GOLDEN TRAIN(ING)

Reflections on a four-month internship at Coalition Music.

[goldentraining]

This song came out when I was in the 8th grade. I remember *so* vividly: sitting on the school bus with my grade 8 boyfriend and him listening to this on his walkman. I remember thinking the album cover was cool. A year later, I finally hopped on the Simple Plan bandwagon when my friend took me to a concert of their’s in Pennsylvania. We met Pierre and I took a photo with him. It was like... the coolest thing to happen to my 9th grade self. 

A couple of weeks ago, I had to put together a prize pack of Simple Plan items for a contest and I came across this CD. Then I came across a ‘vintage’ SP poster (c. 2005). So much nostalgia: if only my 13 year old self knew what was waiting for me...

[goldentraining]

I’ve always had a messy room...

...but I’ve always got an organized workspace. Organization is so incredibly important to me and this is something that I’m learning I really cannot compromise on. Right now, between this internship, performing & managing my own music career, and some contract gigs I’ve got lined up, I’m working five (yes, 5!!!) jobs right now. It’s totally out of control.

When I come to Coalition each morning, I spend the first few minutes organizing my day and I love it. A clean inbox = a clean mind. Don’t let your space or your mind (or your inbox) get too cluttered. In my experience, it’s better to take a few minutes to organize and tackle projects after, than let things get prioritized without knowing what else is on your plate. Well-roundedness and organization will pay off - I promise. 

Plus... don’t you hate it when you’re waiting for an email/phone call/letter from someone and you haven’t received it yet? Check your emails, folks! Sadly, they will *not* disappear. 

[goldentraining]

Michael Scott really is a voice for all of us.

Always ask for help. As a musician myself, working a job like this benefits both my day gig and my music gig: I’m always learning. It took me awhile to ask the professionals here about my career specifically and since I have, they’ve all been so helpful and nice. People are willing to share information, no matter how coveted you think it might be. Hey, the worst someone can ever say is ‘no.’

[goldentraining]

Excel at Excel

Let’s not be glamourous here: no one thinks Excel is “cool”. It’s like, “neat,” but like, no one’s gonna befriend me because of my Excel skills. At a previous job, I started to see what kind of ‘cool’ things Excel could do and since then, I’ve made it my life’s goal to excel at Excel! (That is not actually my life goal... there’s a lot of word-fluffing going on here.) 

But here’s the thing: excelling at Excel is a huge skill set to have and if you haven’t gotten it yet, I highly recommend you work on upgrading your skills. I’m not talking coding and the super tech-y bits of Excel - leave that to the real pros, but being literate in Excel is helping me more and more each day. 

Right now I’m working on a Royalties project for our Accounting Department and let me tell you, if I didn’t know my way around this program, I would be in serious trouble. Remember all those times in math class you thought you would never use those equations? I thought: ‘I’m going to go into the arts - I’m not going to work in finance.’ Well, you will use those equations. I was fooling myself: we all need those skills.

[goldentraining]

For real! This is now my second internship that doesn’t require coffee-fetching and other such mundane tasks. It’s so nice to be given actual work - I mean, that is how you learn, right? 

[goldentraining]

Interesting insight from Raine Maida and Chantal Kreviazuk about what it’s like to be married, writing music together for others, and writing music together for themselves. Talk about a power couple! 

[goldentraining]

Since Raine Maida is a part of Coalition’s Management Roster, I keep coming across Chantal Kreviazuk’s work as well. Forgot how much I loved this song growing up. What an awesome songwriter! 

[goldentraining]

40 Days & 40 Nights - Ben Caplan (Live at The Marquee) - That energy!

[goldentraining]

Only the beginning...

A moment of truth: coming into Coalition was a little bit scary for me at first. Perhaps it’s the legendary Management Roster, or the fact that I think Justin Nozuka is super cool – either way, I was pretty nervous during my first week at Coalition. But I discovered something quickly: everyone here is awesome.

When you first start at Coalition as an intern, you are given one-on-one meetings with every person in the office to ask them virtually anything you want about… well, anything! I decided to come up with a list of questions that I would ask everyone in order to find out about probably the most important thing to people looking for a foot in the door: how on earth did they get to where they are now?

The answer was pretty unanimous for everyone: someone – once – somewhere in their lifetime, opened them up to an opportunity and the rest is simply history. This entire industry seems to be built on relationships. Learning about those first opportunities was what was so incredibly interesting to me – an internship, a musician parent, a family friend, a desire to improve the performance world for artists – learning these career paths made it clear that there is no one way to create a career for yourself in the music world. So, create your own path and take guidance from others.

Personally, I come from a bit of an odd, yet well-rounded background: I’m an active musician, I’m passionate about arts education and youth involvement in the arts, and I am an enthusiastic administrative type. Coalition Music and I share these interests, So basically, Coalition and I should be BFFs! I’m looking forward to the next few months here and will take every bit of knowledge that the wealth of experienced and ~cool~ professionals in this office have to give me!

For now, this is only the beginning!

[goldentraining]

In case you were wondering where the title of this blog came from, here’s your answer. I couldn’t not pull from the database of song titles and lyrics for a blog title, but Amanda is the real creative genius behind this one.