TEM87: Peter Meechan on controlling your own career, unintentional networking and finding your niche in the music business

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Here are the show notes for Episode 87 of The Entrepreneurial Musician Podcast featuring Peter Meechan.

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Peter Meechan is a professional composer from England who now resides in Canada. He has had compositions performed by the "President's Own" Marine Band, Edmonton Symphony, Black Dyke Brass Band and many other world class ensembles.

Topics Covered:

  • 5:32 - Pete's indirect journey through music and how he came to become a professional composer

  • 10:42 - How a bar at his university led to some incredibly effective (and unintentional) networking that still pays off for him

  • 18:30 - The great story of how saying yes led to him cold-calling one of the most famous trumpet players in the world, Rex Richardson, which in turn led to a commission

  • 26:43 - How he has come to find his niche as a composer of brass music (in spite of not being a brass player himself) and why it's important to intentionally pursue things within the business that people are actually paying for

  • 37:52 - How many artists have a hangup about marketing their art and why they shouldn't (at least you shouldn't if you're genuine)

  • 45:15 - How we all know colleagues who suck at social media and it can be a turnoff about it in general (but that it shouldn't be) and how the world is still very young in the entire social media experience and how we're still figuring it all out

  • 54:48 - Why he chose to self-publish his music rather than go the traditional publisher route (Spoiler: the old business model made absolutely no sense for him as a composer) and about a traditional publisher he heard about recently that is offering much better terms for composers moving forward

  • 1:03:57 - The importance of controlling your own career and making your own destiny (and why that's a little daunting)

  • 1:09:50 - Why the resource he recommends to all aspiring entrepreneurial musicians he speaking to everyone who is doing what you're doing

Links:

Favorite Quotes:

  • "Humans, as a whole, we're very good at spotting someone who is full of it. The guy who's talking BS. We instinctively pick up on it...And equally we pick up on someone who is incredibly genuine and someone who is incredibly passionate. We don't sit there and think about it. It's just an instinct. And I think the whole making people believe in you and what you do has a whole lot to do with that as well."

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Produced by Joey Santillo