Adjacent Creative Careers for 16 year old VI Orchestral Composer?

[Sunny Kumar Dallas TX]

Hi, Sorry for this long post.

I have lurked around this FANTASTIC forum for last 2 years and generally have done heavy research elsewhere to educate myself to support my 16 year old daughter's interest in orchestral composing. She is a decent pianist and violinist for last 10 years but her natural gifts and interests seem to lie in composing melodic pieces with interesting chord progressions that she says come naturally to her (last 8 years on Piano/violin alone, last 2 years on Logic with East West CC, Spitfire Sym Strings, Damage, Embertone 1955 etc. She is also exposed daily to top class 200 member school orchestra for last 6 years. Through some luck, a local studio that does a lot of custom scores for many international TV stations came across my daughter's original pieces and placed one of those for good money (enough to buy a current model imac) ). The studio's senior most composer has taken to mentoring my daughter and there is talk from the Studio head about collaboration on more custom projects including documentaries etc. We have also researched deeply into Sync Licensing, Music Libraries, TV placements etc and are pursuing those independent of the studio.

As my daughter decides on a career path & college/major, she is reluctant to major in Music and risk putting all her eggs in that basket. She and I both feel that betting on composing major and career as the sole focus now may bring too much pressure and may be counterproductive in terms of her creative flow and joyful composition process. There is also this nagging suspicion that too much schooling/ formal training may spoil what seems to come naturally to her. She is also good at Adobe CC especially Illustrator/ Graphic Design and a bit in video editing and other creative, artistic projects (painting, crafts etc.). She is great at and enjoys artistic/design type school/club projects and anything requiring out of the box creative artistic ideas, logos, designs etc.

I would love your input on this question my daughter and I are exploring. What adjacent career path are there where she can be close to the music field but still have a stable normal job? We were thinking a degree in Advertising with a focus on creative aspects including Graphic Design. Then perhaps a career in Ad Agencies as a creative and hopefully touch some of the music that goes into Ads. In her spare time, she can continue composing for sync and other opportunities if she is motivated enough (BIG If!!) What are your thoughts on this and any other adjacent careers? She likes the creative project aspects of Ad Agencies and a somewhat regular type of job. She has ruled out professional instrumentalist, music teaching jobs, filmography, medicine, law and hard engineering/coding.

I feel fortunate to have found this community. I am not a musician but I absolutely cherish the countless hours I get to spend with my daughter encouraging her to just let the Universal Creative Energy flow thru her and express ITSELF as IT wants to. I want to continue encouraging her but also present some realistic Plan B career options for her to consider with your help. She wants to remain open to jumping into a Composition career with both feet (including majoring in music) if events unfold that way naturally but she does not want to premeditate and force herself into that major and career at all cost.


Thank you in advance for your guidance.

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[Daryl]

There is no such thing as too much training. Does an architect "spoil what seems to come naturally" because of training? No, of course not. Without training, the building would probably fall down. All that happens without training is that people re-invent the wheel, and don't have the tools they need in order to be good at what they want to do.

Now the question remains, what sort of training is necessary. In order to survive in the industry, you need as many musical skills as possible. Some of those may be obtained by doing a music major, but there are many things that will not. Personally, my college education was instrumental (excuse the pun) in getting me where I am, but had I only had the ambition to be a VI composer, there would have been so much missing from my education.

My advice to anyone n this situation would be:

1. Get a thorough education in harmony, counterpoint, orchestration, and composition. This doesn't have to be done at an educational establishment, although lessons/feedback are essential.

2. Make yourself employable. If you're able to use Pro Tools, Sibelius/Dorico, any sequencer, Mac/PC, synth program, any or all of these things, it's very unlikely that you will be without work.

3. Be prepared to earn very little for a number of years. The music industry is very competitive, and couple of placements mean nothing. You have to get continuous placements for the next 50 years...!

Good luck...!

 

[Harzmusic]

It is really hard to give advice about this. People have taken different routes in life, some did so successfully, some not so much - and everyone will probably tell you something different based on their own limited experiences. We simply do not really know about the roads we have not traveled. What worked for me will not necessarily work for someone else. With that being said, here I go.

First of all I was in a pretty similar situation around that age. I was hesitant as well to go the 100% music route and study composition or enroll for an instrumental degree. This had several reasons, partly I was just not that good on my instrument, so it would have taken a lot of additional investment in practicing. Partly out of simiilar worries as you describe - I am still not sure if those were founded, I've heard different things from people.
Instead I took the route of engineering (I have a bachelors degree in media engineering), specifically looking for a program where I would have enough time to learning composing and music production on the side, and also incorporate it in the projects I would be working on.
A generalist media technology degree like the program I entered turned out to be exactly the right thing for me. The first years everyone started out in the same general courses, and then everyone could specialize in different fields (audio engineering, visual effects, filmmaking, animation, interactive media), so I ended up not only knowing musicians and audio engineers, but film makers, producers, game designers and vfx artists. Also I could work on film and game projects from within the program and just do the music for them, so that was also good.
With my engineering degree in the bag I then added a post-graduate program for film scoring to my education.

Today I make a living in the music industry. Most of my main income actually comes from composing, but I also spend considerable time developing music software and virtual instruments and producing sessions in the studio.
The way I got here was as Daryl points out in his post above: I made myself employable with both technical and musical skills for the supporting roles of this industry and then one thing lead to another. Similar "employability" might be achieved with a music degree to work as an orchestrator, score preparator or session musician.
There's not just "making it" and "doing something else", but a lot of work exists supporting other people who "made it" and need help and expertise to cope with their workload.

It's not like any degrees like this are a safe bet. There are no safe bets if you want to do something creative for a living, because a lot of people want to do that. You got to be good, you got to put in the work, you got to have a good portion of luck and tolerance for failure.

There are also a lot of "safety"-routes that don't really allow you to explore artistic avenues on the side, and I'd be very hesitant about that. Degrees that are really hard to complete on their own and don't have any relationship to music or media at all will probably just not leave any space for building a career on the side. That could lead to regrets later on.

If she doesn't want to put all eggs in one basket, fine. But she should make sure that she still puts enough eggs in the basket that counts.

 

[Kent]

I would recommend she join Teammates on Discord and/or Facebook (links in my signature)

 

[Jeremy Spencer]

Plan A: You could encourage her to focus on becoming a professional performer (even though you mentioned she has ruled out becoming a professional instrumentalist). For example, with the intent of eventually joining a philharmonic orchestra somewhere in the world. At least she would be able to have a steady career in music and travel, at which point she could pursue composition "on the side". The only reason I would not major in music and/or composition, is because it's technically a dead end in terms of a solid, guaranteed career.

Plan B (most realistic): The whole music thing might just fizzle out. Both of my daughters were top music students/performers in high school complete with scholarships. I was very excited, but once they graduated, they instantly lost interest. At 16, they have scatter-brains Lol. I wouldn't worry too much about a career path in a particular creative, yet let her get out there and work/volunteer in a few different scenarios that she's interested in.

Really great advice from @Daryl and @Harzmusic

 

[muk]

As my daughter decides on a career path & college/major, she is reluctant to major in Music and risk putting all her eggs in that basket. She and I both feel that betting on composing major and career as the sole focus now may bring too much pressure and may be counterproductive in terms of her creative flow and joyful composition process.

Is that really your daughters fear, or your own? Your daughter has already earned good money from composing at a young age. It certainly looks like she could make a living out of it if she wants to. If she'd rather do something else in the field of music, there are a few options.

Performer. It's not a much safer road to take than composing. Winning a job in a good orchestra is exceedingly difficult (I should know, I am the personnel manager of one...). And if you don't, it's very tough to make a living, if you can't get a decent teaching job.

Musicology. That's the academic study of music. It doesn't prepare you for any specific job afterwards, but opens a field of possible employments. You can pursue an academic career, work in media as music critic/redactor/journalist, or work in administration/management of a music related facility.

Cultural management. Opens similar fields as musicology, though with a stronger focus on management and less on music.

I'm sure there are more options to explore. That's just the ones that come to mind off the top of my head.

 

[Living Fossil]

As my daughter decides on a career path & college/major, she is reluctant to major in Music and risk putting all her eggs in that basket. She and I both feel that betting on composing major and career as the sole focus now may bring too much pressure and may be counterproductive in terms of her creative flow and joyful composition process. There is also this nagging suspicion that too much schooling/ formal training may spoil what seems to come naturally to her.

If your daughter is a good composer in young years, i think it's almost mandatory that she should study composition.
However, since studying composition involves a very sensible topic – an artistic voice that gets developed – it's crucial to look for the right teacher(s).
A bad (or: wrong) teacher can destroy a lot by superimposing his own ideas on a student.
I had the big luck to have not only a fantastic teacher in composition, but also great ones for harmony & counterpoint, formal analysis as well as instrumentation.
I never felt that his influence was counterproductive, quite the opposite.
He treated students as individuals with an individual voice and helped on broaden the scope.
(What i always experienced as extremely counterproductive and painful was the "avantgarde scene" in modern music and the tendency towards dogmatic views. But that's another topic.)

So, my opinion is that having a good teacher result in more individuality in one's writing.
Also: a big part of studying composition is in getting a better understanding in where to find stuff to study and what to study (i.e. it sharpens your tools for analysis).
And this becomes important after a while.
As a composer you have to "reinvent" yourself from time to time (which doesn't mean to drastically change the style, but to modify it in order to keep your artistic expression honest).

A final thought:
In today's world nothing is guaranteed.
It's possible that composers will have a similar destiny than photographers.
Which means: a lot of passionate amateurs and few big names. Plus big industrialised music production companies and almost no royalties.
Could be.

Still, having studied composition still leaves all the doors open to study something else at a later point, maybe even in parallel.

 

[chrisr]

Then perhaps a career in Ad Agencies as a creative

Just a thought on this bit.

If your daughter is interested in an adjacent career in media, then in my experience/opinion there are far more wholesome and rewarding media production environments than Ad Agencies.

That's all - others may disagree.

 

[MartinH.]

I would love your input on this question my daughter and I are exploring. What adjacent career path are there where she can be close to the music field but still have a stable normal job? We were thinking a degree in Advertising with a focus on creative aspects including Graphic Design. Then perhaps a career in Ad Agencies as a creative and hopefully touch some of the music that goes into Ads. In her spare time, she can continue composing for sync and other opportunities if she is motivated enough (BIG If!!) What are your thoughts on this and any other adjacent careers? She likes the creative project aspects of Ad Agencies and a somewhat regular type of job. She has ruled out professional instrumentalist, music teaching jobs, filmography, medicine, law and hard engineering/coding.

I studied communications design, which is basically graphic design and many of those who study it end up in ad agencies. I didn't, and I wouldn't recommend it to anyone. Bad pay, long hours, lots of stress, often seeing every creatively worthwhile idea get crushed in the gears of corporate machinery... It's also a job that later down the road might make her question the ethical implications of working in that industry.


Imho some of the more sane and stable "creative" jobs are in-house graphic designer positions like working on concepts and promotional images for an automotive manufacturer. On average these seem to be paid better with less overtime from what I heard. The work is more boring of course, but music would retain the untainted purity of "just a hobby/passion".


No matter what creative career she aims for, imho it's a lot more important who you know and who you're friends with than where and what you studied to get a good job. I don't know where you live and what a higher education costs there, if it's free it might be worth it, but at the prices I've heard from the US I think it's a waste of time and money to get degree. Invest in books, courses and mentoring instead imho.


Whatever she's going for, I'd aim for something with a high average hourly wage, so that she can still make enough money while only working 20 to 30h a week, so that there's still some time and energy left for music. Imho for the majority of people "follow your passion" is poor advice and turning a hobby into a job leads to dropping the hobby part of it.


Maybe "don't pick anything that can be done by an AI within the next 10 to 20 years" is worth thinking about too.

 

[Sunny Kumar Dallas TX]

My apologies for a very delayed response. I got distracted with holiday travels and an out of town National Cricket Tournament for my 13 year old son. ( yes, cricket in USA is a thing and seems to be growing fast.)

My sincere thanks to all the folks for your valuable suggestions. I am showing this thread to my daughter and she appreciates all the input so she can begin to make informed decisions. KMASTER - thanks for your suggestion. My daughter has joined TEAMMATES. I have
questions related to some specific suggestions that may be better to ask separately but I really do appreciate the time you folks have taken to guide my daughter. We would welcome additional folks to chime in with their advice. Thanks.

 

[Sunny Kumar Dallas TX]

The way I got here was as Daryl points out in his post above: I made myself employable with both technical and musical skills for the supporting roles of this industry and then one thing lead to another

Harzmusic & Daryl - appreciate this actionable suggestion. DTR is becoming more proficient in Logic and learning to use Ozone9 and Nectar along with ear training and learning systems toubleshooting

Question- Is media engineering degree the same or similar to Audio Engineering? I have run across many Audio Engineering graduates who are not doing anything with it. Some say that there are not as many Production Studios as there used to be and hence not much scope as more and more it's becoming one stop production and home studios churning out professional quality music.

 

[SyMTiK]

As a recent graduate, I feel that I can give my own personal experience and thoughts.

As you can probably see from my signature, I just graduated this past year from Berklee with a degree in Music Production & Engineering. I don't regret a single second of it. I grew up in a non musical family, in a small town with absolutely no arts whatsoever. Everyone around me went into agriculture. Everything I learned up until that point was from watching too much youtube and lurking on this forum (and not paying enough attention in high school), which landed me in the very fortunate position of getting accepted to and attending Berklee.

Going to school for music wasn't my only choice. I had considered business school or social work as alternative degree/career paths. Ultimately though, my heart was always set on Berklee and I knew I would regret it forever if I didn't at least try knowing I had the opportunity.

The biggest thing I got out of Berklee was networking. The education itself was top notch, but to me the most important aspect of actually having a career in music is being part of a community where there is an abundance of opportunities. I have managed to pay my bills the past year just from freelance work alone, producing and engineering sessions for friends and clients I have met through those friends. I am finally moving to LA in a few weeks to grow even further due to the community I have there, which I didn't have before.

The other thing I learned from being at Berklee is there are so many more careers in music than most people realize. Aside from the friends I have that are successful performing artists, producers, and songwriters, I also have friends that work for companies like Reverb, Native Instruments, Izotope, Spotify, Apple Music, I know people working as A&R, I know people working in Music Therapy, the list goes on and on. And those are all solid paying jobs.

But I will also say that for every classmate I had that has achieved a lucrative career, I also know classmates who dropped out because of the pressure, who don't play their instruments anymore because school made them hate it, who have struggled to find work. Music as a career isn't for everyone, and it takes a huge amount of drive and motivation to continuously do it each and every day. Jobs in the industry can be brutal and taxing. She might like to compose now as a hobby, but would she want to compose 80 hours a week? Can she handle criticism well? Thats the aspect which makes some people realize they prefer music as a hobby, and there is nothing wrong with that.

There are a lot of different ways to break into the industry. So far, the education route has been working well for my particular situation, but there are also a lot of people who didn't have the same experience. I think at the end of the day, it all comes down to having a goal, and a plan to arrive at that goal. A degree won't hand you a job in the industry. But, the experiences you have and the people you meet, might. If you put in the work.

 

[Jimmy Hellfire]

It is absolutely possible to beat any kind of passion and excitement for music out of a person through over-training. The academiacs are extremely good at that. This depends on the person.

The same can also happen if you get too successful in making your passion a job. If a person is truly talented and the joy comes from a place very close to their heart, the bullshit business of music might hurt them. I often think that for creative people, the best job is one where you can make good money without working too many hours, especially not something that drains you completely and makes you feel like a prostitute. The music business is not that, haha.

So I'd be vary of that. I also think many people nowadays try to absolutely micro-manage their kid's lives and make it their big project. I'd be careful about that too. People make plans and then life happens. Nothing wrong with that - unless everything's been so meticulously and painstakingly planned that every deviation from the set path must result in feeling like an absolute catastrophy. Kids are gonna find their way. You make it up as you go.

 

[Harzmusic]

Question- Is media engineering degree the same or similar to Audio Engineering? I have run across many Audio Engineering graduates who are not doing anything with it. Some say that there are not as many Production Studios as there used to be and hence not much scope as more and more it's becoming one stop production and home studios churning out professional quality music.

No, at least here in Germany it is not the same degree - I am not sure about how it is where you live. Degrees and curriculums are vastly different between countries, and I don't know that many people who studied this abroad. There's no program called "audio engineering" exactly here (except for some private schools which I would strongly advice against), so it is kind of hard to make the distinction.

The difference between audio engineering and media engineering I would say is in the broadness of education. Audio engineering is really only directed towards audio production - basically you can work in recording studios, tv stations, radio, concerts, events, game sound and even the odd car company sound design.
In my media engineering program the first three semesters we studied the basics of many different media related fields. We learned about the structure of video cameras and microphones, the principles of video rendering, essential techniques of media interaction, information design, TV and Film production processes, and of course essential Programming, Maths, Physics, Electronics.

After those three semesters of relatively shallow ground work, each student could specialize in a specific field (you could choose from Audio, TV, Film, Visual Effects, Animation, Interactive Media and Event Media), and the education would continue more in-depth at that field.
Because of the broader education, my fellow students spread across a huge variety of different fields, and a lot of people who did not know what exactly they wanted to do, found their specialty they work in now in those first semesters. Some are in VFX and Animation, some are in TV Production, some are artists, some do sound and light at live shows, some work in recording studios. It was the ultimate "Something-with-media"-program.

Especially if your daughter is also interested in other fields like design, animation or games, this kind of generalist program might be good. If you can find one, where you live. It might be called "media technology", "Media Engineering", "Media Production" or something like that. Not to recommend if she hates maths.

 

[BenG]

Well, I can only speak from my own experience but I’ve found a good balance between my music and non-music careers.

Academically, I studied music composition at university which helped me learn the basics quickly while also exposing me to many new styles of music. That said, I’ve learnt more about film music on my own by listening, transcribing, doing mock-ups, etc. I think both types of education (personal and formal) are important.

Music-wise, I would definitely recommend your daughter look into production music. It gives the chance to make a good living, work on your own schedule and seems to be where the industry is heading. It is competitive and takes minimum 3-5 years to generate good income, but it well worth it and will continue to pay as time goes on.

As for career, I have always worked 2-3 jobs at the same time. Both to be more financially stable and have less stress. But also to give me more variety work I do. While a music degree might not have helped with getting my first job outside of music, it certainly did not hurt. I’ve worked in communications, marketing, done web/graphic design, video production, consulting, etc. and always enjoyed working in ulterior creative outlets.

Nowadays, I split my time between working as the head of a small comms department, writing trailer/production music among many other side projects that keep me busy.

All to say, a career in music is absolutely possible but it takes a bit more time. I’ve always had the notion to keep music as your passion/side-hustle until you make enough to quit your day job

Hope this helps and best of luck to you and your daughter!

 

[Sunny Kumar Dallas TX]

Music-wise, I would definitely recommend your daughter look into production music. It gives the chance to make a good living, work on your own schedule and seems to be where the industry is heading. It is competitive and takes minimum 3-5 years to generate good income, but it well worth it and will continue to pay as time goes on.

BenG - That seems like sage advice, a good balance between composing as a joyful hobby yet putting her creations out there in Production Libraries ( Sync Libraries) just in case there is traction over the next few years. Her current strengths are melodic, piano heavy soothing pieces though after engaging with the local studio she did expand to louder, faster ( Pl excuse my lack of proper terminology) orchestral pieces with lots of strings and heavy drums. One of those Orchestral pieces was the one bought by the large international TV News Network. No synths yet, though.

She still prefers composing piano heavy, softer pieces, though. Any recommendations for which Sync/Production Libraries to target and how to go about being successful in the Production Library world?

It seems Production Library focus may give her enough flexibility to pursue an adjacent career yet have a decent shot at making a part time living from music and perhaps even more if she gets lucky.

 

[Sunny Kumar Dallas TX]

If your daughter is interested in an adjacent career in media, then in my experience/opinion there are far more wholesome and rewarding media production environments than Ad Agencies.

ChrisR, thanks for this guidance. Can you and others, please expand of what "media production environments" she might look into as an education /career route? Would these "media production careers" be more stable and less of a lottery than the music composer career appears to be?

Probably some of these have already been suggested like production engineer/assistant.

 

[chrisr]

Sure @Sunny Kumar Dallas TX , I work in Children's television, and although it's a massive generalisation, people in that field are mostly great and support / respect each other.

Children's educational publishing is also really fantastic in my experience, and involves lots of interactive media production, not just books.

I've worked on 'grown-up' television and film, and it's a mixed bag, but more often than not one get's the impression that the production teams are healthy, enjoyable environments.

Games development teams always seemed to be just completely male dominated. I worked with Dice, SCEE, Team17, Frontier, Rage, Guerrilla Games, Overkill ... many others - I can't remember ever seeing an audio team with a female even in it, although I'm going back some years now. A old friend of mine is a senior audio director at Eidos Montreal and I know he's great with equal ops and has a very balanced team. Probably others have more gender balance now too - at least I hope so. Also, I think you probably need to be reasonably passionate about games to work in that field. I personally think it's a fairly boring industry to be honest.

I've worked with many of London's Ad agencies (only on TV / Radio ads) and I would say that more than half the time the studio environment has seemed very ego dominated and generally a bit toxic. Usually I got the impression that nobody was particularly enjoying their work.

Massive generalisations, and all from my time as a recording engineer - so I wasn't super integrated into any of these productions but would just dip-in for days or weeks at a time - still, those are my general impressions formed over a couple of decades.

To answer your question - yes all of the above would be more stable/ less of a lottery than music composer, because the teams can be vast and there are lots of opportunities for work.

best,
Chris

 

[Sunny Kumar Dallas TX]

Games development teams always seemed to be just completely male dominated. I worked with Dice, SCEE, Team17, Frontier, Rage, Guerrilla Games, Overkill ... many others - I can't remember ever seeing an audio team with a female even in it, although I'm going back some years now. A

Sound Design for Video Games is an option my daughter has considered. She has a mentee relationship with the Audio Director at a AAA Game Studio in the US who been very generous teaching her sound design and ambient music composition for video games. She is a bit hesitant as the impression she gets is that it seems very male dominated and sound design is a bit boring for her. But she is looking into partnering with game designers for Game Jams to see what the actual experience of composing/sound design work actually feels like. She is also looking to partner with film students on background score at the university, regardless of which major she pursues.

 

[Gaffable]

@A.Dern posted a short video the other day in which she outlines the three most common pathways to becoming a film composer:
(1) Serving as an assistant to a working composer;
(2) Releasing your music independently and then, through simple luck, being discovered by a film director or producer who invites you to score the music for a film; and
(3) Exploiting the network of contacts you make through a university degree.

In regards to point (1), there are a lot of discussion threads here at VI-Control about assistant composer positions. If you are interested, you can click here to see the search results for some of those discussions.

One of the co-founders of Spitfire Audio, Christian Henson, has a couple of videos about composer assistants:
How to be a composer's assistant
Being a composer's assistant - 12 golden rules

The film composer Tom Holkenborg (aka Junkie XL) is currently advertising for an assistant. He has a video discussing what he looks for in an assistant which you can view here.