Industries Where You Can Use Your Musical Talent

Industries Where You Can Use Your Musical Talent

musical talents child singing microphoneThere’s a popular opinion that many artists are always hungry, poor and unsuccessful. This saying doesn’t literally mean that but rather implies that any job that is related to art is impractical, low-paying, or even unnecessary.

Despite this, job fields connected with creativity and art are always very competitive. Especially in the music industry, where there are tons of artists, but only some of them manage to break through and become successful.

But if you’re an aspiring musician and want to dedicate your life to music, there are plenty of job opportunities for you besides playing in a band or becoming a singer. According to Statista, in 2017 motion picture and sound recording industries alone employed over 430,000 people. And these jobs often pay over $50,000 a year.

wage graphImage credit: Statista

So in which industries can you use your musical talent and make a career out of it? Let’s take a look.

Education

Nowadays, there is a high demand for music teachers in the educational institutions. Give a Note foundation reports that, while 80% of schools offer general music classes as well as band and chorus classes, more specific classes like piano or guitar lessons drastically fall behind. But there are more options for musicians in education, and the most popular among them are:

  • Music teacher ($40,000 a year): if you professionally play a certain musical instrument and have a specified education, you can become a tutor or a music teacher at school.
  • Lecturer at a college or university (between $40,000 and $80,000 a year depending on the institution): some colleges and universities which have programs in the history of music and other programs related to this field, often need a qualified lecturer to curate a particular subject. If you have a Master’s or a Doctorate and enough experience, you might qualify for this job.

Wellness

Fitness and wellness industry is probably one of the most profitable nowadays. It’s not only trendy to keep your body fit and well, but people have also come to a realization that taking care of the mental health is important as well. Moreover, company review sites claim that the wellness industry is one of the most innovative and is expected to bring more revenue by 2020 and create over 50,000 jobs.

For musicians there are also some job opportunities in the wellness industry, like:

  • Music therapist (over $40,000 a year). This job position, as defined by the American Music Therapy Association, is aimed at addressing physical, emotional, cognitive and social needs of individuals by using music as a therapeutic tool. To get this job, you need a Bachelor’s degree or higher in music therapy, including 1200 hours of clinical training. This job also requires the knowledge of psychology and medicine.

Sound Recording and Management

This is one of the biggest industries that hires musicians and people passionate about music. This is also one of the most profitable industries. It is expected that by 2020 the revenue of the sound recording industry only in the U.S. will exceed 1 billion dollars. This is a flourishing industry with lots of job opportunities, like:

  • Curator of a certain music genre (over $60,000 a year): companies such as Apple sometimes need a curator of a particular music genre to support their apps (for example, Apple Music). To get this job you need a respective Bachelor’s degree or higher with the concentration on a specific music genre.
  • Lyricist/Creative writer (over $40,000 a year depending on an agency): sound recording studios, which collaborate with certain singers and musicians, often need a lyricist to help them write lyrics for their songs. To get this job you need know how to write songs. You should also have a good command of such tools as A-writer (helping you to create flawless meaningful lyrics) and such digital tools like MasterWriter (which is an MS Word extension for lyricists and creative writers).
  • Sound engineering technician (over $50,000 a year): your task will be to operate specific recording equipment, mix and synchronize the sounds, voices, add special effects. You can work as a sound engineering technician in many places like a sports arena, theatre, recording studio, and movie/video production studio. This job may require a degree in audio production or another related field, and also in-depth knowledge of audio equipment.

Choose the Career Path that You Like!

As you can see, you don’t have to be a starving artist, as there are plenty of jobs waiting for you. Set a long-term goal and build your career path to achieve it.

And for all the students, who read this article – hopefully, it will help you figure out which areas you should concentrate your studying on in order to get a specific job in the music industry in the future. For lots of them, you might need specific skills. So use your time and learn them right now. This will only make you a more valuable employee.

Lucy BentonLucy Benton is a writing coach, an editor who finds her passion in expressing own thoughts as a blogger, and currently works at essay company www.assignmenthelper.com.au. She is constantly looking for the ways to improve her skills and expertise. If you’re interested in working with Lucy, you can find her on Twitter.

 

Please follow and like us:

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

*