Music Career ChecklistMusic Career ChecklistIs music an important part of your life and you are thinking about developing a career in music? Perhaps this article can help you discover what will work best for you.
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This document provides an overview and set of checklists for consideration when deciding what sort of musical path is best for you. What is presented here is based on personal experience, observation of the creative process for visual and performing artists, observation and analysis of the music industry, and advice and insight from people pursuing music careers. Some may use different labels and descriptions, and some will dispute some of the analysis and suggestions expressed here. The intention is for you to use this document to help clarify goals and choices.
Here are some typical roles of musicians and groups. You may at times participate in more than one role, but one or two will seem to you fit you better than others.
We all start as students. The general goals are:
Most of the best musicians never stop being students. One of the great things about music is there is an endless list of musical things to explore and perfect.
The hobbyist is someone who learns music on their own or with groups mostly for personal satisfaction and recreation. The general goals are:
A creative songwriter is someone compelled to write songs, much like an artist is inspired to create art or a writer is compelled to write poetry, stories, plays, or books. General goals include:
The professional songwriter is someone who writes songs intended for recording, often by other artists. Likely all professional songwriters start as creative songwriters and many of the best will maintain many of the values of the creative songwriter. The general goals include:
Some singer-songwriters like Eddie Rabbit, Barry Manilow, and Tom T. Hall began as song-writers and did not necessarily intend to have performing careers.
The singer-songwriter is someone who likes to write and perform his or her own material. Examples include Sarah McLachlan, Stan Rogers, Billy Joel, Bruce Cockburn, Pat Metheny, and most of what we understand to be popular music.
Personal goals include:
Professional goals could include:
A dance band typically plays cover tunes that the band members like to play and that they think an audience will want to listen to or dance to.
Personal goals include:
Professional goals could include:
A recording group primarily makes music to distribute and market through mainstream or alternative distribution channels.
Personal goals could include:
Professional goals could include:
Instrumentalists cover a huge range of instruments and groupings, including ensembles, orchestras, bands, and symphonies.
Personal goals could include:
Professional Goals could include:
Conductors help musicians at all levels perform compositions.
Goals could include:
Composers write music for one or more musicians to perform.
Goals could include:
Arrangers adapt compositions for a specific group of musicians to perform.
Goals could include:
There are many more roles that a musician may consider that we will leave for future discussion.
Often the artists who have the most success over the long haul are the artists who follow their own path while understanding the choices that other successful artists have made. The challenge is to understand the various musical paths to help create a musical path that will work for a particular group or artist.
By Greg Dixon
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