When Will Cady B.M. 09 was taking harmony and ear training courses at Berklee, he never considered how the material might give him a foothold in the world of marketing and brand strategy.
But sure enough, a few years after graduation while he was working in an entry-level marketing position at Spin Media in Los Angeles, he was invited into a meeting with a client, and his ears perked up during a demo of the client's new karaoke app. Did your app just perform modal interchange? Cady asked, before then calling out the actual chord progression used in the demo. His deep knowledge impressed the room, and he realized that his music training had given him a competitive edge in the professional world, a trait he'd leverage into his current position as head of brand strategy at internet community giant Reddit.
Musicians are creative directors. When you're putting a band together, you're putting together your vision of how you think the world should be.
-Will Cady B.M. 09
I feel so much more equipped to take on other things because I knew the way I'd proved myself in one aspect of life, Cady says of his music education. Even if it's taking on a new career like marketing and advertising, I knew how to practice and redeploy those parts of my brain that were trained through music. It's the same thing, just different material.
Remember the Human Reddit is a particularly apt home for Cady, not just for his branding skills, but because the online platform played a significant role in helping him find a larger audience for his own music when he was first starting out as a solo musician. I could put my music on Reddit and get a lot of people watching my videos, he says. Even if you're not on the front page of Reddit, you can access smaller, but much more highly engaged sub channels.
A key feature of Reddit communities, according to Cady, is their deep level of intimacy and trust. He found forums to help him with everything from personal finances to relationship advice. On one occasion, a local venue fell through at the last minute, and it was Reddit users that came to rescue in finding a new one. The dedication that people had to talking about creativity was impossible to discover anywhere else, he says, and he was pleased to find that that dedication didn't disappear when he joined the business side of the company. In fact, the slogan, Remember the Human, greets him every time he enters the building, he says.
Its Not Who Am I? Its What Can I Do? Cady admits that when he got to Berklee, he had lofty rock star dreams, and had a difficult time seeing any other path as viable. So, what changed? For one, those harmony and ear training classes, but also courses in songwriting, production, and the liberal arts. Not unlike those Reddit sub channels, these courses allowed him to explore his own identity while giving him a longer, wider view of what makes art stand the test of time. They allowed me to tune myself to the expectations of a longer cycle. Berklee allowed me to draw from a much deeper pool of what is good.'
Get Started on Your Career Journey
Take a look at Berklees Career Manager to find out how you can leverage your skills as a musician in a number of professional fields. It set in motion a chain reaction of self-actualization. He began to think, Well maybe I'm not just a bass player, I'm a musician. And then later, maybe I'm not just a musician, I'm a creative. As I've let go of these specific identities, I've been able to flower out into a broader scope of opportunities. This allowed Cady to stop worrying about who he thought he should be, and more about what he could offer the world as he was. You recontextualize yourself into what you can do and how you can be of service, he says. It's way more exciting, way more fulfilling, and way more lucrative to see things this way.
Your Band Is Your Brand And for all those wondering how you get from the rehearsal space to the board room, Cady offers that musicians are creative directors. When you're putting a band together, you're putting together your vision of how you think the world should be, how you think life should be. You have to come up with a name, a logo, photos that represents your image, a stage presence that transports people to a certain place. It's worth taking that genie out of the bottle of just music and bringing it into the world in a bigger way, and musicians are the best ones to do that.
Related categories:
News
Most Popular
Harvard Dual Degree Students Make Music on Both Sides of the River Students in Berklees dual degree program with Harvard receive vastly different-but complementary-educations in both places.
Latest
Signature Series Presents Larry Klein Meets Berklee, with Madeleine Peyroux and Luciana Souza Four-time Grammy-winning producer Klein will showcase his deep catalog and spotlight a Joni Mitchell classic that he produced.
How Will Cady Used Modal Interchange to Get Ahead in Business The head of brand strategy at Reddit talks about how music gave him a competitive edge far beyond the stage.
Tali_Rubinstein.jpg
Alumna and Her Recorder Take on New York in New Docuseries Tali Rubinstein B.M. 14 takes us behind the scenes of her jam-centric web series.
Berklee Blogs
Read All
Subscribe The latest sounds, stories, and ideas, sent to your inbox weekly.
Berklee Blogs
Facebook
Twitter
YouTube
Instagram
Snapchat
Soundcloud
Spotify
Most recent headlines
06/10/2025
France T l visions, France's leading broadcaster, has received the 2025 EBU ...
04/09/2025
Monumental Sports & Entertainment (MSE), in collaboration with Dalet, has been a...
30/08/2025
WASHINGTON The Federal Communications Commission has adopted its FY 2025 Regulatory Fees Order that establishes the regulatory fee rates for the broadcast stati...
29/08/2025
Australian Red Cross and SBS launch training to help workplaces in the fight aga...
29/08/2025
The National Film and Video Foundation (NFVF), an agency of the Department of Sp...
29/08/2025
L3Harris Technologies has concentrated decades of expertise across the entire enterprise to develop affordable and reliable best-of-breed solutions to rapidly c...
29/08/2025
BURBANK, Calif. The CW Network and the Pac-12 Conference have announced a new media rights deal that will extend their broadcast partnership beginning with the ...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK Gracenote has released a new analysis of its global video dataset showing that the number of FAST channels grew nearly 14% from Q1 2025 and 76% since 2...
29/08/2025
SAN JOSE, Calif. Harmonic has announced a series of improvements to its live sports streaming solution that the company said will improve fan engagement, protec...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK and LOS ANGELES Fox Corp. and YouTube TV last night announced a renewal of the full portfolio of Fox networks, including Fox News Channel, Fox Business...
29/08/2025
Budapest, Hungary, August 2025 - The integration of Microsoft Teams Rooms (MTR) with Lightware's Taurus universal matrix switchers delivers a new level of f...
29/08/2025
Frequency, the engine behind many of the world's best-known streaming television channels, today announced it will launch Studio Live, a next-generation uni...
29/08/2025
In an era when AI and cyber resilience are essential, Scality will mark the 10th anniversary of Scality Day on October 16, 2025 in Paris. This flagship global e...
29/08/2025
Disguise's In-House Creative and Technical Teams Pre-Visualised, Programmed and Delivered Content for the Experience, All Powered by EX 3+
Technology solu...
29/08/2025
Disguise will be demonstrating the latest workflows for TV, film and live events on a number of partner booths at the show
Disguise, the industry-leading tech...
29/08/2025
STOCKHOLM, Sweden Accedo will showcase Accedo Compose, its AI agent-powered modular orchestration layer that assists streaming providers in transitioning client...
29/08/2025
LOS ANGELES Cineverse has announced that it is working with Xperi to bring four of its streaming channels to automobiles for the first time as part of the DTS A...
29/08/2025
DALLAS & ATLANTA Gray Media has announced an agreement with the sports streaming service Victory+ to simulcast 17 Dallas Stars NHL games in 15 television market...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK AND CULVER CITY Comcast NBCUniversal and Amazon have announced new and extended distribution agreements that will expand the content available on their...
29/08/2025
FOOTHILL RANCH, Calif. RED Digital Cinema will feature its Cine-Broadcast Module supporting live broadcast workflows during IBC2025, Sept. 12-15, at the RAI Ams...
29/08/2025
29 Aug 2025
Kyivstar Rings Opening Bell at Nasdaq Marking Landmark Listing and ...
29/08/2025
More than half of all NFL games live on Sky for the first timeFriday 29 August 2025
Sky Sports has announced a new three-year deal with the NFL, extending its ...
29/08/2025
Back to All News
RIV4LRIES: The Trailer of the New Series With Samuele Carrino ...
29/08/2025
Get ready for an inspiring and emotional insight into the world of competitive Irish dancing with My Story: Tomi Champion of the World airing on RT 2 this monda...
29/08/2025
RT has today announced that David McCullagh is to be the new presenter of RT Radio 1's flagship Today programme, which airs every weekday at 10am, replaci...
28/08/2025
By Kristin Feeley, Director, Documentary Film & Artist Programs
If you want to tell untold stories, if you want to give voice to the voiceless, you've got ...
28/08/2025
Directed by Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert, Sundance Institute-supported Amer...
28/08/2025
Corridos have been a cornerstone of M sica Mexicana for generations, telling stories rooted in everyday life. Now, a new chapter is taking shape: motivational c...
28/08/2025
Los corridos han sido un pilar de la M sica Mexicana durante generaciones, contando historias enraizadas en la vida cotidiana. Ahora, un nuevo cap tulo est tom...
28/08/2025
Earlier this month, we promised our Verano Forever party would bring the heat, a...
28/08/2025
L3Harris will provide the Polish F-16V fleet with the Viper Shield electronic warfare system as part of an upgrade program....
28/08/2025
Bilbao, August 26, 2025 - AgileTV, an international television and video technol...
28/08/2025
Ken Wilkinson is an Emmy Awards nominated New York audio engineer who specialises in production sound mixing for film, commercial, episodic and documentary work...
28/08/2025
NEW YORK FuboTV today announced that it will launch Fubo Sports, a skinny bundle that focuses on sports with a subscription price of $56 monthly....
28/08/2025
NEVADA City, Calif. At IBC2025, Sept. 12-15 at the RAI Amsterdam, Telestream will debut its new Global Ingest strategy, introducing a next-generation ingest arc...
28/08/2025
Dr. Rhoda Bernard Releases Groundbreaking Debut Book on Accessible Arts Educatio...
28/08/2025
TAG Video Systems, the leader in software-based IP end-to-end workflow monitoring, deep probing, and real-time visualization, has named Oliver Gappa as Sales Di...
28/08/2025
AI-based voice enhancement will be among a series of innovations making their IBC 2025 debut on the DHD stand B46 in Hall 8 at the RAI Amsterdam Convention Cent...
28/08/2025
Telef nica Servicios Audiovisuales (TSA), the leading system integrator and service provider in the media sector in Spain, with the support of Appear, the globa...
28/08/2025
To fully immerse sailing fans in the world's biggest offshore yacht race, production company, Optical Media turned to LiveU's On-site Production solutio...
28/08/2025
Working with Calrec on its most recent overhaul, radio and television broadcaster, WNED has migrated to a fully IP infrastructure with multiple Type R consoles,...
28/08/2025
Cleeng, the Subscriber Retention Management (SRM ) inventor, has unveiled Cleeng Pro, the first-ever direct-to-consumer (D2C) subscription management platform t...
28/08/2025
Zixi, the industry leader in live broadcast-quality video over IP, today announced that French media distribution platform OKAST has selected Zixi to enable rel...
28/08/2025
Solution offers a streamlined, speaker-free architecture to optimize integration with premium external loudspeakers and advanced loudness metering
Nixer Pro Au...
28/08/2025
Cinegy, the premier provider of software-defined television technology, has announced a strategic partnership with Vision One Touch Film Production Services L.L...
28/08/2025
Telestream, a global leader in media workflow technologies, will debut its new Global Ingest strategy at IBC2025, introducing a next-generation ingest architect...
28/08/2025
Tier 1 operator selects Broadpeak to power high-performance, unified CDN solution across Norway, Sweden and Finland
Broadpeak, a leader in streaming and moneti...
28/08/2025
Leading video software provider, Synamedia, today announced that 24 Frames Digital, one of India's leading live event streaming service providers, has chose...
28/08/2025
Meet VisualOn at IBC2025: See What's Next in AI-Powered Video Streaming Join VisualOn at IBC2025 and discover how our AI-driven Optimizer and advanced media...
When Will Cady B.M. 09 was taking harmony and ear training courses at Berklee, he never considered how the material might give him a foothold in the world of marketing and brand strategy.
