The Sound of music

When most people think about working in music, they think about being a pop star, but there are
plenty of other careers in music! Here are a few you might find interesting.

A. Crace

I work for the online music streaming

service Deezer. With over 40 million
songs in our library and over 30,000 radio
channels, our 16 million active users have
plenty to choose from. Increasingly,
though, people prefer playlists to the radio
or individual songs – about 50% of
streams now are playlists. It’s my job to
create and update playlists. Streaming is a
fantastic way for new artists and
household names to reach big audiences, so record labels and independent artists
approach me with their music. After listening to thousands of songs, I choose the
best ones for my fans. Probably the hardest thing isn’t deciding which to include,
but getting the order right in a playlist, so it sounds good together. Managing my
existing playlists involves analyzing a lot of data – I look at which songs people
miss out, their rating and so on – before making any changes. For me, it’s about
helping people to find music they love
and promoting new bands.

B. Simon

If you love music and helping people,

then, like me, being a music therapist
could be the career for you. In my job, I
use music and sound to help people with
problems such as stress and low self-
confidence, and to improve their
emotional well-being - that is, their emotional health. The pay could be better, but
the job satisfaction definitely makes up for that. The training is quite long – I got a
university degree in music and then went on to do a two-year MA (Master’s
Degree) in music therapy though some people study psychology or education or
education first and then go on to do music therapy. It’s important to have good
communication skills and be able to relate well to different kinds of people, and, of
course, not to judge people. I love music and I love waking up and knowing what I
do can make a difference to someone’s life.’

C. Robbie

My official job title is ‘technical support

staff’ but everyone calls us ‘roadies’ because
we spend so much time on the road
travelling. I work freelance and I’m one of
the people you see at live music events
setting up before the show and packing
everything away afterwards, but my main
responsibility is setting up the sound and
video equipment and occasionally looking
after the instruments during performances.
To be a good roadie, you must be able to
work calmly under pressure because because
there are always tight deadlines, and you
have to be able to use your own initiative to
solve problems – and there are always
problems! I did a two-week summer course in sound engineering at the London
School of Sound before starting. It cost £875 but it was well worth it – it certainlu
gave me the right technical experience to get my first job.

D. Josie

People have this image of DJ-ing being easy, but it’s a hard industry to get into.
I’m doing an eight-week part-time course to get more experience. It’s a brilliant
way of learning how to beat-match (matching the rhythms of two songs so one
follows smoothly after the other), mixing with records and on the laptop, and using
sound systems. The training also covers developing our own ‘style’, based on our
personality, and building a collection of
music. After finding out how important it is
to promote myself, I started posting my
mixes on Youtube and streaming sites,
hoping to get noticed – I could get my big
break that way! I volunteer at the local
hospital radio station, so I’m getting
experience that way too, and I’ve helped out
DJ-ing at weddings. I’ve got my first ever
solo event next weekend as the DJ at a charity show! Hooray! Who knows, one
day I could be a world-famous club DJ, but for now I’m focusing on getting a job
at radio station. That would be really cool.