Successful Musicians Podcast – Episode #37: How Authenticity Fuels Meaningful Connections with Tara Brueske

Successful Musicians Podcast Episode 37

Interviewee: Tara Brueske

Interviewer: Jason Tonioli

Hey, this is Jason Tonioli. I’m a piano player that grew up believing it wasn’t possible to earn a living and support a family with music. I’ve proven that idea was wrong and I’ve met hundreds of other people who have found success with their music. This podcast features stories of musicians who have found their own personal version of success and fulfillment in both music and life. This podcast is meant to inspire musicians and help them believe in their abilities and motivate them to share their talents with others. This is the Successful Musicians Podcast. 

=======================================================================

Jason: Welcome to the podcast. Today, our special guest is Tara Brueske, and she is calling in from beautiful Minnesota. You guys are having your spring and it’s warm. I’m out in Utah where it’s supposed to be spring and warm, and it was about an hour ago and now we’ve got rain and cold. I’m a little jealous of consistent weather right now but Tara has been a musician for pretty much your whole life.

Tara: I have. I really have.

Jason: She’s done piano, she’s singing, she’s taught all kinds of courses and taught a ton of people how to get gigs. You’ve taught online piano, you’ve taught people in person, you do one-on-one coaching. I’m really excited about what we’re going to get into today. 

Tara: Thank you and it’s so good to be on here, Jason. Just thank you for inviting me and looking forward to it.

Jason: Awesome. Well, let’s start all the way back at the first because with your career, I always like to go right back to when you were a kid, when was that moment that you thought, oh, my gosh, maybe I do like music? Or were you one of the kids like me that hated practicing piano and had a mean mom that made you practice every day?

Tara: No, I loved piano. I’m actually from a musical family. I’m the youngest of three kids. My mom was a pianist, organist, choir director. My dad was a pastor, but their love of music was so evident in our home. We had records just playing all the time, literally. Then if not that, then my mom was playing piano, practicing for something so I would see her doing that and I started playing piano when I was three years old. She said I started plucking out some actual songs, but our family started singing together publicly when I was six years old. We were already doing it. It just seemed very normal to me. I thought everybody did that and of course, now I know, no, that’s not true. I think that, coupled with the fact that we had the opportunity from so young on, by the time I was even 10, I remember writing this in a journal or something where I said, I want to be a singer when I grow up. I already had my goal set at that young age, and it kept on. It kept being a part of my life as far as wanting to continue to be a singer.

I think it’s because of that opportunity, actually, when I was singing with my family, we were literally singing either with a piano as a compliment because my mom played, or we had a little tape recorder. I know these dates me way back in the 70s, but we’d have a tape recorder of songs, and sometimes we’d sing with that as our accompanying background. We sang in little churches all over Northern Minnesota and actually Ontario, Canada. I thought that was pretty cool because we could go to Canada at the time, and it had different money and things were in French. The experience, I think, of just being able to be in different places and be in front of people, that was such a part of my life that it seemed fun. I loved making music together and so I can’t say I actually liked practicing piano, though, for lessons because my mom did give me lessons, too. Yeah, I think just that because it was such a part of our family from so young, it seemed a very natural flow for me.

Jason: Got it. Did your family encourage you to take a career in music or did they say, hey, you really should get a real job and go to college, so you have some skills and then just enjoy music at home?

Tara: I know my family is rare in the fact that my parents were very supportive. I think in part, though, honestly, my dad was very much a visionary person and even in his role, like I said, he was a pastor, but he actually stepped out of parish work for three years so that our family could go singing. He had a vision for something more and he always has been that way to think outside of the box and not necessarily just do, here’s the set pattern. I think his parents were a little surprised at that but he certainly, because of his willingness, was very encouraging of us kids. He saw the gifts that were in my brothers and I and I think he was very, and my mom too, just hugely supportive so that we had this clear path to go. I think they wanted us to get college education because they both had college education. My dad, of course, had seminary too. Yeah, they were unusual that way where they really were behind us because I know not every musician has that. A lot of times people fight that from their own parents, and that’s got to be really hard, actually.

Jason: I think it can be a lonely road. And then I think from a logical standpoint, oftentimes, if you do look at salaries and numbers, if you’re sitting with your college counselor, musician doesn’t usually show up on that college counselor’s list of jobs that you can get that are going to make you enough money to support a family, right?

Tara: I know. Especially for guys, too, because like with my brothers. My two brothers, one is a full-time musician, the other went into something else but the one who’s a full-time musician, yeah, I think that definitely went through his mind even more of that supporting a family type of thing but we both pursued it.

Jason: Awesome. You did go to college; it sounds like then. I did. Did you study music, or did you have this alternative thing you studied?

Tara: No, I studied music. A lot of musicians I’ve talked to now since that time who were… I was a performance major and a lot of other performance majors, even those I graduated with years ago are not in music because a lot of them didn’t find a way. Now I understand why because, in fact, if there was anything I was going to tell somebody, it’s just simply that if you are going for music as a performance in college, get a business degree too because I knew a lot about music when I graduated. I mean, I’m very grateful for theory, music history, arranging, orchestra, all that stuff, but I had zero idea how to really run a business. I didn’t realize I was getting into the music business, even though, of course, even back then in the 80s, 90s, it was called the music business. I didn’t think of it that way.

Jason: Well, I went into marketing. I lasted two days in the music program and I dropped out of my college because they told me that I’d have to go to school for three years before I could learn to arrange and do orchestration. I was already doing all that and I thought, this is insane to go back and learn about half notes for the next two weeks. I actually asked the professor if I could help him teach just to try and give some challenges. He got all upset with me of how dare I assume that I could do what he’s doing. It was the best decision I ever made. I ended up walking over to the business school and took a marketing class and I liked it but what’s interesting, as you said, is that a lot of people that do music performance don’t do anything in that. I can think of almost probably 95% of the people that I graduated in marketing with didn’t end up doing marketing.

Tara: Oh, interesting.

Jason: I think it happens in the same way and you talked about learning the music business. I’ve got several friends who are doctors and dentists, people that you’d think, oh, they’re going to own their own practice and they’re going to do well as a doctor.

I can’t tell you how many of them when we had conversations at night, some together, and they open up and they say, you know what, the saddest thing is I learned how to be a doctor and I can do… They rattle off all the crazy things, pull eyeballs out and fix crazy things and yet they have no clue how to come in and run their business with the practice. They’re completely, pretty much helpless. Hence, they end up getting into a lot of financial trouble and it takes them… Anyway, it’s interesting how learning business, whether you’re a musician or a doctor or whatever, I think there’s a lot of principles, whether you’re going to own your own business or not, that a business… Some of those business class, not all of them, there’s some that were waste but in general, I think it does teach you to think a little bit bigger picture, a little more strategy than maybe just what’s in front of you and you’re just trying to stay at that real tactical level of just boots on the ground.

Tara: Yeah. I think just figuring out how to get from point A to point B because if you want to perform, you have to figure out how you are going to perform. Are you going to be with some company? I do know there are musicians that get hired by orchestras, even in the classical world, even in opera and things, too, that people will actually almost like signing with or having a job with a corporation. That’s by far and large not a good portion of musicians and so I think it’s just learning these practical things of, well, what does it mean for me to get sales? I have a product that I’m offering, and I didn’t understand that there were a lot of different things I could use as a product or a service. Really, is what a lot of us do in music, like a service that you’re offering to people. Those practical steps, I had to learn the hard way, but I always feel like, man, if I could do it, anybody can.

Jason: Just like any industry or any business, I think who you know and having those opportunities to meet people. I know you’ve done a lot of coaching on helping people to get gigs. I’m curious, what your take on is getting to know a certain person, or is it just putting yourself out there and calling lots of people? For somebody who’s introverted, that’s going to be terrifying if they’ve got to pick up a phone and introduce themselves. How would you say that works to you typically when it is successful?

Tara: I did that. I did the calling, the cold calling. I am an introvert, and it was terrifying. I think usually what I talk to people about is building relationships. You’re trying like any sales, as you know, it is building relationships with people. Those are how you get return customers and so even just looking at it that way and realizing, I think even for introverts, if they’re scared to do it, is that, again, it can be one on one. What used to freak me out is if somebody said to me, well, you could go to these networking events and I’m thinking, and do what? I don’t want to have to go to something and then start introducing myself. Now actually, it’s funny because it wouldn’t bother me to do that but back then I was very shy. I think it’s just there’s ways of doing things and reaching out to people and then being prepared.

For people with booking, when I coach people, a lot of times we’ll start with a script. I mean, something as simple as a script that’s written out. It might be something they use on the phone. It could be something they use in an email, something they can tweak. Just having a plan and then including certain things and keeping it short and succinct and then just follow up. 11:32 I think in the business, a lot of people tend to give up because they assume if they don’t hear back from somebody, like in booking, that they just assume it’s a rejection but the reality is, nowadays, especially, you just think of how many emails, if you get emails, how many emails do you get in a day, just period, like any of us?

Jason: 300.

Tara: Yeah, I know. I’m thinking, okay, so someone who’s booking, if you’re sending an email to them, how many are they even getting from just musicians per day? I don’t know the answer to that fully, but I just know there’s a lot so if they might click through it or they might not even click on it right the first time, again, that’s not actually a rejection. It’s just sheer like they don’t have the time.

Jason: I’ve heard I was listening to a Dan Kennedy podcast and there was an old call from back 20 years ago and there was a guy that had done a lot of sales training and coaching and he said, you’re making all these calls and the reality is, if you’re lucky, maybe 5 % of the people you’re calling might have a need where they’re ready to buy from you if you’re super lucky but the other 95, they don’t need it right now, but you’re planting a seed.

Tara: Exactly. I just have to say this because it just reminded me in my own mind, when I first started doing this, it was pre internet, so I was taking the yellow pages. I was taking newspapers where sometimes I’d have these sections where I don’t know, there’d be advertisements for things, and you could find a phone number or something. My point is, I did a lot of research ahead of time. Now, of course, we’ve got the internet, so you can do it quite quickly and then I just had, I just started cold calling and kept doing it and then you might get one bite, like you said but that bite can also turn into, like in booking, it could turn into 10 gigs. It could turn into gigs every year. I literally have places I’ve been booking with for 20 years and they’re still booking. It’s all this return on my investment of the calling. I want to encourage people that even whatever you’re doing in music, that it takes time to build it. I know sometimes we want things immediately in our world. Things can happen faster, too. I’m not saying they can’t, but in general, building relationships with people does take time, just like it does with friendships.

Jason: I want to rewind back. You talked about calling all these people and so a lot of people would interpret that as selling or trying to sell yourself or sell your thing. How do you help people overcome this idea that the word sell or sales is like a four-letter word that is not, and you shouldn’t say it. How do you help people to get past that idea?

Tara: It’s trying to get the mindset, first of all, that you are also coming to partner with somebody on something. When you have a product, you think of what it is that you’re selling? If you’re going to do a concert, for instance, it’s a concert. You’re selling a service. What are you giving to people in that concert? Well, a lot of times you’re giving people a time to just let down, to have fun, maybe to cry. I mean, it’s an emotional response a lot of times you’re looking for, but it is something that is needed in our culture and something we as musicians get to give. If you can think of it like this, this is something you’re giving to people that they don’t just have opportunity. I have talked to more musicians; we’re so used to just doing music all the time. We listen to it but there’s a lot of people in life that hardly have music as part of their everyday being and so when they hear a concert, they go to a summer park concert or something or get tickets to a show, it’s a huge deal.

We get to be on the end of giving that of something that’s really encouraging to people and to get that around like, this is something that people actually want and desire and would love.

Jason: I think part of it is just believing in yourself that you have something to give and to share. I think part of it is a confidence thing. I know for me, especially as I was younger, you have a tendency to get that, they call it imposter syndrome. I’ve heard people call it that, where you don’t think you’re good enough or you’re not good enough to do that, to be on stage. As you’re working through… You’ve worked with a lot of people doing gigs. You’ve been doing it a long time. How do you overcome that idea that I’m not good enough? It’s not even that anybody said that to you, but I think a lot of times it’s just like that little evil angel on the other shoulder that tells you, oh, you can’t do this.

Tara: Well, it goes along with… I’ll just say this. When I was doing gigs, I would always… When I was younger, I’ll say in my 20s for sure, I would always be concerned about what the audience was thinking about me instead of what I could give to them. I think sometimes too, to realize, again, turn the table a little bit. Don’t go into something saying, oh, are they going to think I’m good enough? 16:48 Give what you have from your heart. Be authentic, be where you’re at. I mean, we’re all at different stages. Like, yes, I perform better now than I did 25 years ago but people actually listened to me 25 years ago and also to remember that if you think about, for all of us, first of all, live music is amazing when you go hear people live. It’s just different than listening to a recording but also, we all have the… If you said to somebody, Who’s your favorite artist? Well, I don’t know, but if I get asked that’s like, I don’t have one. I have a lot, and it depends what genre you’re talking about. The point is, there is room for the uniqueness that every single musician is going to bring to the table. Especially, I don’t care whether you’re an instrumentalist or whether you’re a vocalist, you have something that’s uniquely yours. The way you do it is uniquely yours and it’s going to connect with certain people. Yes, there are some it’s not going to connect with. To this day, I have people that maybe don’t connect with what I do. It’s fine but there are people that do and it’s about finding those people through the years and through the time and everyone is capable of having people, especially if they’re willing to just continue to learn and grow in their own music and be authentic with their audience, they’re going to have people connecting.

Jason: When you talk about connecting, and as I’ve done, performing for a lot of people and writing stuff, I’m still learning every day. I don’t feel like I’m even good yet.

Tara: It’s always. We’re all learning. We’re all in that process.

Jason: I think one of the hardest things to realize, and as I self-evaluate myself, is connecting with that audience. When I started performing, I even thought back, almost clear back to piano recitals when I was a kid and you’re just terrified to death that you’re going to mess up that one note that you’ve struggled with and you’re praying, oh, please just let me get through that. Sometimes you do, and sometimes you don’t and you just hope you weren’t that kid that had to have the music brought up to you to get through the song. I can remember that fear. I think as I started writing music and wanting to share it with other people, I still clung on to this whole idea that, okay, I wrote a song, but it has to be perfect and even when I started doing the music, I would even critique myself of like, oh, but that book that I published and did, it has two spots that I missed a note and it was just wrong. As I’ve done storybooks, there’s maybe 300 pages in this thing, but, oh, my gosh, we forgot a period on that one thing, and somebody’s going to think I’m no good because I left a period out on the…

I think the sooner as an artist that I was able to… It just is a person to recognize the flaws and the mistakes are what connected people with me. It wasn’t the fact that I could play this thing really good. In fact, I almost feel like that when I’ve been too polished, they don’t remember it. They don’t connect with you. I don’t know how… If there was any advice, I would give myself, I would just say, look, go screw up. Go really mess up badly and at the very least, the audience is going to feel bad for you and they’re going to like you just because they want to encourage you and help you do it, right?

Tara: I always think, too, if any of us turn the table a little bit, what if you’re in the audience and you saw someone mess up? Would you be the person who’s critiquing them and going, Oh, they’re stupid. I don’t think most of us would. I think most of us would probably be like, Oh, my word. I hope there’s probably more empathy in a lot of us than we give ourselves credit for and so our audience is going to have that, too. You’re right. If something happens, like I literally had, this was about two years ago, I was playing an electric piano and it had one of those stands that are plastic on the part of the piano, and I had a three-ring binder on it and I was playing and singing and the whole thing crashed. Just fell off and crashed so I just got up and I said, hold on a minute, you guys. I said, this just fell down. I went and picked it back up, put it back up and I said, I was just trying to see if any of you were awake.

If something goes wrong, that’s what I always say. If you literally have something, go wrong, like your mic doesn’t work or something like, tell the audience. Just tell them what’s going on. They can handle that, and so can we. I mean, that’s being real.

Jason: I still have nightmares from when I was playing a musical number in Church as a kid. Remember when we used to have all our papers and there’d be nine pages? Of course, the AC kicks on in the middle of the song and all of a sudden there goes the music. I don’t know. I just remember that as a kid. I was like, Oh, my gosh. I’ll never do that again, but you know what? I think I had more people come up to me. People saw that and the fact that I was able to halfway make it okay and I think connected people because the reality is everybody out in that audience has flaws just like we do.

Tara: Absolutely.

Jason: If you’re perfect, you’re not going to be like them and the next one will be there.

Tara: Think how scared most people are even to get up in front of anybody. I had a gig literally two weeks ago that somebody was going to introduce me, and I said, oh, you can use my microphone. Oh, no, I don’t want to use a mic and I was thinking, it’s just a microphone. I think we’ve got to just give ourselves credit as we’re just people and so are others and to see that, yeah, 22:24 the authenticity is really what is going to connect because it makes people feel like they have common ground. That’s what I’m thinking of. In fact, in general, even when I do, this is back to booking or cold calling, but even when I am calling people for the first time, 22:40 I’ll do my research on a place and just find out something about them that I connect with. It might, for instance, be a winery. It might be that I see this beautiful location and I think, Oh, my goodness, that looks so peaceful and so I might call and say, hey, your place already has this beautiful ambiance to it. I would love to partner with it and bring something that I hope my music would do the same.

23:03 It’s trying to find a connection point. When we meet people, you think of the first time you meet somebody who you become friends with, it’s because you had a connection point, something in common and that’s what we’re trying to find.

Jason: As you’re talking about making calls to these people, one of the biggest problems I see almost every salesperson make… I was in the banking world, and I used to coach over 50 loan officer people that were supposed to be great salespeople. Most of them are terrible at that. What was funny is as I started learning more and more about what being a good salesperson is, it’s about building that relationship and typically, you talked about going to these networking events. People go to these networking events, and they take a stack of business cards, and they collect all of these and then they just go in there. They sit there forever, and they don’t do anything with them, and it just boggles my mind.

When I owned my software company, we used to have to pay thousands of dollars to go to these conferences to get business cards. I would go with these other people that I knew in the booths that were trying to sell people as well, and they’d collect a dozen cards and I’d go home with 80 cards, and I’d write notes on the back of them. This person’s dog’s name, they like dogs.

This one has two kids. Their one name is Lindsay. I would write stuff and then on my flight home or within that two days before I’d forget about it, I would make notes and put them in my contact thing, and I would send them an email at very least to have some connection and if I had a picture of them, I’d include the picture and all of a sudden they may be getting 20 or 30 emails from some people and then the other 100 people didn’t email them.

Now I’m that one guy that did something that stood out. It was, Oh, my gosh. He plays the piano, or I send them one of my songs. I was selling banking software and I’d send them a piano song. Just finding that connection.

Tara: It is because like I say, we do it all the time with friendships and people, even when they date, people talk about that on dates. It’s like, well, it’s a connecting point. You find something in common, and that’s what we’re trying to find, something in common.

Jason: Well, and then continuing to care. I think there’s definitely this, I think the normal sales role that people get in their minds, it’s like this bad thing where it’s this slimy guy trying to take advantage of you and rip you off and the reality is I just want to be your friend. If there’s something I can solve a problem or help you in some way, now it’s helpful. You’re not really selling it. It’s just, hey, you needed something and I’m able to help you with that. Let me help.

Tara: That when you say solve a problem, that actually reminds me, too, that sometimes with musicians, we think that it’s about the salesy thing. Oftentimes, let’s just say there’s an event going on, somebody has a gala or they’re putting on a nonprofit thing, or maybe like for a lot of the senior citizen places I play at, they want to just entertain people. By you calling, by you being a part of it, you’re solving a problem for them that they weren’t sure they were going to be able to solve and the other thing I found is that while musicians, we might know a lot of other musicians, people that are not musicians or don’t have that as part of their family don’t always just know musicians. We are solving problems.

Jason: Well, and I think almost everybody that’s been in the music business or at least write songs or performs in some way, there’s those handful of times where you’ve really connected with somebody or you get that email and you had no idea you helped somebody through a hard time or parent died and your music popped up or you had somebody that was going through a divorce or contemplating suicide. Those types of things, I think for me, have meant more than the selling of the dollar sales ever. I think the more I’ve tried to solve and share my stuff, the more I feel I’ve gotten paid back. The money is nice to have, and you need that to be okay but there’s a lot cooler payday that I think if you do share music that you don’t realize until you’ve done it a while.

Tara: Yeah. I think it’s because it becomes purposeful. I know for myself even, I’ll just tell you this that I started singing at senior places, like independent living, assisted living, memory care, about 20 years ago and about 10 years ago, people would ask me where I was singing. I felt embarrassed to say, Oh, well, I’m at these nursing homes, or I’m at these assisted living. Now it asks me after all these years, I just see what an incredible blessing it is to people who cannot get out of places anymore, people who are not in their right mind. I had my own mother. I just lost her this last January, and she was in a nursing home at the end and had dementia. Now, even first-hand experience, it’s like I see what a blessing music is to those people. I’ve seen people in memory care where they’re just like nothing and then they perk up on a song and they’re singing along. To know that you’ve touched somebody’s soul in that way, you can’t beat that.

Jason: I’m going through the same thing with my mother-in-law right now. They are just a couple of months ago, I went to a nursing home and it’s awful. Dementia is awful but just your body gets to the point where it doesn’t function and you know they want to, but it just doesn’t. One thing that I guess I didn’t realize until somebody really close to me was in that situation. Our family goes every week, and we hang out at least once a week and we’re the only people there. There are probably 100 residents in there that are grandmas and moms and dads to somebody.

Tara: We found that too.

Jason: There’s like three or four cars in the parking lot. I’m like, are you kidding me? I don’t know. It’s definitely made me rethink the whole idea of serving in that world.

Tara: Yeah. It’s just all I know is it is a blessing to people that can. It’s people who have lived full lives. Oh, yeah. I just find, too, when I’m bringing back music now, it’s things that they hear because I play music from the 40s, 50s, 60s, and so it’s stuff that they grew up with and it’s bringing back those memories, which we all love. We’re all like nostalgic music.

Jason: That’s awesome. I’m curious, if you could go back, rewind back 20, 30 years or when you’re sitting just getting started in music, if you could give yourself some advice to help yourself or a whole classroom of people just like you were, what would you want to say to that person?

Tara: Well, I think that one thing would just be, again, to try to get some business training, even if it’s not a full degree. Just getting, like nowadays, too, there’s so many biz coaches. In fact, any coach, whether it’s vocal coaching or you’ve got an instrument and you’re getting a coach, first of all, it’s going to help you. You’re also going to have someone you’re accountable to and also someone that can encourage you because you need that encouragement along the way. I know that speaking as a coach myself, that I love giving encouragement to my students if I can see them keep going because of something we talked about, or they discover something. Anyway, that’s one thing. I also think just this thing of being willing to be the thought of what your purpose is with music and serving other people in your music, rather than, again, to just think about what they’re going to think about you because to approach it, 31:00 I think I just wasted time in my head thinking about what people were thinking about me or where I should be. The other thing is, too, I think just to realize that there can be a lot of streams of income from music, which I know you found an amazing one yourself.

Well, several actually and do not be afraid of that. Also, like teaching, don’t assume that if you’re a performer and you teach… 31:25 I used to hate when they would say that old saying, if you’re a performer, you do but if you can’t, you teach. It’s like, Well, no, that’s not necessarily true. There are all kinds of ways to utilize your music, from writing to performing, to recording, to doing voiceover work, to being with other musicians. Even for me in performing, I do solo gigs, but I’m with my brother in a duo, and then I’m also in a tribute show right now with 11 or 10 other people. Even just in the performing stuff, there’s different things, and it’s really fun. There’s also a lot of variety and to not be overly concerned about it, I just have to do it this way. I wasn’t that flexible.

32:19 If you can at all learn to be flexible younger, it helps. Just to know that there’s a lot of different ways. The thing in the industry, at least I felt like in the 80s, so I’m speaking from back then, but it was like, you try to get a record deal. That was the main goal. Then you tour and that’s how you’re well known as a musician and to me, nowadays, there’s just so many other ways, even with the internet, to be able to utilize your music. I think there is opportunity. It’s different than maybe what people always think of. It’s okay if it takes time. That’s the other thing. It’s not going to just do nothing, good comes fast, really fast.

Jason: I think one thing is, if I was in that room with you giving that advice, one of the big mistakes I see people make is they don’t try to build those relationships or even collect the emails. People will perform and try to engage with that audience. You’re performing in that one time, but if you could somehow collect the names and emails or the text messages and you could follow up and help in some way and then connect more. I almost feel like it’s crazy to not… Maybe that’s a business thing in me if you taught me. Hey, you got this opportunity, but you realize that you’re going to actually benefit by doing the other 95 % of that… 5 % of that first gig and getting somebody on stage. If you don’t do anything after that, you may as well… That’s not a business.

I think a business is something that you have to be able to continue to have a customer base and serve. Otherwise, you’re just a street vendor that is there for the one event and that’s it and go get another street vendor gig. That’s not a business. You couldn’t sell that to anybody. There’s no value in it. Now you get the list of names that you like and now it just opens up another whole world of opportunities where maybe you can introduce them to another singer that you like and share and serve. Maybe it’s not even to make money, but it’s just to help that individual that you’ve connected with even more.

Tara: Well, and I think even when you say that about connecting or using the opportunity, I was thinking even with other singer’s connection… Well, I know what I was going to say. You have different kinds of customers, too, in music. You’ve got the people that you’re actually singing for, they’re one customer and then you’ve got the people you’re booking with, that’s another type of customer. All of them, however you can continue to build relationships, get info from them. I know the other thing I was thinking of, yeah, it’s just because you alluded to it with another musician, not being afraid of partnering with other musicians, not being afraid of giving the names of other musicians to people when you can’t do something because that’s the other thing that if I was going to give anybody advice that I just… I compared myself way too much in my 20s, in my 30s. I had a friend say to me, it was really the best piece of advice, even though he wasn’t trying to give me advice but he basically… I was talking about some musician at the time, and I was frustrated because she had gotten all these accolades and I hadn’t, which is just stupid that I was even, but that’s where I was.

He said, Tara, why can’t you just be happy for her? I thought, oh, I guess I can’t be, can I? 35:57 I’ve learned now that being happy and being supportive of other musicians never depletes you as a person. It only makes your life bigger and actually even gives you more opportunity. It causes you to look at life with more opportunity instead of the scarcity where I’m just always trying to grab at something.

Jason: Yeah. I guess as you’re talking about being scared or worried about helping what other people think, I almost feel like if I look back on my school career, high school, even into junior high, it seems like in elementary school, I just had a kid who just finished sixth grade. It’s so fun to see how energetic they are and how excited they are… They have conversations. My wife teaches sixth grade, and she engages all these kids, and they share. They call it good news, bad news, and they share every day or once a week they share something, or they have an opportunity to share with the class and they’re not scared to talk. It’s almost like this little family unit and then somehow somewhere in junior high and high school, I feel like if I look back in my classes, I was terrified to speak up and the teacher, Oh, my gosh. I don’t know where that happens along the way and there’s some people that just are, well, you call them loudmouths or whatever. They just don’t seem to shut up sometimes. Most of us, I think, were terrified to the point where I think the public speaking classes that are taught in the colleges, that’s actually speaking in public, is one of the biggest fears.

Some people would rather die, actually die than actually have to speak in front of somebody. I don’t know where we lose that, but I think a lot of that stems back to somewhere in that junior high or high school or school time when somebody got shut down or told they were stupid, or there was that one bully in the room that was not nice. I think the reality is 99 % of the people that are in the room are empathic, that want to see you succeed on stage, that want to see you be successful and for whatever reason, we gave that one moment, maybe this should be a psychology podcast. I don’t know. I don’t know anything about psychology, so don’t listen to me.

I do think probably most of us, if we look back, there was probably that moment and by the time you get into a lot of those high school classes, even in college, you don’t dare speak up in class because you might be wrong and you’re too scared to say anything.

Tara: Yeah, I think a lot of musicians, I think we tend to be people who we analyze, and we’re probably introspective and maybe really highly sensitive. I can say I am myself, but I know a lot of other musicians who are too. Yeah, the one negative thing. I actually hear that a lot when I teach people that sing and they’ll say, oh, somebody told them they were too loud, or someone told them they sounded awful. It’s hard to hear that but I think that self-consciousness, when we start being self-conscious of ourselves, like you say, junior high, high school. I think that really is a time and depending on if we have a great teacher or some teacher around us or a coach, again, I think knowing my voice teacher in college for me made a huge difference because… I’m still in contact with her. She just turned 90 this year and I just saw her, which was great. She basically didn’t try to put labels on me, even at college. She basically wanted to just let me sing and help me and encourage and nurture. She taught me a lot, but she was the encouragement that I needed.

That’s why I still come back to 39:44 if you are a musician, find a coach. It may take a while, too, because not every coach is great either, but I do think it’s helpful because then you also have the camaraderie of somebody else in music with you that understands and to get to know other musicians as well. We have so many online ways now. Even this podcast that you have is an encouragement to musicians just to know they’re not alone.

Jason: Right. Well, you just made me think of American Idol when people are… The criticism, and actually, I think there’s been so many good things with American idol, but as a musician, I think we watch that and it’s so easy to critique the ones that were not good. Yet they don’t know that they’re not good. It’s almost one of those where it helps or hurts some people’s willingness to maybe go out of the box? Because if I’m not as good as Kelly Clarkson or whoever, some of these superstars, well, then I’m not good enough to be a musician. I think the cool thing is in this day and age, with the Internet and with some business sense and building a list, you can be successful financially in the music business. It might not be singing. You may not have that voice to be an American idol winner but there are thousands of other career paths that support that are in the music business. If you love music, I wish I’d known that and recognized that 20, 30 years ago.

Tara: I know. Even in the role of coaching, whether it’s coaching someone how to write songs or maybe how to even, like I do, some booking gigs, but it could be other aspects. Maybe it’s like, you know how to build websites for musicians and that’s a part of that music world. I mean, there’s so many things, but yeah, I don’t know. I do think that so much of the music business and any business really is simply you willing to work at it, actually put in the skills. I know that as a child, like for myself, I knew that I had obvious talent in piano and voice but if I hadn’t gotten a lot of the training, if I hadn’t worked at things hard, practiced all through the years, I would have stayed pretty mediocre, and who knows?

42:04 I’ve seen other people who maybe from the beginning didn’t look like they had as much talent, but then because they worked at it, they honed their skills and things, they kept practicing, no matter what it is. It’s like that to me, in perseverance, is far more the keys that are going to make you have a successful career, really, of anything but of just being willing to put some time in and work towards something that you actually want to, that you’re willing to say, I am going to put the time into this.

In music, people usually do it because they do love it. Do they love every aspect? No. I don’t love having to create invoices and contracts and things like that. To be honest, I pretty much hate those things, but I have to do that to get to the things that I do love. To really enjoy my work, that is something that I have been able to do for over… Well, it’s been over 30 years now, which is really amazing.

Jason: I love asking this question. I know we’re about out of time, but what would be your definition of a successful musician? Today, having had a 30 plus year career in the business, what do you consider a successful musician?

Tara: I think doing a lot of the things actually just brings other people joy and yourself, creating a purpose, being purposeful with your music, also being able to still do your music in different ways and it might look different. The beautiful part is it may look way different than you thought it might look. What I’m doing now at 54 is way different than I thought at 21, but I love what I’m doing. Then also being able to actually financially, though, being able to take care of yourself, too, and being able to have a business that is growing and continues to support itself because the other thing is, if you’re just struggling, struggling, struggling, struggling, financially where you can’t… and 2020 was just so hard for all of us. I do think that being successful, yes, having some of those things that to me, it’s having some of the goals or the dreams that you have thought about. It just might look a little bit different and be willing to ebb and flow with that, but still be pursuing a general move towards the things you want to do.

For me even being feeling like, I actually feel like a successful musician, not necessarily monetarily compared to people. I’m not making millions, but I’m enjoying my life and I love my work. To put people, spend 8 to 10 hours a day at a job that sometimes they hate. To me, if you can really like your job and get paid, I think that’s been successful.

Jason: Absolutely. No, it’s fantastic. I love that. So, Tara, I’d love to go deeper with you on gigs. Maybe we’ll get you back on another podcast. I know we’re way over time. I’ve really enjoyed this conversation. I think more people need to think of… I love that self-inflection and the coaching and just those ideas that you shared have been incredible. I really hope it helps a lot of people out there. Yeah.

Tara: Please don’t give up.

Jason: Absolutely. My hope with this podcast is that I’ve seen too many musicians that thought they wanted to do music, and then they’ve just given up on their dream. They have something amazing to share with the world, and it just breaks my heart every time I have a friend that I find out they’ve put their CDs down in the basement.

Tara: It’s going to keep coming back. That’s the thing. I’ve seen that with people. In fact, a friend that I’ve coached in the last year always had that and then she was in a different role. She was teaching music, but more in a different way and she still wanted to do it more full-time with performing. Now she’s come to it full circle and she loves what she’s doing now. Just to see that it’s like, if that passion has been in your heart that long, it’s not going to go away.

Jason: It makes you happy. You’re going to keep coming back to it. Tara, if people want to go find out more about you, where should they go?

Tara: Probably the easiest place is tarabrueske.com. It’s my website. I’m also on Facebook, on Instagram. Facebook, I think, is @terrabmusicians. Instagram is @terrabrueskemusic but I can give you the links for that, too.

Jason: We’re going to stick all those in the show notes. If you go out on her website, I know you’ve got some great courses, but you’ve got several interviews you’ve done on other podcasts that I know have been really interesting as well on totally different topics than where we’re at with this. I’ve loved it. Thank you. I think we definitely have left the gift for the world with this one. Thank you so much.

Tara: You’re welcome, Jason.

Finding success and fulfillment in the music industry is possible. Looking forward to seeing you in our next episode.