Majoring in Music?

[HBrock25]

Hey Barbara. It’s a long story… I hope to get it fixed at some point.
It’s not the database, it’s something the webserver is doing on the way
there. One of these days when I have time I’ll track it down.

[carl-swanson]

I love the discussion this has generated, and I hope more people put their opinions here as well.

I understand entirely the philosophical approach to this question.

[Tacye]

At least in the UK there can be very little financial value in going to
university; the type of person who will do well will do well without,
but most highflighers do carry on studying which makes the statistics
more difficult.

[unknown-user]

I have a fascinating book called Success and How to Win It in Classical Music or something like that. It has always been the same. You need money, or a patron or the like for a concert career. When was it published? 1916!

[louise-vickerman]

My husband’s mom recalls a speech given at his graduation ceremony by the Dean when he got his bachelor’s at Eastman in 1984 telling the assembled parents & relatives that only 2% of all the music graduates would manage to make a living actually playing their instrument! She remembers the shock & thinking “what a dangerous career she had sent her son off into, and how much money had gone into this endeavor, especially at such an expensive private music conservatory!” But she was impressed by his honesty and realism especially since his own job relied upon those very music students.

Both mine and my husbands parents were not in the artistic professions (science, law and psychology!) so were quite unaware of the small job market and blindly let us follow our dreams which luckily for both of us worked out favorably. The problem of student debt here is a big one, I hear now becoming an issue in the UK too. When I was a student it wasn’t such a big deal, I went to the local conservatory (government subsidised) & lived at home so incurred no debt for my BA, I sunk in all my savings for grad school in the US (as a foreigner I did not quaify for loans) and scrounged around for scholarships, gigged and lived very frugally so managed to graduate without any student debt. For friends I have seen saddled with enormous loan payments for school, it has been painful to watch them struggle to make ends meet while trying to make their career in music.

I have no problem with students wanting to do their undergraduate work in the arts field, however, with advanced higher education it should be carefully considered since the failure rate is so high. Has anyone read “Mozart in the Jungle” by Blair Tindall? Wow, that was one depressing look at the employment outlook for classically trained musicians, although written from the perspective of just one person, it still paints a bleak portrait of the business!

[unknown-user]

HELLO CARL, LET ME TELL YOU MY STORY, I AM, A PROFFESIONAL HARPIST GRADUATED FROM THE HIGH INSTITUE OF MUSIC IN DAMASCUS STUDYING THERE FOR 5 YEARS,

[alexander-rider]

Tayce- I wasn’t saying that people don’t know things that are’t taught. I just would find it hard to teach myself the more difficult disciplines of music alone. I had to think reallyhard about my degree. The truth is had I studied, French, German or European studies, I know that I could not focus on the harp and practise as I much as I would want. I still have doubts, but I’ll just have to see what happens when I get there. If I’m not satisfied, or I feel I have no future in the harp or in music in general, I will change my course. Louise, I too read Blair’s book, and I found it fascinating, but depressing!.

[barbara-brundage]

Thanks, Hugh. Yeah, I knew it must be something the server was doing, but I thought maybe you did your own hosting.

[tony-morosco]

+++In the real world, this is very nearly impossible, at least for performance+++

I was thinking more along the lines of composition. I can already play and after years of playing don’t see a need to get a degree in performance, but there are many other areas of music with degree options that are both useful and satisfying.

[barbara-brundage]

Hi, Louise. Yes, when I got to Eastman, around that same time, during orientation Bob Freeman (the director of the school) got all the new students into Kilbourne Hall and made a lengthy speech, with many numbers, the gist of which was, “Here’s how much money the Chicago Symphony lost last year. What makes you think they’ll give you a job?” Miss Malone also used to urge her students, even in those plummy days of Sunday brunch and restaurant gigs, to have a fallback plan in case they couldn’t make a living as performers.

[Tacye]

Alex, I am confident that if you had done an undergraduate course in
say languages you would then find it more possible to teach yourself
the advanced musical topics you want to learn.

[alexander-rider]

Tayce, you made your point wonderfully, honest.

[carl-swanson]

If I can throw something from my own experience in here. After 10 years of very intensive study, from the age of 18 to 28, I realized that an orchestra position, (which I thought I was training for at the time) was not going to happen.

[unknown-user]

Good luck in Dubai. I hope you can make enough to buy a good harp and start working. It is not so different here. My teacher had a graduate student from the Dominican Republic who didn’t have his own harp, and had to work full-time until he had enough to buy one. Now he is doing very well. I hope you have lots of energy.

[unknown-user]

It is true that the job market is grim for professional musicians.
Advanced degrees in music are a requirement for work in academia – a
resume won’t make it passed the first round without credentials in the
specified field. These jobs are not as rare as orchestra, but more
people apply then ever find a position.

It will be sad indeed if the music major becomes a thing of the past
for many. I don’t think it is practical to learn music with the same
level of accountability in performance, theory, history, etc. that a
music major requires. The majority of freshman music majors do not
understand the importance of learning theory, so it seems likely to me
they wouldn’t without the academic structure requiring it. The
inability to discern the layers of texture, harmonic and formal
structure, and motivic analysis, does show up in performance. It is
like reading without a clear understanding of punctuation and dramatic
pacing. Some can be accomplished intuitively, but there are limits.

The problem
is that all the money that is devoted
to the arts in our society goes into popular music. That industry is
just rolling in the dough, and it is really sad how many far more
gifted musicians scrap each penny together to eek out a living. This
subject makes me very sad because there are so many peers that I
care for and admire deeply, who are amazingly gifted musicians who have
either given it up entirely out of disappointment, or who struggle to
make ends meet. Most of them are considerably more gifted than a
typical uber-marketed “pop” star. I tend towards advising students to
have something to
fall back on. At least we don’t have it as bad as philosophy,
musicology, literature, and other esoteric fields. The Bachelor of Arts
degree in music is an excellent
choice because it requires fewer hours and enables the student to
double major. You miss out on a few classes, but it provides some of
the structure. Combing music with psychology, ed psych., education, or
other human development fields can provide flexibility in future career
choices. We also need more high level music
education majors to help arts education from the ground up and inspire
a generation more willing to pay for an orchestra ticket than a pop
princess concert ticket.

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