When Chaos Attacks!

Been a crazy start to the year and we're not even out of January yet??

You're not alone. My year last year was like that, and it set up the whole year in a crazy way.

How we react to chaos in our lives is how we really use the creativity God has given us.

See if this sounds familiar.

It's Sunday morning, and half the band doesn't show up. You're standing there minutes before the service and the pastor is praying for the team. So you get up there with a keyboard, a percussionist, and a flute player.

So instead of rockin' praise, you improvise and get people to be more involved, and do more a cappella singing with the congregation. And guess what? God shows up and everyone asks, "Why don't we do that more??"

I've got news for you. God is waiting to show up in your music and ministry.

Sometimes we get so caught up in the way things have to be, that when the agent from chaos strikes, we fear all is lost. But like secret agent Maxwell Smart, we just need to use the old "Do It A Different Way and Tell Everyone That Was the Plan All Along" trick.

When you are faced with chaos in your life, use it. Don't run from it. God can work in any situation, and sometimes when we are adapting to chaos, is when we do our best work.

It's an opportunity to let your creativity really run free...

Have a great week!

EC
---
Eric Copeland is a big fan of improvisation in the field, and often finds that's when things turn out the coolest. For more info, come see the Chief at his Control Headquarters at http://www.CreativeSoulOnline.com

Monetize Your Creativity in 2012

“Beethoven, Wagner, Bach, and Mozart settled down day after day to the job in hand. They didn't waste time waiting for inspiration.” - Ernest Newman

“You’ll never make money as a musician (or artist, or dancer...), you need a real job.” - Every parent, ever.

"What we really want to do is what we are really meant to do. When we do what we are meant to do, money comes to us, doors open for us, we feel useful, and the work we do feels like play to us." - Julia Cameron

"Money is better than poverty, if only for financial reasons." - Woody Allen

OK, sure, we all have this creative thing we want to do, and we even feel “called” to do it. That has to mean this is more than just a way to get attention or express ourselves, right?

Don’t get me wrong, I live for the creative times where I create something new, or replay a song, or reread something I have written. That’s what I want my legacy to be.

But how do I LIVE while trying to be artistic dude? How do I pay the mortgage with it? How do I put my kids through college with it?

Tough questions, and for some people, not worth the trouble. You’d rather keep it a fun hobby, and there is nothing wrong with that. Many times I lay awake at night and fantasize delivering packages for Fedex while being totally free to dream and create free of depending on it for my living.

But many of you reading this are completely in the other camp: you work a day job and dream about making a living with your music, or art.

How do you make this jump?

Well, this will be the subject of our study as we start 2012.

So, you’re a songwriter, artist, musician, or singer. You have no doubt God has given you this ability and is calling you to use it in a big way. But thinking about leaving your current cushy job is unthinkable. Your mate, or parents, or friends would scoff at such a foolhardy thing. The road there is so jumbled and so many steps, it can’t possibly happen.

And yet...I see it happen all the time. I see people turn their life around, backwards, and sideways, and follow their dreams every day. And I did it myself.

I started writing songs at 13, was in band playing trombone, and came from a musical family. I started recording my songs in my teens and started to dream of being a songwriter for a living. Wouldn’t that be cool?

Now, flash forward to now. I’m 48 and indeed some of what I do for a living is based in songwriting, writing for clients and my own music. I see royalty checks every month for songs I have written. Some of that dream has happened. Obviously, it took a while, but I also took alot of rabbit trails and didn’t exactly follow a plan to here.

(It was in fact God’s plan though. Probably better than mine anyway.)

But this brings us to our first big point in monetizing your creative life:

Monetizing Fact No. 1: It’s all About Income Streams

You better LOVE doing different things, because there is really not just ONE thing you can do to live comfortably as a full-time working creative person.

Sure, you could get a job as a music director or worship leader at a church, or teaching music, but likely these will be jobs that might be part time, or not fully creative (lots of paper work, shepherding, etc).

For many artists or even in my past, a part time music director position is just one of your income streams.

As a songwriter you could have a royalty stream. As an artist you could have streams from gigs and music/merch sales.

Or maybe you have higher aspirations to be a music publisher, label owner, or traveling road musician.

All these could also be streams. I make money as a songwriter, artist, producer, web designer, consultant, coach, and graphic designer to name a few. ALL of them are crucial for me to live monthly without a day job. I have also added music director as an income stream, and hope to again. I’m pursuing further education right now to get to graduate work and teaching, which will still be another income stream.

Now, reading this you will be either excited, or roll your eyes and say “Who wants to do all that work?”

Well, the answer, if you really want to live as a full-time, no day job, creative person, should be “YOU do!” Because this is the reality.

“But what if I get a big break???” You ask.

Monetizing Fact No. 2: Quit Waiting for a Big Break & Get to Work! 

I tell the story of driving back repeatedly from Nashville, not finding my niche or person interested in what I was doing. Each time it strengthened my resolve to create a company that would take advantage of my strengths, as well to help artists and give them a way to get started.

It was like God reinforced that idea with each step. Every strange road prepared me for what Creative Soul would eventually become.

So finally I quit waiting to be “discovered”, and instead went after it. Like you reading this, I shadowed and befriended a working producer, and tried to figure out how to align my life so I could make the switch.

I found out from him what to do, and how to do it, and hung out my shingle.

As an artist, and songwriter, I just kept developing my style and getting to the audiences that wanted it.

This is WORK we have to do people. This is how “play” or “hobby” becomes our JOB. Isn’t that what you dream of?

So many people think the only way to artistic success is to “win” a contest, or get that one “showcase” for some executive, and then it’s a total life change overnight.

Yes, that happens, but people also win the lottery. If that’s your mentality, then good luck. But if you are the type of person that equates hard work with success, and value independence to work the way you want, then you need to think more about getting to work now.

Quit waiting for a magical genie to grant you artistic success and the adorations of millions.

Quit sitting on the sidelines lazily posting on Facebook, or counting your friends and Twitter followers.

Quit watching American Idol and laughing at the losers, while secretly wishing you had gotten through even the stadium auditions.

There are real roads to monetary artistic success that are not pie in the sky, send off the demo and hope for success, win the lottery options.

Even after an artist is signed, or a songwriter gets a publishing deal, there are thousands of hours of work to do for success. You can do this work NOW, not just put it off hoping you get discovered.

The secret to monetizing your art is work. If you’re ready to work, then find someone to help you, read a book, surf and find options. But get to work and start to change your life in 2012.

Here’s to a successful and artistic 2012!

EC
---

Eric Copeland is a music producer, consultant, author, and tons of other stuff he does to avoid working a real job. But there’s nothing like it. For more info on what his company Creative Soul does, check out http://www.CreativeSoulOnline.com

Tinker, Tailor, Mentor, Coach

The older I get, the more I am sure that one of the best ways to learn a skill - is slowly falling by the wayside.

It's as old and true a way of teaching as organized school itself. Yet it's been lost somehow in our culture in the past 50 years.

It's called Master and Apprentice.

But do we do that now to learn a craft? Do we seek out a master songwriter, painter, recording engineer, or musician to learn from and seek knowledge?

Naw, we just go to a quickie 2 year program that gives us a certificate (online even!) and they tell us, "You're Awesome, and now qualified to make $100,000 a year in a field you have no experience in and in which there are no open positions. Enjoy!"

Wow, all this for $80,000! Thanks America!

What happened to finding someone who knows more than you, who's been around the bend a bit, and who has scratched and fought to find a place for their gifts in this world? Someone who is an amazing master of the work you want to do, or at least has figured out a unique way to use their talents as a career. THAT is how you get to where you want to go. And it's how you find a real way to use your craft in the world.

1. Tinker.

Ok, we all do this. We play around with singing, dancing, painting, writing, or playing an instrument. Or we buy some software with one thousand tracks and musical instruments built in, and think "Hey, this music business thing is pretty cool and I already have the tools!! I'm good to go!"

But we're just tinkerers. We're messing around.

Now I'm all for tinkering. I've been a tinkerer for years. I tinkled just today.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with just sitting around on a piano, putting your hands down on it and seeing what happens. I wish more people would do that than feel so inextricably tied to sheet music that it eventually frustrates them and drives them back to "Dancing with the Stars" on DVR.

But at some point, you find that's not enough if you are truly called and feel gifted by God with a creative talent.

2. Tailor.

So, we look for a way to use this gift. We try to find someone, or some place to go to get seen and heard. We send in our measly demos to try and get record deals. We sign up for online classes that promise us a career in a field where we can work in our jammies. We send our manuscripts to publishers to email addresses we find in a book.

And why not? It's easy. Requires just a little computer time. Not much effort. Maybe I'll get lucky!

Or we enter into a program at a college, and look for a degree in music, recording, dance, or art and reason that, geez, $80,000-$150,000 at college should be good for some kind of job right??

Author's Note: I want to make it clear I am not degrading the college experience here, but just trying to make a point. I am taking college courses myself right now and believe in it.

But at some point, we're going to have to go deeper. And that will mean more than just tailoring a program of certificates and awards and hoping to be discovered.

3. Mentor.

When I was just starting to produce music, and hoping it would turn out to be something I could do for an actual living, I met a producer who did produce for a living.

He had a very skilled background, with impressive credentials, and was employed by a large studio (back when studios employed producers you know).

Long story short, I began to ask him how he did what he did. How did he make a living as a songwriter, music producer, and musician that was enough to support his family?

I began to work with and along side him for years. Not every day. Not every week. But I would work with and for him enough that a little real world wisdom began to rub off on me.

I can remember at first hating to sit with clients at the keyboard and work with them standing over my shoulder while I created music. It was uncomfortable. Like when someone is looking over your shoulder when you type.

I complained about this to him, saying I'd rather do the programming by myself and show it to the client later. He said, "Do you want to a living at this or not?" Of course I did. "Then you better learn to deal with it. Clients like to see you do the "magic" that you can do. It's what they pay for."

This is just one story, but shows you a skill (that I eventually did indeed learn), but was taught to me by someone who knows because at some point HE had to learn this as well.

That kind of master to apprentice (or as we called it, "mentor" to "grasshopper"), seems to be getting lost these days. Students at school feel they are "paying" for this kind of thing, so why should they have to seek out relationships?

Maybe it's our "disconnected personally, yet connected virtually" nature, due to the internet and cell phones. But we need to regain this old way of learning a craft that has existed for millennia.

4. Coach.

One new type of service that is growing is called "Coaching". A lot of people confuse it with counseling or consulting, but its much more guiding than instructing.

I've had a personal Christian life coach for 7-8 years I talk to often. There are also creativity coaches who focus mainly on helping artists follow and find success in their create pursuits.

This kind of thing is exciting, and starts to move us back to the master/apprentice model.

So where are you on this journey? Maybe you need to find a master to learn from to get to a new level? Or maybe you can apprentice someone else who could use your wisdom?

The choice is yours, young grasshopper.

Have a great week!

EC
----
Eric Copeland is a producer, consultant, and coach for Christian artists across the US and the world. You can find out more about Eric at http://www.CreativeSoulOnline.com or http://www.EricCopelandMusic.com