Network - It's All About Who You Know

It's true, and it goes for more than just music. It's an unfortunate part of life that talent isn't always a factor. Even in the job market, fresh young college graduates are finding a harder and harder time getting a job. Your degree can only get you so far. Let's say you and Joe Schmoe apply for the same job, but you went to Harvard while Joe Schmoe went to a Anywhere University and the person conducting the interviews also went to Anywehre University, 9 times out of 10, Joe is getting that job. 

It's important for musicians to network. Make contacts, schmooze at gigs because you never know who you're going to meet, who you'll make friends with, and who your friends are going to know. Below is a great story from Derek Sivers, creator of the online CD Store "CD Baby" about how he got into the music industry all because of making connections early on in an unexpected way.



When I was 18, at Berklee College of Music, we had a guest speaker named Mark Fried, who was an executive at BMI - a big music company in New York City.

He walked into the classroom just before class began, and I heard him ask the teacher, “Oh, I thought we were going have food.”

The teacher said, “Oh, no, sorry, I thought you ate already! Didn’t you have lunch?”

Mark said, “Damn. No. And it’s a two hour class. Oh well.”

Hearing this, I quickly ran out of the room and called Supreme’s Pizza, asking them to deliver three large pizzas to classroom #115.

45 minutes later, the pizzas showed up. I gave one to Mark and shared two with the class.

He smiled at me and said, “Good move. I owe you one. Here’s my card. Call me any time, and let me know how I can help. When you come to New York City, I’ll be happy to meet up.”

For the next two years, I took him up on that, sending him my new songs for feedback, and he’d tell me his insights and advice about the music industry.

When I told Mark I wanted to move to New York, he said, “Send me your resume, and I’ll find you a job.”

Sure enough, a few weeks later, I got a call in my dorm room from Julie Gengo at Warner/Chappell Music Publishing, saying, “We need someone to run our tape room, and Mark Fried said we should hire you. Can you start Monday?”

Just like that, I was in.

Because I was working inside Warner Brothers, it was easy to meet everybody in the New York City music scene. Every person I met connected me to many more. A few years later, it was no problem to move to Los Angeles, because I now had a huge network in LA, through one degree of separation.

Now it’s grown worldwide. Whether I’m visiting Iceland, Shanghai, Rio, Japan, or Silicon Valley, I’ve got a wonderful network of connections to call on, and people worldwide who can call on me anytime. Usually we know eachother loosely - having only traded a couple emails - but those quickly turn into real friendships.

All because I bought a pizza for a stranger.




It's not as hard to open doors for yourself as you might think. So take that extra step, because you never know how much someone might be able to help you in the future, or what you might be able to do for someone else. There's lot more information in the original article so don't forget to check it out!





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