3 Tips To Set Yourself Apart
Our artist development articles are geared towards people involved in their local music scenes looking for tips, guidance, or advice that help set them apart from their peers. The tips in this specific article are more focused on the technical/scientific aspects of performing live that may not be common sense knowledge. This article was written by Simon Sed who has been a performing artist since 2009 and an event curator since 2012 having performed on stages from coast to coast!
Professionalism & Communication
TLDR: Be communicative, ask questions, read and respond to emails, and be timely.
You would be surprised how low the bar is for professionalism when dealing with musicians/artists/promoters/venues. You can really set yourself apart from your peers by simply being a decent communicator. My first recommendation here is to have a dedicated email for music that you use for all music pursuits (open mic signups, competitions, newsletters, whatever) that you check regularly. Ideally, the email address itself should be simple like your artist name @ gmail (or whatever client you prefer).com. Just by actually reading and responding to emails quickly you will stand out as someone who takes their career seriously. When sending emails/inquiries about opportunities, keep the emails succinct, direct, and polite. What I mean by this is that your emails should have a brief introduction (2-3 sentences max) about who you are and what you do, briefly explain what you are interested in and why you are a good fit, and then express some type of gratitude for consideration. Done. Most promoters and venues need to know what type of artist you are, if you can bring people to an event, and if you don’t seem like a total headache to deal with. Never a bad idea to attach an EPK, professional headshot, or a link to a website where they can learn more if interested. If you have questions about an event, ask them! Just make sure before you do ask any questions, they are not questions that can easily be answered by looking at the flyer for the event or that have been answered in a previous communication that you can go back and reference. Also, if you aren’t already in the mix as a familiar face, understand that it is going to be an uphill battle trying to get put on. The easiest way to become a part of the scene is to support it and show up to events that you see yourself eventually being a part of. Frankly, people who are more likeable and approach opportunities from a place of love (as opposed to entitlement or expectation) are more likely to get chances regardless of perceived differences in talent. That is just human nature. Finally, show up on time and do not leave early. If you have to be late or leave early communicate that in advance. Do not just vanish after your set or show up late assuming that everything will be all good. If you leave early, you may not get paid if you did not secure payment up front as pay outs often occur once the money off the door has been counted. Speaking of payment, not that this is really relevant, but 99.99% of the time if someone is asking YOU for money to perform at THEIR event, it is a bad idea.
2. Contact & Promotion
TLDR: Make your social media tags and forms of contact consistent across platforms and consistently promote your music and events
One of the ways you can stand out as an artist is being easy to find and connect with. This is not a deal breaker for me personally, but I must admit it is nice when I can easily remember/spell their tag or email if I’m trying to tag them or get a hold of them. This can sometimes be hard to pull off because a particular tag or email may already be taken, but my advice is do your best to make it simple and consistent. If you can make your facebook, IG, tiktok all @rapper123 and your email rapper123@gmail, that will make you stand out, even if only slightly. Nobody wants to remember how many underscores are in your tag or how many letters are replaced with numbers or special characters. An even easier way to stand out is to simply promote your music and the events you agree to be a part of. A lot of the shows and events in any given scene (in any city) at the amateur/local level are being put on by other artists. There isn’t enough money in this field at this level. Everyone is trying their best to create sustainable motion. Trust me when I say every single person who books events notices when the artists they put on those events are helping create and sustain that motion. Now, there are several ways to help do that. The easiest way is to consistently share the flyer from the moment it goes live to the day of the event. This may not produce massive results, but it is low effort and will still set you apart from your peers. Next “tier” would be creating custom content to promote an event or project, even if it is as simple as a reel of you talking about it directly to the camera. What I have found most effective is reaching out directly to your friends, supporters, whoever to personally invite them to an event or to listen to a project. This may go unseen by the person who booked you initially, but it is also most likely to produce results, which EVERYONE will notice and will 100% get you booked again in the future. In this industry (frankly, most industries), currency is PEOPLE. Can you bring people? Can you engage people? Will people show up for YOU? The only way to answer those questions is to let people know where you are going to be and when and to let them know it means something to you personally that they be there. If you aren’t willing to be that vulnerable or do that leg work, you will just have to bank on getting lucky.
3. Mastered Live/Show Mixes of Your Songs
TLDR: Standardize the volume of your show mixes/backing tracks, keep them in multiple places (physical flash drive and cloud-based drive), and rehearse.
Whenever you make a song, if you yourself are not the producer/engineer, you should be requesting a show mix in addition to the studio version you plan to release. I really do not want to get into the rapping over vocals debate in this article and that is not what this is about. Mastered show mixes (with backing vocals or not) make life easier on the venue/sound person/promoter AND help ensure you have a fantastic set. It is difficult for the sound person or DJ to deal with massive variations in volume from track to track. Random spikes in volume will also not be super well received by the audience. Any decent audio engineer can help you master your tracks and get all your instrumentals/show mixes at the same volume. There are also easy-to-use software programs that you can purchase to do this yourself. The minute you have those files you should save them with the appropriate file name like mysong_showmix.mp3 and immediately upload that file to a folder of show mixes in some type of cloud-based drive like Dropbox, Google Drive, Microsoft Onedrive, whatever. While you’re at it, also add a few promotional pictures and a logo in the same folder to be able to quickly send promoters/graphic designers your material to be included on a flyer. All those cloud storage services have a free version that can hold a decent chunk of .mp3 or .jpg files. If you do this, no matter where you are, you have access to these files and they can be easily sent/shared or played directly from your device. I am also always a proponent of putting your specific set list for an event (with the tracks numbered in order) on a physical flash drive to take with you on the day if you are not running your set yourself. Make sure you rehearse your songs and set lists as this level of preparation will set you apart from your peers, make you more professional, and increase the likelihood of you crushing your performance and leaving a lasting impression.
