So You Want To Be a Full-Time Music Producer

I’ve been asked by so many people lately who either want to get into freelance or are about to graduate high school and want information about “should they go to college or freelance”. While I don’t know your exact situation (and I think college is largely useless in the music industry overall), I can give the advice I’ve been handing out like a “turn or burn” pamphlet at a gas station.

Here's every bit of advice I can think of right now, from someone who has grown their freelance music production business from working out of a closet to a full-time salary.

Realize What You're Signing Up For

Yes, by name, you're trying to be a music producer or mix engineer, but at its core, you're signing up to be an entrepreneur. Unfortunately, there's no way around this. Salaried positions in music are largely extinct, and even if they do exist, the industry is so volatile that it's better to build something yourself. The earlier you realize this, the faster you can move forward to building a freelance business that is sustainable!

Self-Educate

Listen to podcasts, watch YouTube videos, and read books from both inside and outside your industry. Creative people tend to be very bad at the business side of things, so understanding how businesses run and how marketing works outside of the music industry can help inform how to help your own business succeed. Reading books about successful entrepreneurs or successful musicians and learning about how they got from starting out to success can give you some perspective.

(Links Below if you need help getting started)

Get in a Like-Minded Community

Online or in person, it doesn't matter. Find other producers in your area, connect with artists trying to make their own music, join forums or discords to learn from others and share what you are learning as you grow as well! Go shadow an actively working engineer/producer. Learning about how to do things in theory is great but seeing real-life examples of projects happening in real-time will help you see how to put the theory you learn into practice. Surround yourself with people who are pushing themselves to grow and get better.

Get Music Out There

Be actively working on your own projects. Whether it's your own music for release or someone else's, you need to start working on projects that will actually see the light of day. Join a band, a vocal group, or something where you have to work with other people. This teaches you how to work with others on the same project and when to push for ideas and when to let things go. Learn to be involved in your local scene, meet more musicians, and get more reps at actually releasing music with your group!

Learn Content

It's an unfortunate reality that you can't just sit in your room and make your music and get money, especially when you are starting out. You need to put yourself out there, and the best way to showcase yourself to people is through content creation. Short form, long form, live streaming, written word; these are all valid, but the best option is to just pick one and see how you like it. If you can find the joy in it, or maybe you end up loving it, continue running down that path. If not, find the one that best works for YOU and keep trying at it!

If you found this interesting or know someone who might need to read this, Hit that share button and help out someone (either me or that other person)!

Keep creating, keep learning, and keep pushing forward in your journey as a music producer!

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