By Alan Currens – Part 2 of the “Musician’s Hierarchy of Needs” article from then soon to be launched website for The Bones Of Giants (TBOG). An all new podcast and blog! TBOG is a field guide for the entrepreneurial musician and will be launched in fall of 2020.
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Alan is an owner of DMI & Mannequin Productions, LLC, a live entertainment company based in Denver Colorado that produces some of the state’s most sought after and well produced bands: Mannequin the Band, Colorado’s flagship wedding band and private event band. Rockslide, one of Mannequin’s sister bands, also a top-tier Colorado wedding band and Midnight Social, the wedding and event band with the most bang for their 7 piece size!!
MASLOW’S HIERARCHY OF NEEDS
I like visual aids because I tend to think in images. So I’m going to pop in a graphic right now to illustrate how parallel a music career can be to your regular life.
The chart below illustrates Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, a theory developed by Abraham Maslow. This theory proposes that we are motivated by 5 main categories of needs, in this order.
- Physiological
- Safety
- Love
- Esteem
- Self-actualization
The needs are inverted when shown as a pyramid. The base of the chart consists of physiological needs like food, clothing, shelter, etc. Then the other needs are built in a way that they support (or sustain) each other as they become more rare and valuable to us.
If you own an instrument and are reading this book, you probably have those things in the physiological layer. Let’s assume you do and start on the next level, “Safety Needs”.
SAFETY NEEDS: In this chart, the higher needs make themselves known to us only after the previous needs have been met. That’s not to say you can’t find love while you are still establishing your physiological needs, but you wouldn’t understand or appreciate it the same as you would later in the process.
Since Maslow created his theory there has been other research which does not fully support it, but it has held its own and impacted the research of other psychologists and impacted the field of positive psychology. It is a strong basis for the musician’s hierarchy of needs when building a music career.
When Self-Actualization is achieved in our hero’s journey, that’s where we, the musician, discovers our purpose as an artist. Thus ending our regular person’s hero’s journey and beginning our artist’s journey.(There may be other hero’s journey’s in your life. We have many. I call them micro journeys and they can be as epic as discovering the artist within you or as small as making it to work with donuts).
In the artist’s journey, we face the same stages of the hero’s journey all over again but with different challenges and a different kind of self-actualization at the end. Now we are seeking self-actualization as an artist.
Here’s my idea of what this might look like if we were to consider it the Hierarchy of Needs specifically for a Music Career. Or, if you prefer a more simple title, the Musician’s Hierarchy of Needs.
Want to read the Musicians Hierarchy of Needs now?!
Article By – Alan Currens
An exerpt from The Bones Of Giants
Alan is the founder and co-owner of Mannequin Productions, LLC. A live entertainment company based in Colorado. The company produces, promotes and books some of the best Colorado wedding bands available.
Mannequin the Band, the companies flagship band, was founded in 2014 and has since skyrocketed to the top of the wedding and event entertainment field in the state. Other bands produced and promoted by Mannequin Productions are:
Rockslide, a 10-piece powerhouse group with 3 singers and a 3 piece horn line
Midnight Social, a 7-piece explosion of fun with 2 singers and a sax player
Neon Nites, a 5 piece mountain of talent
Also owned and operated by Mannequin Productions, LLC. is Denver Music Institute. One of Denver’s longest standing music schools specializing in online or in person: voice lessons, guitar lessons, drum lessons and bass lesson.
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