Every song/music and every artiste/musician in the public sphere at every time is always under the conscious or subconscious scrutiny and judgement of the music audience. These audience are constantly forming and influencing opinions, comparing and positioning artistes/musician’s personality and their music based on perceptions created by the totality of all information and communications they received passively or actively about each artiste and his/her music.
It is important to understand as an artiste/musician that you are always sending out information spoken or unspoken about your music and your personality as an artiste/musician. Your image is the totality of all the information verbal and non-verbal about you and your music that your audience are exposed to, which shapes and forms their perception of who they think you are as an artiste/musician. Success in the music business therefore has to do with a combination of fundamental factors such as the quality of music, image appeal, message in music, x-factor, musicality etc which determines how audiences rates and position artistes/musicians.
It is therefore important for you as an artiste/musician to be conscious, deliberate and in control of the kind of image and information that you project through your music, personality, character, affiliations etc by making a clear definition of your personality and music for the public. The biggest duty and responsibility of every artiste/musician in the commercialization of their music beside the mastery of their talents, is managing public perception about their music and act/personality deliberately. It is about defining and positioning your act and music with the objective of differentiating yourself from all known and unknown competitors in your market segment. It is about having a well-defined competitive advantage over other artistes/musicians in your music market.
Managing your public’s or audiences’ perception of your music and personality is an art and a science that at some point in your career in the music business, would require you to enlist the help or services of professional public relations expert to help you build, acquire and manage the right image and perception in alignment with the goals and objectives of your artiste/musician’s vision and mission statement. If you don’t make a conscious effort to define and position your music in the way that you want audience/fans to perceive your act, the market (audience) will define and position you in comparison to their perception of your competitors, which may not favour your music or career. In other words, your audience will judge/rate you and your music by using your close competitors with stronger positioning in your market as a benchmark for defining you. You don’t want to live under the shadows of your competitors!
What is your vision for yourself as an artiste/musician? How do you see yourself as an artiste/musician? What do you want to stand for with your music? What are your dreams and aspirations as an artiste/musician? Decide early on in your career what kind of image and positioning you would love to give your music and personality, then work to ensure that everything aligns with that defined image. Adequately defining and positioning your music and act impacts on your success and sustainability in the music business.
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