For this task, I am going to be discussing my plans for the future, within education and also my career.
Due to studying music in secondary school and now also college, I have realised how much I want my career to be in the music industry. This course has covered many different subjects within the music area, and I have learnt so much information and gathered a lot of knowledge from my tutors and classes. The main part of the college course that I have enjoyed, was when I was taught about music business in Year 1 of the course. It’s always been a main interest of mine, especially as I have always loved the idea of being involved on the management side of music, rather than the performing, although I do love that too.
I applied for UCAS back in the middle of November. I never considered going to university until earlier in 2021 (I think around May time). This was because I didn’t think I needed to go, although I was interested in the experience of being in university. However I now realise that I need the knowledge and degree, if I want to get further in my career. As i’ve been told, having a degree under your belt, looks impressive and can open more doors for you and hopefully giving me more opportunites at jobs then the people without a degree. I appled to 4 different institutes/universities as I want to keep my options varied just so I have backups if my first choice doesn’t go to plan. I have audtions booked and open days to attend too soon, so that will help me narrow my choices.
The ambition in life is for me to have a successful career. My definition of successful is to be able to afford a living, and to feel happy within myself when I go home at the end of the day. That to me, would mean a lot. Personally I think that a job in music business could help me with that! I am applying for joint honours courses, so I will still be able to perform, but also learn the business/event side. In my opinion, I think this looks really good on a CV as it shows that I have skills in multiple sides of the industry, not just the one in particular. Plus I do still want to be performing, as I worry I will lose the love I have for it, if I just stop.
The reason I want to do the joint honours is mainly because I know that I still want to perform for as long as possible, but I know I won’t be doing that forever. However, I would love to go into the business side after university, which is why I’ve chosen the joint course as I can do both for three years. I’ve studied music business briefly in secondary school, and then quite a bit more in the first year of college. Straight away I was interested in the subject, as I’ve always been one for maths and leading teams etc, so the thought of running events/working for a label makes me look forward to the future as I hope I could do that. Music business is a huge part of the industry as it’s what causes the performers to get gigs, get promoted and become successful!
Over the last few years, I have learnt that only being a drummer is not enough. It’s not a 9-5 job and it certainly won’t bring in much of an income, especially in the beginning of a career. Although I was already set on the music business side of the industry, being at college made me realise it more as I have learnt from my tutors that I need to be multiskilled. So if I get into the business side, I will have all that knowledge on how to promote bands, run events, manage bands or labels. Meaning, that if I carried on drumming and got into a band, I could use my business skills to promote my own band. At the end of the day, what I have learnt is that I need more to know more then just one part of music, I almost need to know all of it so I can manage a living and make the most out of what I’ve got.
At university I will plan to use the Popular Music Drumming course as being able to progress my skills on the practical side of my time there. It’ll benefit me massively and help me to improve so I can use my talent outside of education. Then, the music business course will help me to learn brand new skills and teach me to get into the music business which I am really looking forward to if i get into the university.
All together, I am very happy with where I am right now, due to being able to work out roughly what my ambitions for my future career are. I hope to stick to the plan I have discussed above, and I can’t wait to see what happens.
Fran Adams Drums 