I'M Sure Every Young Musician Has Had The Thought Of Pursuing

Jazz great Ella Fitzgerald eloquently said, "Just don't give up trying to do what you really want to do. Where there's love and inspiration, I don't think you can go wrong." Many know what they enjoy doing, but few people take the opportunity to enjoy their passions and do it as a career. The zeal for what they love means people can spend hour upon hours appreciating and relishing the venture at hand.

These stories of passion inspire me to follow my own passion. These empowering stories have shown me that if I follow my passions in life, I too can overcome the challenges I will face in following my passion. In our lifetime, so many people are concerned about finding a stable career that makes good money. Due to this, they don't follow their passions and their work is just that. However, when we follow our passions, we may face challenges. However, those challenges are worth it if we have the opportunity to be truly happy and make an

The first problem is the royalty fees made with labels. An artist’s album can cost anything from $15,000 to $200,000 (Recording Connection) and the artist is often left in debt after which is slowly paid back through the sales of their own records which only leaves them a fraction of what the original product was sold for. Another major problem with most major record labels is that their sole reason to get artists is to further their own profit. Most major labels put business before art,

Throughout my life, I have been taken by music. However, it was not until my 8th grade year in middle school that I realized that I could be a musician for the rest of my life. Before that, music just seemed like something to keep me out of trouble. I wasn’t the best player at that time, and I still knew very little about it all. How could something like that ever support someone? Still, it was the only talent that I could find any success in, and it was still very enjoyable, so I wanted to still give it a shot.

Mark Twain once said, “The two most important days in your life are the day that you are born and the day you find out why.” Everyone has their own priorities in life. Each person finding his or her own passion in order to reach one’s full potential. Regardless of whether it is a occupational, spiritual, or emotional goal, everyone should find that aspect in his or her life that sets fire to their soul so much that he or she is willing to do absolutely anything in order to achieve it.

My decision to pursue a career as a professional musician is a result of experiences from childhood to present and inspirations along the way. As I gather more experiences and inspirations, it is almost certain that my decision will not

I agree with the belief that one must find their passion in life in order to find their purpose. If someone fails to find their passion in life they will be miserable in what their doing because their heart’s not into it. Personally my passion in life is helping others. Someone with a shared passion was Alex Scott. Duckworth

My involvement in the school band started during my 4th grade year, and continued until I graduated highschool. I was a part of the concert band every year, and in addition I played on the drum-line and in Jazz Band. While playing and learning in these classes over the years, I developed a strong interest in turning my love for music into a career. Towards the end of highschool, I was introduced to the engineering/post-production side of music composition; which lead to more ideas for my potential

Despite the hardships, individuals must endeavor, protect, and grow passions, by having a mentor or a trusted person you can rely on, keeping a positive attitude, and remaining consistent. Richard Evan Meyer, author of Representing the Passions: Histories, Bodies, Visions, brings this book to life. Meyer states, “The utility of all the passions consists simply in the fact that they strengthen and prolong thoughts in the soul which is good for the soul to preserve and which otherwise might easily be erased from it (17).” At times when people don’t have a person to motivate them, they tend to give up. Once one bad thing occurs, they give up but you can’t. Quitting due to one bad occurrence should not ruin your passion, your dream. Be open and talk to someone so they can assist you when

The system was relatively profitable for these companies, but the revenues distributed unoften favoured the artist. Furthermore, the price of recording a song was high, requiring time in a professional music studio and since it is also costly to promote and distribute music, musicians were left with little choice but to sign with record labels.

“Anything that gets your blood racing is probably worth doing,” said Hunter S. Thompson. A passion is something that motivates you. Something that pushes you in life. Ever since I was little I loved playing softball. Now as a Senior I am still continuing my love for softball by playing on varsity. Another thing I love is being able to impact a person's life. I plan on doing this by becoming an elementary school teacher and continuing to be a volunteer firefighter. I'm passionate and motivated by softball, continuing to be a firefighter, and becoming a teacher.

The stigma associated with pursuing an education in the musical arts affects the decision of many musicians nationwide. The appeal of guaranteed financial and career stability of STEM and other paths of high demand jobs is very difficult to pass up, even by the most dedicated musicians. Then, the input and advice of outsiders come into play. These onlookers not only encourage study of the hard sciences and a foolproof path to success via university, but they also totally and blatantly discourage and belittle the intelligence, rationality and integrity of not just the paths of musicians, but all liberal artists. Don’t you want to make money? What do you mean you won’t have internships, don’t you want a job? How are you going to survive? This blitzkrieg of questioning and doubt, though theoretically peripheral to the bigger picture, is reasonably common, however, severely unjustified. Pursuing a formal college education in music is easily one of the best things you could do for yourself, regardless of whether or not this is the career path of your choosing. As a student of formal music education, you are actually being trained in more real world skills than most other majors, which will prepare you for many careers, making you stand-out amongst the masses. Being a music major, you learn more than just music, you learn problem-solving skills, how to communicate and collaborate, and how to overcome failure, which are all essential skills to have as a professional in today’s day

The job of a musician is by far one of the hardest jobs on the planet. Making music that they love is the easy part. However, there are much more strings attached than that. Not only do they have to create music, their music has to appeal to fans, appeal to labels that will help their talent be known to the world, and they have to be able to make a living off their creative expression. Receiving a paycheck has been more challenging for artists today because instead of people purchasing their songs, they are now streamable with apps and websites such as Spotify and YouTube. Many artists today sign with cooperations to ease the burden of finances for them. However, signing with cooperations is not the way to go because the artist would be signing over all rights to their music.

You don’t see a lot of people going into the music career for a couple of reason. One of which is the main reason is that they don't get recognized in high school by colleges and they don't get into that career because they can't get started or they don't have enough experience on that instrument that they want to play. If you look at instrument prices they are pretty high. When you start playing and needing different instruments you can most likely buy

The music industry is an oligopoly. Since the late 1800’s people like Thomas Edison have been buying up patents in communication technology, forming monopolies, leading to a non-competitive entertainment industry. With only a handful of corporations controlling all aspects of acquisition, distribution and marketing of music, harsh business principles create an exploitative industry that takes the best of what artists have to offer and leaves many of them unable to support themselves. Beginning in the 1950’s with payola and white cover music and ultimately evolving into iTunes and Spotify, the music industry has grown into a billion dollar industry with far-reaching influence and control. Contracts rarely serve the artists’ best interest and many are left out to dry when their usefulness has expired.