Music Careers: Church Musician

If you are a musician and your goal is to make music to glorify God, rest assured you can have a nice paying career performing in church or in a temple. Performing in a church will most likely be a part-time job. If the salary isn't enough, you will have to find another part-time job to support yourself. If you are
employed by a large congregation, there is a chance you will be hired full-time.

Skills
You have to be able to perform well. A church musician has to know arranging, composing, transposition, know everything about the religion in which you'll be working in, and they ways in which they worship. Other things you must know are: Playing the organ, piano, conducting, sight-reading, music history, German, Latin, reading scores.

The Job
Performing and teaching religious music

Qualifications
A church musician must obviously have the talent for it, be organized, must enjoy working with people and being able to motivate them, being interested in the job enough to show up and make the money. That may be laughable to you, but there are plenty of musicians who join a band only to quit a short time later. You have to be absolutely certain that you will commit.

Education
Having a degree in sacred music or organ performance are not really necessary. You must know languages, have choral and instrumental skills. Training and being professionally certified is a must.

Job Types
Titles for a church or temple musician are Organist, Liturgist, Choir Soloist, Minister of Music, and Choir Director.

The Salary
Part-Time: $7,800-$44, 500( for less than 30 hours each week)
Full-time: $27,500-$59,300

Finding Employment
If you cannot find anything locally, you might consider going to another state to look for work. Here is a short list of websites where you can find church musician jobs.

www.churchjobs.net

www.churchstaffing.com

www.churchstaffsearch.com