I was wondering if I should focus on Music Education or Vocal Performance or try for a double major for both. I was also wondering the average salary of careers I can get with one or both of these majors. I honestly want to do Vocal Performance but my parents are worried about stability and job opportunities and told me to try for a government job. Thats why I feel like doing Music Education so I can have a stable future but if Vocal Performance is just as stable, I would rather just major in Vocal Performance. I’m also wondering if a major in Vocal Performance and minor in teaching would work.
I think it could be possible to double major in those two, depending on the school. Here’s the thing though: it’s hard to get a music teaching job to begin with, and it will be harder since you aren’t passionate about it. In addition, at least in my home state, you need a certification to teach in schools so you may not be able to minor in teaching because it’s not enough coursework to get the liscense (because you need student teaching, etc). Perhaps you should visit a few schools and talk with people from their music department about opportunities after graduation for graduates from their department. You could always be a private voice teacher with a Vocal Performance degree. And depending on the school, you can double major in something else that you are interested in.
Thanks for your response @rm5678 ! I heard that double majoring in music in itself is very difficult so I wanted to see if there were two majors that would work together like Music and Teaching compared to Music and Chemistry. I’ll take your advice, and try to talk to people who studied music educationa and see the chances. I am interested in teaching, except I’d much rather just do Vocal Performance thought because of my parent, it’s unlikely I can just major in Vocal Performance.
Well, the thing about arts majors is that you can do anything with them. If you are asking about the number of careers and salary outlook for a vocal performance major who is trying to stay in that field - well, I think you know that jobs as a vocalist are pretty scarce. Very few find a measure of big-time success, and most good vocalists probably do freelance or part-time work (maybe recording songs for commercials, or working as a session singer to sing backup for recording artists or scores for movies and TV shows).
But just because you major in vocal performance doesn’t mean you have to pursue a career as a vocalist; you could try to pursue a career in something else, as long as you foster skills that parlay into attractiveness on the career market.
If you love music and are interested in teaching, I would encourage the music education major - maybe with a minor in vocal performance. Music education jobs are also harder to come by, but there are probably more of them than there are jobs for vocal performers.
Also, “try for a government” job is super ambiguous advice. The government hires all kinds of people with all kinds of skills at all kinds of levels. Some of those jobs are more stable than others, and some pay well and some pay really poorly.
@juillet If I major in art, will I still be able to pursue music after college? I want to possibly dual major in vocal performance and teaching so I can teach while finding gigs on the side. I agree about the government job, but my parents are very stubborn and I personally do enjoy teaching and wouldn’t mind doing it as a career. Even teaching is not very desirable to my parents but its better than just music to them :(. If anyone could tell me an example of a decent paying job for a vocal perfomance major, that’d be great :).
@momzhood I have, I might just make another post there though. The reason why I’m asking in the college majors section is because I want to make sure it is doable to double major. ^^
I was an instrumental music ed major years ago. Double majoring ed and performance is usually possible. However, music ed is focused on people who want to teach in public schools. Not that all people wind up doing that - I taught for a while and now am doing something else - but you will have classes that take you into schools, eventually leading up to student teaching. Teaching really needs to be a passion of yours otherwise you won’t be happy.
Even if you do performance only you will graduate with a bachelor degree. You can get jobs that require a bachelor degree. Maybe not specialized things like engineering, but there are a lot of non-music jobs out there.
Full disclosure here - my son is currently a music performance (trumpet) major. He is minoring in math, not as a backup but because he needs extra stimulation. You could do similar - find something else to minor in. You will have time in your schedule for this. Conversely, you could major in something else and minor in vocal performance (but fewer colleges offer a minor in performance).
@raellis123 Thank you for your response! Do you think its still possible to privately teach with a music education major since you say it’s focused on teaching in public schools. I think I’ll need to explore teaching a bit more to see if it is my passion but I am looking to aim for a Masters or a PhD. Plus I would love a job related to music rather than not,
@cloewater Assuming by private teaching you are thinking of lessons then yes, you could certainly do that with a music ed degree. Adding the performance degree would make that even better. The key difference in degrees for that is that music ed doesn’t really teach the pedagogy for the instrument/voice in the same way the performance degree does (more depth with performance). But you would get a lot of that anyway in your own lessons & master classes. If you are thinking master or doctorate in music then that obviously helps too.
Sure, there are lots of people in lots of fields who don’t do something closely related to their college major. That’s pretty common in the performing arts. Being a musician is mostly predicated upon talent; a degree can help you develop your talent but there are other ways to do that, too.
