Today we’d like to introduce you to Jack Schabert.
Hi Jack, we’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
I’ve always enjoyed making music, but it wasn’t until after my junior year of high school that I began to work on performing for payment. I remember I made a list of about a hundred restaurants in the area, and emailed every single one of them offering to perform background music on their patio or in their dining areas. I only heard back from about 5 of them, and four of them said no. The one location that said yes invited us back to play after the first gig, and we’re still playing there to this day. Once I had figured out the amount of reaching out that it took to nail a gig, I figured I’d keep doing it on a larger scale. As we reached out to more businesses, we played more gigs, and became better musicians. Business owners talked about us with other business owners. At this point, when I do email pushes to offer performances, chances are that in the circles we perform a lot in, they have already heard of us and are far more likely to ask for a performance.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
Right as we were ramping performances up finally, the pandemic hit and we were out of the game for several months. We decided we should do a front lawn tour of sorts, and we did a bunch of concerts outdoors in neighborhoods all around the twin cities. We flyered the neighborhoods a week ahead of time, and then performed every night for eight days, hitting a new neighborhood every night. There was no up front rate, but we had advertised enough that we were able to pull in a few hundred bucks in tips each evening.
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
I see my job as having a few different facets to it. The big ones right now are performing, and teaching. I teach private music lessons, and I play gigs all over the twin cities, most of them jazz. Composing has also pulled in a bit of money, and I’m hoping to keep developing in that area so eventually that is a much larger facet of my income.
Can you talk to us a bit about the role of luck?
I think the best opportunities I’ve had in my career have come from being the right person in the right place at the right time. I’m not sure how much of that is luck, but I do know that you can’t be the right person unless you’re putting in the work to develop your skills. And you can’t be in the right place at the right time, if you’re not in any place at any time. You’re not going to get anywhere practicing by yourself in your basement (however important that still is). You’ve got to be out and about, meeting people who are where you want to be. If you have the skills required to look good in your business, people will want to work with you.
Contact Info:
- Website: jackschabertmusic.com
- Instagram: @jackschabert
