What does teaching, writing, arranging, authoring, performing, recording, consulting, and publishing music all have in common? For me, they are entrepreneurial endeavors that have become branches in a diverse career firmly rooted in music education.

Attributes of Music Educator

Music educators are skilled!

We are trained to teach all aspects and genres of music. We are usually well versed in any number of musical instruments, and teach in a variety of music educational settings including classroom, ensemble, and private lesson. As educators, we are constantly striving to develop fun, interactive, age-appropriate lesson plans and outcome-based assessment goals for music education programs K-12. This command of the language and practice of music, and its application to the educational development of students, is a powerful foundation that will support a wide variety of entrepreneurial endeavors in music for the entrepreneur.

Music educators are resourceful!

We have to be. For many of us, the weekly is daunting: teach 500+ students weekly, eight classes a day, going room-to-room with only a pushcart, and many times doing it all with no budget to purchase instruments or music. This common scenario taps into one’s resourcefulness and begins to set the stage for innovative, entrepreneurial pursuits.

Music educators have effective communication skills!

As a music educator, you’ll get very good at public speaking, crowd control, and “thinking on your feet.” You’ll gain the ability to read your audience, anticipate questions, identify needs, and make appropriate adjustments to your performances and presentations—in real time. Effective communication skills are critical to articulate entrepreneurial ideas and advocate support.

Music educators have what it takes to be entrepreneurs. The combination of expert skills in music and music education, resourcefulness, and effective communication skills provide fertile ground for the development of an aspiring entrepreneur.

Over the course of the past 20+ years, the opportunities that have come my way and the preparedness I have felt to pursue those opportunities are due in large part to the years I spent as a classroom music educator and choral director.

So, What Is An Entrepreneur?

Simply stated, an entrepreneur is someone who identifies a “need” or a problem, and then figures out a solution. Of course, comprehensive goals, strategies, and execution plans must be developed and implemented in order to achieve success with any entrepreneurial endeavor, but it all begins with a “need.”

What Are Some Entrepreneurial Opportunities in Music Education?

Entrepreneurial opportunities available to music educators abound. They include writing and arranging band or choral music to serve a program’s needs; authoring music education methods; writing articles on new approaches to music education; writing reviews in trade publications for new products and services; music industry board work to forge innovative partnerships; presenting new approaches to the profession at State and National conferences; consulting and advising for music industry manufacturers and publishers who develop music education products and publications; and the list goes on. These entrepreneurial activities provide professional development opportunities for the music educator entrepreneur, service to the profession, and potentially, additional streams of income to fund a program, cause, or additional entrepreneurial endeavors.

Where To Begin?

Look at your current teaching situation. What are some of the needs not being met? What can your experience, insight, and skill set offer to address these “needs” for your immediate situation—and potentially—for hundreds of other music educators? How far can you take it? Start by making a list: “Immediate Need” followed by, “Entrepreneurial Opportunities.” Here is an example:

Immediate Need:

A third grade teacher is planning a 100 day celebration at school and would like to do some cross-curricular planning and activities with the music program.

Entrepreneurial Opportunities:

a. Write a “100 Day Song” for the class, arrange for two-part choral, seek a music education publisher to make the piece available to schools.

b. Write a short musical for the third-grade class incorporating elements from the 100 day math curriculum. Seek a music education publisher to make the work available to all schools.

Take stock of your skills and address one of your program’s immediate needs with an entrepreneurial spirit. Find a solution to your immediate need and then and take it as far as you can. Remember, as a music educator, you have a solid foundation and the skills needed to branch out successfully in many different directions. Have fun exploring the possibilities and becoming a music educator-entrepreneur!

Article Source: http://debbiecavalier.berkleemusicblogs.com

Written by Debbie Cavalier

For more education on careers in the music industry, check out: www.Music-Career-Guide.com

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To degree or not to degree? That is the question facing many people looking for a way to get into the music business. Some people believe in just jumping in there and getting your hands dirty, learning the business from the ground up, while others suggest that the tools you pick up while pursuing a music industry degree at a good school will be invaluable to you in your future music biz career. Which path is the right way may be a difficult question to answer, but one this is for sure – if you want to get a music education, you can hardly do better than Berklee College of Music. Here, a Berklee grad give the inside scoop on what it is like getting a Berklee education and how it has served her long after school was out.

Question: For starters, can you please share a little bit about your experiences at Berklee? What was the best part about being in school there? What kind of support does the school offer to its students?

There are so many great things about being at Berklee.

The experience at Berklee is so unlike one at any other college. The greatest part for me was meeting all different kinds of people from all different walks of life and knowing that we all share a deep love for music. We have different majors and different instruments, but it is very far from a school where an art history major will be sharing a dorm room with a biology major, for example. Some of us may want to score films while others want to manage bands while others want to be touring with their own band, but at the end of the day, it’s all about music in one way or another. For this reason, Berklee students have a really great sense of community, even despite the fact that we have no real “campus” (unless you count the corner of Mass Ave and Boylston as a campus). We’ve all had to struggle through Ear Training, and we’ve all been up until at least 4 a.m. working on a Harmony or Counterpoint project. We’ve had 2 a.m. recording sessions the night before a 9 a.m. class. We’ve waited in line for ensemble rooms and spent hours in practice rooms preparing for proficiency exams, the often-dreaded final exams on your principle instrument. Berklee is a lot of hard work, but those who make it bond together. It was absolutely one of the best experiences of my life!

The school will offer you support from the second you walk in until well after you leave. They are very dedicated in making sure that you not only receive the best education possible, but that you find a job or career path that will help you use your education to the fullest extent. Their alumni services are stellar which include job listings and online communities.

Q: Good music business degree programs can be hard to come by, leading many people to try to learn the ropes by going for any job they can get and working their way up from there. In what ways do you feel your education at Berklee specifically prepared you for entering the music industry work force that taking a different avenue would not have?

I think the most unique thing about the Berklee music business program is the faculty. The professors are all people who have already had successful careers in the music industry and can offer raw insight to the inner workings of this business. You learn things from them that you will never find in a textbook or learn in any other classroom. These professors have been managers, accountants, attorneys, publishers, performers and more. They are extremely keen to the logistics of the industry in the sense of being “book smart” but they have their own experiences and “street smarts” that really makes it a unique education. I felt very confident going into my internship because I knew that my professors had prepared me for anything that could be thrown my way.

Q: Many people have an idealized notion of what working in the music business must be like – all fun times, easy money, parties, glitz and glamour. What rude awakenings did you get about the music business while you were at Berklee?

Any idealized notions about the music industry are always eliminated rather quickly. Most people who come into Berklee already have some idea what it’s really like – I mean, there’s the music industry that’s portrayed on MTV and then there’s the real music industry. MTV is always showing the huge stars with multi-million dollar homes and rows of Bentleys, but I think a lot of us understand that this lifestyle is reserved for the top 0.5%. Anyone new to Berklee will realize this pretty quickly. Pick up a Billboard or a Rolling Stone and you can start to see some of the reality – artists, record companies and managers suing each other left and right, cancelled tours, poor album sales, band break-ups – that’s the reality. The music business is a great thing to be a part of, but when you break it down, it’s still a business.

Q: . Berklee must be a great place to debate the major issues facing the music industry. What do you think the most important issues for the industry are, and where do you stand on them?

I actually took a great class at the beginning of my senior year called Current Events in the Music Industry with the chair of our music business department, Don Gorder. There are only 12 spots in the class and we spend the majority of the semester participating in panels on various issues, getting the opportunity to serve both as a panelist and as a moderator for these discussions.

There are a lot of really hot issues being tossed around right now. One of the big ones is regarding digital rights management or DRM which determines what digital tracks can be played on what devices. For example, all tracks downloaded on iTunes, until very recently, could only be played on iPods due to the DRM that was encoded in the tracks at the time of purchase. Some debated whether or not this constituted a monopoly, and we’re beginning to see some changes.

There’s always the big argument over whether the music industry is dying or not; no matter which way you look at it, album sales are declining. Even when you combine the number of physical album sales to the number of digital album sales (i.e. paid downloads), it is still clear that people are buying less music. Some people speculate that the peer-to-peer illegal downloading services are to blame. Some think that the technology is developing so rapidly that consumers who aren’t as tech-savvy are having a difficult time accepting new devices and music formats as the way of the future. Personally, I believe that the music industry is a lot like the stock market – it has its ups and downs, but when you look at the big picture, you see a slow growth over time. The industry is undergoing some major changes right now as it switches from being a primarily physical industry to being a primarily digital industry.

We are in an undeniable slump for the time being, but we are still continuing with the overall trend of growth. I believe that music is something that people will always want and need, and once people start adapting to the digital marketplace, the industry will be seeing business as usual

Q: You are now interning with Def Jam/Island. What is a typical day like at your job?

Typical days don’t really exist around here, especially for an intern. Interns are generally expected to perform basic administrative duties, such as answering phones, copying, filing, and expense account maintenance. Other tasks given to you will depend on what department you’re in. I’m working in video production so I often make duplicates of videos in various formats, digitize video footage, organize equipment, un-tangle various cables – anything that needs to be done!

Things happen here pretty quickly without much notice. For example, my internship supervisor got called out to assist on a video shoot in another country with only 2-3 days notice. What you may think will be a slow day always has the possibility of turning into a very busy one

Q: What are your future career goals? Is there any particular style of music or artists with whom you want to work – and how important is it for you to work with music you love

As far as my future goals are concerned, I’m trying to keep my options open. The ideal position for me would be working with live music and touring. A live show is the one place where artists can personally interact with their fans. Going to concerts and “experiencing” the music I loved are among my favorite memories of growing up in my teens.

Working with music that I love is definitely something that is important to me, but I know that it won’t necessarily happen right away. If you have the opportunity to get your foot in the door and learn more about the industry from the inside, it’s always important to do that. Just because you get a job working at a rock club doesn’t mean that you will have to work with rock for your entire career. For as many people as there are in this business, it’s a very tightly knit community – everyone knows each other. The chances of taking a job that might not seem like a perfect fit – and meeting someone who knows someone who knows someone who’s roommate’s boss is doing exactly what you’d like to be doing and just so happens to be looking for an assistant – are not as bad as you may think. If you’re outgoing, professional and dedicated to networking, you’ll definitely go places.

Article Source: http://musicians.about.com. Written by Heather McDonald

For more education on careers in the music industry, check out: www.Music-Career-Guide.com

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