Week 12 (Lecture Reflection) – Career Pathways
The final week of the regular semester (as well as my entire bachelor's degree!). When I started my studies, I had never considered music as a career; this degree was something I undertook as a passion project of mine – studying purely out of my own interest and love for music. This has remained true throughout my degree. Given how competitive the industry is, I highly doubt I will ever pursue a music career. However, at times, I have considered pursuing it in music-related work as a side gig, such as distributing sound-design sample/preset packs or collaborating with some of my computer-science friends to build my own VST plugin. Sound design has become a vital monetisation mechanism for artists, with many of their careers sustained by small (but) loyal followings that subscribe to Patreon pages, purchase sample/preset packs and instructional courses online. This is particularly common among EDM artists such as Slynk and KOAN Sound, but it also extends to artists from other genres.
Much of the financial success of modern guitar virtuosos – like Polyphia – is credited to their sales of guitar tablature in PDF and Guitar Pro formats.
In the unlikely event that I pursue a music career (even if not in film/animation scoring), awareness of the financial potential available through these monetisation mechanisms is highly valuable. Furthermore, over the years, I've amassed quite an impressive collection of instruments and studio gear, so it wouldn't be a bad thing to put it to good use. Funnily enough (as mentioned in the lecture), I recently upgraded my interface to a UAD Apollo x8, which is more than capable of industry-grade recording thanks to its excellent AD/DA (digital-to-analogue) conversion.
References
KOAN Sound. 2025. "Creating Music & Production Resources." [Monetization Platform]. Patreon. Accessed 16/05/2025. https://www.patreon.com/koansound. Polyphia. 2025. "Polyphia - Tablature." [Webstore]. Accessed 16/05/2025. https://polyphiatabs.com/. Slynk. 2016. "Glitch Hop In Ableton Live With Slynk." [Online Educational Platform]. BassGorilla. Accessed 16/05/2025. https://bassgorilla.com/course/glitch-hop-with-slynk/.