🌱 3 Skills Every Musician Needs to Succeed (And They’re Not What You Think).
Updates, realisations, and something that might interest you (scroll to the bottom!)
The last few months have been crazy, and so I haven’t been able to keep up with writing here! Thanks for holding on…
It’s been crystallised in my mind that, to achieve success in literally any field, you only need three things:
Hard skills
Soft skills
Strength of network
Master these three, and you’re golden!
To see this idea with clarity, it’s taken me to start from scratch in an entirely new field—something I recommend to any of you.
There’s a lot to be said for becoming a beginner again.
It’s a humbling experience, and the main value is that you start to see the foundational skills of success with radical clarity. It allows you to learn new skills to apply to the world of drums and music. Skills that are rare in our field. Few people think to cast the net outside of our small corner of the music industry, and so opinions and perspectives within our circles can become stale.
It’s the same old thinking, time and time again.
So, by broadening your horizons, you can find new ways of thinking that are transferable back into the world of drums to do good, inspire change, and ultimately create new opportunities.
What have you been up to then, Chris?
It’s no secret I don’t like Instagram.
And so, back in June, after six months of tinkering with the platform to create a stream of attention directed to this newsletter, I decided to up sticks and set myself up on LinkedIn.
The difference between Instagram and LinkedIn is WILD.
The LinkedIn algorithm is pretty basic. And learning to play the game takes little to no time. People there are proactive, helpful, and thoughtful. I even started to chat with a few of them, and before long, I found myself offering my services as a ghostwriter to founders and leaders in the music space.
I connected with top neuroscientists specialising in music and have formed exciting partnerships that could potentially transform the value of music (maybe I’ll do a post on what, how, and why). I’ve worked with the founding father of sonic branding and global leaders at Spotify, been invited on podcasts, connected and had meetings with founders of wildly innovative music-based companies across the world from Sydney and Melbourne to New York, Chicago, LA, via India, Poland, Switzerland, and Ireland, across a host of different industries from neurotechnology to leadership. I started a new newsletter (where I collaborate with interesting people working with music to share their insights… I even have the president of the Recording Academy/Grammy’s coming on in a few weeks 🤯), and in just a few months, it has been read by neuroscientists, music business executives, startup founders, and leaders of multi-9-figure businesses. And I’ve only written two editions.
I started with 0 followers in June. No network. Nothing. Crickets. But truth be told, you don’t need a big network or loads of followers…
You just need the right network and the right followers.
To see this growth and the vast opportunity in this time is enough for me to call bullsh*t on anyone who says the music industry is dead. You’re just looking at it through the same old lens, with the same old thinking. , Yes, the industry has changed. But that means our thinking must change too.
This isn’t me boasting or calling anyone out, by the way.
It’s taken me 15 years to realise we need to think differently about the future of being a drummer in the music industry, so I am inviting you to think differently with me.
In the music industry, and particularly as musicians, it’s very difficult to see the wood from the trees when it comes to finding our place in the business of music. It’s hard to discern our value. How do we make people’s lives better? What outcomes can we provide? And in what industries? Is it just the music industry? Or can we provide value elsewhere? Why should people book us? Why should we be paid more? Why do we feel undervalued as an industry? How can we change that? What can we do as drummers to make us feel like we have the slightest bit of control over the success of our careers, so it doesn’t just feel like we are waiting for the phone to ring with the next gig?
The answer lies in the first few lines of this post:
Hard skills
Soft skills
Strength of network
The industry has changed. Now, we need to move with it.
The problem we face is that we are only taught hard skills.
Sure, they are important…
You need to be able to back yourself up with impeccable time, great technique, a warm tone, the right language at the right time, the ability to play to the room, the right gear… You need to master singles, doubles, all of the rudiments and their application on the kit, kick technique, left foot integration, “flow”, mental agility, nervous system regulation…
The list is endless.
But without the soft skills, all of this is useless.
You need to know how to talk to people, to lift people up, to make the music better without criticising, and to be consistent in your professional approach. You need to learn the true meaning of emotional intelligence and everything that comes with it, basic psychology, the mirror technique, empathy, adaptability, how to communicate (this is the most foundational bedrock of all civilisation), how to problem solve, how to build interoceptive skills so you can self-analyse…
How much of that were you taught at school?
Probably none! But it’s 33% of your success.
That’s MASSIVE.
Here’s the secret…
I didn’t build my network on LinkedIn by forcing my ability to write (hard skill) in the face of the people on the platform. I built it through a complex strategy and implementation of soft skills to get people talking about the problems they face with the use and perception of music in their industry so I could learn, join the dots, and figure out where I could provide value.
As it happens, there are countless opportunities for the application of music across a large number of industries, driving hugely valuable outcomes that are ready and waiting for us to tap into.
But currently, we are still so bothered that the old model for commercial music is broken that we can’t see the unbelievable opportunities waiting in the middle distance.
What can you do right now?
In February, I floated an idea in this newsletter, but it was a non-starter because I couldn’t find a suitable platform with the tools to host the idea.
Now, that has changed, so let’s try again!
When it comes to professional development, we all face the same challenges.
But at the moment, the only way to get an objective opinion is to book a 1-1 lesson with someone you admire. However, the feedback loop is slow and ineffective, and the cost soon mounts up. And when you get busy it becomes hard to keep up with the things you want to work on. So, your professional development falls by the wayside, your progress stalls, and when you return to it, you have to start over again, ultimately resulting in slow progress and a patchwork, “unfinished” skillset that makes you feel slightly insecure at best, or like a total imposter at worst.
But professional development isn’t about taking huge leaps.
It’s about doing little and often and letting the compounding of small, daily actions do the work.
And so, what you need is not expensive, long lessons with big gaps in between to “work on stuff”.
Instead, you need the next piece of the puzzle as fast as possible.
Most of the time, that’s 2/3 minutes of advice or something quick to undo the next bottleneck in your growth.
So, I am teaming up with Richard Jupp (founding drummer of the band Elbow, who is now knee-deep in helping the final-year students at LIPA create sustainable careers) to create a Dynamic Coaching program.
What is Dynamic Coaching?
Dynamic coaching is not lessons.
It’s an adaptable feedback/advice service that you can scale up or down to suit your current schedule.
It’s designed to fit into your life both when you have time to “get into the weeds” and also when you are at your busiest, so you never feel like you’re lacking consistency in your progress.
With the app we are using, you can send videos and DM’s anytime and get fast, tailored responses within 48 hours—and you can go as deep or bite-size as you like.
You could use it for:
Overcome hurdles in practice
To get feedback on last night’s rehearsal/gig
Help with teaching resources or a teaching-related question (who received teaching lessons/training? Anyone?)
Finding the next thing to work on
Technique check-in’s
Soft skill/network/career development
You can essentially use it as a sounding board for any and every question to ensure you’re constantly progressing.
Maybe you want to make sure you have a sustainable career. Maybe you want better paid work. Maybe you want a consistent income stream like teaching but don’t know where to start. Maybe you’re fed up with the same old problems in your hand technique, or maybe you want to finally get around to incorporating your left foot into the mix better.
Think of it as industry advice/feedback in your back pocket.
The software I have found is outstanding, too.
You can upload videos directly to the platform, which we can annotate in multiple ways, slow down to get into the detail of what you’re doing, record voiceovers, analyse your form with AI…
Then, we can send these video responses back to you with the next thing you need when you need it. We can also record and send separate videos, instruction, advice, and resources based on your requests.
And, of course, if it’s just a quick question, you can DM any time.
The cost is £72 per month, and for that, you would get unlimited access and unlimited requests (within reason) any time of day, 7 days a week, with responses within 48 hours.
So, if this is something you’d be interested in, hit reply to this email with a “🥁” and I’ll be in touch with more information.
Good to be in touch again,
Chris x