<p>So often on this site we see students who are only looking for popular music programs, or only looking for jazz, or only looking for classical. But it seems to me all three areas are now cross-pollinating and one doesn't have to give up popular & jazz just because one chooses to follow the more traditional classical path.</p>
<p>Check out this latest article on the new classical scene: Articles:</a> Making Overtures: The Emergence of Indie Classical | Features | Pitchfork</p>
<p>The Rachels are an excellent example of this new indie chamber music. The pianist and composer of the group received her BM in composition from Louisville. We need to start thinking in terms of modern classical and stop believing as one poster apparently does that Popular is the only modern music.</p>
<p>Just because something is traditional does not mean its the right path either.</p>
<p>Graphic Artists study Graphical Arts in college, they do not study only drawing and painting and then figure out graphical design after they graduate on their own.</p>
<p>Computer Programers study modern programming techniques. They are not taught only binary for 4 years and then thrown out into the field to figure it out on their own.</p>
<p>If we taught doctors to only study historical medicine then we would be sent to the barber to be bled for the 1st few years of a physicians practice until he figured out modern medicine on his own.</p>
<p>We don’t tell painter’s to only paint the classics for 4 years in art school, instead we have them study the classics for a few semesters and encourage them to find their own voice. </p>
<p>So why is music different? One word: Tradition. And unfortunately we can’t get past that point. There IS modern classical music and it is interesting but there are very few people who make a living in that field and most of those who do earn a living off of grants and non-profit organizations whose budgets are limited to those who care enough to give. There are thousands of communities in this country that have live music venues (restaurants, bars, clubs, resorts), a need for private lessons for recreational musicians, events that need audio engineers, and summer festivals that need entertainers. Who is training students for those specific jobs and the hybrid business structure that will combine all of those talents so one person can make a living serving the community’s needs? No one. Instead music schools throw them some Bach and Mozart and say good luck on graduation day. There are some programs coming around to the reality that it is 2012, but too many are still stuck in the past with no intentions to move forward.</p>
<p>Thank you guys for this thread.</p>
<p>The fact that most colleges really only teach classical and jazz has aways confused me. I would think that in 4 years colleges could find time to teach a wider variety of music and instruments. Afterall, there are really very few jobs for classical musicians and probably even less for jazz musicians.</p>
<p>There’s how many “major” symponys that pay a living wage in the USA - like 5 or 6, employing maybe 400 classical musicians? Compare that to thousands of popular music musicians who make a living wage from performance (which still isn’t many). Seems to me that every classical musician should also learn to play at least one “popular” instrument.</p>
<p>Ah, but who is to determine what is a “popular” instrument? If you are comparing those used in symphony orchestra to what is used in pop music, then the world will be flooded by guitar and bass players and drummers and then there will be folks complaining about that too.
And imagep, your numbers just for those “5 or 6” ochestras- there are 100+ members in each major orchestra and a great many members of those and of smaller orchestras too, teach, either in a conservatory setting or privately (or both). I would never presume to say that there are “Thousands” of musicians making a living playing popular music, because those numbers are impossible to pin down for certain and the concept of what is a living wage can vary widely from place to place. Cost of living is a lot more in San Francisco, LA, Boston and NYC than it is in Austin, Cleveland or Minneapolis.
To each their own on this one…</p>
<p>I am not going to get into an argument over modern music. But there is so much opinion out there that is based on what somebody may have heard or speculated. For those who engage in such speculation, support it by naming some modern composers. If you can’t (they do exist) then it is rank speculation, and not based on any depth of knowledge.</p>
<p>Ok Mez, I stand corrected, then there are maybe 700 profesional orchistra musicians who can make a living working just one performance job within the US. You got me.</p>
<p>My point is that when I look at their pictures, their average age seems to be about 55. Thus it may be reasonable to assume that they hold their jobs for a long long time. So maybe one of these orchistra jobs opens up once every 20 years. That works out to about 35 employment opportuities a year - for something like 300,000 music majors who graduated during the past 40 years. Or one job per 90,000 potential candidates. Well, at least the odds are better than the lottery.</p>
<p>Now you don’t think that more than 30 living wage jobs in pop music become available each year? Heck, there’s nearly that many professional pop performers who die of drug abuse each year - there’s a few job openings for ya.</p>
<p>And pop instruments are decided by the general public. Guitar, bass guitar, drumkit, keyboard. Thats pretty much it. Now there is nothing cooler than a non-pop instrument in a pop band, but it’s just not that many times you see a obo in a country band, or a rock star playing the bagpipes.</p>
<p>So what’s a living wage? I dunno, maybe something around $50,000 a year. Maybe $35k. Regardless, the $3000 that most municiple orchistra’s pay is certainly not a living wage. You could have ten of those positions and still not have a living wage.</p>
<p>Colleges that solely teach classical music are kind of like colleges that teach their math students to only use the slide rule or abacas. There’s just not a lot of demand for abacas operators these days.</p>
<p>Compdad, I believe that the modern day version of the composer is the songwriter. I can name a dozen songwriters off the top of my head, many of them are more famous for also being pop musicians. </p>
<p>Colleges would be doing their students a huge favor if they taught modern song writting along with classical composition - if they expect any of their students to get a job outside of academia that is.</p>
<p>Other than possibly a career as a movie soundtrack composer, I am not sure that there are very many classical composers these days who make a living composing, even though I am sure that there are many a college professor who thinks of himself as a composer. The only composer that I personally know has done movie soundtracks, arrangements and origional compositions for marching and concert bands, music for the olympics, etc., but the majority of his income still comes from his job as a studio teacher at a local college. He is a teacher who happens to do a lot of composition on the side, not a composer who happens to teach college.</p>
<p>I have a feeling that 99% of classical and jazz pieces composed within the walls of academia are premiered by a high school or college group, with great fanfare in front of all of the parents and other music students, and then shelved for eternity. I bet that the #500 pop music hit this year will sell more copies (recordings and sheetmusic) than all of this years classical compositions put together.</p>
<p>99% of the general public thinks that classical is boring and wouldn’t pay a dime to listen to it. As the father of a classical musician, it’s ashamed, it hurts, but it’s reality.</p>
<p>Sorry Imagep, we will have to agree to disagree on that. My example of the Rachels actually did quite well on the charts and among the teen crowd and these are real pieces with no words. Jake Hegge’s opera “Moby Dick” is selling out Opera Houses in Dallas and San Francisco. I think far more is going on in the modern conservatories than you might think. Oberlin and NEC and Bard are not the stuffy places of old.</p>
<p>imagep - it’s amazing how many new classical composers can actually make a living without teaching - I think things are changing - or maybe I just know the right people! Some composers I know even rue that they’re too busy to have time for a teaching job. Even my son is starting to make real money - and it’s just the beginning. I actually think you have it flipped - I think singer/songwriters would be well served to study classical music to inform their music with richer and greater depth and sophistication.</p>
<p>My thought, only much better stated by SpiritManager.</p>
<p>Compdad, you don’t have to be sorry to disagree, thats what it is all about.</p>
<p>I hope you are right, for the sake of both of our children. It would be great of the classical music industry expanded.</p>
<p>I guess I just don’t live in that world. I don’t know anything about Oberlin and NEC or Bard. I bet far more people have heard of the “Grand Ole Opry” though.</p>
<p>I have never heard of Jake Hegge’s opera “Moby Dick”, I thought that was a book by Herman Melville. I doubt that anyone I know will be traveling to Dallas or San Fransico to see it. I would also suggest that about 307.9 million more people will hear that newest song playing on the pop radio station than ill ever even know that someone named Jake Hegg made a Moby Dick opera.</p>
<p>Spirit, even though thats news to me, it’s good news! I’m not trying to pry, but what types of people/organizations are paying for new classical compositions?</p>
<p>And yes, songwritters would probably benefit from some serious classical music training. I’m not knocking classical music, I am just saying that I suspect that our music educational system hasn’t for the most part kept up with the times, and that many if not most music majors are missing out on some of the training in modern music that would be more beneficial to them. </p>
<p>Ford Motor stopped training it’s technician to fix the Model T 50 years ago.</p>
<p>Even within the broader pop music spectrum, more people have heard of Justin Timberlake than have heard of the Decemberists, but the Decemberists get airtime and get nominated for grammies just as does Mumford and Sons and Alison Krauss. The point is that Jake Hegge or Mark O’'Connor, or the Decemberist or the Rachaels or Mumford and Sons and many many more make a living at something other than the “pop song.” And when Moby Dick hits New York it will sell out there as well as do the works of Steven Stuckey.</p>
<p>Imagep: You are still thinking of classical music in terms of Bach, Mozart and LVB. Perhaps if we stop using the term “classical.” It is contemporary music composed by folks that have intense training and you hear it all the time.</p>
<p>To me pop music is whatever is playing on major radio stations, and NPR doesn’t exactly have stellar ratings and likely couldn’t exist without subsidation from the taxpayer.</p>
<p>I have never heard of the Decemberists, Mumford and Sons, Alison Krauss, Jake Hegge, Mark O’Connor, or the Rachaels. But I can name hundreds of artists and groups off the top of my head that I do recognize. I will have to youtube your examples. So are these groups making a lot of money?</p>
<p>I am not the music expert that most of you are, but I would bet I am probably in the top 50%, maybe even the top 10%, in music knowledge. I think that some of you guy’s are so far into the music scene that your reality is different than mine. </p>
<p>I’m glad that there are apparently more paying opportunites in classical music, or indi classical that I thought. That doesn’t alter my opinion that colleges should offer more training in pop music, or that pop is where the vast majority of income opportunities exist.</p>
<p>Yes, they make lots of money, and you have heard most of them, just didn’t know at the time. While they are from different genres, they are all part of the club that I will call contempoary music. BTW Rachels is the proper spelling if you are you-tubing.</p>
<p>imagep - I would be surprised if the vast majority of our classical sons and daughters haven’t also had the pleasure of performing during their teen years in musical endeavors not usually called 'classical." Not many musical teenage boys have made it through high school without picking up a guitar or a drum stick, or singing pop or rock songs.</p>
<p>As for what pays for classical composers, to begin with: professional commissions & royalties.</p>
<p>Sure, thats why I can’t tell anyone my son’s name, I wouldn’t want you to youtube some of the stuff he has done and posted.</p>
<p>Anyhow, what type of people/organizations pays the professional commissions? Like do the majority of “customers” from academia, or are their random individuals who just happen to want a song written?</p>
<p>My son is commissioned by professional orchestras and ensembles. Where they get the money from - the same as all arts organizations - a combination of audience, grants, and donations. And, yes, he has had paid commissions from individuals for specific performances. And he’s won monetary awards. As for royalties - those are paid to BMI and ASCAP from the performing ensembles. Even Youth Orchestras pay an annual fee to BMI and ASCAP.</p>