there's been some threads discussed about music schools and fees, and some career discussions going on in some irrelevant threads. so i'm suggesting a thread dedicated to music education and career. forumers can share their experiences, as well as seeking for helps like choosing colleges/uni, career etc etc. this thread is going to be huge and with a lot of database about music schools, fees, colleges, universities, and all sorts of careers like teacher, performer, music engineer, composer, arranger etc.

any volunteer going to start this thread? i'm lazy to update the first post and post informations given by forumers.

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OK, the discussion is on, guess i have to be the TS and manage this post. please tell me if there's anything i should manage this thread.

as a general rules of this thread, before you post anything destructive and bashing, studying the word "respect".




This post has been edited by little ice: Apr 20 2008, 06:33 PM

Most people, when talking about career in music, probably think in terms of being a superstar, or release albums as a band.

I think those are every musician's ultimate dream but alas, I am not too sure about the potential of such a future in Malaysia unless you target the Malay audience. I always hear people complaining about no future in Music in this country, but if you use your head and think out of the box a bit, there're many ways you could try without falling down hard and still earn a decent living.

It's not to say impossible, but you could get Nathan East's dvd video where he talks about career in Music.

For Chinese/mandarin based musicians, from what I heard, Taiwan is the place to go.

Even the non-vocal bands, can make a career by releasing instrumental based songs (preferably original, or you could license them) as albums and sell in other countries. I think these non-vocal based songs have potential since it transcends language barrier.

Of course, I only speak from what I gather from the local musicians/bands I know.

These are the ultimate dream lah, releasing your own album. Some also write songs for famous big stars in Asia and collect royalty from them. Usually these people are armed to the teeth with music theory and know how to create/write great songs without the need to be too specialized/proficient in any particular instruments.

After that, comes other choices, where if you're not stubborn or eccentric enough, below are lists of career options I can think of.

1. Game music composers, charge your fee as an independent contractor, but your style of music knowledge must be wide, and you need a lot of IT skills to deliver your songs in digital format , which may not necessarily just be wave/mp3, could be .MID or for people like me, I prefer them in Mod/XM/S3m format since long running music can run and repeated for hours and take only 100kb or less, probably even less with compressed samples. I am heading towards this path because I need these for my projects, and very few people locally know how to create proper game format music that I want/need. If you know how to create XM/S3m/IT/MOD based songs, please PM me.

2. Create mobile ringtones, either original or rearranged/licensed songs, for mobile ringtone companies. There was a boost in demand in the recent few years for musicians to work on these ringtones. I used to work in a big mobile ringtone company but not as a musician. I know many musicians in this particular industry last time and some are visually impaired people who even managed to get in.

3. You can even branch into sound processing/mixing later on if you want, learn up sound engineering, etc, and learn to be good at computer software.

4. Be a music teacher, don't look down on this path. This is lucrative, especially if you're good in 'snob' instruments such as the Piano and violin. You can give tuition and work less than 8 hours a day, less than 5 days a week, girls are notorious for sweeping this industry. hehehehe.

5. Work for yamaha or similar big companies as a sales consultant, then work your way up as a manager, get paid a full-time job but at the same time, work on your own songs and music and hope to make it big one day as a band/musician. This route is taken by many rising guitarists who wants to be able to learn many things about various guitars and amps, without having to spend so much money on them. They get to work and learn, and play guitar (bosses encourage this to attract customers). It is a sort of a dream job for the young musician. Some of these people really manage to convince stubborn guys like me to part with my money. These fellas can really create GAS in you. Buggers.


Overall, computer knowledge, is bloody essential, not just simple computer knowledge, but knowledge of good software like Cubase, and the likes, etc.

If all you know is play the instrument and don't know how to use computer based software to record/edit/mix/arrange your music, you probably can't go very far unless you just aim to join some orchestra (but you gotta be the best of the best lah, usually parents damn rich to send you to snob instruments classes).

Even Steve Vai knows how to use computer software to edit/mix/arrange his own songs. I really take my hat off this guy, these people really really know how to improve their knowledge even at such an age. They're so humble and willing to learn.

Even Nathan East is IT equipped, my jaw dropped when he brought his whole 'band' in his notebook. *LOL*

Unless you're a vocalist, I think other areas of music has more potential and are more 'safe' choices. I think the type of musicians who really need to worry about their career are the vocalists, unless they're into those snob vocals like opera tenors, sopranos and the likes.


One more thing to add, I believe we live in very interesting times. Production cost of musical instruments have gone down, thanks to China and Indonesia's labor and material costs.

Gears nowadays, I feel are more affordable, decent in quality for the price. Compared to other people I know who spend money on tech gadgets like mobile phones and high end notebooks and DSLR cameras, I think my expenditure did not have to go near theirs to get decent gear that I desire, unless of course you're talking about the Piano, which I think is not as cheap as last time due to rising cost of the wood because of deforestation. (But this is where the digital piano comes into the picture, such as the Yamaha Clavinova)

Overall, I am glad that my spending comes at a time when these gears (electric guitar) is within my desirable range of budget.

well said bman!

but this is not official thread yet leh, anyone want to volunteer to open a proper one? bman's post can duplicate and post other the proper thread later.

Wow bman's post is very informative
I have been thinking about my career to be a musician as well

I second the path as being a music teacher. My friend's music teacher earns roughly 10k per month for being a full time piano teacher
This path is hard to begin at first, but when you get your first student, the second and third will come. You can teach at music centers and quietly "pull" the students and giving them private lessons, without the music center as a middle man to earn more

Another thing worth considering is to go to some of the Western countries once in a while to do some street performance. Westerns view of street performance is different from here in Malaysia. They do not take street performance as "cheap" but they will admire your talent. My violin teacher did that and she told me about it, can earn RM1-3k just for a week there but this is not a career to be depended on

they're called buskers (such a sensitive word ). i've saw some during my trip at london. singer with guitar in LRT (they call it tube), sax players on street, i even saw harp player! very nice.

but i admire your teacher can earn 10k per month, that's some really good money. but i bet your teacher is really good.

why not be somebody like gapnap.blogspot.com

haha. i was just waiting for gapnap to post here.

eh gapnap,
so have u decided between
1. fvk working life and go full time PUB/Event band
and
2. fvk working life and go full time PUB/Event band

everyone else, got any questions on music career, just ask gapnap

seems like people are talking about modern education/career.

ok, lets start, im talking on behalf of both sides, and i dont take sides.
(i do alot of reading in wikipeida so im not writing crap)
lets start with classical education:
a normal classically educated student of music usally starts their education at 5-7 years old. they learn the music based on baroque,classical, romantic and 20th century music. the learn and take exam based on LCM, ABRSM or trinity exam halls. the take theory from ABRSM exams.
a classical student usually studies by grade.( grade 1-8, diploma ).

As usual, a normal oversea music college/university usually only accepts a student who has a minimum of grade 5 and above( but they only take auditions and diploma students:note the minimum). there, they train a student based on classical studies left behind by bach etc etc, and studies performance, orchestral works, history of music, etc etc.

Students who come out from there becomes conductors, music teachers, orchestral players, etc etc.

Ok, now lets move on to MODERN(contempary) Music.

these students can either be classically train/self taught/or teacher taught. these students does not follow the classical way of learning, and are differed from person to person. either way, some college would accept student without a thoery grade exam by putting in fundemental area. students in there learn jazz studies, hearing, improvisation. there are currently not many music college which teaches modern music, but the famous ones would be ICOM and BERKLEE.

the people graduating from these college would become singers, band players, sound producer, teachers, jazz musician etc etc.

hope that clears up abit, either way, check up wikipedia or music website for infomation.

just a suggestion. if anyone wants to opt for classical degree, i wouldn't mind recommend USCI. however, it used to be really good college and i've seen some great graduates around 5~6 years ago, not anymore now afaik. i know a few top notch classical musician teaching there as well and probably that's the only advantage.

i don't think there's any uni/college offering better classical course as for now. however i'm not quite sure how it compare to trinity/abrsm full diploma/degree course (does it even exist?).

same thing goes to ICOM which offering modern music courses. there're a lot of superb graduates who're jazz musicians which you'll see them performing in jazz festival often. i know quite a lot of ICOM graduates and current students, man, ICOM now sux hard, sorry to say that. and the fees will make your eyes pop out. whatever it is, i think ICOM is still better than USCI modern music course. i've been to their campus, man the studio actually already better than many budget studio out there, despite it's for school!

as a general rule of thumb if you want to success by doing degree, you have to depends solely on your own. not that you don't socialize, don't expect the school to spoon feed you. i can honestly tell you that less than 20% you can expect from school, the rest you have to learn it with your eyes and ears, and you have to take own initiative to keep yourself moving. many graduates nowadays don't posses good knowledges and skills because most of them expected the school to spoon feed them, or they simply want to pass the exam and get the cert.

This post has been edited by little ice: Apr 20 2008, 06:35 PM

This is exactly like the IT industry.. aiyooo... except in Music if you make it, you make it big.

to me, there are no good classical music uni/collge in malaysia. my teacher ask me to go oversea and not waste my money here.

wat u expect
http://www.icom.edu.my/html/fs.php
u check this guy out, he learned guitar for about 2 years( somemore go to national service ), he already want to learn music. he did not understand a sigle thing about music other than strumming chords and icom accepted him.
I BEt many of our lowyat member can play a WHOLE LOT better than him but dont have the money to pay. rich kid.

anyway,
A person who picks up classical course would be
CLASSICAL COURSE: PIANO, VIOLIN, CELLO, FLUTE etc

A person who picks up modern courses would be
MODERN COURSE: ELECTRIC GUITAR, DRUMS, KEYBOARD, DIGITAL MIXXING, AUDIO EDITING etc etc

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Added on April 20, 2008, 8:00 pmwell, ABRSM Full diploma/degree courses would be taught by ur teacher. the cert is not as good as a uni cert of course.

wow, there are many great uni/college offering music!!
EXAMPLE:
Trinity College of Music
Juilliard School
London college of music
West Virginia University
University of Montana
University of Oklahoma
Thames Valley University

....



umm, i guess GREAT music uni/college would be oversea, is not that malaysia music college is not good, is that it cant be compared to oversea.

just that..........

OVERSEA= EXPENSIVE

This post has been edited by icypetals: Apr 20 2008, 08:00 PM

hahahahha...

yes , i have decided ...

anyway , some tips ...for Music Career in Malaysia ...

is not how well you play , is not what you can play..basically the only thing that matters is ...


your network


no network = no money
teaching might get you some money in the short term
infact , you can actually make RM3000-4000 from it in a month

..but as u grow older ..your friends around you are like getting 8k-10k..
forget teaching , you need to charge RM400 per student to get that income

actually, the college/uni i mentioned is actually quite good, for the price. of course, you do not want to compare them with international one (those you mentioned are top class la). i've seen some great performer with great success and they're graduates or ex-students.

talking about oversea schools.

firstly not everyone can afford that kind of cost. you're looking at few hundred grands of cash if studying at the school mentioned. secondly, even you have the money, they probably won't let you in, because of the high standard.

secondly, going oversea doesn't mean the schools are always better. i've been to london, and visited a university offering music degree. man, i can tell you how sux it is, even worse than local ones. yes, you got to know many foreign students and friends, you see different things, but i can tell you, the fees is already expensive for school that actually sux, so it's definitely not worth it. if you ever enter such school and you didn't get to compare to the local one, you're actually wasting even more money.

my opinion is, it's either you aim 2+1 courses (2 years local and 1 year oversea to open big eyes see see), full local courses, or full overseas high end courses. in my experiences, local uni/college can still learn a lot, especially talking about stuffs other than instrument performance. however, afaik, there's no master degree offered locally, so to go for master, you have to study abroad.

that's the very big problem of local schools. both UCSI and ICOM is aiming at $$$, they have nothing to care except money. they have earned their big names because of the graduates from the past, but not anymore. it's not that there's no good teacher and good environment, but you'll find many schoolmates/classmates must worse than you around.

don't get me wrong, some oversea school ain't no better either. and did you ever notice ABRSM standard also dropped like sh!t? if you have a chance to play grade 8 pieces in year 1990, you'll immediately understand what i'm trying to say.

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Added on April 20, 2008, 10:45 pmi definitely agree with you that, network is very important. but that only come after ability in music. if a person have the ability, but no network, yes, there's no money. but if a person without ability, sorry, don't even talk about network.

i'm not sure if you actually meant network is above all aspects, that's actually destroying music industry if you trying to make people think that way. i know you sell gears, making money is top priority for you, and that's absolutely fine with me. but the real music making is not about money IMHO, money is a must, but not a "must", if you get what i mean.

RM400 per student is not something uncommon in malaysia. a master degree holder is charging typical fees of RM120 per hour x 4 = RM480 per month. there're plenty of good teachers earning at that amount.

that said, teaching is not for money. money is a return for the effort, but in the end the main purpose of teaching is to pass the knowledge and skill to the next generation. it's just that, high level and experiences teachers made their way to that level with a lot of efforts, so they cannot simply charge low price and that's absolutely fair.

PS: you'll be surprise there's actually plenty of teachers earning at 5 figures every months.

This post has been edited by little ice: Apr 20 2008, 10:45 PM

Lately i am beginning to seriously have my doubts on that. I mean of course if you really can't play a single thing forget it. But the level that you need is not really that high. Based on what's been coming out lately, it's not really difficult to play most of the stuff you hear today. With a little practice most people can do it. I know of someone who's in the music scene as a drummer, but never played 1 gig as a drummer. He's done piano and bass (and he's not that good at it ) and saxophone and gets paid lots for it. Well he's better at piano but the other 2 are just really "fooling around" instruments. And that was good enough for many occasions.

This post has been edited by Bassix: Apr 21 2008, 02:38 AM

i know how you feel man. sometimes, tipu tipu also can earn a lot of money.

but this really ain't healthy for music industry really. sadly but it's true this sort of things happen. it's all because business minded clients who don't have a single clue about music.

although not directly related but, i've once told by a noob producer who asked me to do a song arrangement for him. i took quite some time to finish one song, and he said the client screwed him up because of the late work, and he told me they will not want quality, they just want things to hit the dateline.

so you can imagine, because the one who pay the money doesn't really care. so basically anyone can tipu tipu can already grab business and do. but music is music, each song is unique, and each work going to get heard by everyone. if foreigners (including the real musicians) came and heard our crappy works, imagine that, "woah, malaysia really boleh".

i have no doubt, the drummer you've mentioned will only able to tipu within malaysia (sorry for the straight forward comment). they'll not get recognized worldwide, and will not get good reputation among musicians. i certainly against such situation. if i got a job that's not within my expertise, i rather not do it. it's money, yes, but don't let money destroy the music industry. i'd rather let anyone with real skill to do it.

ok, to be fair, not everyone is a pro right from the start. there're certainly the "low budget" markets, for those who doesn't have much money to get involved. but i'm more concern how the musicians will think. we have to keep moving and improving, and pass the opportunity for the fresh graduates and new comers in the industry.

PS: feel free to debate about this.

quite an idealistic view you have there...
But if your income depends on getting gigs then i guess you won't really have a choice. Sure you only can tipu tipu, nobody would deny that. And this drummer guy is also complaining because he's a drummer and he doesn't get credit for being a good musician because he's not playing his instrument. But hey, the stupid thing about money is, you need it.

if there's no choice, cannot choose lo.

yeah, to be fair there ain't any healthy market here to start with.

You know, the only instance where I see an actual musician would be useful in the eyes of those non-musicians would be when you need to perform live in a gig etc.

If they just want offline media recordings such as Mp3, wave, etc...


Haiyoo.... no need any musician who knows any instruments.

Just use computer software, arrange all the notes for the lead, rhythm and percussions etc using software and hand up...

Bet ya those people can't even tell if it's recorded in a studio or computer generated.

This is ultimate tipu but 1 person alone probably can sapu all the money.

So... must learn how to use cubase and similar software already.

Knowing how to play instruments alone very susah cari makan outside of gigging in clubs etc.

Technology will overtake many traditional jobs, and never would one's slightest expectation that they would replace musicians who only know how to play instruments and can't compose/arrange songs.

This post has been edited by bman: Apr 21 2008, 04:25 AM

well..of course what i mean was....
you don't need to have that "special ability" ...you can just be an ordinary player , can play in time , can do simple solos , groom well on the stage , some creativity, right attitude..and with large network ...you are fit enough already

of course not until change chord also got problem and enter the industry la..lol

well, i used to be one of those ...practice 4 hours a day , write my own stuff and all not expecting any money in return kinda of musician..
but as i grow older , dealing with medium size event companies , agents , top musicians around not bedroom wankers , clubs n pubs..
i see things differently-lah....i dono whether i am getting more mature or going backwards . probably backwards.

This post has been edited by gapnap: Apr 21 2008, 01:31 PM

ok i must admit my view is indeed too idealistic.

what you've said is very true also. that's what i'm actually seeing now, just the same as yours. sometimes, a detailed work will never get appreciated. most of the time, clients just want fast, reliable, and cheap. quality? nah, they don't give a damn really.

i've also know a friend who's violinist. he absolutely play like, uh, i really don't know how to explain. and yet he's working at the industry of earning 4 figures by just playing a few songs. however, you know, he has packaging. dress like superstar, play violin pieces in fusion style like vanessa mae, and he's good looking too. it's just the way he play. i don't even dare to say he has half of vanessa mae.

however, i still believe that, if you're truely an expert of your own field, there's always a chance to breakthrough. i've deal with quite some good paying clients who actually know about their own stuffs, and they're happy with my stuffs, and slowly i got a chance to have my works presented at overseas. at the very least, i'm targetting on the standard that world musician will look at, rather than the standard the clients want, so no embarrassment will happen and people will gain respects too.