Tag - business

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Tax Time–Musical Instruments and Depreciation
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Tax Time – Musician's Office in Home
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Make Friends – Your Peers Are Your Best Resource
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Let The Other Guy Talk First
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Make the Client Feel Good
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Act Like a Business
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Lead Like the Great Conductors

Tax Time–Musical Instruments and Depreciation

Musical Instruments When a musician buys an instrument or equipment that has a useful life of longer than one year, he or she can depreciate it over the tax life of the item—usually seven years. This has the effect of spreading out the deduction over time. An alternate course would be to expense the purchase […]

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Tax Time – Musician's Office in Home

Office in Home In our homes or apartments, musicians all have a room in which they practice or teach, but for that room to be considered a home office and deducted on our taxes, it must meet certain requirements established by the IRS. For example, that part of your home must be used regularly and […]

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Make Friends – Your Peers Are Your Best Resource

Think about it. It’s only human nature to recommend a friend for a job. Putting aside the fact that if you recommend him or her, he or she may reciprocate one day, it just feels good to help out a friend, provided they are a good fit for the job. Even though music is a […]

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Let The Other Guy Talk First

Writing projects (read: compositions and arrangements) are always up for negotiation. What I always try to do is let the person hiring me talk first. After we have discussed what is involved, I quickly calculate how much time it will take to complete it. I get a price in my head that I think is […]

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Make the Client Feel Good

This short phrase, “Make the client feel good,” is one of the most important things to remember in business. Often when doing recording sessions for television and radio commercials (read: jingles) the “com- poser” may be a person of little of no musical knowledge. He may not even read music or be able to put […]

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Act Like a Business

You, Inc. is a business, so you need to act like one. You should look as professional as possible. This includes everything from business cards to websites. I was just out of college and someone recommended me to do a little arrangement of a pop song. Not only did I have to arrange it for […]

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