Grammy U & The Recording Academy

The Recording Academy is known for honoring the music community and the achievements in the recording arts. The Recording Academy is an organization full of musicians, engineers and producers that helps the new movers and shakers of the music industry. The most popular awards show it is known for is the Grammy awards. The academy has twelve chapters thru-out the U.S. and they are:

• Atlanta
• Chicago 
• Florida
• Los Angeles
• Pacific Northwest
• New York
• Nashville
• Memphis
• Philadelphia
• San Francisco
• Texas
• Washington D.C.

The Recording Academy offers college students a chance to be apart of a program called Grammy U. The program prepares college students for a career in the music industry by giving them a platform to network with other college students and professionals in the recording industry. If you would like to be a member of the academy there are many benefits that come with it, such as:

• Access to Grammy365
• Book gigs, network with other professionals in other countries and find jobs
• Share your work and get advice and feedback

Not only do you gain benefits by being apart of the academy, you also have different membership types you can apply for such as:

• Become a Voting Member (If you were nominated for a Grammy, endorsement by other voting members, recordings released online and physical distribution)
• Become an Associate Member (Writers, Publishers, Attorneys, Music Educators, Artist Managers and more who are directly involved in the music business.)
• Become a Student Member (College students between ages 17 to 25 who wants to work in the recording industry after graduation.)

This is a great opportunity for students who attend an arts school such as Columbia College or Full Sail University. It is always great to be able to expand your network and work with professionals in the industry you want to go in after graduation. 

If you live in Chicago you can contact grammyuchicago@grammy.com for more info on joining their chapter. To find out more about all the other chapters please visit here.

How to Succeed? Get More Sleep!

Have you heard the famous quote "I will sleep when I die"? Well, this is a motto I have been following for years. Being an entrepreneur in the entertainment business, I always felt that if you sleep all the time you would never be up on all the current news. I sit in front of my computer sometimes 12-14 hours a day researching celebrity news, gossip, blogs and industry casting calls. Being current in the entertainment industry will definitely help you succeed. Or will it?

Arianna Huffington is the co-founder and editor-in-chief of the Huffington Post. I recently watched a video on Ted.com by Arianna Huffington titled, "How to Succeed? Get More Sleep". She talks about how sleep is an important part of our life and how it can help us succeed more if we get enough of it. Arianna starts her speech out by telling her audience how two years ago she realized how much sleep was very important after fainting from exhaustion and hitting her head on the desk. The reason this stood out to me is because the similar thing happened to me.

In January 2012, I was taking a shower when I started feeling light-headed. I had been up for almost four days straight working on business with approximately six hours total of sleep. I had a big project coming up and I could care less about sleep. All I remember is waking up on the bathroom floor with blood everywhere. I had fainted and hit the edge of the bathroom sink and split my head open. I had enough energy to yell to my 12-year-old daughter to call 911. The next thing I know I woke up in the hospital with five staples in my head with a diagnosis of exhaustion and dehydration. Not only do I not eat healthy I rarely get enough sleep, so I truly understand why Arianna focuses on sleep more than anything else.

I love how Arianna focuses on women and how we can sleep our way to the top, and I don't mean the other way if you catch my drift. Let's look at this scenario for a second. If you drove a car all day 24 hours straight with no rest, what are some of the things that could happen? The car might overheat, the alternator may go out or even the battery may go dead. The reason for saying this is even a car needs it's rest, just like a human body so it can reenergize itself. So like Arianna Huffington says in her speech and I quote, "I urge you to shut your eyes and discover the great ideas that lies inside us, to shut your engines and discover the power of sleep".  By doing this, we can think more clearly and be able to focus at the task at hand with a clear head.