In the modern world, you or someone you know may be wondering what types of careers you can have in the field of music. I feel like the music industry in general can have a bad reputation of not having stable or lucrative career options. Well, today I’m going to give you some information about career options that you may not have known were available in music! There is much more to a career in music than just being a performer. Careers worth looking into include a music producer, a recording engineer, a session musician, an artist or tour manager, a music teacher, a music publicist, a composer, an arranger, or a music therapist! Here’s a bit more info on each one:
A music producer knows a little about everything involving the modern process of making music. They understand and help to bridge the gap between the music world and business world by working with artists and promotion agencies. Producers are responsible for helping to create an environment where the artist can feel comfortable and free to express themselves and be creative with their music. They also help make big-picture decisions like what types of material to record, general sound ideas, creative inspiration, and mixing decisions.
An audio engineer is the person who actually captures the sound that music artists create. They take the recorded music and make any changes needed to achieve the desired sound. These are the people who deal with microphones, instruments, analog and digital audio, cables, and the many different types of recording techniques. Audio engineers also need to be well versed in what could go wrong during recording and how they might go about fixing it!
A session musician is what they call an individual who provides the background music for other musician’s albums or live performances. These musicians are extremely proficient and often travel with the specific acts they are helping provide music for. This type of career can actually lead to a solo career in some cases. Did you know that Stevie Ray Vaughan, David Bowie, and Sheryl Crow were all actually session musicians before they launched their own solo music careers?
An artist or tour manager isn’t involved in the actual music aspect, but instead is something like a networking guru for the artist. They help the musician make connections needed to promote their music, book live shows, and help deal with other business decisions a band or musician may need to make. These people need to be very connected and outgoing and love the idea of doing the background work for a musician’s ultimate success. Most of the time, these people actually do most of the work, for little of the credit!
Being a music teacher puts you in the position to teach other people how to play and create music. There are many different types of music teachers. Teachers of children, teachers of adults, teachers of composition, specific instrument teachers; if someone out there does it, someone out there teaches it. That someone could be you!
A music publicist takes more of a creative writing and advertising route in the music world. They work with artists, music venues, media, and of course social-media to help promote specific concerts or just artists in general. Now days, many artists even have specific social-media managers to help them maintain their positive and engaging presence on all the different social-media platforms.
If you want to write music, there are plenty of ways to create a career out of composing. Many people think of music composers only in the classical music world, but if you think about how much music is used in everyday life, it becomes clear there are more options than you might think. Writing music for TV shows, movies, or video games are also options for you.
Similarly, instead of composing the music, you can arrange it. A music arranger is the person who takes a piece of music and organizes it so it meets a certain sound goal or can be performed by multiple people. For example, an arranger could take a pop song and create parts for an orchestra so the orchestra could play the pop song and it would be able to be performed on those specific instruments while still being recognizable as the same pop song. This takes an extreme knowledge of music theory to do.
Finally, if you are interested in a career in music but you also love helping people, maybe a job as a music therapist is right for you! Music therapists are musicians first, but they use music to help clients reach specific goals that aren’t necessarily related to music including physical goals, academic, social, or emotional goals. Music therapists work in schools, hospitals, nursing homes, private practice, and many other settings.
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