How To Write A Musician Bio

Your music biography is one of the most important things you may ever write or have written about yourself.

A few small paragraphs have to showcase everything great about your musical journey. It needs to be precise, very impressive, well-written, engaging, and a reflection of you.

A lot of people write these off as something that doesn't matter in the digital age, where no one has the attention span to read a block of text about someone they probably aren't that interested in.

But they don't realize the potential this little write-up has in this day and age.

First things first: You're already ahead of the rest since many are claiming to be artists, and musicians don't have one.

Secondly, many key music industry influencers want to see what you can impress them with visually before they even hit play on your music. If you can't impress these people with your photos and bio, you will likely be tossed into the rejected pile. 

So, are you looking to increase your chances of being seen and piquing the interest of people in the music business who may be able to take your career to the next level? Here are three crucial elements your music bio will need in order to make the cut. 

Engaging Backstory

Most people know that they need to include where they're from when they write their bio, but that's about as far as they go when they introduce themselves.

You've probably seen "So and so from such and such started making music from a young age", but they don't engage people with why they started making music.

As I mentioned, yes, you will need to be precise and brief with this, but you want to give a hint at something interesting in your life that will make people want to search for more information pertaining to your story.

Give a teaser of why they should get to know you.

Related Post: See What Your Backstory and Brand Needs In The Artist Development Process.

Intriguing Accomplishments  

While you don't want to go crazy naming everything you've won since that middle school talent show back in the day, try to limit your accomplishments to 3 things or less.

Pick the three biggest things you've done with your career, highlighting them in a way that really accentuates how you stand apart from others.

For example, don't just say you won an award. Say that you were the first "SOMETHING" person to win that award. Maybe the first person of your race, the first person in your state, the first person under a certain age.

Of course, you don't just want to just outright lie, but spruce it up a bit and find the angle that makes your accomplishments look even cooler. 

Well-Written

You would think the reason I put this element is that a lot of people are out here sending bios with typos and run-on sentences, but the main problem when it comes to how well bios are written is in the formatting. Many are just WAY too long.

A lot of people love going on and on about the people they've worked with, the tours they're done, the contests they entered, the awards they won, and then the next thing you know, they have like 15 paragraphs.

That's ridiculous. No one is reading that, and it's insane that you thought they would.

Don't get me wrong, long biographies do work, depending on the situation. Of course, people have biographical books with hundreds and hundreds of pages.

But if you're reading this, chances are, you are still in the beginning stages of your journey, and no one wants to see all of that fluff. Keep it short! It doesn't need to be over 500 words. 

Important: You will likely need to also write an abbreviated version of your biography that is 200 words or less. This will come in handy for readers and promotional outlets that want to focus on your music rather than your story.

In this version, you will definitely want to keep your accomplishments short and sweet. Shorts bios work for profiles like Spotify and Instagram, where you may want to add a small version of your bio. 

Benefit To Reader 

Most folks wouldn't call writing a biography similar to writing sales copy, but as a copywriter, I definitely would. While you want to keep a professional, formal tone, you should realize that, in most cases, you are selling yourself in this music bio.

When writing sales copy, your main goal is to show the benefits of your product to the reader. It will be tricky but crucial to balance the fact that you're basically word-vomiting everything about yourself and what you've done in your past, with what you can do for your listener.

A good way to do this is to put yourself in the shoes of one of your newest fans.

Picturing one of your most loyal fans may not work; they already have an inflated sense of you as a person and are likely too enamored with what you've done in general rather than what you can do for them.

Picture a new fan that's really into your songs, and think about why they recently started being your fan in the first place.

Try to think about how your songs help them throughout their life journey. Imagine what they would say when trying to recommend your music to a friend. Then put that feeling into a few short phrases. 

Related Post: How To Become A Musician (Successfully)