The Case for the Music Performance Degree

In last week’s blog, I made the case for the music education degree. In keeping the theme of sharing complementary perspectives of a topic, I aim to promote the music performance degree this week, and to get the full context of this post, you may wish to read the previous entry if you haven’t done so already.

In my experience, most parents, professors, and academic advisors already steer students toward the music education degree. In a way, last week’s blog advocating the music education degree was easy to write. Making the case for a performance degree is in some ways more challenging. Music performance is a highly competitive field and requires a lot of hard work -- and parents don’t want to see their children starve!

I think the rationale for a performance degree varies depending on which level of degree you are doing, so first, here are two reasons to consider a bachelor’s degree in music performance:

It May Be Difficult to Practice Enough as a Music Education Major

Last week I talked about the wonderful well-rounded curriculum of the music education degree, with its conducting classes, instrumental methods courses on all of the orchestral instruments, etc. The bad news is, all of these courses are going to take up a lot of your time. Many of these classes will be 1-credit only, and you’ll often take several of them in a single semester. Learning all of these secondary instruments will require in-class instruction and private practice. This means it’s going to be a challenge to find enough practice time if your real goal is to be a top-level performer on your primary instrument.

When I have had students switch from music education to performance, it’s usually because they were frustrated that all of the academic classes cut into the time they wanted to practice. If I'm being honest, I will say that I did not practice enough during my music education undergraduate degree, and therefore chose to continue my education at the graduate level, pursuing a master's degree in performance, for the primary purpose of an opportunity to focus on private practice.

Yes, there are many professional performers out there who earned a music education degree, and yes you can find time to practice within a busy class schedule, but you need to know that pursuing a music education degree will require very careful and strategic time management if you also plan to practice enough to develop professional-level performance skills.

The Danger of a Backup Plan

 In Katie Couric’s New York Times bestseller The Best Advice I Ever Got: Lessons from Extraordinary Lives, she interviews many leaders from all walks of life about the best advice they ever received. One of her interviewees is the famous trumpet player Wynton Marsalis. What was the best advice Wynton’s ever got? Don’t have a backup plan.

Yes, I know that is controversial. I know parents reading this blog who are worried about their children securing a steady job don’t want to tell their children to not have a backup plan. But the truth of the matter is, some students major in music education, business, engineering, or other fields, purely as a backup plan when their heart is in performance. Their passion is to share music with the world, to offer their instrument or voice to others as a gift of emotion and expression. Simply put, they want to play!

Wynton’s rationale against having a backup plan? That if you have a fallback plan, you’re bound to simply fall back on it.

If you truly know that you want to be a performer, pursue it with reckless abandon. Commit yourself every day to studying, practicing, and perfecting your instrument. Perform as often as you can. Surround yourself with friends, mentors, and colleagues who share this passion. Enter as many competitions as you can find. Pursue a college degree in performance. And it’s OK to not have a backup plan.

You may fail. But if you fail, the lessons you learn along the way – the lessons you learn about yourself, your grit, your determination, and how your mind and body react to stressful situations – these lessons teach you more than you could ever learn in any classroom course. These lessons will serve you well in life, even if you don’t earn your living as a performer. (More on that in just a moment)

Graduate Performance Degrees

Graduate performance degrees are intended for intensive study on your primary instrument in preparation for a full-time career as a performer. This can include master's, certificate, diploma, and doctoral programs. At many universities, only minimal classroom classes are required for a graduate degree in performance. For me, the best case for doing a graduate degree in performance:  time to practice! (Side note: Check out the curriculum when you’re researching prospective graduate schools. Many students fail to do this and are frustrated when they arrive at a school eager to practice and perform, only to find the school requires a large load of academic courses.)

In my opinion, for most instruments and most people, you should plan to practice three to four hours per day when pursuing a graduate degree in performance. You should practice with the goal that you will be nationally competitive for a full-time performance position upon the conclusion of your studies.

I did what a lot of people do: I earned my bachelor’s degree in music education and then went on to graduate school for music performance. In a way, this combines the rationale of this and last week’s blog posts together; you have the security and well-roundedness of an undergraduate degree in music education, but the opportunity to focus your performance skills on your primary instrument in an intensive graduate degree in performance. Many people do this, I did this, and this is certainly a very possible and logical degree sequence.

Final Thoughts

I’ve seen many studies that show that the majority of people have careers in fields other than their college major. The Washington Post recently reported that only 27% of college graduates are employed in a field related to their major.

While this might seem like very depressing news, the good news is twofold: First, the skills learned in a music performance degree transcend the classroom and can prepare one for many careers inside and outside of music. For example, it has been well established that music majors have the highest acceptance rate into medical school of any college major. Moreover, a recent article “Musicians make Better Scientists” advocates that the spatio-temporal reasoning, language skills, self-esteem, and persistence of musicians prepares them very well for careers in science.

Second, I believe music majors have much better career outcomes than the 27% placement rate for all majors mentioned above, and this belief is based on firsthand observation of students making it in the real world. I am now in my 13^th year as a college trumpet professor and nearly all of my graduates are enjoying full-time careers in music. It has been a delight seeing students become college professors, orchestral musicians, military musicians, band directors, arts administrators, composers, church musicians, and other varied positions in music. I have seen with my own eyes that a career in music is possible, both in my own life, and in the lives of my students. That being said, occasionally someone goes a different direction, and use the skills they learned in music toward a fruitful career in another field -- and that’s ok! The lessons learned in music lessons will enhance and enrich their lives, regardless of their career path.

If you want to be a performer, go for it! Being a performer is a special and important calling, and it is totally appropriate to pursue in the form of a degree in music performance.

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).