Make It Easy to Hire You: Tariqh Akoni on Being a Professional Guitarist (Episode 58)

You learned how to make music. Nobody taught you how to make a living making music.

Tariqh Akoni has the kind of resume that makes other guitar players sit up: musical director for Josh Groban, former Chair of the Guitar Department at L.A. Music Academy, and work with artists like Stevie Wonder, Elton John, Aretha Franklin, Herbie Hancock and Whitney Houston. In Episode 58 of The Career Musician, he and Nomad, two old friends and two guitar heads, chop it up about what it really takes to be a professional guitarist.

Nomad remembers asking Tariqh about distortion pedals when they first met. The next day Tariqh showed up with a milk crate full of them and said try these for a week. That tells you a lot about the guy. So does this conversation.

Fight for it like your life depends on it

Tariqh grew up in Santa Barbara and planned to be a lawyer. He loved guitar, but he didn't know you could make a living at it. A friend of his brother's saw him waking up at 5 a.m. to practice before high school and told him to study music, because if he studied anything else he would fail. Sure enough, at UC San Diego he was almost failing out because all he wanted to do was play.

So he took time off to go to Berklee and see if he had any aptitude. He got bitten by the bug. Then he got kicked out, because he didn't have the money to keep going. He could go home to a future he already knew, or stay in Boston and fight. He stayed.

"At the time I couldn't read music. I didn't really play acoustic... and I was like, if I want to eat, I better figure this out fast."

Tariqh Akoni, 13:05

He calls it probably the most important thing that could have happened to him. Learning what it means to go to the mat for something is a lesson he carries into every experience.

Access isn't what makes you great

Today everything is accessible. But as a department head, Tariqh watched students with access to all of it fail to take advantage. It isn't the access that makes someone great. That has to be in you.

And there is a piece the internet can't give you: the culture. How do you shake a hand? How do you make eye contact? How do you respond to emails? Those things you learn by being around the cats, and by getting your behind kicked a few times. He recently watched someone blow a great opportunity because they didn't have those skills, even though everything else was there.

Make it easy to hire you and easy to pay you

Tariqh's education framework is fundamentals, context and concept. The context has changed. The concept hasn't.

"You want to make it as easy as possible for that person to hire you and for that person to pay you. Why would you make it difficult for someone to find you?"

Tariqh Akoni, 22:50

In practice: don't text or DM gig details. Put them in an email so there is a paper trail. But as an MD, he sends one or two very informative emails with a similar subject line and asks players to read thoroughly and reply "got it." If he is juggling 50 gigs, he can't spend 20 minutes searching for your directions. Same with charts: you write charts to be read. And let people pay you however is easiest, Venmo, PayPal or a check. Don't put roadblocks between you and the money.

Then stay in people's minds. When Tariqh moved back to Santa Barbara, about a hundred miles from the LA scene, he leaned on social media and booked at least one LA club gig a month, so anyone looking at the calendar knew he was still around. That is Make Music Your Business.

One person, one thing is over

Tariqh has been with Josh Groban almost 20 years. But Josh doesn't tour every year, so Tariqh makes sure there are other things working: sessions in town, education, writing. During the pandemic shutdown, his home studio kept him busy every day with co-writes and sync work. A copy of Logic Pro (he figures about 200 bucks), a small keyboard and a simple interface, and you have access to tools that used to cost hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Writing is a big marketable skill. Writing with others is bigger.

When people want you in the room because you lift the spirit, you land in more rooms, and you get more chances. Work begets work. He even built a travel recording rig that fits in a small case in his bag. Nobody cares where the stems come from. They care that you can start it and finish it.

Make the singer sound better

When you're young, you want to show people everything you can do. One of Tariqh's mentors, Rickey Minor, set him straight: you're going to get noticed. The question is, what are they going to notice?

Soloing matters when it is your time to step up. But Tariqh's rule is this: if you make your passion making the singer sound better, you'll never stop working. Nobody hires you to solo better than them. They hire you to make them sound better. Music is a team sport.

He once did Saturday Night Live with Christina Aguilera and laid out for the whole first verse and chorus, because that was his role. On a Neil Diamond tribute he was thrilled to play acoustic all night. Be the guy who says, I'll take the second or third guitar part, and then put everything into making that part sit. That is Reliability beats virtuosity. Nomad's version: just because you can play all the notes doesn't mean you should.

Control what you can, then bring added value

Tariqh can't control his height or a lot of other things. He can control whether he shows up on time, whether his gear works, and whether he learned the material. Those basics, plus playing in tune and in time, just get your name in the hat. He has heard everyone from Rickey Minor to David Foster ask, who can we call? To be the answer, you need the basics. Above that comes the added value: you brought a mandolin, you have your nylon string ready when they forgot to mention it.

Read the room, too. Sometimes you walk in and people are fried and on their last nerve. Be delicate. Low maintenance / no drama.

He shared two stories about the cats who do it right. When he asked Tom Scott about Nathan East, Tom said: what's not to like? Brilliant musician, sight reads, perfect pitch, photographic memory, great tone and time. And when Nathan walks in, the room lights up. And Dean Parks, one of Tariqh's favorite musicians on the planet, is famous for walking in like a regular guy in a baseball cap and just laying it down. The humanity, Tariqh says, is the most important part.

Art, commerce and service

Tariqh sees art and commerce as a scale, not two separate roads. Some jobs are 90 percent commerce, some 90 percent art. As a sideman, you are there to help the artist stay open to the muse.

"We are in a service industry... You're in the service of someone's art, someone's music... and you're also trying to allow them to be their best self."

Tariqh Akoni, 56:25

If they feel like their best self when you're in the room, they will always call you back. That is Everything you do is an audition, every single session.

The takeaway

Fight for it. Learn the culture, not just the notes. Make it easy to hire you and pay you. Build more than one thing. Make the singer sound better, and bring something extra. Tariqh's career runs from Weezer to Josh Groban because he built the skills to cross those rooms and the attitude to be welcome in all of them.

Want more on how working players land the call? Start with the free Get the Gig guide. You can find Tariqh at tariqh.com.

Get the gig. Keep the gig. Build the career.

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