Accounting, copyright/intellectual property rights and beer bongs...

There is no business like show business... HOWEVER!

Problem in this business, you could be the best or worst in the world and it wouldn't be what determines your outcome or future.

talent is about 10%, the rest is hard work, luck, whatever you want to call it.

From my experience in this business, look where it is all crumbling, and in between the cracks, are where the opportunities are. I think most people miss the signs. The recording/music business as we "knew it" has changed. Its too early in this new era of pro audio to know if it will continue to be worth considering it as a career.

I once did this to make money, I now do it because I can't live without it.

audiokid wrote:
I once did this to make money, I now do it because I can't live without it.

audiokid didn't you also get into it because you couldn't live without it? I mean agreed, sex drugs & money are certainly draws, oh yeah and fame... (btw are we talking about "music college" as in musician, or engineer, or music business?) but all that can come with success in many other fields.

A fellow engineer once put it to me like this: if you can find anything else you want to do with your career/life, do that. Meaning, it's a hard business to get into on any level, and you will have to struggle for a long time to get started. You will need to work on music you have no interest in, work extra paying jobs to subsidize your internship jos, explain to girlfriends why you have to work late at the club again tonight, why you have no money to pay for dinner but keep buying expensive gear...

I'm trying to say you will have to make serious sacrifices, but also that if you are willing, then its not really a question. You simply have to work in music, & hope for the best.
If there's something else that would be fulfilling to you, it will probably be more likely to be a stable job, since the music biz is about as unstable as it gets (legally.) And stable jobs are much less likely to leave you broke, strung out, & alone.

Or jaded... I know too many guys that have been working as engineers or techs for a long time but now hate music & musicians. Its sad, I think it happens when you get into it young because you like music, have enough success to have a career, but don't really enjoy the work. Sure, you like music, but do you really want to be surrounded by it all day every day?

Maybe I sound jaded. I'm just trying to say, if you answered "Of course I do!" to that question, then go for it work as hard as you can, learning about as many aspects of the industry as possible (since esp now it is constantly changing.) If you stopped and said, "well, I don't know about ALL day EVERY day...and what did you mean about the girlfriend stuff.." I would find another field.

Good answers guys.
Here's a story that plays out your concerns:

I'm friends w/ a guy who was all-state jazz and orchestra all 4 years of HS on trombone. He also sang and played keys and guitar in my HS band, and was almost as good doing that as he was at playing trombone.
He went to a local music conservatory on a trombone performance scholarship, and 1.5 years in, switched to a business degree, and I have never seen him touch his trombone ONCE since.

I never got the full story, but let's assume that the pressure and competition played a role. Regardless, it made him not want to play trombone anymore.

It takes some serious LOVE (or money, or insanity) to work in this business. Eventually, the money and the insanity will get the better of you.

To the OP specifically: I say do it. Just have a good backup plan. I wish so badly that I had stuck to an electronics engineering program. That way I could work tangentially to recording, have a useful, payable skill, and one that would have been extremely helpful as an engineer.
Do what feels right to you, but don't forget all your options.

soapfloats wrote:
It takes some serious LOVE (or money, or insanity) to work in this business.
To the OP specifically: I say do it. Just have a good backup plan. I wish so badly that I had stuck to an electronics engineering program. That way I could work tangentially to recording, have a useful, payable skill, and one that would have been extremely helpful as an engineer.
Do what feels right to you, but don't forget all your options.

perhaps go the other road that i was thinking and go to college to study other things, and do music in my spare time. then i can actually afford to do music, then if my music takes off then it can become my full time occupation, however if it doesnt then i can keep doing my chosen profession (as to which i am not yet sure) i mean... i have a basic home recording setup and use DAW, i was thinking about paying to go to mixing/mastering/recording lessons which at a studio relativly close to me (30miles) it is 70GBP per day