We were lucky to catch up with Eric Stangeland recently and have shared our conversation below.
Eric , thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Parents play a huge role in our development as youngsters and sometimes that impact follows us into adulthood and into our lives and careers. Looking back, what’s something you think you parents did right?
My parents were instrumental in establishing a work ethic, especially when it came to following through on things.Your word, your commitment and going the extra mile are all things that I try to stay focused on, no matter the task at hand. This was very important when it came to teaching music, playing gigs, getting parts right in the studio no matter how hard the part was to nail. These are things that i try to pass on to my kids and its a way of also understanding how those lessons are going to make a difference in their lives. I also try to instill those ideas with my students if they are open to those suggestions. I explain the difference that it’s made in my music career as well as my life in general.
Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.
Sure, no problem. I am a musician who has been lucky enough to find ways to do it as a profession. I started playing gigs and that led to teaching guitar privately, which lead to teaching group lessons. The whole time I was teaching, I was gigging and recording albums and that led to playing on other peoples albums. I also host a music based podcast as well as co host a basketball podcast. I also dabble in some production and I’ve released some solo instrumental albums.
Have you ever had to pivot?
I’ve had to pivot quite a bit in my years as a musician. I think as a musician, you have to learn how to pivot to continue to have a career. I’ve been in all sorts of positions that took me out of my comfort zone and made me change stuff to survive. I’ve taken gigs that I might have been qualified for or gigs where I had to learn 200 songs in a matter of weeks. The biggest pivot I had to make was during the pandemic. Musicians were hit very hard in the pandemic and most of our income was lost because we couldn’t perform. A lot of us had to get creative and do it basically on the fly because it was uncharted territory. I ended up having to move my teaching business completely online. I had to basically learn how to teach over zoom. I dealt with bad internet connections, trying to work webcams so the students and I could see each other’s guitars. I had to make it work because I had no other choice. Those were scary times but I made it work and I started to get used to teaching online.
Alright – let’s talk about marketing or sales – do you have any fun stories about a risk you’ve taken or something else exciting on the sales and marketing side?
Try to basically grow my business as the trends kept changing. As a musician, our field has been altered many times over the last twenty years. You used to be able to sell your music but Napster changed that a lot. Then Itunes came along and that helped but the CD started disappearing so that was a revenue stream that went bye bye. Itunes went streaming because of companies like Spotify, so another revenue stream went by the wayside. So you keep pushing and find other ways to survive. Starting a music podcast and playing and teaching online were two risks that have started paying off and have been fun at the same time, especially the podcasting. I can’t believe the people I’ve been able to interview because of my podcast and I get to ask them questions I’ve always been curious about. Taking those risks of putting yourself out there for the world to see can be frightening but at the same time, can be very rewarding. You also might make a positive difference in someone else’s life and that’s the added bonus.
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Pete Rezac