26. Music Careers You Didn't Know Existed

In this episode of the Music Executive Podcast, host Cinnamon Denise shares insights into building a sustainable music career by exploring alternative career paths within the industry. 

Drawing from personal experiences and extensive research, the episode details four unique music-related career options: neuroscientist specializing in music cognition, ethnomusicologist, archivist, and interactive media/music specialist. Cinnamon Denise emphasizes the importance of broadening one’s horizons and career planning, providing valuable resources and real-life examples to inspire listeners. 

The episode also encourages audience interaction through text messages and highlights an upcoming music project titled 'Trendsetter.' 

Listen to "Trendsetter" - https://cinnamontal.bandcamp.com/track/trend-setter-micro-bop
Learn more about Denk Studios - https://denkstudios.com/

Chapters

• 1:41 Exploring Music-Related Careers
• 2:19 Neuroscientist
• 5:00 Ethnomusicologist
• 7:11 Archivist
• 8:58 Interactive Media Specialist

Transcript

Hey, music executives. This is the Music Executive Podcast, a show where we dive into what it takes to build a sustainable, holistic career in the music industry. I'm your host, Cinnamontal. If you are new to the Music Executive Podcast, welcome and if you are not, welcome back regardless. Here's a quick little history on how I got here.

Here being a music slash media entertainment industry professional. So I knew ever since I was about nine years old that I wanted to be in this industry. I sang in the church choir growing up and joined band in school, did all the things. I was in marching band. I was a bassoonist in the Georgia Youth Symphony Orchestra.

I went to so many band camps, band clinics. I was in Allstate several times as a bassoonist. I graduated from the University of Miami for School of Music with a bachelor of music. Graduated from Berkeley College of Music with a master of Music, and I had a studio internship at a studio in Ibiza for a few months after graduation.

Why am I telling you this? I have been doing music, creating music in this industry for my entire life, and I initially had my sights set on being a film composer when I went to school. And while that is still on the table. The part where I have to say I'm not super proud of is the fact that I didn't do enough research to understand just how many music related careers there are out there.

I didn't really understand how to career plan as a musician, and I know, I know I'm not the only one, and this is either before, during, and after going to school, and there are some really viable, sustainable and lucrative music careers out there. Now that I know myself a little bit better, I'm seriously considering them like it's giving the world as your oyster type energy.

And so on today's episode, I wanna share just four of these careers and what they entail in hopes that you will feel inspired to broaden your horizons much sooner than I did slash half. Before we dive in, I'm excited to share that you can now text the show Music Executives. There is a link at the top of the episode description that says, send us a text message.

So please feel free to reach out. Let me know what topics you would like me to cover, maybe potential guests that you would like to hear from, or just send us good energy, good vibes, and we might shout you out in the upcoming episodes. Alright, let's do this. Music executives, I'm feeling Cinnamontal.

Number one, a neuroscientist. So I had the honor of producing a podcast where we interviewed Dr. Susan Rogers and Dr. Susan Rogers is an incredible recording engineer, as it stands already. I don't have time to go through her list of accolades, but let's just say that one of her many career highlights was being a staff recording engineer for Prince.

When listening to Dr. Rogers, she said something that really made me go, Hmm, I am paraphrasing here, but she said that one day her brain. Just wanted something different than what she had been doing, like her brain yearned for something else and that something else was psychology. She went back to school, got her doctorate in psychology from McGill University, studied music, cognition and psychoacoustics.

She is, at the time of this episode, a professor at Berkeley College of Music where she's the director of the Berkeley Music Perception and Cognition Lab. I started this episode speaking about Dr. Susan Rogers because she is one of the few people in this episode who I actually have met that do these careers that I have research for this episode.

So what exactly.

So, so what exactly does a neuroscientist that specializes in music cognition do? The study of the brain based mechanisms involving in the cognitive processes, underlying music, which can include things like music, performance, music, listening, composing music, reading, music, and much more, right? And typically these individuals will have some sort of training in neuroscience, psychology, and of course music theory or composition, et cetera.

I'm going to land stick with me. So a day in the live may easily look like intense research, writing, reading, experimenting, speaking, and I am in no way speaking for Dr. Susan Rogers on what her day-to-day looks like. But like any other scientific field, the possibilities are really endless here. And if you are a trained musician that also loves psychology or has an interest in psychology, this might be a viable career path for you.

If you are interested in this career path, some book findings that are pretty dense, but I found enjoyable include, this is what it sounds like by Dr. Susan Rogers, music, cognition The Basics, musical Philia Tales of Music in the Brain by Oliver Sacks. This is Your Brain on Music by Daniel Levitin. Again, this is such an interesting field and career path that seems really malleable to various personality types and lifestyles.

Let's go to the next one. Number two, an ethnomusicologist. Long story short, as I have been pivoting, I really have been looking into going back to school for my PhD, and as I've done so, I have landed on a lot of these really interesting fields that inspire me to go back to school. Ethnomusicology is hands down, one of them, you may already be familiar with musicology, which has simply put the scientific study of music, but ethnomusicology is a large subcategory of musicology and it is the study of music within cultural context.

I'm gonna quote Dr. Steven Zn, a music studies professor at Temple University, and he states musicologists tend to study the actual musical artifact. While ethnomusicologists are usually a little less concerned with the actual artifact and more with the cultural forces that produced that artifact. This field is particularly exciting because it opens the door right up for many humanitarian initiatives that can be found in music.

And beyond that, I have enjoyed learning from a surface level, the direct correlation between music and culture. Yes. We know that music and culture are inextricably linked, but how do they impact one another? Exactly, yes. This research is as fun as it sounds, especially if you are an anthropologist, sociologist, and of course, a musician.

I. And extra, especially if you are a musician that specializes in music from a specific genre or culture such as Flamenco Cuban music, Haitian music. You get my point here, right? This is a beautiful way to understand from a scientific and sociological perspective, this music that you are already an expert in.

There are about 50 plus schools that have a robust musicology and or ethnomusicology program, undergrad or graduate in the United States, and there are also some extremely incredible schools worldwide. But I will say that a great resource that led me down this well worth it. Rabbit Hole is the Society of Ethnomusicology.

They have quite a few resources of all types on their website. 10 outta 10 recommend. Okay, music executives. Let's go on to number three. Number three, an archivist. I do, in fact know an archivist who works for the local library system, and it's not remarkably hard to imagine what an archivist does, but I want to highlight that these individuals specialize in preserving original materials of all types, whether that be paper documents, photographs, maps, film, computer records, and yes.

Musical archives, instruments, et cetera, like vinyl sheet music, music history, what have you. And if you love music history, seriously consider this path. Media archivists in particular, may also specialize in digitizing original material so that people can view, obtain, and experience these materials, right?

Archivists can work at a library like my friend that I mentioned, but they can also work at museums as curators. They can work a plethora of government jobs as well. Now my friend did share that she, and the majority of her colleagues do have a degree in library studies, and I will share that it is of course, helpful if you already know that this is your final career destination.

But who knows that if you have a music degree like I do, you can also go back to school if you wish, and get a certificate in library studies. So your experience for music. Or I would bet media is pretty viable for you to then get a certificate in library studies if you don't want to go get a master's degree or don't wanna go back to school for another seven, 10 years.

Who knows? Right. I also wanna highlight that my friend did indeed say that she spends most of her day in the basement to protect the archives from the sun. And this is a relatively solitary job. So if working alone for long periods of time is not your thing. Maybe consider more of the museum curator route.

Right. Alright, let's go to the last one. Number four, interactive media and or music specialist. The reason why this one is so incredibly fun to me is because the amount of interdisciplinary aspects in this field are virtually limitless. This can range from anything from designing activations that are created for booths at a conference, like any immersive marketing campaign, for example.

Let's say a company wanted to highlight the various experiences of someone with an auditory processing disorder. You may work with an audiologist and a UX designer to make a walkthrough tunnel of what a day in the life is like of this type of individual. For context, a person with an auditory processing disorder has great hearing, but they have a hard time focusing on the primary thing that they need to hear at particular moments.

So an immersive music specialist or immersive media specialist may help develop this experience with that knowledge from the subject matter expert, like the audiologist, right? Mind you, there is still the conceptualization, the designing, the implementation, the marketing, et cetera, which could be completely you or a team of immersive specialists.

This field can also work pretty extensively in the marketing field and even use audio spatialization techniques to hone in on creating a theater like experience for a product launch or activation, or just game design at your favorite arcade chain or exhibition designs at an oral A-U-R-A-L illusion museum.

Honestly, this field is so vast that this is the tip of the iceberg, but I want to note that this career field, unlike the others, there is less need to have additional formal education. I'm specifically talking about music immersion media specialist right now. Formal education will be certainly supremely useful, but this is not a scenario in the neuroscience case where not having a PhD would potentially disqualify you from a role.

Mind you, the reason why this field is also vast is because of how extremely transferable these skills are. If you work in this field and decide one day that you would rather be a game sound designer, exclusively a game sound designer. You are already well on your way with this one. Alright, music executives, that is it for this episode.

If you enjoyed this episode, share it with a friend. If you enjoyed the music executive podcast, give us a five star rating wherever you listen to your podcast. I'm going to close by sharing that this year has been a hot mess, so. Thank you for sticking around with me through the delays, distractions, and discouragements because we are only human.

I have lots of amazing projects that are done or near done and I can't wait to share them with you. I see you still listening, downloading, rating the show, and for that I wanna let you know that I'm so grateful. I. Speaking of projects Jam, my dear friend, mixing, mastering, engineering extraordinaire over at Dan Studios and I, your host, Cinnamontal have been working so diligently and quite frankly, making some incredible music.

So I'm about to play. This project, this macro bop called Trendsetter, and it is available on my band camp for purchase. The link is in the description of this episode, music executives. I will see you next week. In the meantime, be kind to yourself. This is not easy, but it is fun. Peace.