Five Day Jobs That Can Help You Launch A Music Career
Convincing Mom and Dad to let you go move to LA to be a professional musician probably won’t fly with most parents, but believe it or not it is possible to learn another skill to help you get a step closer towards your ultimate career goals; albeit a step from a different direction. You may even find another skill you enjoy along the way.
While my parents would have supported me had I told them I wanted to be a professional musician and not go to college, they surely wouldn’t be paying my rent while I play open mic nights at the Double Door inbetween shifts at my $7.15 an hour barista job.
Here’s five careers you may enjoy just as much as music that can also help you achieve your ultimate goal of being a professional musician.
5. Writer
This may be the most obvious item on this list because obviously, good song writing elicits better music–but hey you could always just have Diane Warren write your music like Aerosmith did.
4. Teacher
While there may not be a possibility to network directly in your industry like some of the other jobs on this list, as a teacher you get weekends and summers to go play shows and go on tour. It seems to have worked for Art Garfunkel, Gene Simmons, and Sting.
3. Social Media Specialist
No, I don’t mean a twitter PR zombie that you find producing assloads of worthless shit that no one cares about–that’s not a Social Media Specialist. I’m talking about a specialist who not only has a good network of friends and knows how to launch an event, but can also write press releases and get your announcements syndicated through Google news and in all the local publications in the area.
Now that everyone’s on the Twitter bandwagon, you can find literally hundreds of other musicians, and music journalists that are within reach of 140 character message or less.
2. Sound Designer
Maybe a no brainer, but a talented sound designer can not only help get your music recorded in a high quality manner, but they can also be a good resource for networking with other bands and people in the industry. Chances are good if they have the proper access, you can save yourself a few thousand dollars experimenting with studio equipment, or renting studio time to lay down your fat beats.
Trent Reznor started out working as a janitor and assistant sound engineer in his earlier career and he recorded demos during unused studio time leading to him getting signed to his first record deal. Not too bad for a college dropout. His most recent endeavor with Janes Addiction just launched this past week: Nin|ja2009 and has CD quality audio available for free!
1. Web Designer/Developer
While you may disagree with a good portion of my list, I’m almost positive this is one of the jobs you can agree with. With music going digital and major record labels pouring all of their dollars into lawyers pockets instead of towards making quality music, now is an even better time to become your own producer and distributor of content and music.
If you have the tools to build your own site, and design your own graphics, you’ve saved yourself a ton of time and money trying to find someone else to help you with the details. Any decent web developer/designer can make a custom Myspace page, create your own merch store at a place like Big Cartel, implement a blog into your site, and get your music online and distributed to the masses. More importantly, a resourceful designer/developer can also build an entire unified online presence for your band that extends to the print world as well if need be.
Honorable mentions: Morning Radio Jockey, Copyright Lawyer, Graphic Designer, actor, (It’s doing wonders for Joaquin!)
Have another job I missed? Share it in the comments!
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Tim is the co-owner of Assault, and tends to think he can party twice as hard as anyone. Follow him on twitter @assaultEmail this Author | All posts by tim
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[...] tim placed an observative post today on Five Day Jobs That Can Help You Launch A Music Career – Assault BlogHere’s a quick excerpt… about a specialist who not only has a good network of friends and knows how to launch an event, but can also write press releases and get your announcements syndicated through Google news and in all the local publications in the area. … While you may disagree with a good portion of my list, I’m almost positive this is one of the jobs you can agree with. With music going digital and major record labels pouring all of their dollars into lawyers pockets instead of … [...]
[...] Five Day Jobs That Can Help You Launch A Music Career – Assault Blog By tim One of the many things musicians and artists alike struggle with before they even get to like paying bills mortgage. Assault Blog – http://assaultblog.com/ [...]
Hi Tim, nice article! There is definitely something to be said for keeping an open mind with work until that dream job or major opportunity comes along. Many of the people in the music industry have multiple projects and jobs going on, and your advice here is spot on. I myself DJ, produce, remix, market, promote, dabble in social media and much more here in Chicago, oh, and I also work for a music job website, which kinda helps with the music career too
Best,
Lee.
It’s something I wouldn’t have believed several years ago, but yes, nowadays everyone has to be a bit of a renaissance man when it comes to self promoting and producing.
I personally would love to get involved with the music industry more directly again, or even the film industry, but unfortunately the job market isn’t as lucrative as advertising/marketing.
My band has wished on many occasions that one of us had studied Auto Mechanics!
That would have been a great addition to the list! I completely forgot about that!
I am looking to get my material heard. I have been writing for years and want to write for artists. I have many years experience.