Write music for film, TV (television), games, ads and the concert stage. No licence, no gatekeeper, and very little money at the start.
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Pay, the path, pros and cons and the facts on one printable page. Counsellors: send it to a student from your own email in one click.
Programs in the fields this career usually comes through. Each has its own page: what it takes to get in, the courses you need and what it costs.
The median pay is about $36,000 a year. Across everyone in the job it runs from about $33,000 at the lower end to about $101,000 at the upper end. The source is listed under Sources at the end of this page.
4 to 8 years after high school, on the usual route.
$2,000 to $59,000 all in for tuition, fees, exams and kit. Living costs are not counted.
No. There is no licence to hold, though many employers still ask for training or a certificate.
Limited demand nationally, from government outlook data. Demand varies by region, so check your area.
Or read the whole thing here
What you earn and what it costs to get there.
Median
$36,000
Lower end
$33,000
Upper end
$101,000
Job Bank's national median for composers is $36,000 a year, from the 2021 Census. Its lower end is $32,867 and its upper end $101,000. Many composers are self-employed, so Job Bank gives yearly earnings, and many top up music income with teaching, playing or an unrelated job.
Paid per project
Student films, short films, local ads, indie games
Many first credits are unpaid or paid in exposure. Take the ones that give you a finished piece of music attached to real picture, because that is what gets you the next job.
Every time it is played
Collected for you by SOCAN (the Society of Composers, Authors and Music Publishers of Canada)
SOCAN represents more than 185,000 music creators and publishers. It licenses broadcasters, streamers, bars and concert halls, then pays the money out to the people who wrote the music. A cue in a show that reruns for years keeps earning long after the work is finished.
Roughly, all in
$2,000 to $59,000
Tuition, fees, exams and kit. Not rent, food or travel
There is no licence and no required school, so the low end is a basic home setup with a computer interface, a keyboard and a little software, learning from scores and online material. The high end is a four year music degree at higher tuition plus a proper home studio with monitors and several thousand dollars of sample libraries, which you keep buying for the rest of your working life. Private lessons at $30 to $60 an hour are a real ongoing cost that no tuition figure captures. Grants matter here: the Canada Council for the Arts runs Explore and Create for new work, and FACTOR (Foundation Assisting Canadian Talent on Recordings) funds recording projects.
Grants exist. The Canada Council for the Arts runs programs such as Explore and Create, which pays for the research, development and creation of new work. Provincial arts councils and FACTOR (the Foundation Assisting Canadian Talent on Recordings) fund recording projects.
Commission or creative fee
A flat amount to write and deliver the music for a film, game or ensemble.
Performance royalties
Paid through SOCAN (the Society of Composers, Authors and Music Publishers of Canada) whenever the music is broadcast or performed.
Sync licensing
A one-time fee when existing music is placed in a show, ad or trailer.
Teaching and playing
A common source of steadier income alongside composing.
The exact path from high school to qualified.
There is no exam and no licence. You build skill, then a catalogue of finished work.
Play an instrument seriously
Years before you decide
Most composers start here. Reading music and hearing harmony are the tools of the job.
Music degree or conservatory
4 years
A Bachelor of Music with a composition stream, for example at the University of Toronto, McGill, the University of British Columbia or Université de Montréal. Admission is by audition plus a portfolio of your own pieces.
Learn the software
Alongside school
Notation and recording programs, sample libraries, mixing. Screen work is written and delivered on a computer.
Build credits
2 to 4 years
Student films, theatre, games, ensembles that will read your piece. Every finished project is a calling card.
Get known by directors and music supervisors
Ongoing
Nearly all screen work comes from people who have worked with you or heard your reel.
Music
Theory, ear training and playing in an ensemble.
Math
Rhythm, tuning and audio work are full of ratios.
Computer studies
You will live inside audio software.
Drama or media arts
Screen music is storytelling. Knowing how a scene is built matters.
There is no exam, no registration and no protected title. Anyone can call themselves a composer and take a commission. What stands in for a licence is your catalogue: finished pieces, real credits and people who will vouch for you. A degree helps mostly because of the deadlines, the players who read your work and the contacts, not because anyone asks to see it.
Ontario
University of Toronto, Western University, Wilfrid Laurier University, York University.
Quebec
McGill University, Université de Montréal, Conservatoire de musique du Québec.
Western Canada
University of British Columbia, University of Calgary, University of Victoria.
Atlantic Canada
Acadia University, Memorial University of Newfoundland.
In Quebec you take a 2 year music program at a CEGEP (public college) or the conservatory after Secondary V, then a composition degree.
Finish Secondary V
Age 16 or 17
Keep up lessons on an instrument or voice and learn theory. College music programs audition you and test theory and ear training.
Music DEC (Diploma of College Studies), 501.A0
2 years
2 years, with no tuition at a public CEGEP (public college) for full-time Quebec residents. In English at Vanier. The Conservatoire de musique du Québec (the provincial conservatory) also has a 2 year college level, in French.
Bachelor's in composition
3 years
McGill, in English, asks for a music DEC, 2 or 3 of your scores, a statement and an audition. The Conservatoire, in French in Montreal and Quebec City, asks for a portfolio and an admission exam.
Register your works with SOCAN
From your first played work
SOCAN (Society of Composers, Authors and Music Publishers of Canada) collects your royalties in Quebec the same way as in the rest of Canada.
Join SPACQ-AE
Early career
SPACQ-AE (the Quebec professional society of songwriters and composers) negotiates agreements for commissioned music and reviews contracts. Trainee membership is $75 a year if you have fewer than 5 works.
Apply for Quebec grants
Any time
CALQ (Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec, the Quebec arts council) funds new music. On the island of Montreal, artists with under 5 years of practice can get a first grant of up to $15,000.
Things you don't need, but that help.
Orchestration
Writing convincingly for real players. It separates composers from people who arrange presets.
Mixing and mastering
Screen clients expect finished audio, not a sketch.
Game audio
Music that changes with what the player does. Different craft, growing demand.
Fast turnaround
Getting a usable cue back in a day is worth more to a director than genius that arrives late.
SOCAN membership
SOCAN (the Society of Composers, Authors and Music Publishers of Canada) is how performance royalties reach you. Register every work.
A publisher
Places your music in shows and ads and takes a cut. Useful once you have a catalogue.
Conducting skill
Opens doors in concert music and at recording sessions.
An assistant job
Working for an established screen composer is the most common way in.
Very few people in Canada earn a full living writing music. Most build a mix: some scoring, some teaching, some playing, some music preparation or copying work for other composers. That mix is not a failure, it is the normal shape of the career. It also means the skills you pick up around composing, like teaching and audio engineering, are worth taking seriously.
Day to day, pros and cons, where you'd work.
You work alone, usually at home, for long stretches. Watch the scene, sketch a theme, build it up in software, export a version, send it to the director. Then rewrite it because the edit changed. Some days are meetings and spotting sessions where you go through a film deciding where music goes. Around deadlines the days get long and the weekends disappear. Between projects there may be nothing at all.
The good
The hard parts
Things people don't tell you.
SOCAN (the Society of Composers, Authors and Music Publishers of Canada) represents more than 185,000 music creators and publishers. If your music is played on the radio, in a show or in a bar in Canada, this is who collects for you.
Job Bank's median for composers in British Columbia is $44,800 a year, against $36,000 for Canada as a whole. So many composers work for themselves that Job Bank reports their pay by the year, not by the hour.
The Canada Council for the Arts runs grant programs such as Explore and Create and Supporting Artistic Practice that pay artists to research and create new work. Much new Canadian concert music is funded this way.
Every list is built from the same numbers shown above, so you can see where this career sits next to the others.
Film, TV and music first, then the rest of the field. See every career in creative.
Last checked October 2026. Pay figures are typical full-time annual amounts in Canadian dollars, based on Government of Canada Job Bank wage data and published salary grids. They vary by province, employer and experience. Tuition is for domestic students. How every figure on this site is sourced and checked.
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