11 Things To Know before Starting Your Gospel Music Career

As believers, we have a unique mandate and the great commission to preach the gospel of Christ to all nations. One way to do this is through the ministration of songs and today, we have countless Gospel music artistes, instrumentalists, sound engineers and minstrels among others who are led by the spirit of God to consciously fulfil this great commission. Despite this great number, with each passing day, we are reminded that the harvest is full but the labourers are plenty.

If you've been serving in the church choir for a while or doing gospel music as a hobby and you feel led by God to making it a career and ministry, then you should know the following to begin your Gospel music career.

1. Get a Job

Most times, people think that when getting started with your Gospel music career, you need to leave everything behind and focus on creating and building your music career. Unfortunately, this is more of a fantasy. You need to have a stable job to finance your music career and ministry for a start. In the words of Apostle Joshua Selman, the name of Jesus is so heavy that it needs resources (human, material and financial inclusive) to lift it up. This explains why you need a stable job before you set out into the Gospel music ministry. The only exception for this is if God has assured you with convictions and you have a direct instruction to leave your job. A good example is with Evangelist Tolucci whom God asked to leave his banking job and go into ministry. Like him, we have many similar examples but if you are not sure of God's word, get a job and do not leave it except you are duly instructed. The music ministry needs so much money to push and talent is never enough without God's input.

2. Set Goals and Create a Plan

What do you plan to achieve when you start your music career? How do you want to achieve these goals? After determining your goal, create a plan to achieve it.

3. Treat Your Music Career as a Business

If you don't like to see your music career as a business then you don't want to live in the present reality be cause to start your music career successfully, whether you like it or not, being a music artist is like starting a new business.

4. Improve Your Craft

There are many great and talented singers in the gospel music industry. You do  not need to compete against someone else or strive to get attention. Simply get good at what you're doing. Your ultimate aim should be to bring souls to God through your music, so forget competition or combat modes. The only person you're trying to combat is the devil and Jesus won him already. Improve your craft by attending trainings, seminars and enrolling for courses to help you get better. God is not a party to mediocrity. He wants excellence and your music ministry must exude same.

5. Network with Music Professionals

In life, it's basically about who you know because as the saying goes, "your network is your net worth". This is no exception in the music industry.

6. Create an Online Presence

Your online presence needs to come off as professional to convert your audience's first impression. To do this and create a strong online presence, you need to have good quality visual components (photos, graphics, videos, etc). Set up and optimize your social media accounts, and also create a clean and professional website.

7. Create a Brand Identity

Establishing who you are as a brand is essential to help you start your music career because it makes it easier for people to identify and distinguish you from other artists. Here's a cheat if you're finding it hard to estab lish a brand identity, a good way to understand who you are is to establish who you are not.

8. Understand the Basics of Music Copyright Laws

When you start your music career, there are tendencies you may overlook the aspect of protecting your music because it may seem irrelevant at the time, Avoid this and make sure you property copyright your work.

9 Search for Opportunities to Perform Live

Performing live is an opportunity to convert people who may not have heard your music before to paying fans in the future. You can reach out to your local churches to perform live, entertain their members and minister to congregations even for free. You can also reach out to Gospel concert and show organisers to perform live on their shows.

10. Build Your Music Team

As you grow your brand, you'll need a team. Here are some of the people you should consider on your team as you start your music career and grow it

• Manager
• Marketing Strategists
• Photographer and Videographer 
• Lawyer
• Assistants

11. Learn how to Distribute your music online

Since you are new to the game, you can begin by posting your music on SoundCloud and YouTube, but you'll need to eventually use better distribution platforms that will get your songs on us er-friendly streaming platforms like Apple Music, Spoti fy, Tidal, etc. Some popular Online Distribution platforms include:

• DistroKid
• TuneCore
• CDBaby