Journalist and broadcaster Miranda Sawyer once pointed out that music is the hardest thing to write about — get it right, you are ready to write about anything.
The Observer feature writer also explained if you can extract a killer quote from a pop star who has been talking constantly for the past five hours — maybe even the past five months — on the same subject, then you can get a good interview out of anyone.
And if the roll-call of graduates from the weekly music press is anything to go by — including columnist Julie Burchill and Tony Parsons, author, broadcaster and journalist, who both started their journalism careers at NME — it seems that making your name is music writing can set you up for a very exciting career indeed.
So, if you want to know what it takes to break into — and succeed — in music journalism, we've assembled a panel of experts to answer your questions.
Join them in the next installment of our journalism series of Q&As, from 1pm on November 4.
Our panel:
Laura Hooke currently combines working for the careers service of City University London with freelance career consultancy. Her experience in guidance covers more than 20 years and includes working with university students and graduates, school and college students and career changers.
Oliver Condy has been the editor of BBC Music Magazine, the world's best-selling classical music monthly, since 2004. Before that, he was the deputy editor of Classic FM magazine.
Matilda Egere-Cooper is an award-winning journalist who graduated from the London College of Communications in 2002 and has since made contributions to the BBC, The Independent, Dazed & Confused and i-D magazine. She works at the Catch 22 Academy as a tutor and helps to mentor young people who aspire to work in the media.
JJ Dunning is deputy editor of The Fly magazine, responsible for commissioning and editing and writing the news section of the magazine. JJ also writes features, album and live reviews and assists the editor Niall Doherty.
Douglas Baptie is the content editor at The Music Fix, an online music news and review site. Further to a rebranding in 2009, the site secured a category win at the 2010 BT Digital Music Awards and has been nominated at this year's Record of the Day Journalism & PR Awards. When not wading through piles of review CDs, Douglas is information & marketing officer at a disability charity.
Duncan JA Dick is deputy editor of Mixmag, the world's biggest clubbing and dance music magazine. Duncan's role involves deciding with the editor which artists and stories to feature in the magazine, commissioning and briefing writers and editing their work. He also write features and reviews.
Anna Britten is a freelance journalist who has written about music and the arts for Metro, Classic FM Magazine, Yahoo!, Q, Bang, The Independent On Sunday, Time Out, Bristol Evening Post and Venue. She is also the author of Working In The Music Industry.
