by Vernon Neilly

Each month Vernon will pick a question that is submitted to him to answer, and the person who's question gets selected will win a pack of strings, and a signature pick from Vernon.

For this month Guitar Clinic's team asked:

"Nowadays what does a musician need to do? what tools does this musician have to explore?"

There are many ways to answer this question because the music business has changed for and will never return to the way it was before, so there are many things for musicians to know these days, so I will focus on some basic things. Of course if a musicians wants to succeed in today's music world they must spend time doing the obvious which is study their instrument and practice many hours to become proficient, but let us look at an equally important part and that is the business side of things. This where most musicians even today with so many reference resources fail miserably, and then because of their lack of education about the business side of music they get taken advantage of. You want to learn as much about the business side of music as you possibly can because if you are fortunate to sign any kind of recording deal, you will have to know how to protect yourself. Many of you reading this will say well I will just hire a manager or attorney to handle my business affairs, well I cannot tell you how many artists in the history of music have been ripped off by their managers and attorneys. Even if you have these kind of people to represent you, know enough about the business that you can tell if something does not seem right to you so that you can challenge even your attorney or manager. You should know basic things concerning how to protect your name as an artist, how to protect your songs as an artist, what are writer shares of songs, what are publisher shares off songs, what are performance rights royalties, what are mechanical rights royalties. All of this information now is easily available for you today on the internet, so take the time to educate yourself about the music business so that you know your rights as a musician! Remember the music that you create is your music, so why should someone else get paid for your work!?

To send your question to Vernon go to www.myspace.com/vernoneillyband and send him a message about his column's subject!

Good Luck!!!