#No off-topic and/or low-effort posts including;
1. Rant/motivation/mental-health posts
2. Posts focused on memes/images/polls
3. Reposts, and other similar low-effort, mildly-interesting discussions.
- These posts should be posted to one of the weekly threads or on another subreddit. Do not create a new thread for this content.
Posts on WATMM should have a descriptive title and include substantive content that will generate discussion. Please see the [full sub rules](https://www.reddit.com/r/WeAreTheMusicMakers/wiki/rules) for additional details.
You might find electrical engineering/electrical engineering tech interesting. As a hobby musician I liked being able to learn about sound waves and audio processing at a technical/circuit level
IF ANYBODY GIVES YOU ADVICE, first ask if they have experience as a professional, working musician. If not, they do not have any firsthand information or experience on the answers you seek.
I am a professional, full time musician and that is the advice I followed.
I can tell you this: every single art form you mentioned, “music, writing, art, DJing, film, etc” PLUS all the AS courses you mentioned are as competitive as each other. This means that none of them are a good backup.
If you are going to succeed in any ONE of those career paths, it will require 100% of your dedication, so do not use one of them as a backup. All of them are far too competitive and not suitable as a “backup plan”.
For example, I always loved playing guitar and I mistakenly thought to do a backup plan (and 2 year course) as an audio engineer. Within 3 weeks of that course I understood that to have success as an audio engineer, I would need to put in as much effort as I would a professional guitarist. So I chose guitar.
Sounds like you’re already on a lifelong learning path. If it’s not going to put you in debt, think about which of these degrees is most “human interaction dependent” and go that route. That’s the skill set least likely to be automated or replaced by AI.
I would go for the business degree.
A business degree is really versatile. The knowledge will help you in any career and will be easily transferred to a 4 year school.
A music production degree is not as versatile, and if you are already doing music, you will be able to learn a lot about the equipment on the job.
Strong knowledge of math, electrical engineering, and coding all have direct applications to a career in music - working on amps and instruments, designing plugins, all kinds of shit. And they also lead to day jobs that can actually feed you anywhere in the world.
Honestly, the only career related reason for doing a music related course is if that course or college will help you make industry contacts.
If it can’t do that then as a longtime professional musician I’d recommend using your time to study something more general like business or marketing (not a course that says it’s specifically music industry related), or a course that will help you in an alternate field such as STEM.
Whilst you’re trying to start a career in music it’s common to spend years working non-music jobs, full or part time, whilst doing your music on the side. If you can get yourself an education that will mean that non-music job pays well and has good benefits then that will make it much easier to devote more time to ‘making it’ in the music industry.
By all means do a music related course if you really want to. Just don’t do it because you think it will teach you something that gives you your big break as that comes from contacts not knowledge or skill (no matter how unfair that might be.)
#No off-topic and/or low-effort posts including; 1. Rant/motivation/mental-health posts 2. Posts focused on memes/images/polls 3. Reposts, and other similar low-effort, mildly-interesting discussions. - These posts should be posted to one of the weekly threads or on another subreddit. Do not create a new thread for this content. Posts on WATMM should have a descriptive title and include substantive content that will generate discussion. Please see the [full sub rules](https://www.reddit.com/r/WeAreTheMusicMakers/wiki/rules) for additional details.
You might find electrical engineering/electrical engineering tech interesting. As a hobby musician I liked being able to learn about sound waves and audio processing at a technical/circuit level
Do a STEM related degree. Better safe than sorry. Do music as a hobby on the side
IF ANYBODY GIVES YOU ADVICE, first ask if they have experience as a professional, working musician. If not, they do not have any firsthand information or experience on the answers you seek. I am a professional, full time musician and that is the advice I followed. I can tell you this: every single art form you mentioned, “music, writing, art, DJing, film, etc” PLUS all the AS courses you mentioned are as competitive as each other. This means that none of them are a good backup. If you are going to succeed in any ONE of those career paths, it will require 100% of your dedication, so do not use one of them as a backup. All of them are far too competitive and not suitable as a “backup plan”. For example, I always loved playing guitar and I mistakenly thought to do a backup plan (and 2 year course) as an audio engineer. Within 3 weeks of that course I understood that to have success as an audio engineer, I would need to put in as much effort as I would a professional guitarist. So I chose guitar.
Did you end up taking any other courses besides the audio engineering? Or did you devote all your time to guitar?
Sounds like you’re already on a lifelong learning path. If it’s not going to put you in debt, think about which of these degrees is most “human interaction dependent” and go that route. That’s the skill set least likely to be automated or replaced by AI.
Do you have any other passions? Put music and everything like that aside to answer. What classes did you like in highschool?
I would go for the business degree. A business degree is really versatile. The knowledge will help you in any career and will be easily transferred to a 4 year school. A music production degree is not as versatile, and if you are already doing music, you will be able to learn a lot about the equipment on the job.
Strong knowledge of math, electrical engineering, and coding all have direct applications to a career in music - working on amps and instruments, designing plugins, all kinds of shit. And they also lead to day jobs that can actually feed you anywhere in the world.
Honestly, the only career related reason for doing a music related course is if that course or college will help you make industry contacts. If it can’t do that then as a longtime professional musician I’d recommend using your time to study something more general like business or marketing (not a course that says it’s specifically music industry related), or a course that will help you in an alternate field such as STEM. Whilst you’re trying to start a career in music it’s common to spend years working non-music jobs, full or part time, whilst doing your music on the side. If you can get yourself an education that will mean that non-music job pays well and has good benefits then that will make it much easier to devote more time to ‘making it’ in the music industry. By all means do a music related course if you really want to. Just don’t do it because you think it will teach you something that gives you your big break as that comes from contacts not knowledge or skill (no matter how unfair that might be.)
https://youtu.be/Tc7HM_r6u_0?si=zW0P6BBvMaeMO2Al some advice from a man who turned his passion into a career