When I graduated from music school in 2006 I felt confident and aptly prepared to start my career. I spent four years at a top music school honing my skills with some of the best musicians in the world. It would be easy for me to find work as a musician, right? Wrong. It turns out that musical training accounts for roughly 50% of the skill needed to launch a successful career as a musician. I’m not trying to knock my school experience, rather, my aim is to share with aspiring musicians some of the skills they should be developing now in order to be adequately prepared for a sustainable career in music.

Since getting “discovered” and acquiring a record deal are so rare these days (and a lot of times even undesirable) you’re going to have to learn how to do most things yourself. Today’s mantra is “DIY”. You could be the best player in town, but you’ll soon find out it takes much more than that to be successful.

Recording
So let’s say you’ve spent the last four years refining your craft – playing awesome solos, writing great songs – whatever it might be. Now in order to sustain yourself you’ll have to make some money from your music. You’ll need to make recordings to sell to fans, give to venue promoters and let people know what you sound like. Unless you have thousands of dollars to drop on studio time, learning a bit about the recording process will go along way. You’ll want to budget for all of the steps in the process: pre-production, tracking, editing, mixing and mastering. Home recording technology has improved by leaps and bounds in recent years and you can cut costs by doing many of these steps on your own and hiring a professional to handle the rest.

Web / Marketing
Now that you have recordings you’ll have to get them out in the world and compete with thousands of other musicians who are trying to do the exact same thing. Unless you have thousands of dollars to drop on a PR company and a marketing team, you’ll want to at least learn the basics of how to promote your music. You’ll need to create a brand and a website and push your music out to as many social media sites as possible. Having some basic web and graphic design skills will also go a long way here. It’s important to learn how to distribute your music through platforms like itunes, cd baby, tunecore, etc. This will enable you to sell music directly to fans without the need for a record label.

Videos
With the popularity of youtube and vimeo it’s essential to create video content in order to reach as many people as possible. Unless you have thousands of dollars to drop on a professional film production crew, you’ll want to start understanding the basics of how a music video is put together. If you’re motivated enough and have the proper equipment, you can shoot your own high quality videos. Otherwise, it’s important to start developing contacts with aspiring film makers who will help when the time comes to make your own videos.

Merchandise
Another revenue stream you’ll want to tap into is selling your own merchandise. My band maximizes profits by printing t-shirts ourselves. It’s easy enough to create great looking shirts with a printing screen and some ink. It’s important to use your creativity to differentiate yourself from other artists by making your merch ideas unique.

Licensing / Contracts
One of the biggest ways artists generate income from their music is through licensing for film, television, and commercials. Start familiarizing yourself with how this process works – understand how contracts are laid out and what is fair so you don’t end up with a bad deal. It’s important to start networking and developing your contacts in this area because most of these deals start with “I know this band that would be perfect for this project…”

Listen to this interview

- Practice in front of the TV.  Although it’s not something to make a habit of, practicing in front of the tv will at least help you keep up the dexterity in your fingers.  You can noodle around or practice chord shapes even if your attention is devoted to who’s wearing the cutest dress at the Oscars.

- Play along to recordings.  This is actually a great way to work on developing your ears.  Even if you don’t know the chords, just trying to find a few notes that sound ‘right’ will go a long way towards helping you develop your ear training skills.

- Sing what you’re playing and/or play what you’re singing.  An exercise that, while challenging, can help bring new perspective to a musical passage you’re struggling to master.  It will tell you if you’re really hearing the notes accurately.

- Solo only on one or two strings. 

- Play a song you’re already familiar with in a different key. 

- Indulge in musical guilty pleasures.  Remember that music shouldn’t be difficult and serious all the time.  Take a break from the challenging practice you’ve been doing.  Play through a fun pop song you just heard on the radio or other similar guilty pleasure.

- Improvise along to the film score of the movie you’re watching.

- Sleep with your guitar.  Keith Richards is known for doing this regularly and writing hit songs.  Just make sure your partner doesn’t get too jealous!

- Play around on another instrument.

- Play with other musicians.  You are practically guaranteed to learn something while playing with other people.  It will help show you if your practicing is paying off and highlight some areas that need work.  And jamming is fun, man!

- Take a break.  If playing feels stale it might be good to spend some time away from the instrument.  I’d recommend any amount of time up to 7 days.  Your technique won’t be adversely impacted in a week.  Your sub-conscious mind will continue working out all the things you’ve been practicing and when you come back to the guitar you might be surprised at how much better everything feels/sounds.

Bon Iver, Flume, G C Em F Am
Rolling Stones, Satisfaction, E A D B7
Troggs, Wild Thing, A E D
Iron and Wine, Flightless Bird, C G Am F (capo 3rd fret)
Violent Femmes, Kiss Off, Em C D
Taylor Swift, Change, D A Em G (capo 3rd fret)
Taylor Swift, Fearless, D A Em G (capo 3rd fret)
Taylor Swift, I’d Lie,  D A Em G (capo 1st fret)
Taylor Swift, Picture to Burn, G Am C D
Guns ‘n Roses, Sweet Child ‘O Mine, C D A G
The Beatles, Yellow Submarine, D G Am
The Beatles, Love Me Do, G C F
Bob Dylan, Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door, G C D Am

This is a question I’m often asked by my students. String size is a personal choice and is dependent on various factors including your playing style, the tone you’re going for, and your finger strength.  I’ll try to shed some light on what string sizes are best for what playing styles and help you make the best choice next time you find yourself staring at the hundreds of colorful packages behind the counter at your local guitar store.

In a nutshell, I tell students to get the heaviest strings that their fingers can handle. Why heavy strings?  Heavy strings = More mass, More mass = More sound.  One key ingredient to Stevie Ray Vaughn’s huge sound was that he generally used .12 or .13 gage strings.  Since heavy strings create more tension across the fingerboard he detuned the whole guitar down a half step to help with the stiffness and thus was still able to achieve those monster blues bends. On the other hand, if your preferred style is shred guitar, you’ll probably want to go with a lighter gage (.9’s or .10’s) in order to execute those sweep picking and two finger tapping licks.

Jazz guitarists often choose heavy strings in order to achieve a smooth, round tone.  The stiff tension is not as much of an issue because traditionally jazz guitar style doesn’t involve as much bending as rock or blues.  Jazz guitarists sometimes prefer flat-wound or half-wound strings because they produce a darker, mellower sound.

For total beginners I recommend sticking with fairly light gage strings to make it easy on your hands.  Once your hands get stronger you’ll probably want to move to a heavier gage.  If you’ve never thought about your string size and have been having an especially
hard time pushing down the strings without getting buzz, you may need to switch to lighter strings and/or see about getting your
guitar set up. I offer this service to my students.

Personally, I like to use .11’s on my tele’ for playing rock music.  They give me a big sound while still allowing me to execute bends.
For jazz, I string my archtop with .12’s with a wound ‘G’ string.

Wound  ‘G’ vs. Unwound ‘G’

Some string packs come with a wound ‘G’ string and some come with an unwound ‘G’.  What’s the difference?  For some reason,
the ‘G’ string is the hardest to keep in tune and having a wound ‘G’ seems to help with this.  It will also produce a bigger, darker sound.
The tradeoff is that it’s much harder to play bends with a wound G.  Conversely, an unwound ‘G’ will be much easier to bend,
but won’t stay in tune as well.

David Irelan helps guitar students prepare for music school auditions and college level classes.
Cultivate Your Talent · Challenge Yourself · Audition Brilliantly
503.381.2808 ·  david.irelan@gmail.com · www.laschoolofguitar.com

Albert Lee excerpt fast    Albert Lee excerpt slow

This is a classic lick from one of the monsters of country pickin’ guitar, Albert Lee.  I specifically chose it because of the jazz/bebop phrase Lee uses to get from the B7 chord to the E7 chord.  I like how he mixes up
country/blues and jazz influences.  In bar 4 he uses chromatic surrounding notes to get to the root note of the
next chord (E7) and then outlines an E major triad.  He uses chromatic passing notes again in bar 7 before outlining a C#minor triad.

If you haven’t heard Emmy Lou Harris’ version of “Luxury Liner” you are missing out on a classic country track
and one of Albert Lee’s most perfect solos ever recorded.  It truly is a masterpiece.

Here is a solo guitar arrangement of the classic Bob Dylan tune Don’t Think Twice It’s Alright.  It’s a fun song to play and almost everyone knows it. This arrangement is inspired by a version I heard from fingerstyle master, Chet Atkins, where there is an alternating bass pattern played on beats one and three.  The thumb plays the bass notes of the chord and the other three fingers play the melody and upper part of the chord.  It’s a great introduction to this style because most of the chords are simple open position voicings, which will allow  you to focus more on what your right hand is doing in order to achieve the right syncopated rhythmic feel.  Be sure to take it slow and work on getting the right hand picking pattern down before you tackle the whole piece.

And as always, be sure to hit me up if you have any questions.  Enjoy!

- David