Aside from making money through playing gigs, you have to be a good salesman to make money in the music industry.  If people aren’t buying your CDs, t-shirts, and other products, you are missing out on a small fortune.  You really don’t need a degree in rocket science to become a great salesman.  You just have to understand the basic psychology behind helping your fans remove the money from their wallet and invest it in your music career by placing that money in your hand.  What is funny is that musicians lose out on so much of that money, simply because they lack the necessary skills to close the deal.  But, all it takes is one good salesman to turn a track record of poor returns into a lucrative operation where the band is making money hand over fist.

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We all have moments when our creativity just doesn’t seem to want to come out and play.  Maybe your singer is having writer’s block.  Or, perhaps your guitarist is finally starting to realize that there are only so many ways to rearrange the chords C, G, and D before they realize that all their songs sound too much alike.  Whatever the problem is that sufficates your creative genius, it can potentially effect your bands ability to make progress overall.  So, what does a musician do when they find themselves in a slump?

For some, the road to new creative discoveries is long and frustrating. I remember after playing guitar for many years that I hit a rut that kept me grounded for two years.  I would play and play but nothing really new and exciting seemed to jump out and grab my attention.  To make matters worse, I began to get board with practicing the same stuff over and over again.  In all honesty, I became so board i put my guitar in its case and ignored it for nearly a year.  Sometimes a person will put an instrument down and never pick it up again.  Fortunately, I got to a point where I started missing the feel of my strat.  So, one day I pulled it out of the closet, plugged it in, and cranked the amp.  I noticed that it didn’t feel quite so stale to run the neck like it used to.

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