What Are Some Other Music Careers Out There?

If you love music and want to have a career where you mix or do research to find music to fit commercials or movies what kind of education do you need and what are the names of careers like that?

• I am a single working mom who never had a college education with a 17 year old introverted yet highly creative daughter who wants to do something involving her love of music!  She impresses me with the many genres and quirky ideas for music that she comes up with! Any guidance on this would be appreciated!

• Answer:

  Interesting question. You actually suggest two different career paths: mixing and music placement. I can give you some insight into music placement - someone else will have to chime in about becoming a pro mixer or even remixer. Matching music to a scene in a film, TV show, or ad us usually done by a music supervisor or music coordinator at a production company during the post-production phase of a project.  Here's how the process often works within a production company: A team member receives music from composers that the production company works with.  These composers write music tracks that are not specifically assigned to a particular production.  The music can be used for any project. S/he categorizes the music based on different genres, moods, styles, instrumentation, tempo, etc. and enters them into the music library. The music supervisors who are looking for a particular type of music for a project meet with the team to discuss the music that's come in.  Their job is to find specific music for a scene in a production or for the whole project. They ask if there might be a fit for their project and about what other pieces are notable. At the same time, the editors and producers of the production company's other shows and ads search the music library based on the genre, mood, tone, etc. that they're looking for. Note: this does not address working with composers who write (score) music for a particular project. That process is usually handled by the producer of the show or ad. Since your daughter is so young she may want to look into interning at a production company.  They would probably have her logging music to get started. But she would quickly learn what this kind of music sounds like, how it's used, how it works in a production, and how the music coordinating process works. Most of these jobs are in LA or NY but look around any big city. Good luck! Stuart http://pyramidmusic.com Original music for film and television