The Case for the Music Education Degree

Most college and university music programs offer a bachelor’s degree in music education. For many schools, it is their most popular music degree program. When high school students approach me and are interested in music as a major but aren’t sure of which path, I often first suggest the Bachelor of Music in Music Education degree.

Music education is a very stable and in-demand profession. Virtually every community in the United States has a need for multiple full-time music educators. My small hometown in the mountains of Virginia has less than 2,000 people, yet there are four full-time music educators employed there at elementary, middle, and high schools. In addition to full-time salaries, these positions offer medical/dental insurance benefits, as well as retirement packages. And let’s not forget that perk of the three-month summer vacation!

As a music educator myself, I must say that teaching is a wonderful profession and I am truly lucky to get to share music with young students for a living. If you want to be a music teacher at any level, from pre-K to university, a music education degree is a great choice. However, I think it’s rather self-evident that the music education degree is appropriate for future music educators. I’d rather take this week’s blog post in different direction…. What about students who are not sure they want to be music educators?  What about students with other interests inside and outside of the music field? Is there a value in them getting a music education degree?

What about students who know their first choice of career is composer, performer, church musician, conductor, or arts administrator? Or what about students who enjoy music but are thinking about careers in business, law, medicine, or other fields?  In many ways, a music education degree also cultivates skills that are useful in other areas.  For example:

Composition

If you want to be a composer, a music education degree will provide you with methods courses on all of the standard woodwind, brass, percussion, and string instruments. These courses will help you develop basic skills on all of these instruments and help you understand how to write appropriately for each of them. I work with composers a lot I can honestly say that many of the questions they ask me about my instrument would be answered in an undergraduate brass methods course. Music education coursework also usually includes some classes composition, instrumentation, and arranging.

Performance

If you want to be a performer, a music education degree is useful because the pedagogy, lesson planning, and methods courses will help you be a better teacher to yourself and others. It will help you develop a  systematic pedagogical approach on your instrument. If you become a full-time performer, students will seek you out for private lessons, and universities and festivals may seek you out as a guest clinician. Also, many performers are interested in college teaching positions, and an undergraduate degree in music education not only prepares them to be a teacher, but often prepares them to teach courses like brass methods, and therefore makes them more attractive to search committees. Moreover, a music education degree also usually includes a rigorous applied music component as well as a senior performance recital at the end of your studies.  Also, the experience of being a beginner again, via methods courses on every instrument in the band and orchestra, will help you re-evaluate and develop your own musical fundamentals on your primary instrument.

Church Musician

Church musicians have many musical challenges: They must bring together trained and non-trained musicians toward a common goal; They must bridge the traditions of vocal and instrumental music; They must be familiar with orchestration and arranging, as well as the transpositions of all the various instruments. Many of us have been a guest musician for a church service where we have experienced the frustration of having instrumental parts in the wrong keys or wrong transpositions and the chaos that inevitably ensues.  Often this is because the music leadership only understands their own instrument. Often  church musicians have as their primary instrument organ, piano, voice, or guitar -- all of course non-transposing instruments who read at concert pitch.  If prospective church musicians pursue a music education degree, they will receiving training on many other instruments and will have the skills to avoid these problems. In addition, musical leadership in sacred settings requires many forms of teaching, and a music education degree would obviously prepare them to be better teachers. In many ways, the music education curriculum provides for an ideal background to meet all of these challenges.

Conducting

If you want to be a conductor, a music education degree is useful because in most cases this degree has more conducting courses than other undergraduate music degrees, and, the instrumental methods courses will provide you with hands-on experience and empirical knowledge of all of instruments that you will be expected to lead.

Arts Administration

If you want to be an arts administrator, a music education degree will provide you with a background in a variety of music areas in which your career as an administrator will intersect. You will learn to appreciate the larger role of music in society and how it affects students, teachers, parents, performers, and community members alike.

Fields Outside of Music

What if you enjoy music, but aren't quite sure if you want to pursue it as a career? What if you foresee your future vocation in another field, such as business, go to law school, or be a medical doctor?  I think the music education degree – with skills you cultivate in time management, performing, planning, self-discipline, creativity, self-expression, communication, and bringing people together to achieve a common goal – is even an appropriate undergraduate degree for these and other fields outside of music. I personally know several software engineers, lawyers, doctors, businesspeople, and even clergy in the Lutheran, Methodist, and Presbyterian traditions who earned their bachelor’s degree in music education.

Conclusion

My undergraduate degree is in music education, and while I initially pursued it for the purposes of being a high school band director, this degree has also proven itself useful in my career as a university trumpet professor, as well as in other areas of my life and career. The robust skill set you develop in the music education curriculum applies not only to teaching careers, but also to many other areas inside and outside of music. I strongly encourage young musicians to seriously consider the bachelor’s degree in music education as a wonderful path with many possible outcomes.

In continuing the theme of complementary perspectives... Next week’s blog topic: The Case for the Music Performance Degree

Jason Dovel is associate professor of trumpet at the University of Kentucky and a Yamaha Performing Artist. He is host of the annual UK Summer Trumpet Institute held every June in Lexington, KY (USA).