Impostor Syndrome: doubting your skills, talents, or accomplishments and having a persistent internalized fear of being exposed—of being thought of as a fraud.

Raise your hand if any of the below sound familiar:

There are countless ways to fail if you’re a serious musician trying to get the world to care about your music. From scathing reviews to sparsely attended shows, few things hurt as much as giving everything over to a dream only to see it go nowhere.

Happy New Year! First of all, can we all just do a collective sigh of relief here that 2020 is over and we are now officially kicking off a brand new year? And while yes, every year comes with the promise of new beginnings, I think we can all agree that this year we are feeling this more than ever. 

The objective of social media is no longer getting the most ‘likes,’ but to create the most engagement. Social networks have adjusted their algorithms since it became so easy to ‘buy’ likes. Thus, users with more engagement become more visible. But what does ‘engagement’ really mean?

Online music lessons have been pretty common for the past few years. Many educators who have never taught online before have recently faced the challenge to adapt to their new teaching environment. 

Since the music industry crossed over to the virtual world in 2020, musicians now have the opportunity to develop new skills to enhance their business and their craft. 

These skills include branding, recording music, releasing music, and developing fan relationships. So, in this article we will discuss why it is important to develop these four skills:

As a serious musician, you probably think a lot about what it means to be successful in your work. For some of us, it’s making enough money to live comfortably. For others, it’s all about creating the most meaningful art we can and getting people to notice. The truth is that no matter how you define success in music, you’ll need dedicated and energized advocates of your work to be successful. These are fans, and they’re getting harder to come by.

We’re creating music in one of the most uniquely challenging moments in modern history. Something as simple and carefree as getting up on stage in front of a crowd of people in an indoor space is now burdened with danger and uncertainty due to a pandemic that has no end in sight. A fascinating and endlessly frustrating problem is that as the crisis drags on, audiences need music more and more when it’s often difficult or even impossible for musicians to deliver it to them. But between a world connected by the internet like never before and the timeless innovative and tenacious spirit of songwriters and performers, music is still enriching lives during the pandemic in a huge way.