Great Tool to Build Your Music Plan · Rock Singing Success

Great Tool to Build Your Music Plan

I don't have music to share for Music Monday like I had hoped, but I want to still share something valuable.

While I no longer coach music career as my main thing, I still enjoy constantly learning about and keeping up with current music business best practices. While researching the validity of a certain music business book, I accidentally came across the Custom GPT, The Musician's Roadmap.

I used this tool to map out a full release plan for my songs, collaborations, and poetry, that fits my brand, genre, goals, ideal fan, and more. But to do that, I had to know how to talk to it about yourself. Otherwise, it give incredibly generic answers.

If you're unfamiliar with Custom GPTs, to put it simply, they're an AI conversational interface that's trained on knowledge base files and specific instructions to answer your questions. Trained and instructed correctly, they can be very powerful tools. In this case, The Musician's Roadmap is trained on just about anything you need to grow your music career, from recording to growing a fanbase.

Like any Custom GPT, the more detailed information you give it about you and what you're trying to do, the better the answer it will give you. One big trick with AI is to get it to ask you questions to help you come up with better prompts or to ask it better questions, especially if you haven't yet fully figured out how to prompt it or what information to give it.

To test it, I gave it general information, just to see what type of answer it gives and if it was worth using. The answer was detailed, but as I told it:

"This list is vague and overwhelming. Ask me questions to help me form a better plan based upon my brand, music, ideal fans, and more."

That opened up the floodgates. The questions it gave me, which I'll put below, helped it give me a very details plan specifically for me. That started a good back and forth conversation that felt like an extremely well-informed expert was brainstorming ideas with me. Any new ideas I had, I would ask it questions about, which it would then compare to it's knowledge on trends, market, and genres. That led to a whole conversation about possible things to do for social media, fan interaction, release schedule, collaborators, hired guests, other creative offerings, and much more. I now have a full, multi-phase, monthly plan to start moving forward with, and good ideas for how to adapt it as I go.

Granted, some of my prompts/questions I rewrote 4 to 5 times after seeing what holes it's answers had due to lack of good information about me or direction in exactly what type of answer I wanted. But like I said, if you're not getting the type of answers you want, you can always get it's help by having it ask you questions.

Below is the prompt I suggest using, incl. the questions I answered that gave me the best results and clarification based on me coaching artists in their music career for decades. When answered in full, I felt it truly understood me and finally was giving me answers that fit me well. I corrected GPT now and then along the way, but if you approach it like a knowledge repository that doesn't know anything about you unless you tell it, it's easy to catch it and correct course.

You can use the below as your initial prompt, first instructing it in what you want it to give you as an answer, then using your answers to the questions as context for it to work within. After the initial plan it suggests, it will already have good context to help you make adjustments, explore other ideas, or for you to ask other questions from.

*****

I would like to explore the best ways to build a fanbase, as well as building an income through that fanbase and other possible lucrative ways.

First, in order to help me form the best plan based upon my brand, music, ideal fans, and more, I’ll answer 20 questions across four key areas:

My Brand & Identity as an Artist
My Music & Artistic Direction
My Audience & Ideal Fans
My Goals (Creative + Financial)

Once you go through these, help me outline a custom plan — nothing bloated, just the essentials. I want you to build a clear, specific, and manageable roadmap based on my answers; a personalized strategy that’s clear, aligned with who I am, and not overwhelming. This should feel doable, and truly me.

🎭 SECTION 1: MY BRAND & IDENTITY

These are questions to clarify my artist persona and positioning:

What name are you releasing music under?(Is it your own name, a band/project name, or something new?)
How would you describe the vibe and tone of your music?(Dark and theatrical? Raw and aggressive? Uplifting and empowering?)
Do you have any professional background or expertise you want to lean into?(Or would you rather keep your artist project separate?)
What 3 words describe how you want fans to feel when they hear your music?(Example: “Powerful, Seen, Unleashed”)
Do you see yourself as a solo artist with a backing band or more like a band/collective identity?

🎶 SECTION 2: MY MUSIC

This helps us shape my release and content strategy.

What genres or sub-genres are you working in?
How much unreleased music do you currently have?(Songs in progress, demos, finished masters?)
Are you producing/recording everything yourself, or working with a team?
Do you have any visual ideas for your next release?(Lyric themes, artwork, aesthetics, etc.)
Do you want to gig locally/internationally, or stay mostly digital/online with performances?

🧠 SECTION 3: MY AUDIENCE

This helps us attract and speak directly to the right fans.

Who are your ideal fans — the people who would really connect with your music?(Think age, mindset, lifestyle, interests, what they’re into; e.g. who you naturally attract to you and connect with, or you can think of them as an extension of yourself.)
What bands or artists are your fans likely already listening to?(Give 3–5 names.)
Do you already have an email list or social following from your teaching work? If so, how big is it?
Are your current followers mostly musicians or just general fans of your genre?
Would you like to combine your artist and professional roles — or keep them separate?(For example, giving professional insight into or breakdowns of your own songs, or not.)

🎯 SECTION 4: MY GOALS

This is how we keep things practical and profitable.

What would a successful year look like for you as an artist?(Ex: releasing music, getting X monthly listeners, making $X/month.)
How much time can you realistically dedicate to your artist project each week?(Keep both creation, post-production, outreach and marketing in mind. This is building and maintaining a business, even if you build a team or just pursue it as a serious hobby level).
How important is financial return in this project vs. personal fulfillment?
Would you be open to offering exclusive experiences to fans — like private vocal hangouts, livestream concerts, VIPs, etc.?
Are you already registered with a PRO (like ASCAP/BMI) and distributing music, or is that a step still to come?

Ask me more questions if the requested task would benefit from more information than provided in my answers above.

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