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Top 10 Jobs for Music Composers

December 6, 2010 by JSTAndrews

Despite the underwhelming press Classical Music Composers get now-a-days, there are actually a lot of jobs out there for Classical Composers. I remember while in school I always got asked, “What can you do with that degree?” Well, a lot of things. Here’s a list of the top 10 careers a composer can start in:

  1. Teaching
      An easy one to start out with is simply teaching other musicians. Either in composing or with your favorite instrument.
  2. Performance
      Almost all Composers are good musicians. This is yet another way to tune in on your craft. Playing other Composer’s music is probably the best way to study their techniques.
  3. Copyist
      There’s lots of jobs out there for this. One must have music theory training and strong transposition stills. This job has you copying parts from a full score into individual instruments.
  4. Transcriber
      This takes a little practice but can be quite useful. One would provided a written score for recorded music and/or performances.
  5. Arranger
      Arrangers provide different instrumentation of a piece for band, orchestra, choir and other ensembles. They could take the Star Spangled Banner and Arrange it for a male vocal assemble.
  6. Orchestrator
      An Orchestrator is an unsung hero in the music industry. Say a Composer just finished a new piece but only in a condescend piano version. An Orchestrator would then take that piece and figure out which instruments would sound good where and how to group them. This job is almost as important as the composition itself.
  7. Editor
      This is a job primarily for printed sheet music. An editor looks for anomalies in a piece, adds articulation and such to a composer’s final product.
  8. Conductor
      This is probably the biggest step one could make in his career. Not only are do you prepare the orchestra you might be able to wiggle in some of your own pieces and getting your name out.
  9. Film Scores
      Some may not consider this a full-fledged composer but either way it’s a separate job in itself. This requires a lot of patience and flexibility in your writing. Basically you must convey the ideas of the movie within your works. It’s a great opportunity and if anything else a great challenge.
  10. Composer
      Obviously this is the ultimate goal. But it can take a lot of time and effort to get recognized on this level. Hey, if John Williams can do it…

Filed Under: Music Blog Tagged With: classical music, Jobs, Music Composer

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