music degree dissertation .....help!!!!

Bloodmeat-14

Junior Member
hey guy's im currently finishing up my music degree and im doing my dissertation on. how versatile and experienced do you need to be to sustain a career as a professional drummer within the music industry......any thoughts chaps? x
 
thats quite specific....i would go for musicians in general.
but...

if you made a thesis that you don't know how to discuss, then you should probably fix your thesis to something you feel comfortable talking about.

So...i say change your thesis to something you're knowledgeable about...
 
Though I guess there is a certain amount of musical experience to get a career started, isn't experience more a by product of sustaining a professional career.

As for versatility, even defining what that is pretty subjective. Then there's coming up with a definition of what a "professional drumming career" is exactly - a definition that I'll think you'll find pretty broad and subjective as well.

Then when you add in how little authoritative writing there is on the subject, and the lack of any source of actual data that I know of. I mean, I've been doing this for years - and trying to even get a sense of what other guys are making just for the sake of setting asking prices effectively is a real uphill battle. And then that's just me trying to compare what I do to guys that do basically the same thing. But I freelance in certain ways - how do the finances work out for a guy whose a member of working rock band touring with a record deal - I wouldn't have a clue. Well maybe a clue, but nothing I could document... at all.

I would think researchable, quotable sources are going to be your biggest stumbling block here - and would apply even if you opened the question up beyond drummers, to ll musicians - though obviously that might help.

David
 
i dunno really, i'm young. experience is a good thing i guess, i can't really say as i haven't got enough yet. that said i'm not sure if there really is any concrete information on the music industry nowadays.
as for a drumming career.. well i plan to be play drums, but i don't plan to only be a drummer. i'm not sure how easy it would even be to become a 'professional drummer' nowadays. there are many people doing the same thing (session), and they will be vastly more experienced/better connected in comparison to your average 20something.

drumming, production, composing, managing, promoting, teaching, gigs. those are just a few things i plan to do with my time. so i guess versatility could be a good thing when it comes to a music career, i can't really tell you yet. jack of all trades seems ok - but there is always the downside. personally i don't think i have the potential/willpower to be like insert amazing drummer here. and it doesn't really worry me. :)

sorry i couldn't be of more help. you should ask some of the session players on this forum, i'm sure you can get an interview (for primary research). out of interest how many words is the dissertation? if it isn't that many (10-15k) then i wouldn't go all out on 'music' in a general sense, because you'll likely lose focus of your main argument and you'll have so much stuff to cover in a small amount of words.
 
the answers could range pretty widely for those questions.

on one end of the spectrum you have young drummers playing for touring bands who only play the style of music their band plays and who may not have been playing all that long, yet they are sustaining a pro career.

on the other end of the spectrum you have extremely versatile, highly experienced pro drummers, like broadway theater drummers, who can literally play anything.

so you see, there's a wide range of versatility and experience among pro drummers.
 
sorry guys i should of been a bit more specific. the reason ing for using the drummer as my main objective instead of musician's is mainly becous i could get side tracked in every aspect of the music industry, take the band situation out of the equation. i was more asking if you were or are a drummer and you had to make a career of it by yourself, ranging from session playing, teaching, teching, live and studio all those kinda formats of work. and versatile wise i ment in areas such as genre's, reading abillity, understanding of music everything...how well equipt do you have to be to make a decent career out of it. i mean ile have a music degree within 3 months but does that really count for anything? its a piece of paper at the end of the day. how good do you have to be to be renound and become a 1st time call up, a gadd, a bruford and all the pro's that carved a name out of thier own accord.
 
sorry guys i should of been a bit more specific. the reason ing for using the drummer as my main objective instead of musician's is mainly becous i could get side tracked in every aspect of the music industry, take the band situation out of the equation. i was more asking if you were or are a drummer and you had to make a career of it by yourself, ranging from session playing, teaching, teching, live and studio all those kinda formats of work. and versatile wise i ment in areas such as genre's, reading abillity, understanding of music everything...how well equipt do you have to be to make a decent career out of it. i mean ile have a music degree within 3 months but does that really count for anything? its a piece of paper at the end of the day. how good do you have to be to be renound and become a 1st time call up, a gadd, a bruford and all the pro's that carved a name out of thier own accord.

Whoah dude, definitely get out the spell and grammar check for your dissertation, that was pretty hard to read.

I'd check out a book called "Your Brain On Music" (Daniel Levitin) In it he talks about the 10,000 hours principle/theory. Basically some scientists got together and studied some pro musicians and figured out how they got to where they are. It generally takes around 10,000 hours of solid practice to be able to play on that level. That's 3 hours a day for 10 years.

The thing about a music career is you have to have a bunch of other skills as well: professionalism, networking skills, a nice personality etc.
 
You could have super skills and all the versatility in the world and that would still only account for less than 20% of what it takes to be that successful.

Your musical taste is huge. Hopefully you won't have any, or at least be able to conceal what you don't like for those clients who you think suck. Along those same lines, hopefully you won't have too much pride to receive credit on "Barney's Latest Purple Adventure". But hey, it's a paycheck, right? And that's all that matters since you're looking to be pro...

Except, that credit could hurt you when some heavy-weight doesn't feel you have the artistic integrity due to said Barney Adventure. Tricky tightrope, there.

Minutes ago, I was listening to Vinnie C. playing with Megadeth and I don't know... I think it's lame. As great a drummer as Vinnie is, for me as a consumer/artist, I have to question his taste. It's not that I mind metal or hard rock - Stanton Moore with Corrosion Of Conformity was far more compelling. For Vinnie, it's more like he just took it on as a technical challenge - I seriously doubt he likes any of that music, but I could be wrong... anyway, I couldn't stand more than about a song and a half and gonged it. Gonged Vinnie... how about that?
 
hey guy's im currently finishing up my music degree and im doing my dissertation on. how versatile and experienced do you need to be to sustain a career as a professional drummer within the music industry......any thoughts chaps? x

Dissertation! That's a PhD right? Good luck. I advise my students to do a good literature review (google how to do this; most people do not perform this vital step very well.) Then sort the results of your lit review into the following categories: who, what, when, where, how and why. Critical thinking can then help you find the gap in the body of knowledge. Your research question then addresses that gap. Your method (e.g. interview, survey, content analysis of drumming literature, etc) helps you answer your research question.

http://www.unc.edu/depts/wcweb/handouts/literature_review.html
http://www.writing.utoronto.ca/advice/specific-types-of-writing/literature-review

Good luck

GJS

p.s. PM me if you have questions.
 
Whoah dude, definitely get out the spell and grammar check for your dissertation, that was pretty hard to read.

I'd check out a book called "Your Brain On Music" (Daniel Levitin) In it he talks about the 10,000 hours principle/theory. Basically some scientists got together and studied some pro musicians and figured out how they got to where they are. It generally takes around 10,000 hours of solid practice to be able to play on that level. That's 3 hours a day for 10 years.

The thing about a music career is you have to have a bunch of other skills as well: professionalism, networking skills, a nice personality etc.

that's interesting. i will have to get that book. 3 hours a day for 10 years / 6 hours a day for 5 doesn't sound like a lot.
 
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