Career advice

I've taken 10 years of private classical music lessons and before that I was into technical death metal and played in a band

To learn notation inside any out basically just play a ton of classical music, know the scales and write music until you're so used to it you can just sit down and start writing without an instrument in front of you.

One of my published compositions I wrote without even picking up an instrument

t. millenial

>>afraid I'll never make much money doing it and become a starving artist loser
Are you doing like a tutoring kind of deal with your studends? Is that not enough? You clearly have a business you can expand. I'm not saying to 30 students, but for one, you can put some lessons online, you probably have some sense of style so you can manage a nice website that'll only increase your prestige. If you already have experience tutoring maybe an educational facility will want to hire you (especially after the PhD)

Anyway, do whatever you want, I'd suggest you keep tutoring on the side at least, it's clearly the only successful business avenue you have, and I think you should expand on it.

Yeah tech school, it's a 3+2 -year bachelor's+master's degree here in uni. I know nothing of tech desu but doesn't matter if you're nerdy even a bit

I did an undergrad in classical piano but dropped out in my final year (stage fright, lol) and did compsci instead. I'm really interested in composition and have always wanted to get better at it. I don't want to be a professional composer but I'd like to have the skills of one. Do you think it's possible to self-study? I've got decent knowledge of harmony and counterpoint but my inner ear sucks. I can't come-up with anything if I'm not sitting at a piano.

Also, you say that you want to be make a living as a composer but most of the well known composers throughout history end-up teaching at universities, don't they? So a PhD would help you get a teaching position at a uni and you'd be expected to be compose your own works as part of your job. If I had the skills, I'd look for film students and try to see if they'd let me score their films. If you play and instrument, you could record yourself (like Nathan Barr who did the music for True Blood, he's a cellist and most of the show is just him playing his own works). Eventually, if you do enough of those, you'd likely be able to make connections and pick-up paid work

>Anyway, do whatever you want, I'd suggest you keep tutoring on the side at least, it's clearly the only successful business avenue you have, and I think you should expand on it.

I have no problem teaching and that's what I would plan on for being my main source of income. I am afraid I will start a family and have a bad year where I make like $14,000 for the year and then my wife gets angry and goes and gets a job. I've seen this happen to music teachers before and a few of them have advised me to be careful as this can happen. Along with this, I can't quite tell what direction music is going. There may not even be any music students in 20 years, zoomers certainly don't seem that interested in music.

On the other hand, I know teachers who have 40 students and are making good money... so i dunno. I feel like I should be a responsible independent MAN and just go work in tech and make steady money to support a family and let my music goals take the back seat.

So you've learned how to code and all that?

Wow, that's crazy you dropped out your last year. Do you regret going into compsci at all? Or are you happy with it.

Any classically trained musician can compose in my opinion, unless you naturally have no creativity. The best way to compose is just sit at the piano and come up with ideas and craft it into a song. You can use formal baroque music structure if you want, some people feel more comfortable wih that. Or you can just do what Debussy and all them did and write whatever you want with no structure. Don't be shy to write, I usually sit down with an instrument and just fiddle around with it until I come up with a theme that I like and I go from there. I also use software to write it all out, but you can use paper if you prefer that

For money I would plan on teaching at a private school or maybe at a university. I thought maybe I could try composing for indie video games as that market is starting to grow

>Do you regret going into compsci at all?
yeah. I have plenty of regrets (big regrets that keep me up at night) because I took the easy way out instead of forcing myself to overcome my flaws. It also sucks to see your contemporaries that you studied with go on and have successful careers as musicians. I really miss it. They were happy times.

>yeah. I have plenty of regrets (big regrets that keep me up at night) because I took the easy way out instead of forcing myself to overcome my flaws. It also sucks to see your contemporaries that you studied with go on and have successful careers as musicians. I really miss it. They were happy times.
This is how I feel

I went to college for business instead of music during the recession because everyone told me there's no money in music no matter what. Now I'm on the other side and my friends who pushed ahead with classical music are doing big concerts, have many students, are playing on the radio and traveling internationally.

The only thing this fucking business degree got me was wage cucking in a feminist infested corporate environment. This has taught me to never fully listen to people and just trust your instinct

trying to make a living from music is one of the worst choices you can possibly make. Keep that shit as a hobby otherwise you will begin to hate it. If you don't really like tech you will never make it.

>and have a bad year where I make like $14,000 for the year
So you should have savings in case this happens?

>I feel like I should be a responsible independent MAN and just go work in tech
I feel like you should spend less time on pol
learn to code is a meme, not saying it doesn't sometimes work but it's still a meme, and I'm telling you that as a programmer who enjoys programming. You already have a stream of income, why do you insist squandering it instead of developing it? You're already leagues above the failures with arts degrees that end up in starbucks.

Make a new musical instrument that is easy to mass produce and make YouTube video tutorials showing how to play your "new cool instrument." Sell the instrument and profit like a mother fucker. I like this one, but you could do better... youtube.com/watch?v=xH5DD8rMveA

what is your music like?

Instrument engineering is more the job of a luthier.. I have thought about how to make a guitar's range more expansive though, so it would play more like a piano. You're right though, internet is a great path for marketing and making money. I've actually made a lot of money off of selling my t-shirt designs on the internet.

>learn to code is a meme, not saying it doesn't sometimes work but it's still a meme, and I'm telling you that as a programmer who enjoys programming. You already have a stream of income, why do you insist squandering it instead of developing it? You're already leagues above the failures with arts degrees that end up in starbucks.
My parents and my private music teacher have sort of warned me of the dangers of pursuing an academic career in classical music. I'm also somewhat paranoid because I've seen family members and parents of friends encounter problems from pursuing a career in the arts. My teacher suggested furthering my education in classical composition but to keep some sort of backup like tech skills just in case.

To be fair, I only know one classical musician my age with a PhD and he got a professorship pretty quick. So maybe my paranoia isn't totally justified

Contemporary classical, I'd say. My most recent stuff has more baroque influence with a heavier emphasis on counter-point though

My piece that is premiering this week is very poppy though

do you have any links to something that you've had recorded?

make videos online, gain a following, monetize them. im a professional producer/artist and i watch videos on music theory and composition weekly and always try to find new channels so that i get multiple perspectives and teaching styles

>backup like tech skills just in case.
backup, not a total change of course. And I'm not sure you could learn much in IT that'll last as a backup for the future. Tech is shifting. The best thing you could do is be responsible with money, stack some solid amounts for when times get rough, or for training expenses when you actually need a career change, because whatever tech stack you're going to learn now is not gonna work later, and a having just a comp sci degree doesn't guarantee employment.

This is the feeling I got from looking at tech. I feel like if you're going to have a career in tech, you have to fully dedicate yourself to it in order to keep up with the changes. I feel like you have to legitimately find tech interesting too in order to stay motivated to keep learnin gnew things.

I was actually thinking of making some YouTube videos doing a music analysis of video game music and discuss some of the esoteric elements happening from a music theory perspective. I think gamers would get a kick out of something like that.

But yeah you're right, if you're in the arts then building a digital following is a must.

I don't want to doxx myself on here

can you recommend any books on music that have helped you?

For composition? The only composition book I've read is Schoenberg's "fundementals of composition".

It gave me some good ideas just to sort of structure my music better, but really the best way to learn to write is just listening to composers you like and basically emulating them with your own twist.

>fully dedicate
eh idk about that, it's not like you have to learn everything that comes out, libraries/frameworks/languages are like shitcoins and a lot of them are simply useless, stupid, or unrelated to your general field, for example a backend developer doesn't need to know much about bloat.js, the newest and hottest frontend framework. Sometimes something gets popularized and you pretty much must have a basic grasp of it, but it's really not as fast as you think. It's a lot easier if you simply like coding. I really enjoy the process of creating something that does a thing. It's like solving a puzzle, it's like a game. Another thing about programming is that some people simply can't code, can't solve problems, and they can still get a comp sci degree, so 99% of employers put job applicants through some sort of a brainlet test to vet out the retards.

Based. Every other post is shit.

try to get in in Europe even elite unis like the eth Zürich cost like 500$ per semester, but you have to cover the cost of living, which amounts to 7-10 p/a for a basic life

pretty much. If you love music, which you clearly fucking do, then make it work. Fuck wage-cucking doing something you absolutely hate. Music tuition on the side while PhD'ing and then teach that shit at uni, lecturing doing tutes, or even get a diploma of education and become a music teacher or some shit.

A PhD gets you any job you want, it's not hard to get one if you FUCKING NETWORK

yes, you have to, sorry

But it's easy and you get free jobs, a PhD composer can teach at real institutions where you get real pay

>yes, you have to, sorry
I'm always glad to network, the only problem is the entire classical music world is filled with "educated SJW" freaks now.

But that's just a price to pay to pursue classical music I guess.

My instinct agrees with this. I am so skeptical of the "do what you love" sentiment because I've seen it eat people alive so many times. I know i should just force myself into tech, I have a feeling I'll regret it later in life when I'm 52 and robots are now teaching classical music and my wife is angry at me or something.

I just can't stand the wage cucking though. After university I worked at an insurance sales company and designed websites on the side, I despised all of it. I don't see why I should settle for that when I could have the chance to secure a classical music teaching position.

I guess insurance sales will always be there if I need it

Yes this post just reminds me how obnoxious I find tech to be. I understand America is all about innovations in industrialization but tech is so pointless to me.

I just see tech as a force making the world worse, I find it depressing to be around. But I understand I could easily feed my family with it in the future too...

Try they're more likely to have insight on this. I've never been but I'm on /ic/ a lot and they think art school is complete bullshit and only used for networking

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