In the US, where would one move to find work in the music industry?
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AshlynM (
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October 21st, 2014
New York, LA, Las Vegas, Chicago? Any of the bigger, well known cities in the US? Is it just pure luck? Does it depend what kind of work you want to do? If you have the talent to arrange and transcribe music, what kind of work can you find for that? How much could you get paid for that? Do musicians generally make a lot of money?
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9 Answers
Nashville. Musicians are dirt poor. Classically trained performance musicians who play the“right” instruments can make a decent living teaching and playing weddings.
“The music industry” is an over-broad categorization.
What, exactly, does one want to do in “the music industry”? Play instruments? Sing? Both? (And what type of music, since that has a bearing on the answer.)
Produce music videos? Open a studio? Produce recordings? Work a sound board? Develop and build musical instruments? Teach music / voice lessons? Manage a band? Produce concerts? Score music for movies? Be a groupie or a roadie?
It kind of depends, y’know?
Well, if you’re going for a “safer” musical career, you may want to try getting into some of the more well-known schools. LA and New York are good places to go, if you think you’re up to the challenge of being successful in those highly competitive cities.
Most musicians don’t make a lot of money. Even successful touring musicians make little more than 30k a year. Obviously a career in music isn’t something you can do because you want to be rich and famous. The only way you will have a chance to be rich and famous is if you care about the music so much that being poor and dirty doesn’t matter that much to you.
Music is not geographical. There has never been a greater need for music soundtracks, as the video publishing is bigger than ever.
Sites like last.fm are great venues for artists to sell music to videographers for practically every need from wedding vids to corporate vids.
Yes, a lot is free. But the game is to make a name for yourself, then companies hire you to score music for campaigns.
LA, NYC, Memphis, Nashville.
Other cities to consider Miami, Chicago, San Francisco, Seattle, part if it depends on the type of music.
If you’re in your early 20’s you can start in almost any city that is a college town with live music in bars.
Las Vegas or Reno, Nevada.
The overwhelming majority of the performing talent in ALL of the arts is doomed to living on the margins. So prevalent is this condition that answering the call of the muse amounts to an all but certain vow of poverty. It would be difficult to list any other group of professions in which even great talent fails as a barricade to a lifetime of penury.
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