SoundCheck: What’s Your Definition Of Success?

Right now it looks like the last option is the most popular. In that case, it wouldn’t be a stretch to say that most acts are not “successful” as defined here. Most need a 2nd, even a 3rd, job to support their music.

I have friends who have had major label deals, and besides a brief influx of money and slightly better gigs, found themselves back on the street hustling gigs with the rest of us. Building a fan base that will pay money come to shows and buy your music either online or on CD is really what it takes to make a living. But I agree with Frank, most of us have other jobs to subsidize our music, whether its unrelated to music (I do marketing, advertising and graphic design) or music related stuff like teaching lessons.

It is not the easiest times to be a musician. But the tools are in more in reach than ever, even as the market has shrunk.

I will assume that “sustaining yourself through your music” implies that you are making a full time living from it and therefore are classed as a professional. 
It was always my dream as a child to be a professional guitarist and by this definition I have succeeded for over 18 years….therefore despite not being a chart topping act and enjoying the renumeration that such so called success brings I have longevity to my name which is far more then most chart topping acts will ever achieve.
 Is not the desire to make a living from ones music the main motivating factor for all genuine artists. Music produced merely for commercial gain and major label success invariably has no longevity and therefore in my book can never be described as successful  unless of course success is defined purely on the size of ones bank balance. Well I guess that is how shallow the industry has become so it wouldn’t surprise me to learn that most in the industry, artists included, feel this way and that would explain that vast amount of second rate, monotonous and poorly executed garbage suffocating the airwaves in recent years…..and that would include the likes of Cold Play which really proves my point.

even if your not living off your music but are able to work and make your way until you can make it there i think is the most important thing of all.

I won’t give up any freedom, so no contracts for me. I can’t travel much, so no bookings. I can put all the music up at iTunes that they can store, but if nobody knows about it, I’ll never sell any. The only measure of success is cash flow!

Definitely ” Sustain yourself through your music”. Of course when I was in my 20s my definition of success was entirely different, I desperately wanted to get a gig with a band who had a record deal with a major. Well, after years of touring with variety of bands I finally got what I wanted, but from the time perspective I wish it never happened. You see, the bigger the dream, the bigger the price to pay. Now I understand the meaning of “Be careful what you wish for” 

Do it the way you wanna do it.  Judge your own success, save your own money, explore your own sound.  Whatever will be, will be, less expectation means less dissapointment, and every opportunuty becomes an actual opportunity.. Know one will ever 100% care about your music asmuch as you should.  Be your own booker, your own success story, your own dreamer, your own label, your own promotion, make the other fuckers stand up and listen before tellng them to sit the fuck down again.  It’s up to us to do our jobs right as the mainstream markets are failing heavily.  Eventually the music loving people will stop putting there faith in commercial rado ect and start looking for there own music, chasing down there own gigs and loving all the music the people are willing to find.  Money is a bonus if we can get it for what we love doing, because money trueley can not buy my love.

My idea of sustaining myself has nothing to do with money. I run my business in the same way as I approach music. Am I serving others? Are my employees and/or bandmates on the same page? Are we having fun? Are we remaining true to ourselves? I answer yes to all of the above and I get high every time we play; high on the shared experience and the shared joy. Can you imagine the joy I feel to be in a band with my grandson as drummer, my daughter contributing backing vocals and most recently with one grandaughter learning the keyboard and the younger one singing lead vocals. Sustained is far below the high I’m on.
Peace and Love
PK