I was on monster.com the other day. Not looking for a job per se but just was poking around.

I saw one organist job on the east coast that pays $16,000 per year two days per week.

I saw no pianist jobs.

I saw several jobs requiring familiarity with the MIDI protocol paying as high as $170,000 per year.

Interesting.

I realize that monster.com is not the place to look for music jobs. But it IS interesting nonetheless.

it sounds that the digital music production job is the way to go?

well. i think that young people can relate to digital technology in much the same way that I related to TV or my parents related to radio.

What exactly would a person who has familiarity with MIDI protocol be doing to earn $170,000 a year???!!!

because midi production is what produces the music that bring in millions of dollars. its also a very complicated thing to learn so people that are really good with midi and protools and everything are valued in the music industry.

MIDI is more than just a digital way to store sheet music. The MIDI interface is used to control everything from synths to stage lights, all synced up to the music.

Well, I think a concert pianist would be a nice job. 10,000 dollors per concert... 20-30 concerts a year... nice.

Keep practicing,
Matt

MIDI is used to write video games, sequence musical scores etc.

The GM2 protocol can control lighting and effects, too.

There is at least one major Las Vegas show whose IT guy wrote the entire script for the show including activation of special effects etc. as one gigantic multichannel midi sequence.

--J

So it sounds like you need to know a heck of a lot about computers, music, hardware, lighting, etc. to be good at MIDI protocols, huh? I guess it's not something you can pick up in a few months...

[hastily goes back to retrieve letter of resignation from department chair's mailbox and decides not to change careers after all. ]

No one can "pick up" anything in a few months...

But when it comes to computers, there's a million books out there titled "Learn X in 24 hours!!!"

Imagine if you saw a piano book with that title.

It's absurd. To become an expert in any field will take at least 10 years of research, study, application, and practice.

Well, I suspect I could master the intricacies of french fry preparation in that amount of time...

I'm sure my posts here have sounded pretty naive. I just had no idea that a music-related career could have such a high, regular starting salary, and I really had no idea what's even involved with midi. Now I do.

no. but MIDI is a very simple program. you actually DON'T need to know a lot about computers.

MIDI can run on a Commodore 64 which is part of the reason why it doesnt' matter if a player piano or digital piano has a CD-Rom or not. A floppy can hold hundreds of MIDI files.

It is computer programming at its simplest, with simple numbers for note on, note off, expression (up to 127 levels), tempo (literally a beat clock)and then instruments assigned to one of 16 channels. Multiple instruments, say a cello and piccolo can be assigned to the same channel as their note ranges don't overlap.

I guess I like midi because it is the logical evolution of theatre organ, which was really the one of America's first synths.

I guess it's the difference between writing a Hello World program in C and writing a full fledged application.

It might be simple to arrange a song using MIDI (especially if you use an app such as Noteworthy to do it), but to use MIDI to it's fullest extent takes a lot of experience.

i thought that 'HelloWorld' program is for java beginners. i have no trouble to write a full fledged c++ application, but i'm a beginner for midi stuff.

Haha! I suspect you'd need to be a world-class concert pianist to earn that kind of money from a single concert? I wish I was that good.

-Colin

That 'Hello World' program is traditionally the first program written in EVERY computer programing language.

You'd have no trouble writing a C++ application yet do not know this?

"Hello, world" is definitely the first example in the original K&R "C" book (1978) - that's the first time I had seen it...

when i was learning c/c++ in college (long time ago), there's no such 'helloworld' first example, until i saw Java came out, unless we never used that 'standard' textbook. it must be the new standard for 'first program' after Java.

Strange class, that.

yeah, the same program can be written in java of course, or in c++:

btw, how do you make "<" or ">" show up in message?

interesting, good to know!

And of course, for the slightly more complex introductory program:

http://99-bottles-of-beer.net/

Always good reading.

thanks for the link, just check "A" and know only ANT there...

you must be a programmer yourself (and i saw where you get your user name from).

That I am.

But I guarantee I have not heard of 90% of the languages in that list. Most are quite obscure, and some examples are ridiculous.

I like the Cow programing language the best