what is out there? careers.

hey billofbill, welcome to guitarnoise! You could be a recording engineer. Personally, thats what I want to be when I grow up. Or a guitar tech. 8)

Certainly musical instrument sales or repairs are common careers around music. Teaching is right up there if you're inclined, though I think there are definitely those who teach who shouldn't be doing so.

I believe NoteBoat (Tom) was working on starting some sort of transcribing/transposing/arranging service, as a guy who has been making a living teaching, performing, etc for years, I have no doubt he's got some good input on this.

There's also a forum section called "Music Careers" I think, but I don't think that part of the forum gets very much attention. Could be wrong... (?).

music careers are out there. If you can read/write/play music then youre options are pretty open.
if you can record then they're even more open...
if you can repair instruments then youre just gonna be very very busy.

I shelved the transcription idea after some market research - I'll tell you about it in a sec.

Some careers off the top of my head: performer, sideman (or 'jobber'), songwriter, composer, jingle writer, arranger, conductor, booking agent, A&R rep, studio musician, teacher, author, producer, luthier, repair technician, sound engineer, accompanist, musical director (for theater, etc), public relations, music journalist, synth programmer, band manager, instrument sales (wholesale or retail), piano tuner, copyright attorney.... if I spent more time at this, I could probably come up with a couple hundred more!

Music, like any career, is a business. The DOING part of it is really maybe 25% of success, believe it or not - it's essential, but nowhere near enough to guarantee success. Equally important are marketing (is there someone who will pay you to do what you want? what sort of person/company would do that? how can you make them aware of you? what drives their decisions? how can you position yourself to deliver a solution to their needs?), financial stuff (keeping good records, paying your taxes on time, being a realist for developing projections of how much you can earn), and the ability to close the sale, to convince someone to buy your services.

The transcription service idea that Undercat mentioned was something I'd tossed out here - if I offered a service doing professional transcriptions of music from recordings, would people pay? I got some positive feedback here, so I investigated further...

I talked to the band directors at just about every school within 15 miles of my house. Not one had ever used a transcription service for replacing lost orchestral/band parts, and they seemed kinda cool to the idea - I suspect they may keep all the original parts and give photocopies to the students.

I talked to three professional songwriters I know. Turns out not one of them uses lead sheets with their submissions to publishers - lyric sheets alone seem to be the way they go now.

I talked to one guy who owns a transcription service that caters to the jingle market here. He was quite willing to let me work for him... for less money than I've made since the 1970s! His rationale was that even though I've done transcriptions and arrangements for about 30 years, I don't know the 'special requirements' of his market, and he'll basically have to fix everything I do...

Then I talked to two other copyists, and asked them how they got started. Both had worked for dirt wages for someone like the guy I'd just talked to until they'd learned enough to set up their own shop. Both did 2-3 years of the dirt wages thing. What was it they needed to learn, those 'special requirements'?

Who the buyers were.

That's it, no deep dark transcription secrets - just getting to know, personally, the folks who write the checks for the ad agencies and whatnot.

Now I have a lot more information than I did in the beginning. The big market I'd imagined isn't really there; the market that is there is small, jealously defended, and not much of a money-maker. I decided there's probably a bigger return for my time from other avenues, so I'm pursuing them instead.

The funny thing about this? I've just landed a transcription job - for a big band. A singer wants to do a tune in D, and it's written in F. I'm taking the original tune and writing out the parts for their instruments in the new key. How did I get it? Well, last Saturday morning they called and asked if I was available to play for 3 hours the next afternoon. The tune came up during the course of the date, the singer said it was too high for him, the band leader called the tune in the singer's key, and we all transposed at sight. At the end, I told the bandleader I could do charts if he wanted, and he wanted :)

So I got the one project in front of me now because I had skills, and those skills are not transcription: I can sight read; when they needed a guitarist on the spot, they knew I had the skills for that. I network; that's how they knew about me in the first place. And most important, when I saw the need I asked for the job.

The only thing they know about my transcription skills is that I say I have them. Now that I've got the project, I have to deliver - so the skill part is critical - but it's not what got me the job.

The music business is like that. Music skills are essential... but they're also so common they're assumed. Decisions are made based on the other stuff, so you'd better have that too :)

NB, excellent story.

What is your opinion of the need for arrangers? That is, someone has a song they wrote for themselves and guitar, and now they want to add the rest of the parts. I realize that the producer will likely decide if there are strings or horns, but who figures our the arrangements?

Or do most arrangements come out of the rehearsal (jams) sessions with the various musicians?

-Laz

In terms of career choices -- the real "money" is in management and legal services.

P2P won't change that, either. It'll change the delivery of music, but musicians will still want to be with a centralized managment service that books their tours, does publicity, etc.

The top artists earn more than most of the managers and lawyers, but the top lawyers and managers earn more than the top musicians. A LOT MORE.

Laz, I think it varies a lot.

In pop/rock, I'm sure most arrangements grow from jams. For stuff like TV themes, etc., the composer often writes the arrangement.

The big market for arranging is probably in school music... taking a tune by Green Day (or whoever) and scoring it for marching band. I've had one band director approach me about writing arrangements for him - but I don't see it paying for my time; the mechanical royalties belong to the composer, so I'd only get paid for the copies I provided, with no prospect for royalties.