Some people will tell you that you’ll never make a living as a musician but don’t let their pessimism put you off. We at the Royal College of Music confidently believe there's never been a better time to pursue a graduate career in music.

Yes, it may seem tougher than ever to get into a world-class orchestra or onto the Wigmore Hall stage, so of course you’re going to need immense dedication and focus to reach these particular goals, but the important thing is not to narrow your view to a couple of destinations when music is a passport to countless exciting places. A graduate career in music is as varied and as exciting as you make it. Don’t ever give up just because you can’t instantaneously get where you want. Plot a long route round, and who knows, your course may take you somewhere totally unexpected which you prefer more than your original goal. How do you know you’re not cut out for creating amazing musical improvisations with schoolchildren until you’ve tried it? And how do you know by trying it that you’re not, in fact, improving your chances of getting into a professional symphony orchestra? Every major orchestra in the world now takes its music outside of the concert hall into the community, so to join their ranks, you’re going to need to demonstrate that you can do this too, as well as playing Bruckner symphonies spotlessly. Read on to discover how to get into a graduate career in music.

By choosing to be a musician, you’ve chosen to be creative and you must constantly live by that word. Yes, playing a Beethoven sonata or singing a Schumann song is creative, but you have to match your creativity onstage with creativity offstage too. In a sense you have to be as inventive as the composers whose works you’re performing. You can’t expect the world to sit up and listen if you simply play classical music, you have to take the music to the world, you have to create a dialogue with your audience and potential promoters and sponsors and tell them, not just musically, why you deserve their attention. In an age dominated by visuals, you need an image as a musician as much as a sound. With lots of other musicians around you seeking the same opportunities as you, you have to define what makes you singularly distinctive and present these attributes in an equally distinctive way.

On a practical level, what this means is don’t just sit waiting for job ads to appear in the classified pages of Classical Music magazine or the orchestral column in Saturday’s Telegraph. It’s simply not a musician’s true nature to be passive in that way. You have to get out and find the work, rather than waiting for it to come to you. And you should regard this as an exciting challenge rather than a chore. You have to be 100% committed to your mission. Write to orchestras, write to concert promoters, write to schools; get yourself some computer know-how and make attractive leaflets and flyers which your recipients won’t ignore. Look at the way your classical heroes present themselves then find a friend with a good camera, or engage an affordable professional photographer, and get yourself some photos which capture and reflect your own winning attributes: your youth, your modernity, your authenticity, your musical passion. Apply your photos to your publicity materials and your website. How do you make a website? It’s getting easier and easier (just Google ‘make a website’ for a hundred instant options) and people will really expect to see you online. Again, learn from your heroes. If they have good websites, there’s a reason for that, and you ought therefore to have one yourself.

In 1999, the Royal College of Music launched the Woodhouse Centre – now known as the Communications Department – as a celebration of all the different things young musicians can do today to further their craft and careers. The Department is dedicated to showing RCM students and alumni the full range of what they can do as musicians, it offers them countless performing opportunities and encourages and supports them in launching their own ambitious and diverse musical projects. Ask any RCM graduate who’s used this service and they will testify that there’s always more things you can be doing as a musician. Never stop thinking what you could be doing next. Once you’ve staged a concert, you shouldn’t sit back and think ‘well where’s my reward?’. You should instantly get planning your next one, to get a sense of momentum going. Agents, promoters and critics may not respond to your first efforts, but once they see you’re consistently emerging and making things happen, they will start to take genuine notice.

Having a graduate career in music doesn’t mean just making music; it means bringing things to life, being an engine and a catalyst. If you commit yourself to that mindset and actively live by it, the potential for what you can do professionally is unlimited. Make the most of your graduate career in music and start putting plans into action today.