Get Creative To Find Music Production Jobs

So you’ve got that degree in Music Production – but after months of scouring the want ads, you’re beginning to wonder if you shouldn’t have backed it up with a minor in Education. Don’t despair yet – you’re a creative person or you wouldn’t have chosen this business to begin with. The secret to finding and getting music production jobs is to use some of that creativity in your job search.

There are three things to keep in mind when doing a creative job search for music production jobs:

1. As many as 90% of the jobs in any media occupation never get advertised through regular channels. The music production companies get enough over the transom resumes that they can pick and choose without advertising.

2. In many music production jobs, networking will be a key part of your job description. If you can’t network to get a job, you’ll have a hard time convincing a hiring manager that you can do the job.

3. Sometimes the best way to get your foot in the door is to intern for a music production company. According to a recent survey conducted by CareerExposure, 94% of employers have offered a full time job to interns when their internship was finished.

Keeping those three things in mind, you can put together a creative music productions job search that will land you the position that you want using the following blueprint.

1. Do your homework. You should know the music production jobs that you’re going after inside out. Read up on the web, visit the library and bookstores and find out all that you can.

2. Start applying your networking skills. Make a list of people you know who may be able to help you. Don’t forget to include people like your ex-teachers, business acquaintances and people you know through other people. Did you do sound levels for a band? Have you interned for a publisher? Have you got a chance to attend a media symposium? Those are all important contacts for you when you’re trying to network your way into music production jobs.

Boldness is an important skill to cultivate here. Ask for letters of introduction, or for permission to use someone’s name when you contact another. It’s amazing how quickly you’ll get results with a simple statement like, “Hi, Mr. Producer, my name is Interested Party. My professor, Ms. In-The-Know suggested that I call you when I told her that I’m interested in an internship with your company. Do you have a few moments to talk with me about that now, or is there a better time to call you?”

3. All right, you’re not quite that bold? There are several different methods of approach you can use to contact people who hold the keys to music production jobs.

- Mail is the most traditional method. Once you’ve researched enough to know what companies you want to work for, and who makes hiring decisions there, you can mail a resume along with an excellent cover letter. Chances are though, that you’ll have to follow up on your initial mail. Remember point #1 above – music production companies get loads of over the transom resumes.

- Email is a second option, and is a reasonable way to follow up as well. If you’ve sent your resume by mail, wait a few days and then follow up with an email to the hiring manager stating that you’re following up on your mailed resume and are very interested in discussing possible career options within his or her company. If you haven’t, send a cover letter and resume via email, and follow up in a few days with a second email.

- Telephone calls may be scary, but they are one of the quickest ways to get through to the person you want to speak with. Keep in mind that your phone call is an interruption to the hiring manager’s day – be pleasant, be brief and be direct.

The secret to finding and getting music production jobs is being bold enough to get yourself out there and sell your skills and abilities. With only 10% of the available jobs ever being offered openly in the classifieds, it’s the only way that you’ll ever know what music production jobs are available.

Jazz Beginnings

Jazz is one of the only original musical art forms. It is defined as “originating around the start of the 20th century in New Orleans, rooted in African American musical styles blended with Western music technique and theory.” One of the most famous jazz musicians was John Coltrane. In his study of Coltrane’s newest posthumous release entitled “John Coltrane: Fearless Leader”, Norman Weinstein analyses on of jazz’s greatest stars and the CD that summarizes his sessions from 1957 to 1958.

Coltrane did not start his first jazz group until 1960,( a quartet including Steve Kuhn, Pete LaRoca and Billy Higgins), so the period of time described in this CD is prior to any real self controlled, organized play on his part. First Weinstein discusses the difference between Coltrane’s pre-Atlantic, pre-Impulse recordings versus the later sound. Coltrane has recordings that go all the way back to 1946 but he did not start recording professionally and with a means to preserve and distribute until 1955. After this point however, he created and produced an impressive number of albums. Since his death, some of these have been released. Still others have been releases solely on the merit of his having been playing on the side or in a lesser portion of a recording. Weinstein mentioned that a previous Coltrane release, a 16 disc set was overwhelming and that the new 6 disc set of his review is a much more manageable collection of Coltrane’s music, though not as exhaustive as the aforementioned collection.

He recommends tuning out the other musicians and concentrating solely on Coltrane and bassist Paul Chambers and calls Coltrane’s playing “intensely inspired.”

Weinstein goes through each disc, listing the songs and recommends listening to the CD’s in backwards order as they are chronologically listed. He suggests that the listener go back in time and listen to Coltrane’s earliest represented recordings last instead of first as a kind of musical audio deconstruction.

Biographical information on Coltrane suggests that he began to play while a young man in a racially segregated community after the death of his aunt, grandfather and father. His musical passion seemed to be built from the grief over these deaths and his sadness was transformed into “practicing obsessively.” Though the new CD set does not go that far back into Coltrane’s early years. It depicts and records a specific time of his growth. Weinstein contends that you are able to hear that growth and that it is well worth the purchase.

The Mystique Of Acoustic Guitar Solos

The acoustic guitar still holds a fascination for music lovers even after all these decades of our ears being bombarded by electric guitar music. Electric guitarists love playing with the sounds they get from different tone settings, effects, the use of the different pickups and feedback. The acoustic guitar has only the tone given to it by the wood it is made from and the skill and inspiration of the guitar player. So let us take a look at some acoustic guitar solos and the guitars and guitarists who made them.

If you do not know the name Erik Mongrain, you will find some examples of his guitar playing on video sites on the internet. I came across a very nice solo called Air Tap. He was given an acoustic guitar when he was fourteen, and learnt to play it by ear. While he learnt and experimented with the guitar he discovered the technique of sitting the guitar in his lap and tapping, the strings and body to produce music. If you go looking for him on the web you will find pdf files of his music and tutorials on his techniques.

Paco de Lucia introduced the world to a new brand of flamenco in the 1970′s and paved the way for a new generation of flamenco guitarists who were inspired by his passion for oriental scales and jazz influences. Entre Dos Aguas was an improvisation begun during a recording session because the LP Paco and his accompanying musicians were working on was short on material. The resulting rumba was a worldwide hit and established Paco as a force to be reckoned with well outside the boundaries of Spanish folk music. Paco sponsors his own line of flamenco guitars.

Back in the 1990′s MTV decided to coax guitar hero Eric Clapton into playing some songs without the adornments provided by an electric guitar and amp. The resulting album won Grammy awards, gave Clapton’s career a shot in the arm and reinvented the song Layla as an acoustic showpiece. The solo on Layla is far removed from the original theme conceived by Duane Allman which made the song a rock anthem.

In the late 1960′s Mason Williams surprised himself by writing and performing an acoustic guitar solo which became a hit and remained popular for the decades since. The tune was called Classical Gas, and is striking for its simplicity and popular appeal. Classical Gas was born in an era when instrumentals such as The Lonely Surfer, A Walk In The Black Forest and Love Is Blue were standout hits for musicians who were otherwise unknown. But only Classical Gas retains the ability to make people sit up and listen.

So if you play the acoustic guitar a little and would like to learn how to play solos, you can use the world wide web to

learn more about soloing techniques for acoustic guitar. One easy way to start is the clawhammer technique used in folk songs, or you could learn to improvise your own licks using the minor pentatonic or “blues” scale. If you are stuck for an idea on how to begin improvising or making up your own tunes, start with a nursery rhyme or some other popular melody, and begin adding notes to it and changing things around to produce something original.

Acoustic Guitar Tab

If you enjoy the idea of learning the guitar and you visualize yourself sitting down and playing your favorite songs for your own enjoyment, acoustic guitar tabs give you the possibility of realizing your dream. You can pick up an acoustic guitar any time of the day or night and play without disturbing your family or neighbors. Some people even play the acoustic guitar while the family is watching TV in the same room!

Tablature, or tab, is the ideal way for any beginner guitar player to learn or for a more seasoned guitarist to learn new material quickly. A basic definition of guitar tab is a diagram showing the guitar strings with the frets where the guitarist is to play the notes indicated by numbers. Quite often a guitarist approaching a new piece of music will struggle with conventional music notation whereas tab is a quick and easy way of getting the feel of a new piece. Also a pianist or other musician can look at a piece of guitar sheet music and play it right away but would have no hope of playing from guitar tab because it is only written for one instrument. Another limitation of guitar tab is that you won’t be able to learn the rhythm from it. You will need a strumming pattern diagram or, having heard the song before, have some idea of how to approach the playing of the rhythm. If you are prepared to live with these limitations tablature will be a great tool for you to learn your favorite songs quickly.

When you search the internet for acoustic guitar tab what kind of music can you expect to find? Well, the variety is astonishing. Basically acoustic guitar tab is written with the idea of the guitar supplying the basic accompaniment for the song. So if you are a singer wanting to interpret the lyrics, your interest in the guitar arrangement may be slight. The second thing acoustic guitar tab usually gives you is the notes for any distinctive melody or riff in the song – music that people recognize before they hear the words being sung. A simple example of this is the few notes repeated throughout the record of “Something” by The Beatles. Of course you are quite free to leave out or change any music to make the arrangement your own.

Acoustic guitar tabs are often fingerstyle arrangements of songs. These arrangements will not be readily available in music stores or the usual sources of sheet music on the internet. Fingerstyle arrangements can give you some added depth to your guitar playing even if you don’t utilize all the techniques shown in the tab. Finally there is one advantage to using acoustic tab for electric guitar players. You can learn the muisc for the song without having to set up your guitar and amp. You can work on arranging your song for electric guitar once you know the chords and the basic structure.

I hope I have given you something to think about if you have not given tabs for acoustic guitar much of a look so far. If you look around you will be quite amazed at the range of popular – and obscure – music available.