I think that you might want to wait for a while before moving to Barcelona as the economy is kind of bad and unemployment is expected to hit 20% by next year.
My friends who are professionals in the advertising and design industries are having a very tough time finding work.
Even farm work is going back to hiring only locals and no foreigners.
This is a tough place to come and make money in the country itself. We have an internet business that doesn’t depend on the local economy so we can ride the tough times a bit better but from what I see now there are stores closing all around and lots of people out of work and getting laid off.

If you don’t know how to speak Spanish it will much much harder to make it here.

I would stay in your own country for a while and practice your Spanish and then try to secure work here before moving.
Now is not a good time though I think.

The weather is great in Barcelona. Even in Winter it is mild and pleasant. I come from California but have spent more than 6 years in New Zealand which was really hard on me weather-wise between the wind, rain and cold.
Summers here are very hot but manageable and like I said Winter is just fine.

The music scene is great since music seems to be an integral part of the Spanish culture. Kids seem to know how to sing and dance at a very young age.
I really love that part about living in Spain. There is music everywhere and when we go to parties it always ends up being a musical jam session with everyone getting involved somehow with singing, dancing, clapping or playing instruments.
Spain has reconnected me with my music in ways that would not have thought possible and my music has connected me with Spain. Since I play farly good guitar I am invited into the Gypsy neighborhood near us to play and my wife and I are both accepted into what is normally a very closed culture.

I’m not sure about schools in Spain because we have no children but I am sure you could find one with a focus on music if you moved to a major city.

It is good that your partner is fluent but if you want to work here you have to speak Spanish unless you have some kind of remote consulting type job or are a freelancer working over the internet.

Even when you do learn Spanish fairly well you will find that getting a professional job in Barcelona quite often means you need to speak at least a little Catalan as well.

My designer friend who is German and speaks Spanish fairly well says all of her meetings at work are conducted in Catalan.

I try to speak something called Catañol (Castellano and Catalan, like Spanglish). It makes the Catalans smile when you throw in a few words of their language into the conversation.

Beyond the language/employment barrier there are other realities to consider.

1. The “ASAP” part of your desire will never happen :-) This is Spain and the first thing you have to learn especially as an American coming here is ‘patience’. This is not a country where things happen fast.
I had to learn this in a big way when I got here.
This is not America, this is a very different place and a very different culture, it can take a bit of getting used to but is a beautiful way of life once you get in the groove.

2. If you plan to live here you will need a residency permit. There are several ways to go about getting one but I would say the shortest time between applying and receiving the residency card is 1.5 years, at the very shortest.

3. To get a residency card you need to hire a lawyer/accountant (abogado/gestoria) here in Spain. To do it yourself is really really hard as it is very complex and requires lots of documents and things to be sent at exactly the right time and when that is done your application needs a ‘babysitter’ to make sure it doesn’t get lost in the system.

This is who we used and they are absolutely great, I can’t recommend them highly enough

Lawbird Legal Services
Edificio Alfil Floor 4 Ricardo Soriano,
19 – 4B , 29601 Marbella (Málaga)
Tel: 952 861 890 Fax: 952 861 695

It cost us 3500 Euros to get our residency cards and officially set up our business in Spain.

4. If you don’t want to get the residency card then your alternative is to come here as a permanent tourist, rent a place to live and leave the country every 6 months for a couple of weeks.
You would not be able to find professional work if you did this though.

5. You should come here for a lengthy visit before moving.

Come here and open a bank account and start sending your savings here (if you are serious about the move that is).

Come here and meet and hire a lawyer.

Come here and stay in different neighborhoods to find where you might want to live (as charming as El Born, El Raval and Las Ramblas are, believe me, you do not want to live in the tourist areas permanently).

6. If you want to buy a place (it’s great time to do that now) you will need money. To get a residency card you will need money.
At least 50,000 Euros in the bank just to get residency and more to buy a house.

7. Rents are going up in “La Crisis” but house prices are coming down.

8. Lots of people come here and teach English. It is a tough gig and not real lucrative but lots of Brits get by on that without ever having to learn to speak Spanish properly.

So, that is my list of reality checks. If you have more specific questions let me know and I will try to answer.