Hey everyone and welcome to the Musician of All Trades Blog!  In case you don’t know me, my name is Taylor Davis and I’m the creator and co-founder of Musician of All Trades, along with my husband, Jarred.   I’ve been working as an independent musician for the last decade and have been so fortunate to have built my dream career as a full time musician, but it didn’t come without a lot of hard work and it certainly didn’t happen overnight!

Over the years I’ve had so many people ask me questions as to how I was able to build this type of a career, and since I feel like there still isn’t a lot of great information out there teaching people how to do this (especially from musicians who have actually built their own careers and are still working in the industry), I decided to create Musician of All Trades as a resource to help others find success in their own careers as independent musicians.

I know how difficult it was to build this type of a career with limited resources, and how alone I sometimes felt along the way.  I first started working completely by myself, and once I started earning money with my music I expanded to hiring out help a few times a year on a contract basis for things like website design, music and video production, and tour management when I tried touring, but it wasn’t until May 2018 that I had my first full-time co-worker when Jarred started working with me.

First work trip together: Iceland, May 2018!  

Jarred was working very successfully as a software engineer, but knew that I was looking to start hiring some full-time help with all the new projects (like Musician of All Trades) that I was planning, so he decided to join me full time instead!  Some people warned us that it would be difficult working together as a married couple, but thankfully after being best friends for the past 18 years, we knew we already really enjoyed each other’s company haha and it’s been nothing but a great experience working together so far!  

This past year has been amazing working with someone full time, but that’s just been 1 year out of my almost 10 year career.  Because I worked alone for so many years, I know that it can be a significant challenge, but I also know that it can be incredibly empowering because of everything you get to learn along the way.  

The reality is that most musicians will start out the way I did, without any sort of full time or part time help, and even though it took me years to get where I’m at, I’m really grateful for all the experiences I’ve had and all the skills I’ve built along the way.  And that’s what Musician of All Trades is really about: helping those of you with limited resources learn how to build the skills you need to build a successful and sustainable career on your own in this industry.

Through having to learn so much of these different skills myself, I discovered passions (like video production and business!) that I didn’t even know I had when I started out on this path, and I can truly say that I’ve never felt bored since embarking on this journey because there’s always something different to do, which is a lot more than I can say for the previous desk job I had before I transitioned into music full-time.  I’ve learned so much about myself both as a musician and as a working professional and the amount of confidence I have now vs. what I had when I first started out is a night and day difference.

If you want to learn more about my background and more details on how I got started with this career, I highly encourage you to check out our free webinar. We’ve had thousands of people watch and have received so many comments about how pleasantly surprised our attendees were that the content was actually incredibly valuable and worth their time, especially since free content is usually not that helpful or just a gimmick to get people roped into buying something (believe me, I understand that skepticism because that’s usually how I feel about most “free” content as well) but I promise ours is different.  

Of course we’d love for you to join Musician of All Trades and get the same kind of value out of it that our members are currently enjoying, but it’s not for everyone, and it’s a paid program. I understand that it’s not in the budget for a lot of you who are just starting out, much like it probably wouldn’t have been in my budget either when I was looking for resources early on in my career.

What I could afford as my first “studio” (aka a spare bedroom in my parent’s house that I soundproofed with pillows, couch cushions, a mattress and blankets 😂)

Again, since I’ve been there, I know the kinds of struggles other musicians face when getting started, so in light of that we’ll be offering a lot of great free content here both through our webinars as well as this blog to help you along the way.  We’ll be sharing a lot of our personal insight on today’s new music industry as well as offering tips and advice for those of you looking to build your own careers as independent musicians.  

Both Jarred and I will be writing articles here, and besides just being very well-versed in the happenings of the new music industry himself, Jarred will also have a very unique perspective on this type of a career as someone who isn’t actually a musician but who’s been dating/married to a musician her entire career, and the challenges of supporting that while pursuing his own more “traditional” career path.

Quick little history here, Jarred and I have been married 8 years this year, but together a total of 18 years (since we were freshmen in high school haha, we’ve come a long way from this freshman year Christmas dance photo!)

so some of the topics he’ll cover will provide some of your non-musical friends and family with some great insight as to how they can realistically support what you’re pursuing, while also helping you understand and have patience with some of the reservations they might have with you pursuing a career as a musician.

We’ll cover this topic in an upcoming post but while it’s not necessary to have a large support team surrounding you while you build your career, it sure is helpful if you can at least have 1 person on your side as a cheerleader, because I’d be lying if I said your path to success will be paved with sunshine and roses lol.      

If you’re someday able to join our community, that’s awesome, we’d love to have you and help you take your career to the next level, but in the meantime, we hope that you find the resources on our website helpful in getting started and we wish you the best with your musical pursuits!

– Taylor