In this assignment I will be taking three job roles from the music industry and talking about them. One job from performance and two jobs from other areas. Among these jobs, I will be talking about the session musician, the music producer and the recording engineer in depth with facts.
1: What each role does day to day. Why are they important
2: Role Interaction?
3: Self employed or Employed? Contract? Dangerous work? Money?
4: Full time or part time? Hours (If any)? Seasonal or time off in between hours?
5: Qualifications (If needed)? If needed, how to get them and where? Give examples (Links)
6: What can these lead to?
Session Musician
This job role means that you will be a hired gun of sorts to help out someone who is in need of a certain instrumentalist or vocalist. Most of the time it’s either just backing for a band/group or it will require them to be a touring member of a band that doesn’t have the original instrumentalist for some reason or another. Sometimes it might be a job with an artist who is already famous and then the musician might even end up being there permanently if they are skilled enough.
This job role is a self employed one, there are no set kind of hours to work. If it is recording and the musician is very good, the work will be done in no time and because of this, the musician will get a good reputation. As this keeps happening, more and more people will want him for their recordings. This job role, to give you the best opportunities, requires you to be very open minded about the music you play because the more styles of music you learn to practice and play, the more job offers you will receive.
To perform well in this job role, no higher education or qualifications are required. However, knowledge about music theory will possibly be needed. This also isn’t necessary, but having a skill with multiple instruments can give you an edge as a session musician in a few ways. Going back to the first paragraph, it can give you an advantage over other session musicians who might not be able to do as much as you. Also, it just means that you could possibly fill in for more instrument parts if needed in a recording situation. Another skill that would be handy to learn would be sight reading and learning from ear. These two skills are an instant judge of character because they aren’t the easiest skills to learn of pick up, so going into education for those things would help you out tremendously.
All of this can lead to you getting jobs with possibly many artists if you are very talented not only at your instrument(s), but with your success rate and your good reputation. But it is a slow battle at first since you have to build a reputation to have one and not many people would trust an unfamiliar face in the music industry. Most of all, you need to be kind, persistent.
According to this website, their annual pay average is around $54,600 (£38811.63).
Recording Engineer.
A Recording Engineers job is to record a band making an album or some other kind of recording. But not just to record it, to also mold it to the desires of the band in charge of the album. He edits and mixes the sound captured via his microphone set up and placement and also setting the right levels so nothing is clipping throughout. They should also have good knowledge of both digital and analog tape recording. Usually the engineer can also act as the producer as he can add his input to a certain part of the recording that the band might not have thought of that might sound good, this takes an engineer with good people and a good ear. The work is hardly dangerous either but there can be the odd mistake that can take place, as in being careful around the desk with liquids and foods.
Education wise, you don’t really need a whole lot of GCSE’s or other grades, however you do need to have an advanced knowledge of a desk and the software that comes with digital recording. Usually this information is a for YouTube videos away or a few links and a half an hour read away, but there are places like Kendal College and Lancaster and Morcombe college is a good place to earn degrees for universities such as BIMM in Manchester or LIPA in Liverpool and also those courses teach you all about the desk and software.
According to this website, down the page there is a line graph showing the average percentage of employed and self employed recording engineers with 49% being self employed and 36% being in full time work which would imply that most recording engineers would prefer setting their own hours without limitations of shutting down before the band or artist finish their product.
Engineers can be payed or work on a project-to-project basis. If they work with a big studio they will get payed a big sum annually, but if they work from home, they can charge their own rates per session and they’re usually big rates depending on the amount of hours it takes to record. Average annual salary earnings according to this website are $40,000 (£28433.42).
Music Producer
A music producers job is to basically write the music for popular artists who are either just the vocalist of a pop group (Rihanna, Adele, Beyonce) or they would write the beats and backing for singer songwriters (Ed Sheeran, James Bay, Hozier). It’s their job to arrange music for artists or bands that come through their doors, they also can act as a musical coach to the musicians who might be stuck for ideas. They’re also their when it comes to the final stages of the recording such as the audio mixing and in some cases even the audio mastering. When they’re on break, they usually have to deal with phone calls and social media affairs of other artists wanting their product recording. On their off time, they go to shows to find other talent around the area and they also find artists via social media because it’s become so easy to scout with Facebook and Soundcloud. It’s also not just making music for artists, sometimes people go down the soundtrack route and work their way up from film to film.
Once again, just like the Recording Engineer, you don’t really need qualifications only really an advanced knowledge of the desk and the software that is used in their establishment. However, going to a college course to learn that is one thing but unlike a recording engineer, a music producer would heavily benefit from also doing the musical side of things on a college course as well because they have to have a sense of directing when it comes to making music for an artist.
A music producer usually would end up in a studio working full time depending on how much of a reputation they make for themselves. They would end up working with massive artists and become a beacon of hope for all artists. But, like most job roles in the music industry, it’s about starting from the bottom and working upward. It might be sending scores to companies to see if they’ll use them, or perhaps making your own songs on software such as Studio One or Protools. They would usually start off self employed but get picked up by a studio and then studio hop until they are in a very good position.
According to this website, an average annual earning for a music producer is $49000 (£34349.81)
Mark Kirby 