The Non-Musical Traits That Get You Hired as a Musician

There are musical traits and non-musical traits.

You need to have both.

I once had to let a musician go after the first dress rehearsal, even though he did most of the non-musical traits I'm going to talk about.

He did them pretty well.

He was very easy to get along with.

He did all the other things I'm going to say in just a second.

But this gig required good music reading skills, and he wasn't up for that.

That was not his strength.

And unfortunately, it showed and just wasn't getting better.

So this is just a reminder.

If you want to make money as a musician, you have to be at least good enough musically for the job.

If you play French horn, you don't have to be able to play the Richard Strauss concerto or be anywhere close in order to be good enough to do a lot of other things.

But you need to be good enough for those things.

So this episode is not about that.

This is a given.

Getting better musically is what I talk about most of the time.

I just wanted to cover some of these other things today because I think they're worth going over.

Because you might think I'm doing really well.

I'm sight reading well.

I'm getting better at playing by ear.

I'm getting really technically proficient at my instrument.

But you're wondering, how do I get a gig? Or maybe why do I not get asked back? Well, how to get the gig is another topic.

I'm not going to go over that too much here, other than to say it is all about networking.

It is all about meeting people who know someone who knows someone.

This is a story that has not changed over the decades.