<p>While this thread has a good point, it also annoys me when there are people who SHOULD, COULD, and WANT to major in music, but are discouraged by their parents and other authority figures who try to talk them out of it.</p>
<p>Soprano, I don’t always think it’s that others are trying to talk them out of it. It is just such a hard area to have a successful career in. The majority of students in music programs will never have a performance career. I think the “adults” probably know this and are trying to temper idealistic young people - trying to prevent tremendous disappointment. I think some of the post above are wonderful in that getting a music degree is not a terminal degree or if you are not successful you should crawl in a hole and die, but that it can lead to many other careers. Unfortunately many young people who pursue this type of career only view themselves as the next Pavarotti or the next Stern, etc. and how many of those do we get in a generation?</p>
<p>Well becoming a Pavarotti or a big star relies heavily on luck and being in the right place at the right time sometimes, Pav got his big break by filling in for Stefano in La Boheme. Sometimes people never get that sort of break or gig</p>
<p>It’s funny, i’ve never in my life questioned whether or not music would be what I do, never questioned the thought of being a music major. Music is just it for me, all I think about is music, it’s crazy. But I love it.</p>
<p>18karat - good attitude! Loving it to the point where you can’t see yourself doing anything else is often stated as the first step toward a career in music - regardless of the area in music.</p>
<p>I wanted to be an opera major not because I wanted to be the next big star, but because I simply can’t imagine doing anything else in life. I love opera, I know I will always enjoy it. I do it for myself, and for others, to use performance to bring happiness to the audience, which is a performer’s job.</p>
<p>But I remember my parents and my family ad my guidance professors in high school were all trying so hard to make me get a BA or to major in something ‘useful’ and do music as a hobby… thing is, there is no academic subject or useful major that interests me. Sure, I could have majored in english, but I would have hated it so much and dropped out almost instantly. Plus, my grades were not very good - I doubt I could have gotten in an academic school anyway. I was blessed with a good musical ear and a talent, and I didn’t intend to waste it to do something useful. </p>
<p>Sometimes, people think the only thing you can do with a music degree is make it big - and then everyone else ends up doing something else or being poor. That’s not true. There are lots of life-sustaining jobs you can do in the music related field. </p>
<p>I love opera, and I wanted to do it 100% in my career. I was never a good academic student, but I am flourishing here because I am working hard at something I love. And besides, even if I was the most famous opera singer in the world, 90% of the public still wouldn’t have heard of me. YOu don’t go into music for the fame, or for the money. You go into it for the passion.</p>
<p>The logical stuff, about sustaining a career and surviving in life, comes later, because you can’t predict how that’s going to happen. You can’t assume every high school kid has delusional dreams of fame, and that’s why their doing music. I’m doing music because it’s physically impossible for me to be doing anything else.</p>
<p>That’s awesome and I agree wholeheartedly, are you at NEC?</p>
<p>Soprano, I know that not every student who goes into music/opera is not doing it for the “fame”, but a lot of kids do and when they begin to see that it looks like that is not going to happen for them it can be crushing. Parents worry about that type of stuff.</p>
<p>I understand the feeling that music is the only thing in the world. I’ve got two sons who are both musicians and their father and I have encouraged them every step of the way. Do we worry that they won’t “make it”, yes, sometimes. But we feel that they should give it their best shot.</p>
<p>We “get it” because we’ve been around it, very intensely, for many years. Most people have not been around it and don’t “get it”. </p>
<p>That’s something every student who has a passion, particularly in the arts, is going to have to get used to because many people will never “get it”. I think a lot of people have never really had a passion, so they can’t relate.</p>
<p>It sounds like you have a realistic view of the whole thing. Good for you.</p>
<p>Just want to chime in one more time to say that a student who majors in music does not have to be employed in music after graduation, or later in their lives. A BA or BM in music is like a bachelor’s in any other subject, and entitles the person to apply for many jobs, or many types of graduate school- just like any other bachelor’s.</p>
<p>The idea that undergraduate work is vocational is spreading through all the disciplines, and it is a shame. People should be able to explore and develop in areas that they love, for those four years, and then worry about career. </p>
<p>Anyone practicing 5-6 hours a day on an instrument and doing classes in music 70% of the time, will probably hope to have a career in performance, but it is also true that they would be eligible for positions to support themselves in many other fields, music-related and otherwise- just like an English or history major.</p>
<p>I recently heard a parent speak witheringly about her daughter wanting to major in English. Same kind of attitude that we hear from parents about music. This parent is demanding that the daughter major in nursing or physical therapy, in order to make a living. They think that she can always read on the side.</p>
<p>My own daughter commented to me the other day that she had a conversation with a friend about majoring in something other than music, and realized it would actually be impossible for her, just as other posters have said. It is a joke amongst her friends that those who are interning on Wall Street or in Silicon Valley will support her. So it isn’t just parents who feel this way.</p>
<p>“They think that she can always read on the side”</p>
<p>Clearly they don’t even understand what an English major is, my cousin just got his degree in English and passed the CBEST and is now eligible to teach, which is awesome. There are definitely a lot of things you can do with your major, even going to a conservatory of being a music major you will still learn a broad range of things.</p>
<p>Here is an important article from today’s Globe, regarding the drop in majors in humanities and the arts:</p>
<p>[College</a> leaders work to increase interest in humanities - The Boston Globe](<a href=“http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2010/11/08/college_leaders_work_to_increase_interest_in_humanities/]College”>http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2010/11/08/college_leaders_work_to_increase_interest_in_humanities/)</p>
<p>There are a number of streams interconnecting here, and it is an interesting topic and not just around music. Much of this revolves around concepts of what it means to be successful, is it the material or is it finding a true passion in life? It depends on the values of the people involved, I have seen more then a few talented music students at the high school phase whose parents wouldn’t let them near a music school for performance, who encourage them to play music, enter programs, competitions, etc, as a good thing for their college CV, but who otherwise see music as simply something to be used, that the real goal is to become a doctor or lawyer or an MBA from Harvard and make ‘the big money’ or whatever…</p>
<p>There are also the opposite, parents who see music as some sort of glamorous thing, or some kind of big plum for their family or whatever, and push their kids into music, who though the kids often achieve high levels of playing, generally end up not doing much, because being forced doesn’t work well, either (haven’t quite figured this one out, given the way music and the arts are often viewed…)</p>
<p>Then there are parents who see all to well what music is like, how hard it is, how fickle it is, and in effect think (quite naturally) that for all the effort that can be put into music, if the kid put that into something else they might actually get more rewards more easily (as someone said when someone was complaining about how hard it is to become a doctor, and said “kid, you go through all that and become a doctor, and if you simply get through med school and whatnot, are basically competent, there is going to be a job for you, whereas kids who go through music have fought their way uphill through everything, towards something that might be a great career but also more likely is the path towards at best an uncertain future…”). Parents hate to think of their child struggling, working hard and having their heart broken…not greed really, just wanting their kid to have a relatively easy life…</p>
<p>What we should remember as parents is that the easy life is not necessarily what the kid may want, that to them having something to be passionate about is worth more then the big house or fancy car or whatever…and we have to respect that. On the other hand, I don’t think it is wise to be unrealistic, either, that if the kid has dreams of playing Sibelius with the Berlin Philharmonic or singing the lead in Thais at La Scala or the Met and they aren’t exactly driving towards that goal, we need to let them see how rough it is, too, but ultimately they have to decide that. And like I said in a prior post, we have to realize that college is a lot more then a trade school (or should be), and that in the real world paths come from all different directions. Schools themselves are selling the college experience as that, if not openly, de facto promote the idea that ‘come to our college, and you will be successful’, you hear advertising for colleges that talk about 90% of their graduates having a job within a year of graduation, and so forth, and even the ‘elite’ schools now talk a lot about the benefits to careers of ‘being part of us’…and that is at best deceptive advertising IMO. I think we should be a reality check (hopefully others, like teachers and such are), but we also need to understand the path they choose may not be what we would want for them, and that is okay, too, and that the path in music they end up with might not be what they envisioned, either, and that is okay. The kid who envisioned being the next Joshua Bell could end up playing in a regional orchestra and teaching, or playing in a rock band, ya never know;)</p>