From Brooklyn to a Lifetime in Music

A Lifetime in Music. A Career Built From It.

Long before music became Frank Goldstein’s career, it was his refuge.

Growing up in Brooklyn, Frank discovered at an early age that music could provide something the world around him often could not: purpose, belonging, and a way forward. By the age of nine, he was already performing in local clubs and venues, coming of age in a side of New York nightlife few children ever witnessed. Those early years put him in rooms filled with colorful characters, hardened personalities, extraordinary performers, and more than a few stories that probably shouldn’t have involved a nine-year-old musician.

But they also gave Frank an education that could never have come from a textbook.

Music would eventually take him far beyond Brooklyn.

After graduating from Hofstra University, Frank became a music teacher in the New York City public school system, sharing with young people the same gift that had helped shape his own life. But the classroom was only one chapter. Determined to understand how a person could build an entire life around music, Frank explored virtually every corner of the industry—from performing and teaching to sales, touring, entertainment, and entrepreneurship.

As a professional musician, he performed throughout New York and eventually toured with the Manhattan Towers, alongside renowned drummer and educator Dom Famularo. Music even introduced him to his future wife, Frances, a dancer he met while performing aboard a Princess Cruises ship.

Marriage and fatherhood eventually presented Frank with one of the biggest gambles of his life.

With little money, no guaranteed job, and a young family depending on him, Frank packed their belongings into a compact pickup truck and headed west to California. He didn’t arrive with a business plan or financial safety net. What he had was an education, years of musical experience, an understanding of performers and audiences, and the belief that somehow he could turn those things into a living.

He did.

In California, Frank met entrepreneur Joel Nelson. Together, they helped build an entertainment company that became a major presence in the Bay Area’s private and corporate event industry, producing entertainment for weddings, bar and bat mitzvahs, corporate celebrations, and large-scale events during the explosive growth of Silicon Valley.

Frank had found a way to combine everything his unconventional career had taught him.

He understood musicians because he was one. He understood teaching because he’d been a teacher. He understood selling because he’d worked in sales. He understood audiences because he’d spent a lifetime performing for them. And most importantly, he understood that making a living in music requires far more than simply being talented.

The Next Chapter

That is the reason for Sound Advice.

Now retired, Frank is working with his son, Billy, to document the stories, lessons, mistakes, successes, and hard-earned wisdom collected over a lifetime in the music business.

Sound Advice isn’t about teaching you how to play an instrument.

It’s about everything that comes after you learn how to play.

How do you turn talent into opportunity?

How do you get the gig—and get invited back?

How do you make a living when there is no guaranteed paycheck?

How do you navigate personalities, relationships, rejection, money, business, family, and uncertainty without losing the passion that brought you to music in the first place?

Frank has spent a lifetime finding his own answers to those questions.

Now he wants to pass them on.

You learned how to play. Now learn how to make a life playing.

Started performing at age nine, learning firsthand how to read a room, earn repeat bookings, and build relationships with musicians, venue owners, and audiences.

Teaching revealed how music builds confidence and connection; sales sharpened the practical skills of listening, communicating value, and creating opportunity.

From touring with the Manhattan Towers and performing aboard Princess Cruises to building a major event-entertainment company, Frank learned that talent thrives when it is backed by service, preparation, business sense, and trust.