“You have to open yourself up to the possibility of failure and rejection to ever have a chance of succeeding.”

Finding a real job in the music industry can seem like a monumental and almost insurmountable task, even for those who have studied for years to do just that.

Not only does it require you to be incredibly skilled in a specialty, but it also needs you to make connections with people who are going to help you to succeed.

The first thing to know about the music industry is that there are plenty of jobs available that you might love but don’t know to exist. Do you have a background in computer science? Perhaps creating plugins could be of interest to you.

Have you been a music critic since you were a child, but don’t know the first thing about writing it? Maybe working in A&R or journalism is something that you’d be suited for. There are ways to be involved with music that draw on the skills you already possess or are in pursuit of.

It’s always possible to find a job in the music industry, regardless of who you are, but the particular way that you will need to wedge yourself into the clockwork of this sector may not be obvious at first. And if everything fails, you may be able to learn enough along the way to create a job all your own.

Sometimes it can feel like there’s this tremendous resistance when trying to break into a new industry. Employers are generally looking for people with work experience, but you can’t gain work experience if nobody hires you. Seems like an impossible scenario, doesn’t it? Well, there are ways to get started anyway.

The Career Formula

First, I’m going to tell you a little bit about how I began working in the music industry full-time, so that you can see some of these principles in action. Then, we’ll outline a formula that will help you to do the same thing.

Your journey may not look much like mine, but if you do succeed, you may find many of the same principles at play in your own path. Like many, I faced a significant number of challenges making music a viable career, so if I can do it, I’m confident that you can too.

I started DJ’ing 8 years ago and rode that wave for a while. Two years later, I began to write my own music. At the time, I knew very little about music production, and started educating myself on the subject in any way that I could. I was hungry for knowledge and grabbing at every particle of wisdom that I could find: textbooks, blogs, YouTube videos. I was searching for anything that I could get my hands on. At that point, I was writing music purely as a hobby.

Four years later, I had finished my English degree at the University of Manitoba and made the decision to move to LA to attend a school called Icon Collective that specialized in digital music production. This was a big step, because it was when I decided to turn my passion into my profession.

Upon completing the program at Icon Collective, I had to move back to Canada because my VISA was about to expire. I found that I really enjoyed the technical side of music production, and when I returned to Winnipeg, I began looking for work as an audio engineer there. 

It can be hard enough to land a meaningful job in music in a big city like New York or L.A.

Winnipeg is a relatively small city and the number of audio engineering opportunities that were available at the time was even more limited. I reached out to the two leading local recording studios in search of work, and neither of them were looking for employees or interns. It just seemed like no one was offering the type of work I was looking for. What to do next?

Exhausting all of my local resources, I turned to the internet and created a website called Black Ghost Audio to provide an online mastering service, as well as a blog that covers topics related to music production and audio engineering. Fortunately, I had the foresight to teach myself web design while I was away at school, which made creating my own website a relatively painless process. In an industry like this one, learning some complimentary skills can be a major help.

After forming Black Ghost Audio, I continued to write EDM under the alias Virtus with the goal of living the artist life: writing music full-time and touring. Although I enjoy the creative process of writing music, I came to the realization that jumping around in front of a crowd of people at a festival would be more likely to give me a panic attack than enjoyment.

Today, I’m obsessed with the technical side of music production: reading, writing, and talking about the art form is what gives me the greatest joy. On top of this, nobody is saying I can’t continue to write my own music. The touring artist life just doesn’t align with my personality or interests; and that’s okay. Having this realization allowed me to focus my time where it would be better spent—on building a website like Black Ghost Audio, instead of struggling to drag myself onto a stage. It’s this realization of where my strengths lay that allowed me to exploit them.

Once I had established my website and built a portfolio of my work, I started reaching out to other online music businesses: blogs, software companies, hardware companies, and so on. This simple step was—without a doubt—the most significant step I took in creating opportunities for myself. You could have the most excellent business idea in the world, but if nobody knows about it, then it’s never going to see the light of day. You have to open yourself up to the possibility of failure and rejection to ever have a chance of succeeding.

I’m now happy and proud to say that I work full-time as an audio engineer, author, web designer, and businessman within the music industry. This isn’t the path that I had initially set out on, but it’s where I’ve ended up, and I couldn’t be more thrilled.

Although it’s unlikely that you embark on the exact same road that I’ve followed, if you look closely, you’ll find that there’s an underlying formula that you can apply to your own career path.

It begins with educating yourself in the field you’re interested in pursuing. Along the way, make sure to nurture your additional interests. My love for writing and web design opened up tremendous opportunities for me that wouldn’t have been there if I had a completely myopic focus. Finally, integrate yourself with the industry that you’ve been ogling over by actually networking with its major players.

I don’t want you to interpret my story as evidence that becoming a touring artist is an unattainable goal. I know that many people wish to do this, and it’s entirely doable as well. My particular skill set, personality, and interests led me down a different road.

I had initially thought that I would feel like a failure if I modified my original goal of working as an artist. We can tie so much of our identity up with our earliest and least-examined dreams. It turns out that instead of feeling a sense of failure, I actually found substantial happiness and success down my revised career path. More happiness than I likely would have found stubbornly pursuing a path that just didn’t speak to my personality.

At the end of the day, it’s essential that you’re doing work that interests you and is challenging enough to bring you fulfillment. The catch is that you might not know what really interests you before you start trying in earnest. The current you may have a better handle on where your aptitudes and interests lie than the 19-year-old you ever could.

Barriers to Entry

It was 8 years ago that I remember Googling “what do music producers do?” At the time, I knew almost nothing about music production, and the idea of diving into the music industry was more of a fantasy than anything. Many barriers presented themselves to me, just as they will for you.

You’ll even have innate barrier to overcome. I’m a pretty average guy. I don’t come from a musical family or a wealthy family. I don’t learn exceptionally fast. Nothing about me screams “social butterfly,” and I’m about as good looking as the next schmuck. If you have any of this going for you, then you’re already ahead of the game. The primary quality that has allowed me to create a career for myself in the music industry is one you can adopt as well: “drive”.

Whenever you are trying to achieve something significant and new, time can be your worst enemy. Unfortunately, it somehow always feels like there aren’t enough hours in the day to get everything done. Can you work a day job full-time, go to school full-time, write music full-time, take care of an entire family, see your friends, and get 8 hours of sleep every day? Hell no, that’s impossible—there’s just not enough time. The solution is to spend the majority of your time on the things that matter most to you.

For the past two years, I chose to work a day job for 50+ hours every week and develop my business from the time I got off work until the time I fell asleep at my computer. That means family, friends, and sleep took a back seat ride for quite some time. I knew I needed to build my finances and spend time on my business to have the career I wanted. I was willing to put everything else in my life on hold to achieve my goal. It is possible to find a job in the music industry regardless of who you are, but I should add that this is easiest to achieve when you want it more than anything—and anyone—else.

There are some obligations that you just can’t put aside. The younger you are, the fewer obligations you have. If you are young enough that you don’t need to worry about kids or a spouse, then most of your free time is yours to do what you want with. As you get older and take on more responsibilities, those responsibilities can limit the amount of time you have to yourself. I have my own obligations as well. We all do. The more of them you have, the more ruthlessly you have to manage your time. This means eliminating the optional and unimportant tasks and activities that can fill up your day.

Education is a relatively simple barrier to overcome. You can go to school and you learn what’s taught, or design your own education with the endless number of resources available online and in person. I went to school with some people who did exceptionally well academically, but haven’t been able to secure music-related jobs for themselves. Formal education doesn’t directly lead to a career, although it can be a vital foothold in acquiring one.

Finances can play a big part in educating yourself. Most formal audio engineering programs will run you $20k or more, and for most people, that’s not pocket change. At one point, I was actively looking for jobs in the Alberta oil fields so that I’d be able to fund my education. Fortunately, I was able to find another way to pay for school, but I was ready to do whatever it took.

Social sacrifice is going to be harder for some people more than others. I’m a relatively solitary person and I enjoy my own space, so going weeks without seeing anyone doesn’t bother me much. You don’t have to cut everyone out of your life completely. Consider finding a group of friends with similar interests as you, and work on music together. If you can get your social fix from networking and collaboration instead of idle evenings out, you can progress much further and faster in your career.

From what I’ve witnessed, self-doubt is the number one killer of careers. Too many people that I graduated with stopped making music because they began doubting themselves and allowed those doubts to snowball into a crippling fear of failure. I experience self-doubt all the time, but I have found that you can combat it with “routine motion.” By going through the same actions every day, I allow muscle memory and the powerful inertia of habit to carry me through periods when I’m feeling low.

Setting tangible goals will allow you to track and view your progress. It’s important to have specific long-term and short-term goals. For instance, if your goal is to own a successful record label in the next 3 years, break down what will be required of you into yearly, monthly, weekly, and daily goals. By taking an overwhelming task and simplifying it into easily manageable, bite-sized segments, you create a roadmap that you’re able to follow right to the finish line.

Networking

I’m sure you’ve heard the saying, “It’s not about what you know, but who you know.” Whoever initially said this was almost on the right track, but apparently didn’t know what it was like living as a millennial in a hyper-competitive 2018 job market. You need both.

You’re not getting hired in any technical subsections of the music industry without a profound working knowledge of the field. By educating yourself, you’re able to overcome this barrier, and your options open up. Likewise, you’ll never have the opportunity to show what you can do if you can’t make fruitful connections with people.

The most effective way for you to make connections will depend heavily on your personality. One of the most powerful traits affecting how you can succeed in this area is extroversion/introversion. Where you fall on this spectrum is a good indicator of how you prefer to socialize.

Extroverts are people who are outgoing and thrive off of human interaction. They’re comfortable in large groups of people, and love being the center of attention. Most extroverts don’t like spending time alone and prefer group-based work. An extrovert would generally prefer to network by going out to social gatherings and connecting with people face-to-face.

Introverts are people more focused on their thoughts and feelings than external stimuli. They’re often viewed as shy, but this isn’t always the case. Introverts find themselves at home in quiet environments, and they tend to prefer solitary forms of work. An introvert would generally prefer to network with people online, or in one-on-one situations.

There are benefits to being extroverted, and there are benefits to being introverted. People are rarely found at one extreme end of the spectrum or the other and often exhibit both extroverted and introverted behaviors. The important thing for you to do is identify which types of networking strategies work best for you, and then use and abuse them.

It’s crucial to recognize that “networking” doesn’t just mean “meeting people”. You can walk down the street and meet a ton of people, but the chances that they’re able to help you get a job in the music industry are quite slim. Even if you do find yourself in a room of great potential professional connections, you need to be able to offer them something of value or nothing may come of that opportunity

There are various types of relationships that you can form with people, but in business, the most healthy form of relationship is a mutually beneficial one, where you both provide the other with something of value. The value that you offer someone can take many forms, but it’s essential that you identify all of your potentially valuable traits, services, and products, and listen carefully when other people are talking about their wants, needs, hopes and desires so that you can better form these types of relationships.

Summing It Up

It takes a whole lot of determination and sacrifice to secure a job in the music industry. I’m not going to sugar coat this and say that it’s a walk in the park, because it’s not. The road to a sustainable career in music can feel psychologically malevolent, physically draining, and extremely rewarding. It is 100% possible to carve a career for yourself. You just need to set a goal and then methodically work your way towards it.

The specific barriers you’ll face will be unique to you, but it’s important that you overcome them. There is no advantage or barrier powerful enough to make or break your career on its own. There are too many examples of people who had everything going for them but failed to make a viable career for themselves, and too many examples of people who have succeeded against tremendous odds to believe that. Assess where your weak points are and reinforce them. Your glaring weaknesses are not a sign of frailty, they’re clear indicators of where you can grow, and where you can most benefit from collaborating with others.

There is a path for you, regardless of your personality type. Networking only requires that you put yourself in a position where you’re more likely to find and form mutually beneficial relationships. First, you must make yourself valuable to others—through education, a service you offer, a product you develop—and then find others who can benefit from that value. This can be done in any number of ways, from personal to virtual. Whether you’re extroverted or introverted, you’re capable of networking. You just need to figure out which methods of networking work best for you.

Hopefully, the principles and experiences I’ve shared with you can help you develop your own unique outlook on how you can break into the music industry. At a glance, success in any field is a relatively straightforward process: You identify your strengths and how you can use them to help satisfy others’ needs, you make goals and determine the steps to achieve them, and you develop the discipline, priorities and habits you need to execute those steps, even when you don’t feel like it. It sounds simple when it’s put that way, but in reality it becomes a messy, chaotic and uniquely personal journey.

Here’s to your journey. You’ve got this.

Charles Hoffman is a Mixing and Mastering Engineer at Black Ghost Audio. After graduating from the University of Manitoba with an English degree, Charles completed his education at Icon Collective in Los Angeles, CA.

Please note: When you buy products through links on this page, we may earn an affiliate commission.