Music Publishing

Music Publishing

If you're interested in this industry, acquire as much knowledge as possible of the various music skills and the various mechanical procedures involved. To obtain the latter he or she should seek employment in a music publishing firm that maintains its own production and printing departments and then observe, ask questions, and remember what is being done and how.

• Author — Research is a large part of this type of work. Knowledge in instrumental pedagogy is required.

• Critic — Music critics are a unique combination of journalist and musician. Their views are published daily, often providing quotations to be used as publicity for performing artists. They affect their audience both directly and indirectly by determining which artists will survive in the performance media and will therefore be available for the public to choose from, and directly by influencing choices the public makes, its understanding of performances, and its reactions to them.

• Journalist — If you are contemplating a career in music journalism a major in music is not needed. You should address yourself to acquiring and polishing useful journalistic skills. "Music" is only the adjective, "journalism" is the noun, so major in journalism, English, humanities, languages, anything that will improve your word-handling abilities.

• Editor
  • Magazine/Book — Someone contemplating a career in music journalism should not major in music. You should address yourself to acquiring and polishing useful journalistic skills.
  • Music — Acquire as much knowledge as possible of the various music skills and the various mechanical procedures involved.

• Historian

• Publisher — Music publishing involves choosing materials to publish, editing and proofreading music manuscripts, promoting serious performance, and nurturing composers. Everything else is common to any other business with similar marketing and distribution procedures.

• Arranger — If you excel in music theory, orchestration, and composition, you could find yourself working as an arranger. An arranger is in charge of creating arrangements of a song for an artist or an ensemble to play. Main priority of an arranger is to create parts for each instrument and voice, while keeping harmonic structure and other music theory guidelines in mind.