CDP

Career development plan

In my career as a freelance musician my overall ambition is to be the lead singer in a rock band, like The Pretty Reckless, Paramore and New Year’s Day, performing our own music in front of crowds as support acts or eventually main acts.

When I finish Studying at Luton Sixth Form College, I will have qualifications in Music BTEC, Music Technology, Performing Arts and Music popular theory. The experience of doing Music Technology has given me the skills of the appropriate behavior in a studio while recording or if there is a technical difficulty I as the performer can put my input in to correct the problem, resolving the problem.  Music BTEC has allowed me to sing in many different styles giving me the versatility when performing. Also this course has allowed me to develop my vocals more and solidify what type of genre I would prefer to perform in. All of these qualifications will lead to me attending the University I have researched and applied for which is Westminster. The main reason for me to wanting to attend university is to continue gaining experience by covering songs and continuing my chance to perform. This is why I chose to do the BMUS performing course as this enables me to develop my group and instrumental skills with composition and musicology involved. The course is all performance based, giving me the chance to be able to perform in multiple environments with a range of different songs.

While working in a studio at college technological based or performance based this leads me onto my short term target of where or what I would like to do within a year. From what I am doing currently and to a year from now I would like to continue gaining experience recording or performing covers in a studio or eventually near the end of the year in venues. Throughout this I would like to show versatility in the song choices to reflect on me being a versatile musician. By the time I have finished college I will have one Grade eight in Classical vocal training and potentially another in either rock school or musical theater. These skills will allow me to explore the different styles and understand the different techniques I can use in the different songs I choose, allowing me to widen the stylistic and amount of songs I can cover. All of the above skills from my grades will help me in University when it comes to performing various music. Even though I have chosen to attend University I could have opted for another route of taking a gap year, joining a band, or going solo and advertise myself to get gigs. The benefit of this would be the experience of advertising myself and potentially performing in different venues with a great connection to other band members. Overall I have chosen to further music in University as I feel the benefits are greater.

After finishing University and have gained as much experience and knowledge I can I would have completed an undergraduate degree in music performance. From being in university I would have liked to take advantage of carrying on my other instruments, Guitar and piano, to get them to a higher performance level also to allow me to company myself more confidently. My medium term in the next three to five years from finishing university would be to start recording/ releasing my own music, with the band I have hopefully joined/created while booking gigs for even more experience, working on advertisement to get the band noticed. While doing this, to have an income of money I could specialise in an instrument, preferably vocals and teach people who are willing to pay for lessons. As my university is in Harrow, outskirts of London, this enables me to ease myself in to living in London, in my eyes a great location to progressing my music career. While being in London, it’s easier to travel around, for example as my career in music won’t be fully established to the potential I would like it to be yet in this medium goal I will need to get a job to have the money for general living and when needed repairs on music equipment. Another possible route would be to go into teaching the specialised instrument further, an example would be holding vocal lessons in high schools or colleges to gain money while gaining the experience of revisiting old techniques/skills and teaching them to others to help people in education with singing and music. While doing this I could again on the side be promoting my own music to get be where I want to be in the music industry as a professional musician. The skills I would need to reach this target would be negotiating skills and networking. This is because I will need to negotiate contracts potentially so I am getting full possible opportunities for my career. The reason why networking is a useful skill for me to have would be to promote myself so I can have these gig opportunities and could in the future get a manager to promote myself for me and manage communications and connections.

 In approximately ten years I would have reached the point in my career where I would be on a stable, successful income by performing/playing my own music. My long term goal from ten years plus would be performing my own music in a rock band to large audiences. This would show to me that I would have achieved my target/goal to become a paid successful musician in a lifelong career.