Should You Go To School For Music Production?

Music production is one of those career paths in which some of the most successful people have no formal education.

Granted, it is highly technical, but you’ll discover that the majority of the best selling and highly recognised  music producers have no educational background in music.

This then leaves the question:

Should I go to school for music production?

Music production can be self-taught and you don’t necessarily have to go to a school to learn how to produce.

With the right learning material, you could learn how to fully produce music within a year.

If you however wish to pursue a career that would call for formal qualification then you definitely need to go to a school to learn music production and attain your qualification to improve your resume.

Therefore it’s all a matter of intent behind the pursuit of this career path.

Self Taught Vs. School taught

The best way to make this a fair article is to basically contrast between going the self taught route and going the formal education route.

Advantages of becoming a Self taught music producer

1. An advantage of being self taught is that you tend to learn more because you’re essentially figuring out everything on your own.

2. Another advantage of learning how to produce by yourself is that you can pick a digital audio workstation you feel like working in without having to stick to software designated by somebody else.

3. The internet has a wealth of information and it’s literally at your finger tips, you simply have to search and all the answers will be revealed to you.

4. Being self taught let’s you hone in on aspects that sparks interest for you,

for example when I first got introduced to music production I had a natural obsession for tech-y things therefore I got into synth programming and I learnt and picked up as much as I could,

it has become one of my strong points and is the reason why I got more interested in discovering how sounds and technology actually work together.

5. You don’t have to spend a lot of money if you pick the self-taught route because most online musical courses are actually really cheap,

throw in some books to help you along the way and you’ll still be good, compared to spending thousands of dollars to get into a school for music.

6. The self taught route is great because you can learn at your own pace and basically figure out a work routine depending on how your schedule is.

This can give you a lot of flexibility if you have other things to do, because you’re your own teacher.

Advantages of going a school to learn music production

1. One of the advantages you have of going to an institution for music production is that you’ll be surrounded by like minded people that can help you progress in your production game.

2. Music school gives you certification which can be used to seek employment that requires a professional qualification.

3. With the right teachers you can excel pretty quickly at music production because you can raise questions and get feedback.

4. You’ll be exposed to a lot of resources in music school, resources like instruments that you would have a hard time buying if you didn’t have the money.

5. Attaining qualification can give you a little more authority and credibility which can allow you to enjoy the luxury of setting higher production fees than your competitors.

6. Many music production schools form partnerships with local studios and radio stations to provide their students with internship opportunities,

this can be a great way of meeting people and establishing connections for yourself.

Furthermore, you can learn a lot from interning at places like this because you’ll be exposed to production, the business side of things, the methodology and other cool stuff which could be to your benefit.

As can seen from these advantages of both options, it is easy to deduce that each option has its strengths and weaknesses.

Good schools to go to for music production

Here’s a list of the best 3 schools that you could go to in order to learn music production.

Icon Collective

This is a great school for Electronic Dance Music production, it has a rigorous program that will get you where you need to be.

SAE Institute

This is a great school of arts and it is world wide and can be accessed online too.

it has a solid reputation!

Pyramind

This is another great school that can help you shape up your music production knowledge and muscle.

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