Shen !

Yan Shen

ESL 33B

Dr. Carlisi

5 April 2017`

My Music Career

I always think that life is very short, and I do not have enough time to do everything I

want. I always wanted to become one of them, such as police officer, teacher, soldier or lawyer

when I was very young, but I had never thought that I wanted to be a musician as a career until

the day I got my first a guitar. My guitar brought me to the music world, and it is also leading me

to become a musician. A lot of people thought the music career should be superstars like, Mozart,

Justin Bieber or Michel Jackson. They thought that is the only way that every musician should

be; otherwise, studying music is meaningless. However, music is a great career with great prom-

ise; they do not have to prove their popularity, or become superstars, because I over time realized

that music career is a huge field that consists of varied job opportunities, and the commercial

composer is one of the which I want to be.

In the fall of my first year in high school, my classmate Wen asked me to accompany him

to purchase a guitar. We went to a small guitar store where had many different colors, size, and

style of guitars. The owner picked a guitar for Wen, and he tuned the guitar and played a short

piece called Romance of Love. I was impressed by this song, and I also decided to buy an

acoustic guitar, which cost me twenty dollars. Also, I enrolled in the guitar class to start my gui-

tar lessons. Three months later, I finished the beginning class, and I could play Romance of
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Love by myself. Then, I decided to learn electric guitar, and I practiced very hard as if there

was nothing else in my life. I started to listen to some solo guitarist albums and tried to imitate

their techniques and skills.

I was very lucky. Later soon, there was a guy was looking for a guitar player for their

band while I was visiting the music blog of my city. We had a little conversation, and we made

an appointment and had an interview. I played three songs with full of mistakes, but they still

invited me to join them. After that, we had rehearsals every week. I had to prepare all the reper-

toires. Also, I did not only focused myself on practicing every songs without any mistakes, but

also I pursued the perfection on all of the songs. I made little money from the gigs, even though I

didnt care about it too much. The performing experiences cohered the team members as a union

built a strong relationship between us.

One day, my keyboard player asked me whether I wanted to teach guitar as an instructor

in his private school. I unquestionably accepted this opportunity and started to teach guitar soon

later. I had taught guitar for three years during my college life. This experience not only helped

me to improve my teaching and communication skills but also provided a stable income to sup-

port myself. It was an enjoyable way to make money, and I started to think to convert it as a ca-

reer. However, the knowledge that I had, which was not enough to teach in the higher level. In

the same time, I had a chance to come to the U.S.A. to study English and music. I decided to

come because I know it has the best musicians, institutions, and environment. I packed my bag

and flew to the U.S.A. to formally achieve my music career in 2010.

I enrolled into PCC and took the ESL class and music classes. I choose to start music

class. In the second semester , I talked with few classmates in the piano class, they were very
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nice people, and we became very good friends. My English was improved fast as well as my mu-

sic theory and the piano skill. Meanwhile, piano class gradually changed my music goal from

guitar performance to composition because I loved to sit in front of the piano and wrote the mu-

sic. I loved to listen to the movie score from Hollywood, saw those composers as models. As

time goes by, I decided to transfer to a four years university in commercial media major.

To figure out more information about my future musician career, I made an appointment

with my ELAC music professor Dr. Raluerson to consult some specific questions. He is the as-

sistant professor of the music department in the ELAC, and he graduated from the UCLA. We

spent around six minutes after the class to conduct a personal interview on March 3, 2017. I used

my iPhone to record the interview; I obtained much great information and recommendation.

As he said the music career is a general concept, become a musician just one of it. The

music field combines way more job titles than this(Raulerson). He gave few example about

people who wants to work in the music field. First, most of the student who study music want to

become a performer, one of which the most popular major and most competitive major nowa-

days. The school usually offers classical and jazz programs for the student who interest in major

of performance. This major is becoming harder and harder to find a job, and a lot of people fi-

nally switch to other jobs because they cannot find a position in an orchestra or any other

bands.(Raulerson) Second, the music composer is an another high competitive major which I

am working on it. It is a position which also very hard to find job because of low demanding. By

comparison, music industry, music education, music therapy, and music history are the popular

majors nowadays. Moreover, these majors teach valuable and markable skills other other than

just music, in which included communication and critical thinking skills.

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Making and publishing a music work is not as easy as people think. Especially, to make a

professional movie or background music requires strong communication skill, and English abso-

lutely is the most important fundamental skill in any case around the U.S.. During the process of

music producing, composers need to communicate with his discourse community, such as the

producers, audio engineers, music publishers, and performers. As Swales mention, A Discourse

Community is a group of people who has the similar expertise and in the same professional field

and have the common interested and goal for their particular position.(Swales) It also can be a

discussion which contains such terminologies and jargons which might confuse the people who

don't belong to this community. My discourse community included the individual who performs

music and people who share the same music knowledge, which mostly focus on the people who

make music as career and set goal to produce music and publish it.

As a composer, they should know how to communicate with others. It is very important

to effectively talk with their co-workers. During the scoring, all the details of the music piece

need to be completed after discussion between composer and other team members. Then, the

composer needs to talk with the performer and let them know what preforming techniques that

they need to apply to the particular measure of the music. Therefore, the communication and

English is crucial to make the job more efficiently. Professor Dr. Raulerson said, Particularly, if

you in the music composition major, you need to have a strong English ability and critical think-

ing skills.(Raulerson).

Composers also need to apply the critical thinking skills to the practical music producing,

such as interpreting information, analysis, and comparison. They have to analyze the video. And

then, they need to created the ideas to put into the videos. At this time, it is very important to un-
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derstand and analyze the function of the music. Sometimes, they need to use new ideas to replace

the old one. As Dr. Raulerson said: Composer should always encourage themselves to accept

varied solutions, and do not think there is just one way to do things. (Raulerson) These critical

think skills can help composer to create logical music works. The audience doesn't want to hear a

happy music during the funeral, or a dark minor melody during a birthday party.

For my future, the most important thing is to study more knowledge about my profession,

English, and communication skills in the school. The school is the best place to advance study

these subjects. For the more further study, I prepare to transfer to CSUN, which is one of the

which has the best music major of commercial music. Also, school life provided opportunities to

meet more people in the same field, and it helps me to develop my social network. Furthermore,

I plan to find some independent movies or videos which need the composer to score the music

for it. This kind of small budget movies usually offers the opportunity to those non-experience

composers. It is an excellent place to start. Along with the more experience I get, and social net-

work expanded, it might lead me to the position of the next level.

I have study music for over ten years from beginning to now, and I have never precisely

known my future goal until I join the PCC. I keep studying and pursue my America Dream. At

this moment, I dont want to think too much about my future success because whatever success

or failure, I will never regret what I decided to be a musician.

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Citation Summary

1. Raulerson, Graham (2017, April 5). Personal interview.

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2. Raulerson, Graham (2017, April 5). Personal interview.

3. Raulerson, Graham (2017, April 5). Personal interview.

4. John M. Swales. Swales Discourse Community.