Hi, my name’s Sam Chappell. I live in Nashville, Tennessee. I’ve been in the Christian music industry for over 30 years of my life. A common question I get from young people primarily is ‘How do I get into the music business?’. There’s really two aspects of that. There’s the business side and then there’s the creative musician side, and there’s a multiplicity of ways to get into the music business.
Let me deal with the first half, which is the music business side, which is the area that I have been in all my life. First of all, you need to have a passion for the music business and you kind of need to pick your lane. Do you want to be a manager? Do you want to be a record label executive? Do you want to be a producer? What is your area of passion and strength? Train yourself in that area. Some people go to music business schools, some people internet management companies, and some intern at record labels. Pick your lane and try to find the area where you’re going to get the best training. On the business side, I think it does help to get formal training – whether you want to be an accountant, a lawyer, or a business executive. You should get training that drives you into the business area and it will effectuate your way of getting in the music side of the business.
Now for the creative side, which is the second part of the business. If you are talented as a musician, you may want to be an artist yourself – and I will discuss that in another video of how you get an artist deal. But if you want to be a producer or artist, basically you need to get as much experience performing or producing other artists from doing little demo projects, to vocally recording things, to being a backup singer, to singing in your church, to being on your worship team, to performing in a band. All those things are building experiences that prepare you for production or producing or being a recording artist. That is just a snippet of how you can get into the music business. I will go more in length in some of my subsequent videos on how you get into these specific areas.
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