hi guys,
i know there's a lot of you on here that play professionally (fyi my definition of a professional musician is someone who gets paid to play, regardless of how much or how often) and i was hoping some of you might have some advice for me. i've been playing guitar since i was about 17, i'm now a 21 year old entering my last year of college and i feel like after four years of playing in my bedroom and putting a lot of time and money into gear, lessons, practicing scales, etc. it's time to get some sort of return on my investment.
most of the performance experience i have is doing things like open mics and coffee shop features...i've only gotten paid to play once, and the main reason i got that was because the person who set the show up was a good friend and he personally asked me to play. i'm trying to get as much performance experience now as i can - i'm playing with a church band this summer - it's a volunteer position and it's about a 30 minute commute from my house to where the church is, but i don't mind because i understand that the experience of playing in front of people in a performance context is invaluable.
i'm confident that i am good enough to play a lot of popular simple songs, stuff like green day, jack johnson, nirvana, weezer, etc. etc...and i'm still practicing hard (in my estimation anyway). i'm about to resume taking guitar lessons for the summer and it's not uncommon for me to play guitar 2-3 hours a day (although that's just pure playing which includes stuff like just noodling around and trying to copy SRV licks from the montreux DVD). i also have a pretty good theory base - i understand how keys work, the major scale, modes (i know the theory behind modes, but i'm still working on applying it in my actual playing), intervals, chord formulas and things like that. i definitely have more to learn though which i'm still working on.
anyway i'm just wondering if you guys have any tips for how i can start making money through playing music. it might sound a little mercenary, but everyone's gotta eat, and i really dont want to flip burgers or deliver pizza. so far my only two ideas have been to try to find a band that wants to play basic rock songs in bars, or to take some singing lessons (my voice is one area that i really need to improve) and go around myself to coffee shops and bars and see if they want any live music acts.
thanks for reading this, hope you guys have a nice day
i know there's a lot of you on here that play professionally (fyi my definition of a professional musician is someone who gets paid to play, regardless of how much or how often) and i was hoping some of you might have some advice for me. i've been playing guitar since i was about 17, i'm now a 21 year old entering my last year of college and i feel like after four years of playing in my bedroom and putting a lot of time and money into gear, lessons, practicing scales, etc. it's time to get some sort of return on my investment.
most of the performance experience i have is doing things like open mics and coffee shop features...i've only gotten paid to play once, and the main reason i got that was because the person who set the show up was a good friend and he personally asked me to play. i'm trying to get as much performance experience now as i can - i'm playing with a church band this summer - it's a volunteer position and it's about a 30 minute commute from my house to where the church is, but i don't mind because i understand that the experience of playing in front of people in a performance context is invaluable.
i'm confident that i am good enough to play a lot of popular simple songs, stuff like green day, jack johnson, nirvana, weezer, etc. etc...and i'm still practicing hard (in my estimation anyway). i'm about to resume taking guitar lessons for the summer and it's not uncommon for me to play guitar 2-3 hours a day (although that's just pure playing which includes stuff like just noodling around and trying to copy SRV licks from the montreux DVD). i also have a pretty good theory base - i understand how keys work, the major scale, modes (i know the theory behind modes, but i'm still working on applying it in my actual playing), intervals, chord formulas and things like that. i definitely have more to learn though which i'm still working on.
anyway i'm just wondering if you guys have any tips for how i can start making money through playing music. it might sound a little mercenary, but everyone's gotta eat, and i really dont want to flip burgers or deliver pizza. so far my only two ideas have been to try to find a band that wants to play basic rock songs in bars, or to take some singing lessons (my voice is one area that i really need to improve) and go around myself to coffee shops and bars and see if they want any live music acts.
thanks for reading this, hope you guys have a nice day

