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Things that suck about finding a job on music.


John Revoredo
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For the last month, I've been looking for freelance jobs on music through the internet. All that i found was the same:

- Every paid project has already a musician on board.

All i can see always is: WE'RE LOOKING FOR : concept artists, 3d artists, programmers... but NEVER a musician. What the hell...?

-Every thread requesting musicians for a paid project gets overcrowded with answers of self called "musicians",very little deserving of calling themselves that, with minimal skills and absolute ignorance on music composition and forms. And what's worse... there's always one of those who gets picked and paid.

It sucks so much studying music for YEARS, and seeing that other ones that suck get those freelance jobs while I don't. Maybe it's that I have to be the very first to answer because being good doesn't matter anymore.

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I hate to rub it in, but I never took a music class in my life, nor set foot in any audio / recording class, and I'm currently working freelance for a small company. Why? Well, for me, while everyone else was going to music school, I went to art school. I had no intention of becoming a musician at the time, but I made a lot of contacts in graphics, and those contacts ended up getting jobs in game companies. One of which (I was lucky enough) needed a sound guy.

I hate to say how much luck plays a role in the business scheme of things. It's not even so much a matter of having a degree as much as it is a matter of being friends with the producer or knowing the project manager or something. Music is an insanely oversaturated field, while the demand these days is compartively small.

Also think of the numbers... In any game project - even large scale ones - there might be 30-50 or more artists, 20-30 programmers and often no more than 2 or 3 audio / music specialists.

I'm not saying at all to give up, I'm just agreeing with Zircon in that the reality sucks...

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For the last month, I've been looking for freelance jobs on music through the internet. All that i found was the same:

- Every paid project has already a musician on board.

All i can see always is: WE'RE LOOKING FOR : concept artists, 3d artists, programmers... but NEVER a musician. What the hell...?

-Every thread requesting musicians for a paid project gets overcrowded with answers of self called "musicians",very little deserving of calling themselves that, with minimal skills and absolute ignorance on music composition and forms. And what's worse... there's always one of those who gets picked and paid.

It sucks so much studying music for YEARS, and seeing that other ones that suck get those freelance jobs while I don't. Maybe it's that I have to be the very first to answer because being good doesn't matter anymore.

Check out The Film Music Network. I've never personally pursued any of the work opportunities listed there, but I keep my eye on the things that get posted. There tend to be a lot of requests for library music and tracks for indie films.

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Y'know, this site has changed the way I think about music and music distribution. We all know the music industry is changing dramatically, and record execs know it to. Between illegal downloading and low record sales, things are going to change.

Personally, I think the entire music scene should be run exactly like this site---perhaps through thousands of little sites like this. People will make their music as a hobby, for the love of the music (whether it be punk, metal, hip-hop, or video game remixes), and it will be distributed for free, just like it is on OC Remix. Imagine that. Imagine if you could find massive sites like this one for punk music, metal music, and everything else. And download it for free. That would be amazing. And the artists would be people just like you. That would empower people to make and submit their own music, and the cycle continues. If you want to make some money off of it, you can always play shows as you garner popularity.

Some people might talk about quality control. They might say that without big labels and money thrown around, there will be too much garbage. The reality is, this site has tremendous quality control. About 98% of the music on OC Remix is top-quality, and honestly better than most of the stuff I've heard on the radio (which I almost never listen to). The electronica is better than most of the stuff out there, and the electric guitar tracks shred better than most metal bands. As always, if people like it, the music will be popular. If not, it falls to the bottom of the list.

MySpace was a big step in this process, but its set up in a very random format. It's almost impossible to find new music on there. You're basically just flooded with pop-stuff at the homepage. I guess this means we would have to divide our music into various sites (much like we have OCRemix, VGMix, AnimeMix, and a bunch of others to divide what are essentially similar concepts).

Anyways, I wish you the best of luck in finding a job. What you read above is something I hope to see one day. I hope sites like this will help to make it possible, along with artists like NIN and Coldplay (I'm not a big fan of either, but they get my kudos). Sorry for the essay.

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That was the point. I don't think people should be paid for it. I know it's not going to be the most popular opinion, but it's what I believe.

If I had to tone down my opinion slightly, I would simply say that things should be done more independently and should cost far, far less. However, that's not a new concept at all. That's basically the whole idea of the underground punk and hip-hop communities.

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I wholeheartedly agree with T-Rock on this. On the other hand, there may be a huge amount of people on this site and who frequent the site, but there's still a massive number of people who've never even heard of O C Remix. So, the chances of this happening anytime soon are very small. Spread the word, people.

And for all the people who aspire to be musicians and make money off it, T-Rock is right in the aspect that you could still charge money for live shows. Also, a lot of people still prefer having a hard copy of the music on a disk to digital downloads. One of my Gym teachers supposedly had around ten thousand vinyl records, and around 5 CDs. So people will still be able to buy the disks and collector sets if they want.

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hahahahahahahaha

Well, think about this realistically. If people don't get paid to make Starbucks coffee, they aren't going to make it. However, music has been around as long as time, and it has only been created for monetary purposes in the last 400 years or so. Music won't cease to exist without a financial goal. In the modern era, it would probably just dissolve into the process I described. Kids make bands all the time and make no money. Most don't want riches. Most want fame. I mean, why do people make remixes on this site? Because they enjoy it. That's the nature of music.

I'd rather distribute music for free openly than have the majority of my fanbase illegally download it.

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When you think about the great classical composers (Beethoven, Mozart, Strauss) how did they make money? Certainly not through selling CDs or records. They made money through live performances, selling the transcriptions(?) of their music to other musicians/orchestras, and not much else. Why should that be any different today?

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I don't want to do it to "help" the "industry." I don't think art should be an industry. That's the point. I don't want people to illegally download things. I don't. I buy all my music in physical (CD) format. I want people to legally download music --- for free. Basically, just apply the philosophy of this site to any genre of music, make a few slight changes here and there, and you already have your model.

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When you think about the great classical composers (Beethoven, Mozart, Strauss) how did they make money? Certainly not through selling CDs or records. They made money through live performances, selling the transcriptions(?) of their music to other musicians/orchestras, and not much else. Why should that be any different today?

No. People commissioned them to compose music and paid them for it.

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Also, one other thing:

I think artists should have a non-art-related job to fund themselves because it allows them to relate to normal people. This is especially important for music. Nobody can take 50 Cent seriously. Why? Because all he talks about are the hoes he's gonna sleep with and the rims he's going to put on his car. I bet you if he was still a poor guy, he'd be talking about real issues. He'd be talking about the plight of people in the ghetto, like underground rappers. I mean, can you take most big-time radio bands seriously? I can't. Lyrically, it's just a joke to me. Fall Out Boy, 50 Cent. Whoever. Even Bob Dylan, one of my favorite musicians, put out his most real stuff in his earliest years of recording.

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and so do all of mine

basically what you people want is for piracy to be ok and the only people that actually give artists money are these wonderful hardcore people that do things on principle!

you want music to be a side job well guess what people spend years and devote all their time to it so it aint no side job

why am i the only one telling these people how stupid they are

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