https://www.ukmusic.org/job-profiles/music-producer/
A music producers job is to help an artist or band on a song, album, or project. Music producers bring an artists ideas into real life with the use of a DAW's (Digital audio workstations). The producer ensures that the final project sounds the best it can be and it meets the criteria that the artist or record label wants. Some popular music poducers include; Dr. Dre, Pharrell Williams, Ye (Kanye West), Metro Boomin, Mike Dean, Brian Eno, Fred Again, and David Guetta. There are some producers that also produce their own songs too, these include; Fred Again, Dr. Dre, Ye, Pharrell Williams, and. David Guetta.
DAW:
A DAW, also known as a Digital Audio Workstation, is a piece of software that is used to make music on. Thhey are much easier to use than using live sound recordings, and they have endless amounts of samples, sounds for midi, and fx to master your tracks. DAWs can be bought as an application on computers or PCs, but they ca also just be their own thing, where you only get the DAW.
Here is a grammy winning producer that goes into depth about what a music producer actually does:
From this video I have learnt that there are 2 aspects of music production, the business side and the fun side. The business side is ensuring that you have the correct people around you to make sure that what you make is the best you can make it, ensuring that everyone is paid on time, and ensuring that mastering is scheduled and booked. Then there is the fun side to it where you sit down by yourself or with an artist and let your creativity take over. You bring to life what was just once a thought by you or the artist and you do it in a way that by the end of it you both can sit back and realise what was just a thought has been made and you are happy about it.
Progression routes:
I can start out by getting experience in studios, then I can first start out by working with smaller artists to begin my journey. I can work with lots of different artists building up my studio experience and experience in the music industry. Then if one of these songs get big, other bigger artists may begin to recognise me as a producer then ask if I can work with them too. I could also reach out to certain companies or labels to spread my work around the world for artists to discover. I can post videos on social media promoting the artist that I have worked with using the song we have made together in the background, these can then reach certain fans or artists can discover them and reach out to me asking to work on songs. Networking is another way that I can succeed. This is where I reach out to artists asking to work on songs instead of waiting for them to reach out to me. This then puts me out there and makes it seem as if I am confident in asking to work together.
Companies:
https://www.universalproductionmusic.com/en-gb
Soft skills:
Punctuality - Important to present myself the best that you can so people rate you highly.
Communication skills - Important to communicate with artists or other producers to complete a project well and make it sound the best it can be.
Completing tasks on time - This is important as most artists have a designated deadline for when they want a song to be complete by.
Working above and beyond - This is important so that a song can be made at the highest standard it can be, also then further creating more opportunities for myself as a producer.
https://www.ukmusic.org/job-profiles/artist/
A musical artist performs and creates their music, which they often produce as well. These spread across 10s of thousands of genres such as; R&B, Hip-Hop, Rock, D&B, Electronic, and Indie. Popular artists include; Ed Sheeran, Kanye West, Frank Ocean, Tyler The Creator, and Fred Again. However, being an artist doesn't just mean creating and performing music. Quite a lot of artists have their own record labels that they look to sign up and coming artists to. Record labels can help a smaller artist gain popularity. Artists that have their own record labels include; Ye (GOOD Music), The Beetles (Apple Records), Eminem (Shady Records), J Cole (Dreamville), Travis Scott (Cactus Jack Records), and Jay-Z (Roc-A-Fella Records).
Being an artist isn't just making a song and releasing it. You have to demo with loads of producers to see which one fits your style the best, you have to promote your songs on social media before they're released which is a huge risk as the project can go wrong, you have to contact artists and producers to work with. You also have to set up gigs and events to perform your songs at too.
Progression routes:
When I decide that the time is right to start releasing my own music I can promote snippets of it on social media, this can then give me an audience to work with that hopefully like the music that I make. An example of an artist that does this really well is Myles Smith. He posts videos on social media which usually go viral and his song that was used in these videos gets loads of streams from fans all over the world. An example of when he did this is when he teased at the release of his song "Stargazing" which gained over 400k likes on instagram, and a combined 5m likes on TikTok. He then went on to release it on Apple Music, Spotify, and Soundcloud. He has reached 480m streams on just this song alone on spotify. Here is the song here:
Companies:
Artist Development UK - Sound Consultancy
The Musicians' Union | Trade Union in the UK | The MU (musiciansunion.org.uk)
Soft skills:
Punctuality - It is important to present myself as highly as I can as an artist so people start to like me as a person and for my music as well.
Communication skills - Important to communicate with other artists that I am working with and producers that I am working with too.
Completing tasks on time - Record labels may want songs to be finished by a certain date and time, so they then have enough time to .
Working above and beyond - You have to work your hardest to make the best songs that you can possibly make.