Advice on Using a Music Education
I began playing guitar when I was 8 years old, and by the time I was in high school I knew I wanted music to be my career. I had no idea how anybody actually did that, but figured I had some time to figure that out. After high school I went to the University of North Texas to study jazz guitar. I transferred to Indiana University five semesters later, took another three semesters of classes, but after the undergraduate jazz guitar program was dissovled at IU, I studied classical guitar and jazz history but never graduated. As of now, I have no plans to finish my degree.
When I tell this story to some people, they shake their head and say “Four years of college and nothing to show for it.” Really? Can I play some guitar for you? My point being, I’ve received a good education and built a strong foundation of skills as a musician. There probably won’t be another four year period where I can practice as intensely as I did during college, and perhaps most importantly, I met many, many musicians with whom I work today.
One of the biggest lessons I learned was after I stopped taking classes. It had occurred to me about a year earlier, while I was still in school, that if I wanted a gig I had to get it myself. Put together the band, organize the music, run the rehearsals, record a demo, and make the phone calls or stop by the places I wanted to play. Doing this for a year in a small college town, while juggling a couple other jobs to pay the bills, I gained the confidence needed to do the same in a big city like New York.
As I’ve talked to more of my peers and surveyed some of our readers, I’ve noticed some similarities in how professional musicians use their education. Education can be formally structured at the college level, or learned through real life working experience. Most musicians use both.
If you are a high school student (or the parent of one) considering a music degree in college, or you’re a part time musician that has been thinking about going back to school for a music degree, read this article, ask questions in our forum, and hopefully it will help you make better decisions and get the most out of your education.
Should I even get a degree?
Yes. While I didn’t graduate, most of the musicians I spoke with or work with have at least a bachelor’s degree. Had my experience gone differently, I would have happily finished my degree, but perhaps that would have changed my “do it yourself” attitude and deprived me the gigging experiences I had in the year after school. Everyone will have a different experience.
Los Angeles vocalist and Berklee graduate Jenn Renee added:
“If you want to be one of the best, well respected, and in demand musicians, you need to know how to read music, and a lot of theory and some history is helpful as well. I wouldn’t say you absolutely can’t learn that stuff on your own if you have the drive, but getting a music education will not only teach you those things but it’ll be a networking opportunity and a confidence builder, and will almost always boost your reputation as well.”
If you set out to get a degree, you should plan on seeing it through. Of course, a the piece of paper the degree is printed on does not mean you’ll have an easier time finding music related work, and a lack of degree probably won’t prevent you from landing a job as a musician.
Bart Kuebler, one of our readers from Virginia, offered this insight:
“The bottom line for most jobs in music, including a majority of [higher education] institutional teaching positions, is not the level of educational attainment but the demonstrated musical capability. I teach at the collegiate level now, and was actually not directly asked about my (lack of) degrees when competing for my position… They wanted a certain skill set, and I fortunately possessed the right combination. To put it bluntly–it ain’t brain surgery; it’s a language. If you can speak it, no one cares how you learned it.”
In contrast, I recently played on a friend’s doctoral recital. As we chatted before the rehearsal she said, “I now have bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral degrees in music, but have NO IDEA what I’m going to do with any of it.”
But Kuebler also mentions that he would have liked to have gone to school for music full time. Like many other musicians that didn’t study in college, he had to learn through real world experience. “The real world is much less forgiving,” he adds, “but presents greater opportunities to the prepared musician.”
And many musicians will agree that the best place to prepare for the real world is college.
Are there advantages to studying music in college?
When I asked a number of working musicians what they took away from their college experience, the most common response was the connections with other music students. Many of us are working with the people we met in school. Even if you’re not working directly with these people, staying in touch can lead to plenty of gigs where you’d least expect it. Graeme Sacks, one of our readers from South Africa, notes that even 15 years after graduating he continues to work with people he studied with, including his lecturers.
New York saxophonist Michael Eaton, who graduated from Indiana Univeristy, offered this on point assessment of his college experience:
“My college experience was tremendously helpful, from virtually any angle. Knowing music history, improvisation, aural skills, saxophone playing/technique, having teaching models (for private lessons), ensemble experience in various idioms, learning the politics that go on in a university and surrounding community, being on a scene, being plugged into a scene from going to school there, my peers (who which taught me as much as my teachers). One of the biggest benefits: networking!! – virtually 100% of my gigs in the first ten months of living in NYC have come from IU connections. And of course, it’s possible to do virtually all of these things yourself, but I think having somebody experienced running things down for you is invaluable. It’s some semblance of what used to be the apprenticeship system.”
Just to demonstrate how small the world is, many people I know from UNT and IU are now in New York City, including Eaton (who I actually first met in the Missouri All State Jazz Band in high school!). Even if I don’t work with them regularly, we run into each other at gigs frequently. Not only that, but a number of the people I knew from UNT met people I knew from IU at another school such as the University of Southern California, or in another city like Boston, Los Angeles, or Chicago. Moral to this story is don’t burn anyone, they could be your boss someday.
Next to networking, many agree that the intense practicing you’ll do will set the stage for the rest of your career. Once you have to start worrying about making a living, you won’t be able to practice nearly as much, at least not for a while. I also recommend improving your sight reading so only a small amount of time is needed each week to maintain it.
Generally speaking, use the opportunity to totally immerse yourself in music, because this will ultimately shape the direction of your career.
What kind of degree should I get?
Degrees for musicians generally fall into three categories: 1) Those with with an emphasis on performance or composition, 2) music education, or 3) music business. There are also degrees in music history and musicology, but the people pursuing those degrees usually go into a research or education related field, and are generally less about playing an instrument (though no less important).
Generally speaking, having a degree in music, education or otherwise, will help you get a job teaching music, or any sort of job with various companies that requires a bachelor’s degree (but not necessarily in a music related field). A master’s or doctoral degree will help you get a better paying job in higher education, though we’ve learned this may not be necessary if you have the right skill set. Of course a degree in music education will better prepare you for a teaching position.
Music business degrees usually focus on the industry side of things. Having worked at a record label, I’ve discovered that many of my coworkers studied music business even though they planned on being a full time musician. What they learned in school generally did not tell them how to operate their own music business, but how the music business model works in general. They really didn’t seem to have an advantage when it came to working as a musician.
How to find work as a musician is probably the one thing a music performance or music business degree won’t do is teach you to do. There’s really no way to teach a group of students how to set out as entrepreneurs. Technology and the industry are changing too fast for academia to keep up. I think it would be interesting to see a music program that requires students to make an album, sell at least 100 copies through legitimate retail outlets (not all to your family) and turn a profit on it within a year’s time. If you can do that, you just might be able to make a living from your own music.
In my opinion, if you really want to play music for a living, you need to focus on playing music while in college. Getting a degree in music education, if your heart is not in it, will only slow the process down. I have friends that got their degree in music education because they wanted to be teachers, and had a knack for music. They’ll get the best teaching jobs because they are better teachers than somebody using teaching as a fall back.
What do I do after school?
That question, my friend, is what this website is all about. Go to the archives and read articles by each author to get an idea of how many different opportunities there are for musicians. Every single musician does things differently, and you will to. Luck will play it’s part, but you can’t count on it. You have a better chance at being struck by lightning than getting a record deal or being hired to play in your idol’s band. Plan on paying your dues, and with some hard work, bigger opportunities will present themselves. In short, make your own luck!
However, if you want some advice on how to get the ball rolling, I can offer two suggestions:
1) Get a cruise ship gig, save your money, then move to a big city and get in contact with everybody you know. Dave’s Chronicles of a Cruise Ship Musician will tell you everything you need to know about this kind of gig. I know dozens of musicians that did this after graduating as a means to support themselves while they found work in a new scene.
2) Move to the city where you want to live, and get a day job. This is what I did, and it worked for me. I’d recommend finding some work that is relatively mindless and not too stressful, like a temp job, so you can just punch the clock and get back to making music. It’s also easy to quit a temp job if a good music opportunity comes up, because the temp agency can fill your vacancy quickly. They’ll place you again if you need it. Of course, I set out for a temp job and ended up at a record label, where I worked for several years and learned a lot about this business.
Be prepared to be poor, the money will come later.
If you’ve found this article helpful and are still planning on pursuing music as a career, there’s one more thing you should know: This is hard. Do not plan on making a lot of money. In fact, plan on keeping your living expenses very low so the lack of funds won’t be an issue. This starts with staying out of debt, if possible. Credit cards are very tempting for college students, but it can take many years to pay off a balance accumulated over a semester of frivolous spending. School debt can be brutal as well, so apply for scholarships and consider the cost of a program seriously in your final decision.
Both Eaton and reader James Nesbit said they do not necessarily recommend pursuing a career as a musician without understanding what it takes. Nesbit points out that he while he doesn’t encourage students to pursue a career in music, he doesn’t discourage them either. “I do make them aware of the realities of this business,” he adds. Eaton stresses that, “You have to love it enough to be willing to live the lifestyle that goes along with it.” That lifestyle will initially be meager at first, though with hard work, you will find the opportunities. Many people have trouble getting over that hump, which is where it helps to truly love making music enough to be poor.
Of course, I use the word “poor” lightly. I might not make a lot of money right now, but I’m doing things that will greatly increase my income over the next couple years. I passed that hump sometime a couple years ago while I was still working a day job, and I finally decided I could afford a pay cut. If there’s a time in my life to not have much money, this is it. But there are many perks to being a musician other than money. I play guitar for a living! Are you kidding me? My friends and I will occasionally stop in the middle of a recording session, look at each other and laugh, saying, “This is what we DO?!” I wouldn’t trade that for anything.
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Great article.
You have a very interesting point of view on getting a degree.
I saw that flea of Red Hot Chile Peppers was going to college to get a music ed degree. Thought that was pretty funny, the mans already lived the dream and hes going to school now.
1/5/2009
Great read, and really good points.
I totally relate to the practicing thing. I never practice as much or as intensely without school going on. That’s part of the reason why I chose to do a Masters right away. No freakin’ way I was a good enough player to do anything with a bachelors. Continuing with another degree and a great teacher gives me time to practice a lot and continue improving.
School is what you make of it. There are people in music school who never practice or never seek performance opportunities. They never try to do any teaching or performing and just assume life will fall into place. It’s hard to make a living doing the music thing, but it’s also awesome. Like you said, playing or teaching guitar as a job is just about as good as it gets.
-CD
1/5/2009
Hey, great article. I just read it out of interest, but one of your quoted musicians, Jenn, is a friend of mine from Berklee. So I guess there’s proof that the music school thing builds connections!
1/14/2009
Especially Berklee!
1/14/2009
I live in Denton down the street from UNT and have been considering going there ro finish a degree in music. I’m wondering what made you leave UNT so quick and go to IU(?)
2/2/2009
I left UNT for a handful of reasons, which mostly had nothing to do with the music program.
UNT was tough program and I was stressed, but I got a hell of a lot better in those 5 semesters and continued to refer to my notes and critiques years later. If you have the opportunity to take advantage of what they offer, I’d do it.
IU was a good change of pace, there were fewer guitar players and I had more opportunity to play while still be challenged by the faculty and extremely talented students.
2/2/2009
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