Curb Scholar Blog: Finding a Career Path in Music
This blog post was written by Megan Wei.
The beginning of sophomore year has expanded my musical world tenfold compared to the indecisiveness of last year. Throughout this semester, I have taken Intro to Composition, Computer Recording, and other aural performing classes that have allowed my perspective on music school to change for the better. It is not necessarily the quality of courses that have improved, but rather my intensity in approaching musical composition as not only an art, but also a craft and lifestyle.
At the end of freshman year, I decided that I wanted to pursue film composition and write music for motion picture and various media. This is a career goal that I am lucky to have come across and accept as my own. I have recently acquired Logic Pro X, a DAW (Digital Audio Workstation) that enables me to compose music at a MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface) keyboard, using the multitude of virtual instruments that Logic contains. Logic comes equipped with a full orchestra, keyboard instruments, and other exotic and unique sounds that a composer might utilize for his or her composition.
Through the act of collaboration with peers, honing my compositional craft, and searching for a film composition or music industry internship over the summer, I hope to develop and absorb everything I can about the art of music making, producing music for the big screen, and working with other artists. What I have learned from Curb is that the music industry is all about connections, and most importantly, people who know what you know.
My hope is to acquire an internship for this coming summer in the film music industry so that I can understand how the business works, experience the collaboration of artists in differing mediums, and share the unique lessons that I learn with Curb, my peers, and aspiring filmmakers of the Vanderbilt community. At this point, I have to get back to the basics and understand the foundation that music is based on. I have a lot of learning and growing to do in my respective field, but for now, I just need to be a sponge and absorb everything that will be thrown at me this semester.