If Artists were in charge, would we have this problem?
This is not the America I want for my kids. The events that unfolded on Wednesday were some of the worst things I’ve seen in my life. While the majority of us celebrate the fair and legal victory of President-Elect…
5 Indicators That It May Be Time For A Career Pivot
Moneyball is one of my top ten baseball movies of all time (behind Field of Dreams, and The Natural, of course). My favorite quote in the movie comes when a baseball scout talks to Billy Beane about the moment a baseball player is…
Ten Tips For Putting Your Ideas Out Into The World
Looking for some inspiration to start putting your ideas out into the world? Here are ten tips to help you get going: This is your life, you do you! Stop letting your mentors, family and friends dictate the path you…
My Top Tips Of 2020
I publish a newsletter called 5 Tips For The Unrelenting 20-Something every Tuesday. This page is a compilation of all of the links I shared in 2020. Each newsletter is packed with quick, easily digestible tips that enable you to…
The Road That Lies Ahead
In what will likely go down as the longest year of my life, I am so ready for 2020 to be over! We’re going to look back at the pandemic as a very short moment in the course of our…
Ten Steps to a Personal Strategy Statement
Yesterday, I wrote about the steps I was compelled to take in my career to develop a better work/life balance for myself. The post contained big picture thoughts on how to make change in your life and career. Today’s post…
Career Strategy for Artists
In 2010, I had the dream. My wife and I owned a house and had recently welcomed our first child into the world. In addition, my work life was great. I had a tenure track position teaching bassoon at Bowling…
Thoughts on how to serve your community.
As artists, we often feel a calling to serve the community in which we live. Showing up to serve can be, and is some of, the most fulfilling and rewarding work we can do. This can be incredibly difficult as…
7 tips for artists considering work in a traditional, 9-5 job.
On my way into work this morning, I stumbled upon this article, which provides great insight into ways employers can retain a highly engaged team working on a common goal for their organization or business. This type of mindset is…
8 steps artists can take to achieve their three year strategic plan.
Yesterday, I wrote about ways artists can create a three year strategic plan. Here are eight steps to take your ideas from planning to action. Set Incremental Goals—Take the strategy statement you created from the previous post and start to set…
Career planning for twenty-somethings: Why a three year plan of action is the new ten.
What do you see yourself doing in five to ten years? That’s a big, important, overwhelming question. In my experience, five to ten years is too long of a runway to come up with a concrete plan of action. Think…
Launching a new ensemble, organization, or business? Read this, Part IV.
This is step 4 of a series of posts designed to help you launch a new ensemble, organization, or business. Before you read this post, make sure you start with this post, followed by this post, and this post. Here are…
How to set a budget as an artist.
Earlier this week, I wrote about the frustrations of setting a personal budget. Here is a step by step process for budgeting as an artist. Rules of Engagement: Knowledge is power — Understanding where you spend your money from month…
The Frustration of Personal Budgeting.
It can be incredibly frustrating to hear someone give you advice on your finances. Although well intentioned, the solution often floated is that you simply need to live within your means in order to find financial stability. Of course this…
What is an hour of your time actually worth from a Work Life Balance Perspective?
It’s a funny thing, time. We never seem to have enough of it, especially when pursuing an art form that is defined by a fleeting moment in our lives. One minute we’re on stage pouring our heart out for an…
Financial Stability: What is an hour of your time actually worth?
One of the biggest challenges you will face as an artist is attaining financial stability. It is very possible to find financial stability, but nobody seems to share strategies for thinking about how you go about developing a sustainable career.…
One Big Secret to a Sustainable Arts Organization: Stop trying to take over the universe with your ideas.
Over the past decade, I have observed the Walmart mentality permeate the zeitgeist of our field. Build a large, national business or organization and you will have a path to sustainability. Many arts leaders, particularly those who are just…
Launching a new ensemble, organization, or business? Read this, Part III. Developing your Concept.
For the past few days, I’ve written a step by step process for how I would go about launching a new ensemble, organization, or business. Today, I’m going to give you some thoughts on how to develop that great idea…
Launching a new ensemble, organization, or business? Read this, Part II. The Inception of a Good Idea.
Now that you’ve taken a little time for self-exploration, the challenge becomes this: What makes an idea a good one? As humans, it’s in our DNA to muse about ways to make the world a better place. Some of us…
Launching a new ensemble, organization, or business? Read this, Part I. Start with You
One of the most common questions I get as I mentor artists is how to successfully launch a new ensemble, socially relevant organization, or business. Today, I’m launching a series of “how to” posts designed to help you create and…
Thoughts on launching a successful private lesson studio.
Here’s a question I received last week: Hi Nate, I’m moving to a new city and I’d like to quickly recruit 5-10 students into my private clarinet studio. What suggestions do you have for getting started? Here is my process…
5 Books for artists seeking stability
In general, I tend to be more action oriented than planning oriented, which explains the post I wrote yesterday. Instead of contemplating the change I’d like to see in my life or career, I often find myself identifying actionable steps…
Finding Stability as a 20-Something Artist
Here’s a question that came from one of my readers: As an artist 6 years into my career, I am making things work both financially and artistically, but I continue to be interested in finding artistic work that allows me…
Thoughts on Why Music Schools Must Embed Context into the Curriculum
Yesterday, I wrote this post, which discusses the role of arts entrepreneurship in higher education. After the post, I started thinking more deeply about the role that context plays in the process of educating our arts students. Higher education helps…
Strategies to help Artists take some time for themselves.
As many of you know, I’ve been doing a bit of writing lately in an attempt to help all of you find balance between work and being able to take a breath and enjoy life. Yesterday, I read this amazing…
Climbing the Ladder: Majoring in Music As A Pathway To College and Upward Mobility.
A couple of weeks ago, I published this post, which encourages applied university teachers to broaden the definition of success for their students. It is our responsibility to redefine success for all of our students at the earliest age. If…
Advice on how Artists can live on a small income when moving to a new city.
Today’s post comes from a question I recently received from a reader: Do you have any written tips or advice for how to live on a very small income when moving into a new city? This is an excellent question…
Are you looking for a way to find balance? Stop letting EMAIL run your life!
Often, I find myself buried in email with no end in site. I set aside time to dig out, only to be inundated by more emails. Email has been one of the biggest challenges to finding balance in my life. Here…
Trying to find balance as an Artist? Stop taking every gig that comes your way!
We’ve all done it. We’ve taken that gig that seemed like a great idea six months ago. Now, we find ourselves sitting in traffic much like the photo above, wondering why we made the decision in the first place. Yesterday,…
Using the 80-20 rule to help Artists find balance.
This is a picture of me hiking with my daughter. I have the photo sitting on my desk as a reminder of why finding balance is so important. A question I often get as I advise artists goes something like…
Broadening the definition of success for music students.
This is me in fifth grade. At the age of 12, I remember my teachers telling me that if I continued to work, I could get a scholarship to study the instrument in college. Many began to tell me that…
Artistic Micro-Movements
Last January, I wrote this post in response the inauguration of #45. The premise behind the post was simple: What small things can you do today to make a difference in the world? In January and February, our collective efforts…
One thing Artists can do in response to the rescinding of the DACA program.
For most of my adult life, our political parties have been at such odds with each other that even simple legislation has become a challenge to pass. Political score keeping has become more important than the well being of the…
Everyone Should Major In Music!
For decades, we have been told not to major in music. We’ve been told that there aren’t any jobs, and the jobs that do exist have job satisfaction rates in the gutter. When are institutions of higher learning going to…
Six ways to tackle your college loans
“The most important investment you can make is in yourself.” -Warren Buffett Yesterday, I wrote this post about things to consider when taking out College loans. As Warren Buffett mentions in the quote above, I still believe that taking out…
College Loans and Majoring in the Arts
This morning, I read this CNBC article, which discussed the fact that student loans have gone up over 150% in the last decade. The article states that “The average outstanding college loan balance is now $34,144, up 62 percent over…
How I Think about Programmatic Excellence at Colburn
Last week, I wrote this post about ways to tip the scales towards programmatic excellence. Here are five reflections on how I set up programming at Colburn: Give your program time. I was fortunate to be given a year to identify the needs…
5 Tips for Tipping the Scales Towards Excellence
On the left is a photo of me at age three, on the right, my daughter at the same age. I loved the violin and had supportive parents to guide me. Both artists, they had the cultural affluence to make…
The Portfolio Career
Portfolio Career Defined A person engaged in a portfolio career doesn’t work for a single company, but rather gathers a “portfolio” of jobs around a common theme or skill set, and balances that portfolio much like an investor manages a…
5 Steps To Help Solidify Your Career Path
An education rooted in specialization, a career rooted in context. If you’re like me, your journey through school and even the first few years out of college trained you to think narrowly and deeply about the type of work you’d…
8 Tips for a Successful Arts Based Community Engagement Program
The nation’s top arts organizations are increasingly thinking about how to better serve their community. At Colburn, we are in a unique position. Our mission is to provide music education at the highest level, but we are also a presenting…
Thoughts on the National Endowment for the Arts
On January 20th, I wrote this post in response to the inauguration of our 45th President. Now six months in to his presidency, I feel compelled to share thoughts on what we—the electorate—should expect from our politicians. These writings represent my…
Finding your pot of gold: 5 factors to consider when choosing a place to attend college
Congratulations! You are months away from graduation and well on your way to the dream of starting your collegiate career or graduate work! You have received — or are about to receive — letters of acceptance, and now all you need to do…
5 Things Artists Can Do, Post-Election
The arts live continuously, and they live literally by faith; their nature and their shapes and their uses survive unchanged in all that matters through times of interruption, diminishment, neglect; they outlive governments and creeds and societies, even the…
Skip E-Ship Class, Read This—Part I, Opportunity
Last week, I wrote an introductory post to get you primed for developing a new venture. Today, I’ll help you identify and bring focus to your creative ideas from a business prospective. Creativity is something all of us possess. The…
Skip E-ship Class, Read This—Introduction
Today, I’m launching a series of “how to” posts designed to help you create and develop new ideas. These posts will save you thousands of dollars in unnecessary entrepreneurship coursework, help you work across disciplines to bring your great ideas…
3 Career Fears To Tackle In 5 Years
Before declaring my major in college I remember losing what felt like weeks of sleep trying to decide if the path to become a music educator was right for me. Choosing the wrong path or worse, choosing the right path and ultimately not…
4 things to consider as you find a place to call home
This blog post is beautiful. Stripped down and vulnerable, Amy effectively places her personal values in front of where she lives. What role does “place” play in launching your career? This post looks at the notion of “place” as it relates to career planning…
4 Ways to save yourself from a soul-sucking college experience
By the start of the second semester of my masters degree in bassoon performance, I knew I didn’t want to be an orchestral musician. I was lost. Everyone was (seemingly) passionately pursuing their degree, determined to land that coveted orchestral position. The…
Are you on a path that leads to a successful career in music?
Last week, I wrote this post with the hopes of providing advice to college students interested in working on their careers beyond the walls of their university. That post got me thinking: What do students majoring in music actually need out of their…
5 Ways College Students Can Jumpstart Their Career In The Arts
I love this post by Ivan Trevino. He raises questions many of us are asking at institutions of higher learning across the country. The arts entrepreneurship movement from the past few years has helped and many schools are working diligently behind the scenes to address the…
Back to the Future for Orchestra Musicians?
Now that we’re well into the summer months, I thought I’d take a moment to see what people are writing about in the orchestra world. Here’s an excerpt from an article I found: The situation of the symphony musician in…
The Classical Music Fiscal Cliff—Part I
Our country is quickly approaching another fiscal cliff. Yikes. When I hear those words, I always imagine a movie from the 1930’s, the hero—dangling by mere fingertips—tries to avoid her imminent demise, all while the villain laughs mercilessly as the…
The Portfolio Career
The following is a definition from the website bnet.com: A “portfolio career” is a “career based on a series of varied shorter-term jobs either concurrently or consecutively as opposed to one based on a progression up the ranks of a…
Work-Life Balance?
If you know me, you know that I love my life. I have an incredible family and a fantastic job(s). Other than a little debt (ok, a lot of debt) from my college years, I really can’t complain. And yet…