Career coaching for musicians
Create your own path.
You trained for years to play at the highest level. Nobody trained you to build the career.
The 5 Pillars Career Check is a free, 10-minute assessment for freelance musicians. Find out exactly where your career is strong, where it's stuck, and what to do next.
Take the free quiz
The problem
Talent gets you in the room.
It doesn't keep the phone ringing.
Most freelance musicians aren't short on talent or work ethic. They're short on a clear picture of their own career. Without one, it's easy to:
Practice harder at the wrong thing.
You polish excerpts for months while the real gap is that the people who hire don't know your name.
Say yes to everything and still feel behind.
A full calendar doesn't mean a sustainable career, especially when one canceled season could empty it.
Wait to be discovered.
You assume good playing will speak for itself, and watch less-prepared players get the call.
Lose touch with the people who matter.
You move, graduate, or get busy, and relationships that could have carried your career quietly fade.
Measure yourself against someone else's scoreboard.
Their titles, their big-name gigs, their income, until you're convinced you're failing even when you're not.
None of this is a talent problem.
It's a blind spot. And you can't fix what you can't see.
The 5 Pillars Career Check
See your whole career
in 10 minutes.
The quiz looks at the five areas that, in my experience, decide whether a freelance career grows or stalls.
Making the first move
Outreach
Getting your name in front of the people who hire.
The work behind the work
Reputation
Being the player people want to spend eight hours with in the pit.
Relationships that compound
Network
Relationships that keep paying off for years.
Designing the portfolio
Income Architecture
Income that holds up when one stream slows down.
The inner game
Mindset
Defining success on your own terms and moving through rejection.
Answer 50 honest yes/no questions. Right away, you get:
- A visual map of your career across all five pillars
- Your strongest pillar and your focus pillar
- Three concrete next steps chosen from your own answers
- A one-page PDF to keep and come back to
It's free, and it always will be.
Take the free quizGo deeper together
Clarity is the start.
A plan is what changes things.
Your results show where to focus. Map Your Path is where we work out how.
In this live workshop on Zoom, I'll walk through what the 5 Pillars mean, what your pentagon shape is telling you, and the next steps for each pillar. You'll choose your focus for the next 30 days and bring your questions for live Q&A. Can't make it live? You'll get the recording.
Map Your Path: A Live 5 Pillars Workshop
Regularly $50 · 90 minutes · Date and time TBA
- What the 5 Pillars mean and what your pentagon shape is telling you
- Next steps for each pillar
- Your one focus for the next 30 days
- Live Q&A and ideas from other musicians
To join the waitlist, take the quiz and tap “Notify me” on your results page.
Take the quiz to joinPrefer one-on-one? Get in touch about a private session to go through your results together.
What clarity makes possible
What changes when
you can see clearly.
You stop guessing.
You know which one or two things will move your career this season, and you can let the rest wait.
You become the musician contractors want to hire again and again.
You show up prepared, you're easy to work with, and you stay on their radar between gigs.
Your relationships work for you.
You stay connected through moves, career changes, and busy seasons.
Your income stops feeling fragile.
You know your numbers and have more than one way to earn.
You measure success by your own definition.
You can celebrate a colleague's win without doubting your own path.
The goal isn't to become someone else's version of successful. It's a career you designed on purpose, and one you can sustain.
Why learn this from me
Lessons learned
the hard way.
I'm a Juilliard-trained percussionist with more than 25 years of performing, including Broadway, the Metropolitan Opera, and the Colorado Symphony. None of that came from waiting.
My first Broadway shows came from cold-calling players after a concert until one of them, Billy Miller, offered me five performances of The Addams Family. After I moved from New York to Colorado, contractors kept calling, because a reputation built on preparation and kindness travels further than any audition tape. And when the pandemic stopped performing overnight, I found a way to keep moving, including taking a bilingual job far outside music.
The 5 Pillars are the lessons I learned the hard way, organized so you don't have to.
Full biography →This is for you if…
- You're a conservatory student, a recent grad, or a working freelancer
- You're doing "everything right" but your career feels stuck or unpredictable
- You want honest, practical guidance from someone who has done the work
It's probably not for you if…
- You're looking for a shortcut that skips the work
- You'd rather not take an honest look at where you are right now