Music?

Well I finally finished my press kit. Boy is it nice to have that done. I haven't had so much as a decent bio since I started playing bass full time a few years ago. Now that that's finished it's time to start working on taxes. I hate tax time. One big drawback to being self-employed and doing what you love.

I started reading The Business of Music yesterday. A great book about the legalities of the music industry, a must read for professional musicians. Between reading that and working on my press kit, taxes, finances, etc. I began to wonder, why didn't I learn about any of this stuff in school? I have a masters degree and not once did I hear anything about how to market yourself, how to file taxes when you don't have a regular salary, how to run your "business", music publishing and copyrights, what a touring musician should know, and on and on and on. It's like school prepares you to be a musician and that's it. Well, that ain't enough. Sadly these days with organizing my own album and being a homeowner and trying to go for bigger and better gigs, it seem like I spend more time of the business side of my career than the artistic. That's not a terrible thing, but it would've been nice to be made aware of it sometime throughout my six years of music school.

Oh well, I have a feeling it's the same for other professions as well. In fact, I was talking to a lawyer after a Tyrell concert in Kentucky. He was saying the same thing about law school. So there you go.