who ever saved up a fund so they could actually start a business when they got out of school. No one ever told us we needed to. But this is the reality of the career we have chosen, and we all must learn to be good entrepreneurs.
If you are still in school or contemplating beginning your music studies, you have a great opportunity right now to plan ahead. Start putting money aside now, even if it’s just a little bit. Make it your goal to graduate as debt-free as possible. You certainly don’t want to start your professional life with credit card debt, but student loans can also be crippling. Running up a load of debt for a music degree is a very expensive gamble, and one that very few can pay off through singing alone, especially in the first years of their careers. Very few singers go straight from school to a full-time work life as musicians—and even if you’re lucky enough to get into a Young Artist Program right off the bat, at most you can expect survival wages. You certainly won’t be making enough from a YAP alone to pay off student loans or set aside money for later, and if you’re in a YAP it’s unlikely you’ll be able to take outside work.
If you can’t get scholarships or attend a school that won’t bankrupt you while still preparing you for the next step of your singing career, consider a double major, or minoring in music and majoring in an area which will give you more readily marketable skills after graduation. A degree in music is not necessary for success as a performer; what is important is vocal technique, acting ability, languages, the ability to network, and business savvy. Most of those things can be obtained in a variety of places. The advantage of a university or conservatory is that it’s more or less one-stop shopping. Whatever you choose to do, make sure you wring every drop of value out of your music education. Check out MajoringInMusic.com, a free website which offers all kinds of valuable articles and advice on how to do just that.
Most singers will have to have day jobs at some point, especially when starting their careers. In order to have a day job which pays the bills and pursue a singing career, you need a decent paycheck and flexibility. That combination isn’t always easy to find. But low-paying day jobs (like temping) are a trap. You might be able to pay the bills, but you will never get ahead. You’ll exhaust yourself for a 9-to-5 job and battle for time off, using all your vacation and sick days for gigs or auditions, and you’ll have little energy left over for voice lessons and coachings.
Even if you can take a long lunch to have a voice lesson or sing an audition, will you really be getting maximum value out of them when you’re so distracted? You will be much better off if you take time to develop skills that allow you to work from home most of the time, or otherwise allow you to choose your hours, and pay well. School is the time to do this and to develop connections that may lead to steady day-job work once you graduate.
What if you’ve already graduated and, like the frustrated singer mentioned above, find yourself in the position of repeatedly putting your singing career on hold while you struggle just to keep afloat? What if you already amassed debt that is interfering with the successful start of the career you’ve trained for so diligently? How can you fund a small business when all your resources are going into staying alive?
There is no easy answer to these questions, but people manage to do it, every day. Business magazines are full of stories about people who have started businesses in their basements with next to no money. Silpada Jewelry started with $50 pooled together by two stay-at-home moms and sold to Avon 10 years later for $650 million. A cash-strapped high school student started the Yankee Candle Company in the 1970s by making candles in his garage and selling them to neighbors. The company went public in the late ’90s, and the candles are now sold worldwide with over $100 million dollars in sales. And Hard Candy Nail Polish was started by a burned-out med school student who dropped out of school and mixed up four bottles of funky-colored nail polish in her basement—which subsequently sold for $18 each and kicked off a $10 million dollar business.
A singing business is different than these endeavors. The singer is the artist, but also the owner, CEO, secretary, head salesperson and, last but certainly not least, the product. You, as a singer, are a complete package, and you can’t exactly bottle up little pieces of yourself and hawk them door-to-door. But you can find creative ways to market your singing and other musical talents and start getting your product out where people can see it and where you can make those all-important connections to help you to the next level—and this you can do for very little money.
First, just like the student singer must do, research the business. So many singers fail to be proactive when it comes to creating their careers. They sit back and wait for someone to hire them, often without any very clear idea of how they are supposed to get hired, or even get an audition.
If you have not yet discovered this information, it’s past due. Talk to the most successful singers, conductors, instrumentalists, teachers, coaches, and directors you know. Don’t worry if they aren’t very high up the food chain. All you’re looking for is the next step. Read managers’ and singers’ blogs like Kim Witman’s Wolf Trap Opera blog (www.wolftrapopera.org/blog/), Laura Claycomb’s Young Artist Corner
(www.lauraclaycomb.com/yac/), and the ADA Artist Management’s series The Manager’s Perspective (ada-artists.com/managers-perspective). Read opera company websites, especially companies you’d like to work for in the near future. Doctors, lawyers, businessmen, and tradespeople regularly read, attend conferences, and take additional training to stay abreast of what’s happening in their industry. Why should singers be any different?
Second, formulate a business plan. This is simply a roadmap that helps you establish what you’re trying to achieve as a singer and how you plan to get there. It lists your immediate and long-term goals (“I need to have one voice lesson and two coachings a month for the next year” . . . “within five years I want to have management and be working regularly as an opera soloist”). You should articulate the steps needed to reach each of those goals and consider all your resources and anyone who might have an interest in your success. You should also detail how you are going to fund your goals and begin to identify some sources of funding.
Put it on paper, where you can see your plan and think about it. How many auditions do you want to do this year and how much will it cost you to do those auditions? How many voice lessons and coachings do you plan to take? If you have to take a leave of absence from your day job to do a workshop, apprenticeship, or engagement, how much income will you lose and how will it be made up? Having a plan will not only help you be better organized and less overwhelmed, but will give you a concrete way to discuss your business with industry outsiders such as family, friends, and potential investors who might not otherwise understand how a classical singing career works. For help in writing a business plan, visit www.SBA.gov.
Next—and this can be scary—you need to source funding. Take a hard look at your budget and get busy trimming some fat. If you can afford $3 for a fancy coffee several times a week, you can afford to save up for an audition fee. If your belt is so tight already that you can feel your spine through your belly button, then it’s time to think about other sources of income. If you already have a day job, can you teach some high school students a few nights a week, pet sit, work as a caterer, do a few extra hours of IT or customer service work via phone from home, teach a yoga or Pilates class, or tutor? (Alternatively, your extra time might temporarily be better spent on some training that would allow you to get a better, higher-paying day job).
And don’t forget the possibility of investors. Any young business requires them. Chances are you’ve already had a few, and they might be willing to help you out even more or identify others who will. Think of family members, friends, local businesses, organizations, churches, guilds, Kickstarter.com—anywhere you have a personal or community connection.
You’ll have a better chance if you present your case professionally, well researched, and clearly articulated. Come to your potential investors with a specific project and a plan. For example, put together a portfolio of auditions you would like to do with a list of costs and a description of how this would benefit you. Describe how your success as a singer would benefit your community. Ask for a specific amount of money—and remember that investors can come in all sizes, and even a small amount can help. You might get just $25 from someone, but that would pay for half a coaching, or a practice room rental, or the cost of getting your bag on an airplane. You might get someone to cover the cost of an audition fee, or even an audition season.
Remember, too, that an investment needn’t be in cash. Perhaps someone would be willing to offer you free rehearsal or performance space, the use of an apartment or car in a town you’ll be staying in for auditions or gigs, free publicity in a publication they write for, or Web design. Perhaps someone in your circle of acquaintances is a fantastic fundraiser and would be willing to take you on as a project (and better yet, teach you how to do it for yourself). Perhaps someone who can’t contribute cash directly would be willing to introduce you to other potential sponsors.
Most importantly, you must persevere. If you really want to sing, you will find a way to do it, if you stick with it. You may have to think outside the box and create your own unique opportunities, but that is what creative people—including entrepreneurs—do. And this is what you probably weren’t taught or are not being taught in school: this is a very large and vital part of the job of a professional singer. You are an artist, but you also must be an entrepreneur. There is nothing magical or glamorous about that, but there is also nothing very mysterious or unattainable about it. Identify the issues and challenges, break them down into manageable chunks, and start hammering away.
