Is getting a degree in something like 'Administration and I.T' a safe choice...

it's alright man i understand how frustrated you must be, maybe most of us are stuck in a similar boat, maybe it'd be better for us to accept we'll most likely make a standard amount of money and focus more on how to enrich our lives without a fat pay cheque

these are fair points.

but if you can't reach financial independence you're basically a failure. no grill will ever want you and you're the laughing stock of your family for having to live with mom and dad.

Depends where you live. I live in a rural area where there's massive demand for it.

Not gonna give career advice, but if you're gonna pursue this music thing, you need to do two things: be honest with yourself, and get your name everywhere.
Be honest about what you're good at, and be honest about what you need to work on. Not sure if you play an instrument, are a singer/songwriter, produce electronic music, etc, but you have flaws. Work on your technique, and talk to or take a lesson from somebody who is better than you, especially if they're awesome at whatever you're deficient at. And if you sit down and decide you don't have the drive to work your ass off, this isn't an industry for anyone who's willing to do anything less than whole-ass it.
Also, you need get your name out there. Talk to local musicians. Talk to the people who own local venues. If you produce music, show it to some bar and club owners. Offer to DJ at places if that's your thing (but NEVER do anything for free unless it's a community band or something; leave that shit to high schoolers). If someone is having a jam session somewhere, ask if you can join and show them what you can do. You can't get gigs if nobody knows who you are, and good luck getting 'discovered' when your only views are your parents and a couple friends from high school or college.
Lastly, depending on what you do, there are service bands (including rock bands) that you can audition into. A lot of people in them have music degrees, but there are some that don't. I know a guy who enlisted straight out of high school and loves getting payed to play at military functions around the world. He's also on track to be able to retire with a pension before he hits 40 and will be able to go to school on the GI Bill. It sounds like a sweet gig if you can meet the physical requirements (I unfortunately cannot for reasons that are beyond my control), but remember that even if you're in the President's Own, you'll still always be a soldier first and a musician second.
>t. music teacher who gigs around the area

As a company its much easier and cheaper to hire people from India to do coding and tech work.

Why is this?

A) there is a lot of paperwork involved if we want to employ someone new, and there is none when you freelance.
B) there are a lot of highly skilled freelancers out there with many years of experience who take the same rare or a bit lower than the average American entry level wage.

Only going to get worse for freelancers though since AI will soon be taking all the entry level jobs and jobs which don't require creativity.

It's all very well to bitch at companies for not hiring Americans, but when you own a company, it's practically a no-brainer to outsource.

If you give up, you have already failed anyway.

thank you so much for taking the time to gice such a lengthy response! Yes i agree the music industry isn't a place for ppl who aren't willing to go all in. I play guitar, am learning to produce, and have been making demos with my band for an E.P. I'm getting back into my local music scene and am gonna network hard to get in contact with managers, labels, etc. I'm not letting my youth go to waste, i'm going to give this all i've got while i can! If i'm not going to go all in and try when i'm 18 when will I? Wish me luck anons

totally off topic but the inevitable automisation of most jobs is terrifying lol

Not really.
Point being is its not a good idea to do admin and I. T. because compaies are far more likely to outsource jobs than hire locals.
In that post I explained why.

meh, failure by society's arbitrary standards, i think someone is a failure when they have nothing they've done they can take pride in, be that starting a family or becoming great at your hobby. Money doesn't quantify real success to me

yeah i understand your point, thanks for chiming in :)

Godspeed user. It's a tough world out there, and you might have to work some shit jobs until things start to work out. I had to work as a sales and customer service rep for the Music and Arts call center for a few months to make ends meet. It was an absolutely awful job that I wouldn't wish on anyone, but it paid the bills and let me survive long enough to find something better.
Also look into teaching kids how to play the guitar if you have free time. It's an easy way to make some cash, and it might inspire you either in your own playing and producing, or to work on fundamentals you didn't realize you need to work on. Depending on how young the kids you teach are, they might point out some things you do in a way that's both totally innocent and brutally honest. Put up some flyers with a number to call and/or e-mail to write to (look into getting a Google number or alternative e-mail address so you can easily change it if you get spamming or harrassing calls/messages) and see if anyone calls you up. You can also talk to or e-mail your local schools' music teachers about wanting to teach privately.

That said, you can still succeed - just saying competition is very fierce.

I'm not in the IT field, I can only give a company's perspective.

So yeah, if it is your passion then I would definitely go for it regardless of the competition.

thanks it's great to have an employers perspective, what woud you say makes someone stand out to you so you would actually want them as opposed to someone outsourced? I can imagine what employers are sick of seeing on C.V's and i'm making stride to participate in programmes that would make me stand out to employers ('outward bound programme' specifically, here in scotland it's a three week camp that teaches you teamwork and stuff and you get a qualification out it. I got a scholarship for it years ago just by asking so it's about £800 and i can do it so long as i'm under 20)

good idea, i'm self taught so i really don't know much music theory but i could teach myself enough in time for a lesson with a literal child to make some quick cash :)

Excel on something outsourced people can't do, develop face-to-face relationships with potential employers.

Help them out with things they are having trouble with or just be a good friend to people in your company. If you can't compete or price or skill, you just have to find something else you can do better to put your foot in the door.

People skills is something that is particularly lacking in the IT field, so if you could demonstrate that you genuinely want to help others with no ulterior motive (or at least make it appear that way) and be interested in them as people, not workers that I believe is somrghung which could put you ahead of outsourced workers.

This would also be a good strategy to compete with other local workers. If the companies already know you and you are the first they think of when hiring, you've got a high chance of getting it compared to the many people who just want their employers to employ them on their CV alone.

I teach general music to middle schoolers (for now), so trust me when I say that unless it's a kid who's in band or orchestra (or chorus if the teacher hammers on the theory), these kids probably won't know much theory beyond basic note reading, maybe some chords and scales, and some basic rhythms anyway. Depending on how often they have music classes (if at all) they might not even know/remember ANY of it. So you'll probably have to start from the very beginning (easy chords, basic note/tab reading, basic scales and melodies) for a lot of kids just starting out anyway.
Of course, they might also learn some guitar in middle school music too, depending on whether or not they're available in that school. They might still need to start with basics there anyway though. Feel free to reach out, we love to have people to recommend when parents ask us where kids can take private lessons.
And remember, you don't have to know everything there is to know about something to teach it. You just need to be a few steps ahead of whoever you're teaching.
If you're interested, I have some resources for learning theory, too.

that's great i'd really appreciate if you could link me to a site you recommend! :0

ahh i see, so NETWORK, NETWORK, NETWORK! Thank you for your insight it's been really helpful to a youngster like me trying to get insight :)

>basic IT job
maybe he can't program

musictheory net is a pretty good place to start. You can probably ignore some things like the C Clef unless you really want to know everything (since you'll probably never even see it unless you go to music school or play viola/trombone/bassoon/cello), but I like that it goes more in-depth on seventh chords and talks a decent amount about compound and complex meter. Only thing I don't like about it is that iirc it doesn't have much in the way of actually playing examples of what it's talking about.
I recently picked up a book called "The Everything Reading Music Book" by Marc Schonbrun for about $20. I haven't looked really in-depth into it, but despite its kinda silly-looking cover, it seems pretty comprehensive and way cheaper than a college textbook. It also comes with a CD so that you can actually listen to musical examples from the book. Some of both this and the site I mentioned above kinda focus more on Classical, but a lot of it (chords, meter, chord progressions, reharmonizations, scales) can be applied anywhere.
If you're also interested in learning jazz, look into Freddie Green and his style of guitar playing. Also check out Bert Ligon. Even if you aren't interested in jazz specifically, his writings are a pretty good place to look for how to improvise convincingly.

thank you so much!

Being a musician myself if you are just starting learning the most important thing when learning music is without a doubt this.

Have fun with it, and play what you like, not what people say you should play.

I decided to quit music after many years because I was Brough up by my parents learning it - although I got very good at it, it was just too boring and time-consuming for me to do, so I quit.

If I was not forced to play stupid "classical" music all the time and forced to do exams to prove my value as a musician, I'd still be doing it today with joy.

No problem. If you have any other questions or need anything else sometime in the future, I post a lot in the gioyc threads under the name Teachanon. Unless I manage to get a job that's less stressful and less about "teaching the general middle school population how to act like people" than my current one in the next 9 or so months, I'm probably gonna have a lot to get off my chest, lol.
Good luck!
Also, I agree with this. Western music theory is heavily based around classical music because that's what's been taught in conservatories for centuries, and music schools are still very slow to accept other music as worth studying. I've had some professors who were all about popular music, the Beatles, jazz, etc, but I've also had other professors who said that anything besides classical music isn't worth studying because "anyone can do it." (Their top ensemble was also about half non-music majors; it was a very audacious claim.)
Take resources and pick what you'll find most useful and interesting to you. For example, stuff like seventh chords and compound/complex meters might be fun to play with because you can find some nice/cool/experimental sounds in there. Part-writing a 4-voice chorale, not so much.