I'm a classically trained musician and was a professional musician and producer in Nashville, TN for a few years. Now I'm a software engineer for a famous four-letter Aerospace organization. How did that happen?
I want to share my story of how I got here, and how you can get here too if you want it badly enough.
I'm a classically trained bassoonist and have played the instrument for over 15 years. I have two college degrees in Music Theory & Composition. I've worked as a professional music producer and sound engineer in one of the music meccas of the world.
But even with all of this experience, both in the classroom and real life, I was still barely able to pay the bills. This was incredibly frustrating for me. No one at my university was keen on telling me this while I was paying tuition. There was zero advice or foresight on what to expect in the real world once you graduated. It was just a silent assumption that everything would work out.
And while I would never trade my musical journey for anything, and some of that assumption is definitely my fault, it did leave me angry and jaded at the educational system. How was it possible I could pay so much money for so little return?
I was a diligent student and was extremely self-disciplined. I always got A's or B's and knew I could learn anything if I just stuck with it. Surely there was a skill out there I could learn for very little to no money out of my pocket and turn it into a career.
The time was around 2014 and I noticed online educational resources started to become decentralized. It seemed that you could search any topic and you could go pretty in depth with learning that topic- but only if you were diligent and knew how to sift through the garbage.
See, with things like YouTube, the barrier to getting your voice heard is next to nothing. However, that also means, there is that much more noise if you are a consumer.
Fast forward a few months and lo-and-behold, I decided that software engineering was the career path I wanted to pursue. The ceiling for income seemed limitless, and there was already a ton of free-to-cheap information online. Plus, I had even interned as a web developer in high school and really enjoyed it (funny how things work out). So why not?
Can you guess what happened when I began learning? There was too much information. I seemingly got distracted every 30 minutes and found myself spinning in circles and not actually absorbing any of the material.
I was extremely annoyed and discouraged. I even almost gave up at one point.
I was convinced that the self-taught route was impossible. Surely I was going to have to succumb to dropping another $10,000+ for going to a boot camp, or heck, dropping even more to get a Computer Science degree.
I collected myself and gave it one last shot to learn things the right way. I decided to plan out my education. I had to create a roadmap and a toolkit I could reference to guide me on my journey.
Now creating this roadmap was an adventure in itself. It took me a couple of weeks to create a curriculum I knew would encompass everything it would take to land me that first developer job.
Along the way, I also discovered techniques for learning and absorbing this complicated material. And surprise! It tied in perfectly to my musical background (and will for you too!).
See, as musicians, we are used to woodshedding and practicing hour after hour to learn a piece of music. We are used to and conditioned to delayed satisfaction. This is exactly the mentality you need to have when learning software engineering and web development.
Musicians are analytical and, believe it or not, very mathematical! Both are critical skills for learning and mastering software development (math isn't essential, but it certainly helps). Writing music and writing software have eerily similar parallels. It's why us musicians become successful software engineers at a much higher rate than other educational or professional backgrounds!
I want to emphasize though, it will not be easy, and it is not a get rich quick scheme.
However, if you follow my roadmap and toolkit and follow my advice for how you can leverage your already existing musical skill set, you can come out on the other end of this with unlimited potential for a new career and earnings.
Teaching myself software and landing my first job took about 15 months, however I know for a fact, I wasted about 6 of those months having to re-learn things I didn't absorb the first time around due to poor learning discipline and technique.
That's the time I want to save yourself from. 6 months! Would you invest 9 months in yourself for very little money to change the rest of your life?
I went from barely making $40,000 as a musical professional to now making $150,000 as an aerospace software engineer.
Learning these skills also don't mean you have to give up on music! I've had clients who have followed my guide so they could use the power of software to start a part-time, supplemental side hustle. I still produce music in my spare time! It's up to you what you want to do with this knowledge.
So please, don't wait another minute! Let me help you leverage your musical skills now for a better future. You are talented and brilliant and you deserve to get paid for it.
Sign-up for my newsletter and first few chapters of my roadmap and toolkit to get started on your self-taught software development journey at: