Surviving as a musician

[Ryan Jobson]

... how old are you ecto...?

[BlackPanther]

Please do so. I would love to have a chance to learn from you.

Yeah, ditto.

[StreetFlare]

It's not nearly as impossible as you may think it is.

blah, blah, blah, something about Zircon...ooh, something important!...surviving on music alone just doesn't seem practical to me. I plan to do lots of different musical stuff other than vgm like synths/sample libraries as I listed above, but I might not be nearly as successful (still a kid). ...dude, this is where you reply.

Stupid brain annotations.

I was talking about this to a friend recently. We both play music, known each other for a few years, and I've lost as a solo act to his band before in talent contests (which, for some reason, whenever I enter with my original song, my best song, everyone says the song is beautiful, but yet the judges pan it because it has an actual meaning, and isn't superficial like pop music) while both performing original songs in the heats (Yay me! Only original not to get through that time, plus the most recent time when they put me on the performance night nobody wants to go to...I've pretty much given up on that original song for talent nights.) Anyway, one of the things he said to me made sense. "The music industry doesn't like a deeper meaning. It loves the shallow stuff, because that's what makes successful pop music." ...and then started talking about his idol Jon Bon Jovi. But that's something I understand. I want to make it big, always have. (When you get bullied by an entire year level for 7 years, and the only thing you have over them is music, you kinda want to prove that you're better than they are, even 6 years later) But, at the rate I'm going, the only way I'm gonna do that is if I get onto one of those TV contests like "The Voice" or "The X Factor" or "Australian Idol"...(Ugh, more talent performances for failing at) or I do the Bieber thing and get picked up via YouTube. (chances = slim to nothing, considering my YT account is currently collecting dust while I save for new recording headphones)

I plan to do the aforementioned degree, then do something UNTHINKABLE - go into teaching in high schools. Do a Diploma of Education on top of a Bachelor of Music Industry & Performance, so I've got qualifications, then teach. While I'm doing that, perform on the side, like the most epic teachers I've ever had, including the vocals teacher who's still singing after having two sets of throat surgery (Granted, that was caused by bad technique, but he's in a band with another music teacher at my school, which is believed to be how he got the job there. He's epic, laid back, and not above joking with us. Neither is she, luckily.) Or maybe I'll be lucky, and do a LeeBro and end up known for my music through video games. (I wish I was a user on here back when he was, I loved Dreams of an Absolution - one of my fav VG tracks) Maybe if I get sick of that, back to uni, do another degree - a long one, probably in Psychology, so that I can get into music therapy. That way, I'm still making the most of what I love.

So, yeah, if you actually read those blocks of text, congratulations, you've found out what goes on in the head of a Shadow on the Wall. (That's the name of my original, coming to YT as soon as I get that aforementioned headset and record the damn thing for the second time, after the free album which got that song critical acclaim in my local area, and in a specific community of mental health which shall go unnamed in this post) For those who didn't, oh well.

And if it doesn't work out, there's always being an author or getting hitched to a world-famous athlete! XD

[StreetFlare]

Yeah, ditto.

Make that three. If only I didn't live in the continent which most Americans seem to believe means I ride a kangaroo places, and speak a different language.

[AngelCityOutlaw]

Stupid brain annotations.

I was talking about this to a friend recently. We both play music, known each other for a few years, and I've lost as a solo act to his band before in talent contests (which, for some reason, whenever I enter with my original song, my best song, everyone says the song is beautiful, but yet the judges pan it because it has an actual meaning, and isn't superficial like pop music) while both performing original songs in the heats (Yay me! Only original not to get through that time, plus the most recent time when they put me on the performance night nobody wants to go to...I've pretty much given up on that original song for talent nights.) Anyway, one of the things he said to me made sense. "The music industry doesn't like a deeper meaning. It loves the shallow stuff, because that's what makes successful pop music." ...and then started talking about his idol Jon Bon Jovi. But that's something I understand. I want to make it big, always have. (When you get bullied by an entire year level for 7 years, and the only thing you have over them is music, you kinda want to prove that you're better than they are, even 6 years later) But, at the rate I'm going, the only way I'm gonna do that is if I get onto one of those TV contests like "The Voice" or "The X Factor" or "Australian Idol"...(Ugh, more talent performances for failing at) or I do the Bieber thing and get picked up via YouTube. (chances = slim to nothing, considering my YT account is currently collecting dust while I save for new recording headphones)

I plan to do the aforementioned degree, then do something UNTHINKABLE - go into teaching in high schools. Do a Diploma of Education on top of a Bachelor of Music Industry & Performance, so I've got qualifications, then teach. While I'm doing that, perform on the side, like the most epic teachers I've ever had, including the vocals teacher who's still singing after having two sets of throat surgery (Granted, that was caused by bad technique, but he's in a band with another music teacher at my school, which is believed to be how he got the job there. He's epic, laid back, and not above joking with us. Neither is she, luckily.) Or maybe I'll be lucky, and do a LeeBro and end up known for my music through video games. (I wish I was a user on here back when he was, I loved Dreams of an Absolution - one of my fav VG tracks) Maybe if I get sick of that, back to uni, do another degree - a long one, probably in Psychology, so that I can get into music therapy. That way, I'm still making the most of what I love.

So, yeah, if you actually read those blocks of text, congratulations, you've found out what goes on in the head of a Shadow on the Wall. (That's the name of my original, coming to YT as soon as I get that aforementioned headset and record the damn thing for the second time, after the free album which got that song critical acclaim in my local area, and in a specific community of mental health which shall go unnamed in this post) For those who didn't, oh well.

And if it doesn't work out, there's always being an author or getting hitched to a world-famous athlete! XD

This post makes my head spin....whoa

[Nabeel Ansari]

...

What

What the...

...

[DrumUltimA]

Stupid brain annotations.

I was talking about this to a friend recently. We both play music, known each other for a few years, and I've lost as a solo act to his band before in talent contests (which, for some reason, whenever I enter with my original song, my best song, everyone says the song is beautiful, but yet the judges pan it because it has an actual meaning, and isn't superficial like pop music) while both performing original songs in the heats (Yay me! Only original not to get through that time, plus the most recent time when they put me on the performance night nobody wants to go to...I've pretty much given up on that original song for talent nights.) Anyway, one of the things he said to me made sense. "The music industry doesn't like a deeper meaning. It loves the shallow stuff, because that's what makes successful pop music." ...and then started talking about his idol Jon Bon Jovi. But that's something I understand. I want to make it big, always have. (When you get bullied by an entire year level for 7 years, and the only thing you have over them is music, you kinda want to prove that you're better than they are, even 6 years later) But, at the rate I'm going, the only way I'm gonna do that is if I get onto one of those TV contests like "The Voice" or "The X Factor" or "Australian Idol"...(Ugh, more talent performances for failing at) or I do the Bieber thing and get picked up via YouTube. (chances = slim to nothing, considering my YT account is currently collecting dust while I save for new recording headphones)

I plan to do the aforementioned degree, then do something UNTHINKABLE - go into teaching in high schools. Do a Diploma of Education on top of a Bachelor of Music Industry & Performance, so I've got qualifications, then teach. While I'm doing that, perform on the side, like the most epic teachers I've ever had, including the vocals teacher who's still singing after having two sets of throat surgery (Granted, that was caused by bad technique, but he's in a band with another music teacher at my school, which is believed to be how he got the job there. He's epic, laid back, and not above joking with us. Neither is she, luckily.) Or maybe I'll be lucky, and do a LeeBro and end up known for my music through video games. (I wish I was a user on here back when he was, I loved Dreams of an Absolution - one of my fav VG tracks) Maybe if I get sick of that, back to uni, do another degree - a long one, probably in Psychology, so that I can get into music therapy. That way, I'm still making the most of what I love.

So, yeah, if you actually read those blocks of text, congratulations, you've found out what goes on in the head of a Shadow on the Wall. (That's the name of my original, coming to YT as soon as I get that aforementioned headset and record the damn thing for the second time, after the free album which got that song critical acclaim in my local area, and in a specific community of mental health which shall go unnamed in this post) For those who didn't, oh well.

And if it doesn't work out, there's always being an author or getting hitched to a world-famous athlete! XD

I'm not sure what's going on in this post, but yeah, teaching high school kids is an idea I'm entertaining as well.

[Flexstyle]

I'm a graduate of the Conservatory of Recording Arts and Sciences, an audio engineering school here in Arizona, so I'm semi-serious about being in the music industry in some capacity or another. Because it's such a flaky proposition, though, I'm currently going to college for a major in Management Information Systems, which is basically a one-degree-fits-all for either business management and/or info tech work. I have nearly as much experience with computers as I do music at this point (and I've been learning/practicing music/audio in some fashion or another for about 13 years at this point), and I'm currently "employable," as it were, in the IT field because of my helpdesk and freelance IT work. However, I've made enough money off of music (especially as a producer for singer/songwriters) up to this point to where I think I could get away with doing music full-time in some capacity or another at some point in the future.

[Patrick Burns]

In a matter of weeks I'll get my undergraduate degree in music, and I have no solid plans.

Over the past four years, I've discovered that I have some skill and interest in music scholarship, so there's a real chance that I'll never leave school and end up being a professor. As inauthentic as I feel wearing a tie and talking about music, I'd prefer that role to many other possible ones. I mean, take my jazz band teacher as an example. He studies the music he loves, spends time around young optimistic people, takes his ensembles on world trips once or twice a year, and gets summers/christmases off (except for writing articles and shit, lol).

On the other hand, I'm also putting the finishing touches on a portfolio for a film scoring graduate program -- for that path, I'd move out to LA and work like a dog for the foreseeable future. But I don't know if I'm good enough to be a composer. I just don't write music very quickly. And there really are very few things that get my blood boiling more than trying to work with notation software.

So I've got some big decisions ahead of me. There's a part of me that is very resistant to staying in academia, a part of me that sees music scholarship as, at the end of the day, a lie. You know how Lao Tzu said roughly, "the tao that can be spoken is not the true tao" and yet continued to keep talking about it anyway? That's how I feel about music scholarship. But while I have fundamental reservations, I still recognize that I can be good at it, that I'd be willing to dance that dance in place of other less desirable careers.

I dabbled in audio engineering for a while, but I'm just not a gear head, and I can't stand setting up for recording sessions or -- even though it's one of my jobs -- doing live sound. So much little shit that goes wrong, so many software bugs, so much anal retentiveness about audio quality... it's great to be around music like that, but I'm not cut out for the work, the attention style, etc. Of course, there are totally worse day jobs out there.

So yeah, that's me right now.

[Nabeel Ansari]

I'm not sure what's going on in this post, but yeah, teaching high school kids is an idea I'm entertaining as well.

We're not worth the effort. >_>

[PixelPanic]

We're not worth the effort. >_>

Agreed. I found out on our schedules that there was a Music Theory II.

But since not many kids are willing to take it, it's used as a space for people who have nothing happening that period.

It was one of those "there is no hope for man" moments.

[Ethan Rex]

Agreed. I found out on our schedules that there was a Music Theory II.

But since not many kids are willing to take it, it's used as a space for people who have nothing happening that period.

It was one of those "there is no hope for man" moments.

I had to show a kid in a music appreciation class a concert snare. He thought the only drums were trapset drums.

Yeah I'm planning on double majoring in music and sociology and then going to law school. Because working in law gives you so much free time to do other stuff right?

The dream is for me to gradually grow the hobby into something more, but who knows.

[StreetFlare]

This post makes my head spin....whoa

Yeah... the bits in red is where my brain goes off on a tangent coz it's starting to wander...shows you just how bad it is for me when I get tired to focus on something interesting. So, yeah, sorry for the headaches, everyone!

[Nabeel Ansari]

I had to show a kid in a music appreciation class a concert snare. He thought the only drums were trapset drums.

There are kids in my school who think the only thing synthesizers can do is sound like blaster rifles and LFO charge-up noises.

I took a music production class at school last year, and the only thing anyone knew how to do was drag and drop loops in Garageband and then try (horribly) to rap over them. There was a kid who actually tried to make rock music using one of the school's cheap electric guitars and Garageband samples, so there is a bit of hope left for the community here. Everyone else just plays instruments in the concert band, yet I have a feeling (I've gathered this from listening and observing people) that band is a little more about the social aspect of "being a band kid" and less about the music itself.

We do have a jazz ensemble though, and that's pretty freakin cool. We also have an acapella group and we have a couple "Coffee Houses" (performance nights) in the mini cafeteria, so music isn't totally dead here for the small groups of people who participate in that. I've generally seen singers and acoustic guitar players most frequent, and then a little less frequent but not hard to find are electric guitar, bass and drums guys. And there are piano players here and there.

[Zerothemaster]

I had to show a kid in a music appreciation class a concert snare. He thought the only drums were trapset drums.

At least he didn't think that drum sounds come only out of drum machines.

there might still be hope

[Cyril the Wolf]

I'm going to work temp positions for a bit until I maybe get my music known and sold and shizz.

I write a lot of songs. and I mean I can pop out 4 decent to good poppish songs if I devote a day to song writing. (which seldom happens as I am a student and I work and I'm in a couple bands)

I may end up being a touring musician as I am in a band that may "make it" in some sense of the world, but really I dunno. Make music, put it out there, hope. I have some other plans but they are so convoluted and stupid it's stupid.