Music as a profession - How to be a performer;
As a performer, you job is to quite simply perform. However performing isn't as simple as just playing a song. In terms of qualifications, you don't need to have all A*'s and distinction grades, while these grades are helpful, they aren't essential, only certain traits to you as a person. Performing can go down two, sometimes tree routes. Live performer, Session Performer or Performance teacher. For all three paths there are certain things that are essential, for example;
Versatility - Even if you're the worlds best drummer, if teaching a beginner student, you will need to teach to that speed. If you're a session musician you'll be playing a wide variety of genres, from jazz to heavy rock.
Patience - when teaching, your student might not get it right first time, be patient and allow them time. When performing, and as a session musician, you'll need to be patient when setting up gear/waiting for others to set up their gear.
Communication - you will have to speak, and well, to your student in order to actually teach them, poor communication will lead in the student not learning anything. When performing live or in a studio, if you need to increase an instrument or vocals for monitoring, then you have to say.
The pay;
There are a number of ways to be payed as a performer, however you won't have a set payday, so you wont have a consistent income. To be payed you can;
Charge per hour for teaching - you can advertise your services and be paid, similar to a regular job, by the hour. These can be flexible, one student may only want one hour, another may want an hour and a half, two hours etc. you could double your pay by teaching two students at once, that may come with more stress, but the increased effort will be rewarded with double pay.
Get paid per gig - A touring band may approach you and say 'we will pay you X amount of money for this many shows'. This would be the most glamorous option as you're essentially being payed to travel and play music, this can even involve shows abroad, an added bonus. If the band like you they will come back to you and ask you to play for another tour, or another band will approach you and get paid in similar fashion.
Get paid for providing your instrument on an album - An artist in the process of recording an album and will hire you to play for their album. This is a hit or miss situation as your pay check will be bigger based on the sale of the album.
Health risks;
The only real danger to your health when performing is lifting heavy gear, constant logging around of heavy boxes and equipment could have an effect on your physical state, exhausting you. Another factor could be from travelling globally, trying to constantly adjust to different time zones could result in a lack of sleep which can mentally drain you as well as physically.
Is being a performer glamorous?;
Yes. While some elements may tire you, some locations and venues are especially beautiful. Visiting them to fulfil your passion of performing music, its something incredibly glamorous. its like a perfect cocktail of work and holiday. Musicians who are new to touring may never have visited a number of places, so the experience is certainly glamorous.
How to be a drum tech;
Being a drum tech means in so many words you're in charge of drums/anything percussion related. No high grades are needed, however extensive knowledge of drums is essential. As a drum tech, you'll travel with a touring band and you'll carry around drum keys, spare heads, microphones, drumsticks as well as the kit itself. Your responsibilities will be to, for example, change a broken drum head. If say midway through a performance a head breaks, or pedal fails, all eyes will be on you to replace it. During Live shows, a drum tech will work with the front of house to have the levels for each mic perfect, this is a challenge as appose to having one microphone for a vocalist, the drums can have up to six microphones.
The pay;
According to a Paysa study of 20 drum tech salaries, the minimum earned was $48,000 a year, the highest being $68,000 and an average of $58,000. Drum techs are paid per week, that they are on tour with a band, and in some cases they'll also pay travel, food and accommodation fees. Working with multiple bands at a time would increase your pay, a year tour with one band that has a month break, in that month break you could tech for other bands during that time, resulting in a much bigger paycheque.
Health risks;
As with drummers, Health risks can come from the heavy lifting of cymbal bags, bass drums and just general equipment, which can cause muscle strains, while a tech won't necessarily have to play when sound checking with such a level of intensity that the actual drummer will, strains when setting up are still likely. Being on a drum riser can pose a threat. if there are loose cables and you happen to trip over one, causing you to fall, it can be fairly painful, the way to manage this would be to make sure you're on top of cable management.
Is being a drum tech glamorous?;
Depending on your outlook, it can be a very glamorous job. You get paid to travel with a band and set up their drums long story short, which if you love drums is a pretty good job, however from another perspective, the fact that to an audience, the drum tech won't be recognised may put some off, but getting paid to tour with bands with food, travel and accommodation paid for, i would say its a glamorous job.
how to be a drum teacher;
Being a drum teacher, to be simple, is to teach drums. However it requires much more than being able to play drums. To teach drums, a few qualities you'll need are;
Versatility- different students will want to learn, or thrive more in different genres. Alternatively, the student may want you to teach them in different genres, their favourite genre. one student may want you to teach them Level 1 rock, another might want level 5 jazz, so versatility is key.
Patience- Beginners wont get it straight away. getting frustrated with a student who doesn't understand will get nobody anywhere, so the key to progression is to give your student time. Losing your patience and getting frustrated with a student means you wont only lose a student, but you'll lose a fan of drums, which when trying to get someone to fall in love with playing, its not the best thing to do.
The pay;
In the uk, an average drum/music teacher earns around £35,000 a year, depending on how much they charge for lessons. Teachers may charge per lesson, per week or if being taught in a school, per term. While it doubles the workload, some teachers may teach two or even three students at a time. This will greatly increase your pay as a teacher - more work, more pay. People will pay up to £15 a lesson, the benefits of teaching up to three students at a time is that your pay could be £45 an hour, depending how many lessons a day you teach, you can make serious money.
Health risks;
There are no serious health risks when teaching drums, the only real problem could be tiredness. If teaching drums is a job you do alongside a 9 to 5 job, fatigue will play its part, and mental health means just as much as physical health, make sure you get a good sleep.
Is teaching drums glamorous?;
Maybe. While you'll get satisfaction out of seeing students progress and become better drummers, as a teacher you'll spend most of your time in a studio, and wont travel or live the travelling life of someone who tours and gets the reception of a big crowd, but if you are to teach a student who goes on to tour and travel the wold, that could be seen as glamorous, the pay is also fairly glamorous so, depending on your outlook, yes and no.
What skills do i currently have to do these jobs, and what can i do to to acquire the ones i don't?
Performer;
In terms of performing, i'm most comfortable with rock/alternate music however i would like to be comfortable with other genres. To achieve this, putting in my maximum contribution to the different genres that are used at college, and use the wide variety of new playing techniques to my advantage, learning them as i go to develop skills in other genres, so far i have become more confident with drumming to jazz, reggae and blues to name a few, and as the course develops, i hope to grow that variety of genres to perform.
Drum Tech;
I have a mild knowledge of different aspects of a drum tech, i can set up, and tune a kit to how i would like it to sound, however different drummers need their kits to sound different, so one area i'd like to improve in would be able to gain an understanding of what different drummers want their drums to sound like, in order to tune it to their liking. Another aspect i'm comfortable with is hardware. Kick pedals, cymbal stands, tom mounts are all fine, say a pedal failed during a show, i would comfortably be able to change it, same with drum heads. As an area i would like to improve in, i would like to be more comfortable with setting up much larger kits, some drummers play on kits with 10 or more cymbals, and the same amount of drums, as of now i would comfortably be able to set up a medium size kit to its best, to improve i'll continue to work with different parts of hardware.
Drum Teacher
As of now, i could probably teach up to Grade 5 rock, maybe 6, and easily teach a beginner a basic beat and to play with a track. one skill i'd like to have to teach drums would be to teach the student to play with a metronome early on, mainly because when i was taught i didn't use one and since using it, has helped playing massively, to teach it and develop being able to play different speeds without fault, i'll play along to these speeds till i cant get it wrong.
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