For Task 1 Unit 3, I will be discussing 3 job roles that I am interested in and how to potentially get into it. Also, I will be talking about the potential earnings of the job roles and the career path it will lead into.
3 areas of work I am interested in:
Session Musician – a freelance musician that is hired to play on recording sessions or in live performances. They are not permanent members of a band/music ensemble.
To become one, or at least a successful one, you need to be a professional at your instrument. You need to be talented, and able to play pretty much anything as you never know what you are going to be asked to do. Improvisation is a necessary skill within this job as you need to be able to offer your skills into any musical arrangement. To also help, a good network of relationships with other people in the music industry is good as it can get your name out there more and therefore give you more business and promotion.
The potential earnings for the job, completely depends on how skilled you are at the craft. If you’re considered highly professional and talented, you’ll constantly be needed by recording studios and artists/bands at live performances. However, if you ae known to be unprofessional and not very talented, you won’t ever get any business, unless they need someone cheap just to do the job. You could be earning between £100-£2,500 a max on a job, or you could be earning £10,000+ if you’re talented and people like you. Some people can even earn into the six digits if they are really talented. It all depends on the commitment and the effort you put in, however this doesn’t just happen. You have to build up a business, and it can take a while. Building up enough clients to earn a living is a lot of hard work and it doesn’t just happen in a day. It will take months, if not years. A session musician is a long term job so you have to commit to it.
Some famous session drummers are Kenny Aronoff, who has played with Avril Lavigne and played at The NFL, plus many more. Karl Brazil who has been able to play with Robbie Williams, Elton John, Girls Aloud and Take That. But the most famous is Ash Soan who has played with the famous Adele, Cee Lo Green, Natasha Bedingfield, Alesha Dixon and Boyzone.
The way to become a session musician is by completely putting yourself out there. Networking is key, it’s all about who you know and this can help you gain potential clients. Another way of gaining business is through promoting yourself over social media. Use advertisement so people can see your work. It also helps if you create a portfolio, it can give them a sample of your work and then a good idea on what you can bring to the table. Another key way to becoming a session musician is doing constant practice, you need to improve your performance skills so you are always excelling at what you do, making you more desirable. You start this business by yourself and the amount of success is all down to how much effort you put in. You have to commit and it’s important to remember that the money won’t just fall into your hands, you have to work for it by promoting yourself and working hard to do your job well.
For my career potential assessment, I know that I would not be ready for this as I definitely don’t have the networking skills yet and I don’t have a very big online presence, however I am working on this at the moment and I am trying to build a portfolio of myself online via YouTube and I have posted some of my performances that I carried out at college during the performance workshop. However to get business, I need to be a lot more skilled at my instrument which I am not yet, but again I am still improving on that with weekly lessons from a teacher still, and daily practice on the kit.
Music Teacher – someone who teaches you how to play an instrument. I will looking at how to become a drum teacher. This can be done in your own home, a space where you can teach (as a private instructor) or at a school. I will be discussing how to become a private music tutor as that is what I am more interested in.
As a private tutor, you will be self-employed so you are in charge of everything. To become one you technically don’t have to have any grades or qualifications, however that obviously would look awful and you would get no business. The more qualifications you have, the better it looks. For example, passing a music course at college would be perfect. You could also use teaching certificates. music diplomas or degrees. It all helps towards your ‘look’ and how people will see you. The better the experience and background of music, the more likely you will look trustworthy, therefore gaining a sufficient amount of clients. Safeguarding certificates are very important to have as you are most likely going to be teaching children between the age of 5 and 16. You should take the DBS certificate to prove you have no criminal offences and are able to work with children. A professional website or some sort of social media to promote your teaching can help you gain clients quite easily too as it can be used to show a portfolio of your skills or past performances.
The potential earnings for a drum teacher all depend on what you raise your prices to. For example, my drum teacher charges £15 for 30 minutes or £30 for an hour. I have a 30 minutes lesson every week so he gains £60 a month from me and has the potential to earn £780 from him in a year if I was to attend every week of the year. If I was to do this, and have around 20 clients doing 1x 30 minute lessons a week, and 15 clients doing 1 hour sessions a week, I would be earning a maximum of £39,000 a year, which is pretty amazing. But again, like the session musician, it will take a lot of effort and commitment to build this kind of business up. It is a long process and a long term job.
Two famous drum teaching companies who help students learn grades are Trinity College London and Rockschool. Drum teachers usually choose one of these exam boards to help there students learn grades if that is what they want to do. It involves learning a certain amount of songs and then ending in an exam so you can go onto the next grade. It is a very helpful guide to becoming a good drummer and most drummers use this for their students. But it also involves the teacher learning all the possible songs tat the student will get to learn. They will need a good understanding of reading the drum notation and also how to play it so the students are able to be taught to a good standard.
I have already discussed the basics in how to start being a private drum tutor. The way to get into it is just by promoting yourself on social media and making sure you detail the prices, what you offer, how the student will get to you and clearly stating how you are going to teach them. Discussions with the parents of the students are highly important as they need to know their child is in safe hands and getting their moneys worth with the lessons. They need their child to be succeeding and benefitting from your teaching.
For my career potential assessment, I could probably teach beginners at the moment, as bringing them up to my level would take at least 4 years and within them 4 years I would also be improving my own skills. I would probably be able to teach myself all the songs from Grades 1-4 within a month. However due to my age and the student having to come to my house where my parents and sister also live, doesn’t give off the best look for parents of the students. I’d also need to manage a lot of my time due to college work, attending college and then also teaching which can be difficult. But if I start getting my name out there now, in 2 years time when I am finished with college, I might be able to start a tutoring business with young kids.
Music Publicist – to spread information about their clients to the public via social media or advertisement.
To become a music publicist, you need to be good at communicating as this is a communications and marketing-based role. It is a key skill to have good people skills so you are able to sell the artist/band you are representing more successfully. There are no qualifications needed as this is once again a self-employing job, and you get hired by musicians or bands. But you need good skills such as networking, because you need to build strong relationships with bands or artists because if you represent them well, not only will they ask you again to promote them, but they will most likely recommend you to others if you do the job well. Your social media game needs to be strong as it has to beat the other promotions going on at the time. You’ll need to try and build a big following, which will take time, so you can become well known around your local area, and also within the music industry. Social media will be a big reason you get most of your business so an Instagram and Facebook account are great examples of where you can start promoting your skills, and then who you represent. I would say that these are the main skills you need. People skills are hugely important too because you need to be able to get along with anyone you work with and maintain a good relationship with clients so you are likely to be asked to work with them again. Good people skills convey how professional you are too.
The potential earnings as a music publicist, again depend on how successful you are at the craft. A publicist works closely with media outlets, marketers and venues. Depending on what you’re promoting and who you are promoting it for, will also depend on how much money you will receive from it. The money can be from £500 – £10,00 a month. On average, a 20+ day of tour publicity can cost around £1500. If you are asked to publish a ‘big story’ for a band or artist, you can be payed around £500. It all depends on what you publish and how big the band/artist is as the bigger the band, the more money you will expect to earn. According to my research, a monthly fee can get you payed between £1000-£2000 if you are a well-known publicist.
Some well known Music PR firms are Organic Music Marketing, who have represented people from Warner Music, Atlantic Records and rappers such as Lil Yachty, Migos and Tyga. Forbes Music Entertainment is another big music publishing company that has represented many celebrities such as Fetty Wap, Black Diamond, Nate $avage and Jim Jones. ‘Forbes’ started in 2014 and is a Hip-Hop promoting company. I think that promoting only one genre can be quite useful as people will come to you, with the understanding that you have more knowledge about the certain genre. For example, Forbes Music Entertainment only represents Hip-Hop artists/groups, so therefore they know who to promote to and their target audiences due to their knowledge of the genre. They will know how to promote it and who to get in touch with. They can also create a good network of clients as the artists that have been represented are likely to suggest you to other bands/artists in the same field.
The way you can start your career as a music publicist is either by starting out on your own and building a following of people so you are able to get jobs and are able to represent people, however the self-employed way can take a while due to starting from scratch. You will need to create a portfolio of what you can do for the potential customer, and then create a good relationship with them using your people skills and professionalism. This can take a long time so the commitment needs to be genuine and you will have to be patient as you won’t gain clients quickly. The other option, is you get hired by a publishing company and work under them instead to guarantee instant business, however you won’t be given anything too major until you have proved you are good at the job. Another negative about this is, although you might develop business much quicker, you may not gain as much money due to working under a company so you are getting paid by them as the client will pay the company, and not you directly.
For my career potential assessment for being a music publicist, I once again wouldn’t be able to carry this out right now, however I would be able to make a start. I could try to build up a big music following on social media, and then get into contact with local bands/artists who have a single/album or some sort of gig coming up in the future and offer my help to promote it. However I need to build on my networking skills and also my social skills so I am able to contact people and have them trust me and build a good relationship with them.
Overall, I have liked learning about these jobs, but the one that intrigues me the most is being a session musician as I will be able to carry on playing my instrument and enjoy it even more throughout my career. It is a long term job which I have accepted and I am definitely willing to put the hard work and commitment in. I want to make my name well-known in the music industry and be able to play with artists I love by having good networking skills and being professional when it comes to doing the job at hand.
Fran Adams Drums 