Job Profile: Music Career Specialist Heather McDonald
A few weeks ago, I had coffee with a friend of mine. She’s younger than me – she’ll be graduating from college in May and she’s wondering what to do with her life. She went on and on about this job or that job, dismissing most possibilities as not lucrative enough, wondering if she should go to law school because that’s what everyone else seems to be doing, and balking at my suggestion that because she has NEVER had a job before, like it or not, she’s probably going to be looking at a low paid, entry level position. (OK, “friend” is a strong word.) Then, she took a sip of her drink, put it down, looked me square in the eye and said, “do you think you’ll ever get a real job?”
She’s not the first to ask (honestly, is my mom in on this?). But these kinds of questions make me more pensive these days, because you see, my main job in the music industry right now is to talk to you about your job in the music industry. I spend a lot of time telling people that they should treat their musical ambitions, whatever they may be, as a job and work hard at them as such. Then I also warn them that they should get used to working long, hard, thankless days and that most people will think that they don’t work at all. Hey, it’s not pretty, but it’s honest. It’s one of those music industry conundrums.
But wait, I’m getting ahead of myself a little bit, because I haven’t actually told you what I do. I am the About.com guide for music careers, which is a fancy way of saying that when you visit the About.com Music Careers website, those are my words you see. In a nutshell, my job is to explain the ins and outs of the music industry to people. Both musicians and people trying to work on the business side of the industry read my site, and so I write about everything from picking songs for your demo to things you should consider before starting a record label. I also do label profiles, event profiles, and interviews with people in the industry. I try to make a point of interviewing people who have built something in music from the ground up and whose stories are accessible to people reading my site. I want the people who read my site to come away with the impression that taking a chance on their musical ambitions can work for them, and I hope that my site gives them some helpful information about some things they might not yet understand so they’re more confident about taking the leap. (My music industry career can all be traced back to a bake sale, so I’m a big believer in just going for it. But more on that later.)
Another thing I spend a lot of time doing through the Music Careers website is answering questions that users email to me. It sometimes takes me weeks and weeks to do it, but I try to answer every question I get, and if I can’t answer it, I try to find someone who can. It’s one of my favorite parts of the job, but it can also be really depressing. The internet has been great for indie musicians in particular, but if my inbox is anything to go by, it’s also been great for scam artists. I get an incredible amount of email from people who want to know if I think a particular deal or proposal is fair or not, and sure, I’m not a lawyer, but I know a rip off when I see one. Inevitably, the people who are seeking my advice have been “discovered” on the internet by someone clever enough to know that people have their dreams all tied up in their music careers and that makes them pretty easy to exploit. If I can stop one person from paying thousands of dollars to get their track on some comp no one is ever going to listen to or paying thousands of dollars to some sleazy music industry “consultant” who offers them earth shattering advice like to set up a MySpace page, then I will have done my job. (I’m Heather McDonald, and I approve this message.)
Of course, I’m a big believer in independent music, and moreover, I’m a big believer in the fact that the musicians come first. Yes, I do know what it’s like to, say, deal with a musician who flew to another country for a tour and forgot to bring his instruments or a middle of the night phone call from a band who is on tour far, far away, in a place you’ve never been, who want to know if you know how to get back to their hotel from the falafel stand. True stories. But really, without the musicians, what would we all be doing? My ideas about this get me in trouble sometimes on my site, because when I write about deals, I write about deals that are fair for everyone, especially the musicians. Not all deals are like that in the real world, of course, and so sometimes I get outraged emails from people who yell and stomp their feet and tell me that I don’t know what I’m talking about (and one threat to “take me down.”). Hey, whatever. Fun music industry fact: there are approximately 900 million ka-billion ways to get things done, and there’s no reason for anyone to sign an unfair deal. Especially musicians. Especially in this climate.
So, there you have it. That’s my job. It’s to help you understand the music industry, to help you avoid getting hustled as you try to get your music career off the ground and to offer advice on ways you can blaze your own trail in the music biz. I love it, but it’s not the only music related work I do, and my other jobs kind of give me the material for that job. And plus, didn’t I promise you a story about a bake sale?
Right then. In addition to the Music Careers website, I do freelance music PR, press release writing, the occasional tour booking – a hodge podge of music related activities. The reason I can do any of this is because I had a bake sale. Well, several of them, actually. I used to work at an independent record store in North Carolina, and I read a story about a band I liked, Looper, doing a small UK tour of book shops and record shops. I wanted them to come and play at our store, so I dropped them a line using this new fangled thing we had just gotten in the store – email. They wrote me back and said they would love to, if I would just get them some plane tickets.
And so the bake sales began. I would stay up all night on Friday nights, baking cookies, cupcakes and the like, often with the help of some friends, and then on Saturdays, I would set up a table outside of the store and start selling. My lovely and supportive co-workers would also cook food and do shifts hawking baked goods. The idea took off. Word spread and people started coming out to the store specifically to support the cause. Some people contributed food, some people paid $20 or more for a cupcake. One local artist donated a painting for us to raffle off. A local cable access show did a profile of the sales. CMJ interviewed me.
I raised enough money to buy the plane tickets. In the end, their label decided to book them a US tour themselves. They never made it to the store – although SubPop did fly me and a friend to Chicago to see them play. We had a big customer appreciation party with the money raised to say thanks to everyone for their help, but there was a hurricane that night, which kind of put a damper on the things. I bet you didn’t expect that story to end with a hurricane, but it does.
During that time, I made a decision to move to Glasgow, Scotland (where Looper was from). I wanted to get out from behind the record store counter and work in the music industry, and hey, I loved tons of Glasgow bands. Why not go there? I mean, sure, I didn’t know anyone in Scotland and had never been there, but still. I flew to Scotland and emailed Looper to say, “hey, guess what, I moved to Glasgow!” Although likely slightly afraid, Stuart David of Looper put me in touch with Francis Macdonald of Shoeshine Records, and said, “I don’t know, maybe he needs an employee.”
Francis had never really thought of having an employee at Shoeshine, but agreed to give me some work experience, which turned into a job. My planned six month stay in Glasgow turned in nearly seven years. All because of a chocolate chip cookie.
If you really, really want to know the music industry, get yourself a job at an indie label. I’m hugely biased because I love indie labels like some girls love diamonds, but when you work at an indie, you have to do just about every job there is in the music industry. There’s not enough money floating around usually to hire a specific person to look after each aspect of the business or to outsource a lot of work, so in a given day, you may deal with a distributor, look for new licensing partners, make some calls to promote your latest release, book a show and listen to demos. You get a bird’s eye view of how each part of the industry works and how they relate to each other. As an added bonus, because indies don’t have the money that the big guys do, most people you deal with are in it for the love of the music. You can’t work for an indie label (at least, not for long), if you don’t really believe in what you’re doing, and that creates a different working environment. It also creates 12, 14, 16 hour days and the aforementioned inability to describe your job to anyone outside the music industry, but it’s incredibly rewarding all the same.
Coming back to the present, in addition to the Music Careers website and my assorted freelance music writing and PR work, my other job at the moment is putting together a new label for Caribbean musicians called Link Up. To the shock, bewilderment, and yes, amusement of many, I’ve been a huge dancehall fan since I was a teenager, and the basic idea behind Link Up is something that’s been kicking around in my head for some time. My friend, Ed Pybus from Edinburgh’s SL Records, and I have been working on getting the label together for awhile now, and more recently, we’ve been helped out by Denzil Coleman, who oddly enough I discovered through my devotion to the Ron Mexico City blog.
I call Link Up a label for lack of a better word, but it’s really a little different from a traditional label. The business is a social enterprise co-op – in other words, any money we make gets invested into a social cause, and as you might guess, our cause is helping to develop the music industry infrastructure in the Caribbean. There is so much great music in the Caribbean, and we’d like to help these musicians bring their music to a wider audience and to do so on terms that are fair to them. For musicians that Link Up works with as a label, we can help them get their music into North American and European markets, but we’d also like to help all musicians in the Caribbean figure out how they can do things like use the internet to promote themselves effectively, approach people in other markets to work with, seek funding and to understand what is a fair deal and what isn’t. The musicians from the Caribbean who have gotten deals haven’t always been treated very well in the past, and a lot of times the profits have ended up outside of the region. We’d like to be a little different. And of course, we’d just love to get more of the brilliant music of all genres out of the Caribbean and to more listeners. I’m pretty excited about it, so a big part of my job right now is getting it ready to go.
What is my point in telling you all of this? (And here you thought I didn’t have one…) My point is – go for it. There are lots of different ways you can work in the music industry, and sometimes if you don’t see an opportunity for you, you have to create your own. It’s not always a matter of saying, “I want to be a (fill in the blank).” Your job in music may be to have lots of different jobs in music. Mind you, it’s never easy. Despite what some people may think, working in music is, well, really hard work. Everything you try may not be a rip roaring success. That’s OK – as long as you have the drive to stick with it and keep going, you’ll find your way. Make the leap. And I promise you, whatever you’re doing in music, it’s a “real job.”
About the author
Heather-
Thanks for that interesting and informative letter. I was listened for a website like yours– I signed up for your email list.
Cheers!
~Joel
Keats’ Handwriting
http://www.myspace.com/KeatsHandwriting
11/18/2008
You inspire me to bake AND make a career in music! ;)
11/18/2008
Thanks for the great article as usual Heather! I love your About.com section, and have learned a lot from you.
I really want a chocolate chip cookie right now.
2/6/2009
Hi Heather, I came across your blog from an article you wrote on musicianwages.com and I really like the advice you provide to people considering music as a full time career.
I’m writing these lines because i too am seriously considering a career in music. But the catch is that i think my case is not the common teenager wanting to start a band. I am 34 years old,I live in Toronto Canada, I have a business degree, I work in an advertising agency and i am currently preparing for an audition at Humber College May 2010 for the Jazz and Contemporary Guitar Music 3 year Diploma. Yes, I am quitting my job and becoming a full time student.
I am trying to get everything ready for the big day (if accepted of course) next year. My savings will guarantee a full year and one semester of not having to work while i focus on school. My problems would start after semester 3 though. By semester 4 (out of the 6 the diploma takes) I won’t have any money left. At that time I am thinking about taking a break from school (a semester or two),save, work and then go back to finish the last year. By this time I’m planning to have a part time job, and hopefully the course load won’t be as intense as the first 2 years of school.
This is putting myself in the worst case scenario…the best situation would be me getting a part time job (at least at night, 20 hours a week) since semester 2, to help me stretch my budget until the end of the diploma. I think this might be doable but not easy to accomplish since the diploma states 20 hours a week of classes and I’m calculating 20 hours a week of instrument practice too, not a lot of free time left (and in this case free time would mean work), gulp..
Now, of course I am willing to take the sacrifice and go for it since this is what i was born to do. I’ve been putting off becoming a musician for so long, it is my dream and now i am close to fulfill it without regrets….but i want to plan it wisely, so i don’t get a 20k debt after finishing school :-) ….I am excited and motivated and i can’t believe I am finally giving music an opportunity in my life. I love it. And i think my business degree will help me a lot to establish myself as a self employed musician in the future….
I just wanted to share this with you and please feel free to let me know your thoughts!
cheers
Bruno Benavides
8/24/2009
Leave a comment
Do you have a general question or a discussion topic? If so, please consider posting it in the forums.