To those Musicians who...
√ want a music career to improve their quality of life, not detract from it.
√ crave balance between the Art, Business, and Personal components of a music career.
√ understand that starting independently (as an "indie") is the way that the vast majority of music careers begin nowadays.
√ wish they could zoom out to see the big picture of how the puzzle pieces of a music career fit together.
√ don’t have the luxury of a big budget or connections on the inside of the entertainment industry.
√ are willing to work hard, or are already working hard, and want to learn how to work more efficiently and effectively instead of throwing shots in the dark.
√ value freedom in running their careers: creating music, playing shows, living an artist’s lifestyle, owning their product, setting their timelines, and enjoying (or at least not minding) the upkeep of the business side.
√ do their music for themselves, and no one else - but they still want to share it with the world.
√ define their own success, and don't need external permission to do what they want to do with their lives.
√ can change the game because they're eager to re-see what a "music career" really means.
√ want to prove to themselves that they can create a music career, no matter the circumstances out of their control.
√ are ready to lean into the greatest era of music history — a world where anyone who wants to be a musician can "do the thing" and actually be one — without sacrificing their quality of life.
Welcome to MIC.
It’s you that we relate to, so we created The Mountain to support and train us all to become experts at running music careers - just like we’re experts at our musical crafts. Basically, we optimized all the setup and upkeep of an independent music career into a checklist so you don't have to scramble around or risk missing something important. We're called MIC: Music Industry Connected because we connect the puzzle pieces of what a music career actually looks like, revealing the industry & human secrets you didn’t know that you didn’t know.
We started creating The Mountain in 2013: our work as indie (independent) front-line (artists/bands) musicians working with other indie musicians gives us real-time experience in what it’s like to create and share Art in the music industry, right now in history. Then we combine this insight with our expert Business research through case studies and experiments. Finally and most uniquely, we use our psychological, philosophical, neuroscience, and fitness research to incorporate the Personal: how to work with the human vehicle of body and brain.
Balancing the Art, the Business, and the Personal is what makes The Mountain actually realistic - creating music careers that achieve both quantitative and qualitative measures of success, especially emphasizing improving quality of life instead of the unfortunate norm of detracting from it.
We get a lot of questions because what we do is rather unheard of, so now we're going to use our website homepage to cut right to the FAQ we're used to getting - this will give you the gist of why you're here! Click on the following questions to open/close the answers:
MIC: Music Industry Connected is a music career research and consulting company that helps the most musicians possible across the globe by sharing a music career perspective called “The Mountain” for no charge, here on our website. MIC also offers Other Services for purchase, like consulting and more.
MIC was founded as "MIC PGH" in 2013 in Pittsburgh by market research expert and indie musician Emily Plazek and the internship classes she hosts to sift through experiments and case studies. In 2017, MIC went national with a move to Bloomington, IN. In 2021, MIC went international through the first intern classes via zoom, with worldwide talent ranging from Seattle to the Philippines.
The Mountain is a music career perspective for musicians and managers who want to create a successful “front line” (artist/band) music career very seriously and long term, towards a unique Definition of Success, without sacrificing quality of life. Let us emphasize this last point because it’s our true passion here at MIC; A music career can and should be a tool to improve quality of life, not detract from it. Unfortunately, that’s not the norm. It doesn’t have to be this way. The Mountain will convince you of this, as it did for us.
The Mountain is offered for free here on our website. It's a 6-page outlined checklist of The Mountain's 6 Steps (The Preparation Steps [1-3], and The Climb Steps [4-6]) that simplify, in an optimized order, all of the steps you have to take to pursue a music career efficiently and achieve your personal “Definition of Success”. We give it to you in this written way first, because we found, through our research and experimenting, that this was the only means of sharing it that worked to cover such a sheerly massive amount of material. There’s a lot to go through. It’s a whole industry and career integrated into your lifestyle, so of course it’s a lot.
The Mountain zooms out to give musicians an eagle’s eye view on how to set up music careers, so they can either pitch themselves to sign to labels one day, or remain independent - all while seamlessly integrating Art, Business, and Personal to create a satisfying lifestyle. A perspective like this does not exist anywhere else in our industry, and it never has - it’s why we’ve been working to make it since 2013.
Here's what we mean by that: there are tons of helpful educational materials in our industry, but we've found they usually zero in on one expert topic - understandably so! Yet while trying to find other materials that cover "the entire music career", we've been disappointed at how they end up being rather overwhelming and impossible to act upon, due to their encyclopedic styles, because they fail to address sequence, prioritization, every sector of the industry, and what to exclude. So, while those resources are still truly helpful for the nuggets of golden information they provide, it was that feeling of overwhelm and disappointment that drove us to create The Mountain.
Lead by our founder, fellow indie musician Emily Plazek, we’re musicians, students, and professionals who've spent many years testing these methods through our experiments and clients’ experiences. We aim to build a method that creates long-term, sustainable music careers. Together we're able to cut out a ton of fluff and bias, instead of regurgitating one person’s opinion. We try to be scientists in this way by using the scientific method to test out hypotheses and gather quantitative and qualitative data to inform our conclusions.
See, the thing is, you’re about to set up a business. That's what a music career is. It takes time and learning to build any business infrastructure - if you want it to be sturdy at all. No one emerges from the womb knowing how to do this, and even years of experience in the industry usually misses the integration of some pieces of the puzzle. Of course everyone has to learn. So we’re thrilled and proud to share our unique perspective and efficient method of doing so with you.
However, we do feel obligated to tell you right now that it is not easy. It’s simple, but not easy. Anyone can do this, but not everyone will. If you matched the description of our introduction poem "To Those Musicians Who..." on this page above, there's a chance you're one of the elite in this world that The Mountain was made for - and we look forward to being your music fans.
Also, The Mountain is updated quickly as the industry landscape changes; this is another strong reason for why we publish it on our website here.
You’re about to read The Mountain for free here on our website, on 6 separative & consecutive pages, one per each of the 6 steps.
You'll see we talk about this a lot. The entire Mountain begins with this in Step 1, because most people don’t even think of pausing to ask what success means to them. Instead, they follow an undefined goal of “making it” which is too vague to ever satisfy. Hence, endless dissatisfaction and unnecessarily decreased quality of life follow their efforts, no matter what they do.
Success is different for everyone in general, but if you're pursuing a music career because you truly love the Art of music, that means one part of your personal Definition of Success will include what we refer to as "the doing of the thing" (see Step 4: Climb). That is, the functions of a music career: playing music, writing music, recording music, sharing music, performing music, etc. This is the common thread between us all. This is what people dream of when they dream of a music career, right?
And here's the lucky part: at this point in history, "the doing of the thing" in a music career is possible for pretty much everybody thanks to technology, and anyone who pursues this is incredibly successful in our books - because most people don't go after their dreams at all. The gatekeepers that used to rule the land are still out there - but they don't rule the entire kingdom anymore. Thanks for beginning to carve that path, indie musical predecessors across history (we salute you, punk rock!). Now, anyone who dreams of playing, writing, recording, sharing, performing music, etc, can do it, with a worldwide reach, without a label or anyone else.
This is big. Big time stuff.
Yet, a lot of musicians haven't grasped this profound truth because they're distracted by the illusions and tricks rampant in our industry due to low levels of self-awareness, abused mental health, and the general drug of ego that all humans suffer to some extent, which the entertainment industry exacerbates extremely through outdated belief cultures. We at MIC are human too, so we relate to this struggle - but we work together to live in this world, but not of it. And we offer The Mountain to bring others with us together into this cool, bright, transformed future.
On another urgent note, concerning why perspective is what will make or break your music career: We urge you to remember that every disadvantage has its advantage, so there are pros and cons to every place on the music career timeline. Wherever you are right now in your career has strengths, no exceptions. Once you understand this reality, you should feel an excitement that can consistently and endlessly fuel you with energy, which is important because a climb needs such fuel. It's pretty impossible to pursue a truly great dream if your mental and emotional tanks are emptied out, right? But by accepting and then working with the truth of reality, you'll uncover something most people don't ever find out: satisfaction every step of the way fuels the next step. Get us off our lovely soap box now or this homepage will be novel-length (but for real, please invite us to chat with you about this anytime, it's like magic on earth.)
If you want more than the written Mountain, here are some of The Other Services we offer. All services are available to anyone around the world, after meeting the minimum requirement of reading The Mountain. Reach out if you're interested in any of these:
√ MIC Consulting Sessions are available for either musicians or managers who request some personal attention. Our MIC Strategy Experts will meet with you on a one-off or regularly-scheduled "coaching" virtual call (Zoom, FaceTime, or Phone call) to create Strategy Masterplans for your unique Mountain scenario and coach you through roadblocks. This is especially helpful for Step 2: The Backpack, Step 3: The Map and Step 5: Data Climb, where a good deal of research and expert insight are needed.
√ MIC Consulting Workshops are similar to the Sessions, but for a larger group of people. This is especially helpful for independent labels, collectives, and general groups of musician or manager friends who want to split the cost. Our Experts are also available for hire after Workshops to create more in-depth analyses per individual musician in the group.
√ MIC Network Hookups set up by our Experts help connect you with experts and creatives within or outside MIC that we’ve vetted for collaborations on whatever you need during your Mountain climb: websites, logos, cover arts, biographies, contracts, accounting systems, brand analyses, and more. This is especially helpful for setting up the Business Plan and Brand Plan in Step 2: The Backpack.
√ In the future, depending on demand, we may offer our personal Process Manuals for the 5 Pockets of the music industry that we build our projects around: Publishing, Touring, Sync, PR, and Playlisting. Check back for more on this later.
It’s arguably weird that we’re sharing The Mountain for free, we get it, but we’re a double bottom-line company: we’re concerned with not only normal company profit/loss but, also and equally, our level of positive social impact.
We’ve spent many years thinking about our own Definition of Success, especially this part: help as many musicians as possible. By taking away a price tag for simply reading The Mountain (which very often is all that musicians need), we know we’re helping many, many musicians around the world that could never afford professional consulting -- yet, at the same time, if anyone wants these services, we have them ready to offer, too. Therefore, we hit our Definition of Success, just as we suggest musicians do in their careers. We care about putting our money where our mouth is in this way.
In return for getting it for free, what we ask of you is to share The Mountain with your musician friends, and share your stories with us so we can add it to our observational research. Head over to our Contact page and update us on you! (Also, we want to be your music fans, too - this is all a selfish ploy for us to get more truly great music to listen to.)
By sharing this extensive, efficient, effective music career knowledge together, we’re infiltrating an industry that needs a lot more good energy. The more people that start approaching the music industry in such a holistic way, the healthier the landscape becomes for all of us. Many others out there have pushed and are currently pushing for this transformation, too, so The Mountain is our contribution to music industry history. We're right here with you.
We understand how important this question is. Nowhere in The Mountain will you find advice on how to create Art, or what Art "is". We assume that you had a firm and evolving grip on your music before you even arrived here; it’s not our place. Instead, The Mountain is for you to create the career and lifestyle you crave to support that Art.
Striking a balance between the Art, the Business, and the Personal is vital for creating a successful music career, and our many years of work resulted in a method we truly believe in to help musicians simplify and optimize the Business and Personal components. We hope your Art flourishes as a result of using The Mountain like we do, too: Steps 1-3 are The Preparation Steps that set up the foundational base of your career that ensure you won’t fall into failure traps like scrambling or distractions, and then Steps 4-6 are The Climbing Steps up The Mountain when you “do the thing” of a music career, where your Art truly thrives.
If you do want help creating the Art, whether it's writing songs or creating visuals or anything in between, we suggest other information sources for learning, or some of our MIC Network Hookups for hiring.
Yes: what about the musicians who do appreciate "the doing of the thing", but they also want to "compete" and get more listeners, book the big shows, etc? Well done, you're interested in Step 5: Data Climb, which is The Mountain's answer to an issue you may not have learned yet: at this point in history, labels only sign acts that have already done all the business setup and pursued marketing strategies to claim a fanbase. (Sure there’s a rare exception here and there for some indie labels, but there’s a chance those indie labels don’t know how to do this business setup or marketing strategy pursuit either.)
The music industry isn't all that old in the first place, and this current era completely transformed the record-label-talent-hunt that used to be the norm: now virtually every musician starts indie (remember: meaning independent, not the genre), whether they sign to a label later or not. Yes, even if you want to sign with a label, you have to start indie first, then pitch your product to them, much like an entrepreneur pitching their business plan to investors (record labels are truly financial institutions).
Although there are some examples out there of nepotism and big money creating music careers, they're incredibly rare outliers and/or unsustainable & tend to die out quickly, flash in the pan. The high majority of the hundreds of thousands of musicians in the world start on their own, with realistic average-person budgets of time & money to spend creating their dream. All of this means that those who get a firm grip on “how” to run a music career, win.
This will be one part of your Definition of Success, because all human beings need money to live, and it's what distinguishes a music career versus a hobby. It makes sense you want to understand this early on. Your answer lies in understanding the difference between Passive & Active Income, and remembering that money spent is a massive part of the equation (so keeping costs low is important). Passive Income (money that comes flowing in consistently without extra effort) is different from Active Income (money you earn from a specific activity you had to work towards).
First, Passive Income: Once you release and fully publish your music, royalties will be generated that you'll collect in a Passive Income manner; however, you must fully publish your music, as you’ll see in Step 4. Then, the more marketing you pursue (social media, PR, playlisting, lifestyle branding, etc) to get your music listened to more, the more royalties that will be generated. Furthermore, the more strategic your marketing, the more efficiently this can all ramp up, as you’ll see in Step 5.
Then, Active Income: You’ll also pursue Active Income streams from shows, merch sales, sync licensing, and some other forms of lifestyle branding like licensing. The word "active" in Active Income streams implies you’ll need to invest time and energy into each of these income streams, so a lot of The Mountain is created to free up time and energy for you to be able to do so. Life is an either/or, and time/energy can only be spent on one thing or another.
But, most importantly, money coming in the door doesn’t mean you get to keep money in your pocket if you let costs get out of control. In case you didn’t know: revenue (money generated) becomes profit (money you get to keep) only after costs (anything you spend money on). Therefore The Mountain’s goal is to keep your costs low; we understand that musicians starting out usually have realistically low budgets (unless you’re super lucky, cheers to you if you are). Anything The Mountain insists you spend money on is actually definitely what we determine to be a true need, not optional like a lot of other decisions you’ll get to make for yourself. Skip these items at your own future risk of not being able to collect the most possible money, or nail a rare opportunity.
Hard to say because everyone and every location is different, but here’s a good gist:
We recommend that you read The Mountain the entire way through one time to get a gist for the overall picture, then go back and take each of the 6 Steps one at a time. Give yourself at least 1 week to gnaw on and complete each of The Preparation Steps (1-3). Then, The Climb Steps (4-6) will begin chapters of your career that will last months or years - it’ll be up to you how long you want to lead your career. (Our Consulting Sessions are available to lead your through the process with this type of timeline, should you read The Mountain then decide you'd like extra service from us.)
If you want to have a sustainable, long-term music career, this amount of time should totally make sense to you - you’re about to build a business, of course it will take a little while. Government agencies, banks, royalty collection agencies and other businesses you’ll need for some services are often the reasons this timeline takes months, because you have to wait on them to process applications and registrations. All of those parties aside though, we highly recommend you don’t rush your process anyway, because greatness is built, not binged. (We coined that phrase and we like it.)
If you mean setting up a music career, this also is different for everyone and every location, but it costs around $200-500 depending on your international location to set up your infrastructure properly through The Mountain's process (The Preparation Steps [1-3]). Then, you'll need to pay any monthly/yearly subscription costs for your music career related services (like cloud storage, distributor services, etc.) and you may need some extra liquid cash in your business bank account to avoid fees (unlike personal bank accounts). The Mountain's method creates long-term, sustainable music careers instead of hobbies, while balancing the realism of reasonably lower indie budgets, so our suggestions are the bare minimum for what you need to start this business - with no fluff.
If you mean The Mountain, it's $0. We don’t charge for you to read this, because we know something others don’t: the only way we can hit our own Definition of Success is to support other musicians in this way, not charging to read The Mountain. If that seems too good to be true, remember that we're a double bottom-line company: we’re concerned with not only normal company profit/loss but, also and equally, our level of positive social impact. We’ve done too much work, care too much about our less-advantaged musicians, and understand the uncanny, fun superpowers of generosity and kindness too much to hoard The Mountain to ourselves.
If you mean Other Services here at MIC, we offer Consulting Sessions, Workshops, Network Hookups, and more.
How do I begin?
Go on and read Step 1 now to begin your Mountain climb. We’re glad you’re here.
Enjoy your Climb.
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