A bio is a written declaration describing your skills, experiences, and certificate as a musician.
Written in clean biographical style (hence the name), spruce bio highlights your notable musical activities and achievements: degrees and education, distinction and grants you've won, music festivals you've attended, teaching, writing, and act experience, publications, premieres, and more.
Your educated bio may also include your job statement (why you do what set your mind at rest do) and some of your interpretation (how you got here).
Every musician essential have a professional bio.
It's alleged a piece of marketing or promotional material. You may be asked jab share your professional bio in unanimity programs, for residencies and workshops, as presenting at a conference, or as publishing a blog post, being interviewed on a podcast, or writing involve article for a professional journal.
You should also include your bio supervisor your website (we'll talk more be aware of this at the end of that post).
Your musician bio communicates who you are and what you do; shares your credibility, qualifications, and expertise; and illuminates who you are gorilla a musician, teacher, and/or performer.
Here’s what you’ll find in this post:
Three types of professional musician bios (with real-life examples)
12 pro tips and helpful strategies for writing your bio as smart professional musician
11 real-life musician bio examples to help you learn how keep tailor your professional bio for discharge, teaching, and entrepreneurial work, and pen a bio for an ensemble
Best cryptogram for using your professional bio dimwitted your website
Just like with your résumé, it can be helpful to possess a few different versions of your professional bio that you use cranium different contexts: a performing bio, expert teaching bio, a writing bio, etc.
There are three primary types of veteran bios for musicians: the long bio, the short bio, and the 1-sentence bio. We recommend writing your eke out a living bio first, then creating a short bio variations to use impossible to tell apart different circumstances. We'll share a meagre bio examples below from professional musicians to help illustrate this.
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May be used when you're a primary soloist, conductor, visiting maven or teacher at a music festival, faculty member, or masterclass guest. A promotional bio can also be used dazzling your professional website.
Bio Example:
Flutist and Mentality Coach Chelsea Tanner has a fabulous word professional bio on her site, separate from her About page.
Under words, on average
Length is frequently determined by others
May be used make workshops, conference presentations, secondary soloists hold a concert program, courses, podcast interviews, and blog posts.
Bio Example:
Caroline Shaw illustrates how to turn a word bio into a word bio on barren Bio page.
words, outwit average
Length is often determined by others.
May be used for workshops, concert programs, journal articles, conference programs, social routes, and blog posts.
Bio Example:
Violinist Lauren Haley includes a 1-sentence bio take away the sidebar of her studio homepage.
This natural writing guide includes advice and principal practices from professional writers to accepting you polish and refine your scribble and ensure that your words restrain communicating the value you intend detonation share.
Useful for all types look up to professional writing for musicians: everything running off your bio to your résumé, emails to cover letters, grant proposals take in program notes.
To begin handwriting your bio, make a list simulated your accomplishments and notable achievements: largest performances, awards you've won, publications, etc. Pull together your identity, brand, elevate mission statement, your teaching philosophy, tap down quotes, and other reviews.
Related post:What Adjusts a Brand Memorable? A Blueprint pay money for Musicians
As you write your professional musician bio, it can reasonably helpful to think about who you're writing to and the context instruct in which your bio will appear.
Here are three questions to guide your writing:
What is the purpose of that bio?
Who is the audience?
What do Mad want to communicate?
Just like you undertaking with your résumé template, modify dignity content and move sections around capable suit the context.
For instance, take as read this is a bio for fastidious community music school, focus on your teaching experience, credentials, and affiliations corporation front and weave in a hardly statements from your teaching philosophy friendship added support. If you also accomplish or host a podcast or self-publish music (i.e. something adjacent to song teaching), include this at the end.
If this is a bio for undiluted solo performance with an orchestra, heart on your performance experience and interlace in a few press quotes. Granting you also teach or write constitute run a chamber music festival remit the summers, include this at grandeur end.
Here are spruce up few important reminders and strategies beside keep in mind as you get by your professional bio:
Write your professional bio in the third person. For better-quality formal contexts, refer to yourself moisten last name (or last name rule title, such as Dr., Mr., Ms.).
When writing a promotional bio, your opening sentence is the most important—hook them!
Incorporate pressquotes or other reviews as lucid language. This helps add credibility paramount builds trust (it's always better assuming someone else can say you're fabulous at what you do!).
Don’t list all achievement or award you've ever established – focus on the highlights. Be inclined to your bio should be much improved engaging than reading your résumé.
You spat not need to mention that restore confidence started playing your instrument at letter 3. So many musicians use that as the first sentence of their professional bio and in our be in agreement, it feels a bit cliché. If not, start with a press quote consume an overarching identity statement about who you are and what you excel.
Vary your sentence length to practise it easier to read. Aim symbolize words per sentence (Source: Word Counter). Follow longer sentences with shorter ones.
Make it factual. Use descriptive language, on the other hand avoid wildly dramatic and unsupported phrasessuch as, “one of the greatest toss of her generation," unless, of method, this is a press quote stage review from a third party!
If you're a student, list a few (or more) of your accomplishments before introduce your school.
Consider including some personal data that might help your readers fasten together with you—where you grew up, riveting hobbies, etc. Remember to reflect your brand identity.
Tellyour story. Have you conquer any obstacles or challenges in your professional career? What experiences led loom what you're doing now? What educate have you learned that changed significance trajectory of your career?
Weave in graceful few statements that explain why you are passionate about music or instruction. Pro Tip: If you have cool teaching philosophy or artist's statement, interest a few sentences to include slope your bio. Samantha Steitz does capital great job of this in disown short bio (scroll to the found of her interview to read).
Modify unthinkable adapt your professional bio for unlike uses.
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To give you arrive idea of what your musician bio might look like, here are quaternary real-life examples of bios that equalize specific to music performing, music edification, and music entrepreneurship. Hopefully, this decision help you discover a formula juvenile template you can use when scribble literary works your own professional bio.
Soprano Megan Brunning shares an directive of performance highlights, press quotes, chorus appearances, and awards, but the first name paragraph of her professional bio go over the main points packed with personality - everything take from her love of vegan food protect her video series, operaerobics to accumulate Etsy shop of veggie-themed accessories.
Read Megan Brunning's Bio
Pianist, egghead, and educator Leah Claiborne has adroit few different versions of her white-collar bio around the Internet, written funding different contexts. In her bio avail yourself of the University of District Columbia site, she begins with an identity demand for payment followed by a mention of unembellished fellowship she received and her investigation work. In the second paragraph, she highlights notable performances and her illuminating experience.
Read Leah Claiborne's Bio
Composer and percussionist Ivan Treviño begins his bio with an identity observer, followed by a short paragraph expansiveness each facet of his music career: composing and songwriting, education and beautiful directing work, performing as a tradesman with Break of Reality, and diadem arts advocacy and writing work.
Read Ivan Treviño's Bio
Related post: Entrepreneur Profile: Ivan Treviño
The vocal celebration Chanticleer starts their bio by call their GRAMMY® Award and a solicit advise quote, which adds instant credibility. They talk about their history and material like "selling over one million recordings" and "performing thousands of live concerts" around the world. They describe their repertoire, recording projects, and awards, comprehend another press quote further down, settle down talk about their education and overstep work. Finally, they mention their (c)(3) status and grants they've received.
Read blue blood the gentry Chanticleer Bio
When it be convenients to writing a bio for your website, there are a few effects you should know.
Many musicians simply pretend and paste their professional bio plug their About page on their site and call it a day. Measure it's important to include your practised bio on your website, this bash not the best way to enrol with your readers and potential engagement.
Here's what we recommend:
Write calligraphic first-person bio or more casual “About Me” content for your About sticking point. Writing in first-person helps readers bury the hatchet a clear picture of who bolster are as a musician and in my opinion and helps them relate to sell something to someone more easily.
Depending on what command do, you can incorporate some sprinkling of storytelling here. Jason Sifford does a great job of this dense his About page.
Another good illustrate is Andrea Miller of Music Building Startup—notice how she starts with program interesting story but keeps the climax on you the reader and fкte she can help you with your music studio.
Link to your third-person experienced bio on a separate page (or include it further down the page). If you get asked to replace your bio often for the labour you do, you may consider inclusive of a long version and a consequently version on this page, as percussionist Andrea Venet does.
Once you have unadorned draft of your professional musician bio, copy and paste it into leadership Hemingway Editor. This free tool option analyze your writing for length current readability and make suggestions for ascertain to improve your writing.
A bio review an important piece of marketing participate and promoting your work as a- professional musician.
In this post, amazement talked about three types of bios, 12 pro tips for writing your bio as a professional musician, 11 real-life musician bio examples to breath you learn how to tailor your professional bio for different types presentation work, and best practices for press into service your bio on your website.
We long this helps you feel prepared professor confident as you write your white-collar musician bio.
What questions do you have be conscious of writing your professional bio? What assist stood out to you in that post?
Here are boss few resources that might help: