How to become a music producer??? (electronic, cd, albums, 2010)

[Stephanie9]

Hey everyone, I know that this is a hard question to get an easy answer to, but I figured I would try anyway. I am 26 and currently live in East HArlem and I am going to school for Oriental Medicine and Acupuncture. However, I have always had a strong passion for music but I never really knew what to do with the passion that I have. I never thought it would be possible to make a living pursureing what I Love more then anything. In pursueing medicine I started to realize that i am capable of doing prety much anything I want to do, and I figure if I can do anything then why not pursue what I love more then medicine...music!!! With that being said, I have no idea how to get into this industry, and I am tossing around the idea of going to school for music production??? If anyone has some positive advise for me or can point me in the right direction I would really appreciate it!!! I know that many will be tempted to give me a list of reason why I can NOT pursue this, and as much as I respect your opinion, I would appreciate the positivity, Thank you all and I hope everyone had a great holiday!!!

[Spraynard Kruger]

Propellerhead Software

Online Courses and Programs in Music Production, Guitar, Songwriting, Music Business, & Music Theory | Berkleemusic.com



Consider this a start.

[Origin of Symmetry]

Originally Posted by Stephanie9

Hey everyone, I know that this is a hard question to get an easy answer to, but I figured I would try anyway. I am 26 and currently live in East HArlem and I am going to school for Oriental Medicine and Acupuncture. However, I have always had a strong passion for music but I never really knew what to do with the passion that I have. I never thought it would be possible to make a living pursureing what I Love more then anything. In pursueing medicine I started to realize that i am capable of doing prety much anything I want to do, and I figure if I can do anything then why not pursue what I love more then medicine...music!!! With that being said, I have no idea how to get into this industry, and I am tossing around the idea of going to school for music production??? If anyone has some positive advise for me or can point me in the right direction I would really appreciate it!!! I know that many will be tempted to give me a list of reason why I can NOT pursue this, and as much as I respect your opinion, I would appreciate the positivity, Thank you all and I hope everyone had a great holiday!!!

Now it's 2010 when everything is going online. Youtube, Facebook, and MySpace are the places, where most of musicians hang out. To begin with you can try to find some unknown musicians there you believe to be talented and promising, and then help them in promotion via internet (probably free of charge if you have no promotion experience yet).

I don't assume visiting a producer school or something is a good idea at this stage. Why?

First off, you'll spend lots of money and time.

Second, it'll hurt your current medicine studying/job.

Third, you should understand that producer is a businessman, entrepreneur. So, for a start you should try promote and sell something to figure out whether you have all these entrepreneur skills or not. If a man can't even sell a cell phone or a book, he should think twice before considering to sell a musician and his works.

[thriftylefty]

Assuming you are not confusing music promotion with music producing,
Most great albums are attributed to a great producer. Learning to turn knobs or click a mouse on a lap top is not quite what it takes. I would think music theory or music appreciation courses would be better for some one interested in music producing. Too many guys from my perspective think they can produce because they have a studio. I have seen good producers walk into a studio with their own engineer and just rent the equipment and kick the house engineer out.

A producer is a person who has a great set of "ears" A producers can tell a musician,"hold that note out longer" or "I don't think we need a guitar solo here" or "lets get Van Halen to take the guitar solo on this Micheal Jackson song" You might look on some of your favorite albums to see who produced them, I like Brian Eno, Quincy Jones, and Daniel Lanios. you might look at what they have produced.

[Spraynard Kruger]

To expand a little further, if someone has the desire to create music for creating music's sake...the price of admission to have a relatively full featured, high quality production rig has never been more affordable. Especially for the hobbiest.

Modern production suites, such as Propellerheads Reason or Fruitylops, are full-featured enough to create full songs and learn quite a bit about recording techniques found in much more expensive DAW (digital audio workstations) such as Pro Tools, cubase and logic. Programs like Reason used to cater more towards the electronic music producer, but that has changed in recent months.

There are publications, such as electronic musician, that I would recommend reading. Almost all music today is recorded and mixed electronically. I will warn anyone though..gear lust is a serious issue! They put full page centerfolds of absolutely gorgeous gear in those magazines.

[passionatearts]

Originally Posted by Stephanie9

Hey everyone, I know that this is a hard question to get an easy answer to, but I figured I would try anyway. I am 26 and currently live in East HArlem and I am going to school for Oriental Medicine and Acupuncture. However, I have always had a strong passion for music but I never really knew what to do with the passion that I have. I never thought it would be possible to make a living pursureing what I Love more then anything. In pursueing medicine I started to realize that i am capable of doing prety much anything I want to do, and I figure if I can do anything then why not pursue what I love more then medicine...music!!! With that being said, I have no idea how to get into this industry, and I am tossing around the idea of going to school for music production??? If anyone has some positive advise for me or can point me in the right direction I would really appreciate it!!! I know that many will be tempted to give me a list of reason why I can NOT pursue this, and as much as I respect your opinion, I would appreciate the positivity, Thank you all and I hope everyone had a great holiday!!!

I'm surprised nobody asked you a very obvious question: do you know anything about how to play/make music? That is, do you play an instrument, do you know how to write songs, do you know any music theory, etc.?

It's great that you have a passion for music, but passion alone is not enough to make it in the music industry as a producer. You need to have craft and talent as well. Most professional music producers were musicians first and already had years of experience making music under their belts before they started producing other peoples' music. Going into the production field without any experience making music first would be like me deciding to join a soccer team without having done any training or exercise in my life.

If you're really serious about pursuing a career in music production, I would suggest you learn the basics of music first. I would learn how to play as at least guitar, piano, and voice as well as learn the basics of music theory and using music software. If you've never done any of these things before, be prepared to spend several years learning.

Good luck!

[citizenkane2]

WELL....all you need is a knowledge of computers and a casio keyboard. And you're set!! Enuff with learning how to play a real instrument!! Your computer can do it all for you!!

[Axle grease]

Hahaha...... many of the CD Music Forum people would actually be pretty good at it I think.