entrepreneur: Page 2

Ask any musician ten years older than you how business is, and he will probably say, “It’s OK, but it was much better ten years ago.” If that same person asks the identical question to another musician ten years older than he is, he will probably get the same answer.  “It’s OK, but it was […]

Over the next couple of weeks I’ll put on a businessman’s hat and look at a young musician’s career from that perspective.  What are the challenges facing this person as he or she steps into the profession?  One might say a musician’s challenge is to utilize and evolve the skills obtained in school in order […]

In the music world there will always be someone who is willing to do something more cheaply than you.  Students are typically in this category.  Look at the music scene around any music school.  Students will be playing for their dinner, or coffee if it’s a coffee house or for the door.  Musicians are eager […]

Here is a little followup to my last post about starving artists.  In talking to Maria further, she made another interesting observation.  In her opinion, a mistake that many artists make in trying to figure out how to make money, is to underestimate their audience.   She commented that some musicians seem to think that if […]

The two-time grammy winning jazz composer Maria Schneider is a friend, and in conversations we have had she expressed  an interesting take on the stereotypical starving artist.  She theorizes that part of the reason record companies are able to make huge profits while the artists often make so little, is because many musicians have the […]

So this week Polyphonic.org kicks off a daily blog feature, and I begin my maiden voyage into organized cyber writing.  I’ll be joined by two Polyphonic Senior Editors—Ann Drinan and Robert Levine, but from time to time we will also have guest bloggers.  We’ll try to have something new up each day, and since Polyphonic […]