I have been thinking of pursuing a music performance degree, but I am now skeptical about how I can get a job with it. The reason why I am considering it is because I want to become a performer (singer/musician). But besides that, what other occupations are you qualified for with this degree? Since I have been skeptical about this degree, I am falling back on music education instead, since I can get a job afterwards as a HS teacher or even a college professor. But in my heart, I know that teaching music is not my calling, instead it’s truly performing! That’s why I’m so torn with what TYPE of music major should I study that will be worth the TIME and MONEY? If you are a music performance major, what are the benefits of completing this degree? If you are a music major of some sort, what are some that you know that are really reliable to get a career with one day? As a singer/musician, I personally don’t think this degree is needed to get a well-paying job in the music industry/field (look at the education of the most well known musicians nowadays… Beyonce, Rihanna… NO college background! Well, besides GAGA (NYU)) but then again, maybe a music degree in performance can be helpful for you personally to mold your craft. I’m just really curious on what this major has to offer! Also, I’m no way into classical music, so if you know any music schools/conservatories in CA or NY that are well known for contemporary music + a good reputation, please let me know!
Great topic. Just a small piece of thought - when relatives ask if my son will be able to get a job, I say I hope he will get several.
If you don’t want to teach, then don’t do music ed. But just to let you know, you don’t have to have a music ed degree to teach at college.
My daughter is a music ed major and sees a few fellow students who are doing music ed but don’t really want to but feel that they have to. It is very frustrating for her because she really wants to teach.
A friend of hers started out as a vocal performance major then switched to something like speech pathology. The person still occasionally sang in the student ensembles.
Some music schools have other majors like compositions, technology. Some schools can link music and business together.
What are you doing now as a performer? Are you in your school band or choir? In an outside-of-school band? Got any awards or recognitions for your talent? Have you looked at any schools to see what they require for auditions (which might include a classical piece)? Your music talent might get you into the music program but you still have to have the academics to get into the university.
I don’t know where you live but one thing you definitely should do is seek out working musicians and talk to them about their life. There are plenty of working musicians who are not famous like “Lady Gaga” or “Beyonce”. Find them and then talk to them. How many hours do they spend performing? practicing? Do they have another job? Do they teach privately? Do the write music? Do they do studio work? How did they decide where to live?
If you live in an area where you can not find working musicians then maybe think about going to a program like Berklee’s 5 week, which will expose you to the world of performance and work with teachers who are working musicians.
Deciding to pursue music education just because it means you might end up with a job at the end is silly if that is not what you want to do. More importantly you need to sort out what it means to have a performance degree and what type of job that leads to. If your hope is to become the next Beyonce or Lady Gaga well then you are likely going to be disappointed. But if you love singing and performing and are willing to work hard then there are definitely career paths that will work for you.
My son did a gig with a woman singer who runs a musician booking service in addition to performing around the area.
@MerryLee As a performer, I am in my high school choir ensemble for 1 and a half years now, but I’m planning to stay in it for the rest of my senior year. I used to be in the school band as a saxophone player (also throughout middle school) but I wanted to focus on singing instead. Outside of school, I make YouTube videos of me singing/playing guitar and piano. I would say that I play pop/alternative music. I am nowhere near classical, but I do like playing old music (60’s). I don’t enter competitions though, I usually sing/play at my HS talent shows and occasionally at open mics since I cannot drive yet. I live in the LA area. I have seen schools that require auditions (maybe with a classical piece) and that’s what I am kind of worrying about because that is not my type of music. That’s why I have USC Thornton in mind because it seems like it focuses more on contemporary music vs classical. I know I’m nowhere near Julliard material, haha! But I do see myself playing with people who are interested in the same style of music as me. What I don’t like about myself as a performer is that I have not written my own music. I find it really hard trying to write songs, which is a problem if I want to become a performer one day. On my YouTube channel I do strictly covers: https://m.youtube.com/user/MeganZaportezaa
Also at my talent shows: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=9kS7iSX_IGU
I don’t know if I can make it as a performer, but it has always been what I wanted to be when I grow up so I never thought about studying anything else in college besides music.
@StacJip I live in the LA area and I am thinking of moving to NY too. I really do want to find people who have the same career path or similar goal as me, to be a performer, but I really do not know connections or people that want to do what I want to do. I am aware that there are many talented and hardworking musicians besides Gaga and Beyoncé, but I only stated them because I truly appreciate their music and talent. I am not planning to be the next Gaga or Beyoncé whatsoever because I am my own person with different abilities. I have thought about going to Berklee but I personally do not want to live in that location. And you’re definitely right about the music education path that I’m thinking about. I’m just truly worried how I will get a job one day with music, and you’re right that working extremely hard is the only way, not just with music but with any other career. I am not looking to become the next Beyoncé or Gaga, I truly just want to make my own music and perform while it’s a reliable career. I know that I don’t have money for college, so it’s hard for me NOT to pick a major that doesn’t lead to “one of the highest paying jobs.” I know I’m not the only HS student that picks between doing something they love but not get so much money VS doing something they don’t really love but get a lot of money. It’s a really tough decision for some reason.
First keep in mind that the voice continues to mature well into your 20s. So I would not make any assumptions about where you are now versus where you will be after four years of intensive and professional training. Also many students enter college never having composed their own compositions or not feeling confident about their ability to do all the things professional musicians do. That is normal. That is why you go to conservatory. You go to learn those skills.
You may not know anybody but that does not mean you can not contact some singers in the LA area and ask to interview or talk with them. You can also contact professors at USC. Reach out. Also talk to your mentors at your school. Ask them if they can put you in touch with anyone. You might be surprised who they know or what they can come up with for you. In my experience people are often very willing to give a motivated young person a few minutes of their time. Prepare some a handful of questions so you are organized and can get the most out of talking to them.
Another thought is to volunteer or try to get yourself a job at a recording studio. The goal is not to “be discovered” but rather to learn about the industry, the people in the industry, how things work and what the various jobs and opportunities are. Even something as strange as babysitting for somebody who owns a recording studio can get you exposed to this world that you want to be part of.
Why don’t you want to live in Boston? Have you visited? I am the last one to ask about advice or to comment on your videos as I am not musical. But you feel comfortable putting yourself out there, which is great. One thing that is nice about Berklee is that they have a lot of scholarship money so it can’t hurt to apply for the 5 week and see if they give you anything to make it affordable. If you attend the 5 week then you will be given an opportunity to apply for scholarships for college.
Finally did you know that Berklee offers some online free courses. You might want to check them out.
What is a “highest paying job”? Certainly not being a k-12 music teacher. If money is driving you than pull out the math text book and start studying. Or think about going into banking or working for Google.
From what I can see my advice to you is to just go for it and follow your passion. Forget obstacles and instead put your energy into sorting out how to move forward. You might decide at some point this path is not for your or you might just keep going and little by little advance and before you know it you will have a career in music. It happens.
Good Luck
@mzaporteza - I saw the videos you pointed to. It is nice to have reference material like that. I can’t offer advice, but I can tell you what we have done for the case of my son. He is a rising senior (when I first saw the phrase “rising senior” I thought it was people bragging that their student was outpacing other peers, but have learned it means they are becoming a senior, heading into their senior year) in HS. Here are what I think our 3 main goals of going to college for music are: 1) mold the craft, 2) make connections and figure out what market to go to, and 3) in case it all doesn’t pan out, have a Bachelors degree in something, with which certain jobs are easier to qualify and from which a Masters can be attempted. It would be possible to skip college, mold the craft with private instruction and make connections with the immense free time (assuming you are in the city where you want connections). My wife and I are biased and think that going through college at that age is a pretty good use of time, unless some other magnificent opportunity lifts you away. Really, goal 3 is kind of “plan B” in itself, rather than selecting a non-musical major as the plan B.
We see musicians who hold full day jobs but play out at open mic nights and other jams in the evening or weekend. That would be a great way to perform while holding on to something else - hopefully something you like. On the other hand, if you want to tour or spend a lot of effort promoting your act, a day job could limit your progress. It seems like the common full-time musician we run into (because we are taking lessons from them) is married to another money-maker, plays out professionally, and teaches private lessons. We have met people who only make money from performing. Not many have “lots of money”, but they seem to have enough to live, and of course they like their work.
Do you have a private voice or guitar teacher? Ideally someone who has students who have gone to college to study performance. That person could be helpful in your preparing your applications and audition material.
@mzaporteza You are asking a lot of good questions. I was a music major (many years ago), but in instrumental music ed. My son is entering college this year as a music performance major. Both of us play trumpet, but there are enough similarities that still apply.
Why a performance degree?
– To obtain a college education! If you go to college you need to want this as not everything will be music. Having a bachelor degree will open doors for things outside of music as well as within music.
– To get extended training in your craft. This certainly includes private lessons, but also large and small ensemble experience, as well as to hear others perform. In any sort of performance degree (music, theatre, etc.) you can learn from both performing and viewing/listening to performances.
– To gain contacts. This is one way to build them - your private teacher and other professors can help you reach people. Also there are often visiting musicians on campus. Lots of opportunities for contacts if you are willing to put in the effort.Plus don’t discount your fellow students as contacts, you never know who can lead you to a job.
– To grow up in a “safer” place and give yourself a chance to mature before you hit the big, wide world.
Do you need a performance degree to perform/be successful?
Of course not! You gave examples of successful people with degrees. It just depends upon what path you want to take with your life.
What music jobs can I get with a performance degree?
– The most obvious - performance jobs! Obviously the classical side has its set of jobs, but on the commercial/pop side there are still large and small groups that perform, you can sing on commercial jingles, in theatre, and others.
– You can teach private lessons on your instrument/voice. This is very common. In fact, teaching someone forces you to learn more about your craft and helps you become a better performer. Just get good training before you try to teach others, especially for voice.
– Jobs teaching music in colleges/universities, but you will need at least a master degree and a doctorate is better.
– Music related jobs, like others have mentioned. Whether working for agents, theatres/concert halls, music stores, and others, pretty much anywhere you find music.
What non-music jobs can I get with a performance degree?
– Jobs that require a college degree but don’t require specific skills like nursing or other medicine techs, engineering, etc. There are a lot of these around in business. Having a degree means a lot (although for this a university degree is better than a conservatory degree since you will have more academic classes).
– This also positions you to get graduate degrees, whether in music or other fields like an MBA, lawyer, doctor, etc. Some might require some additional pre-reqs, but having a degree makes these possible.
Where can I study contemporary music?
– Two places I can think of are Belmont University and Shenandoah U. There are others. In addition to “contemporary”, look for vocal performance in Commercial/Pop music. You will find places, just need to search (Google, etc.).
What about the Music Ed degree?
– First, you need to love teaching, love kids, and love your subject. Probably in that order, but you could switch the first two and still be correct. It is not a back-up career, it really needs to be a passion.
– The music ed degree isn’t needed to teach in college, although ensemble directors often have a music ed bachelor. But other professors typically don’t (well, except for those who teach music ed!).
– Beware that the music ed degree often requires the most, or close to the most, units to graduate of any degree on campus. It really rivals degrees like engineering in terms of number of courses and time commitment. Of course the two are different and require different type of study, but both are very time consuming. Instrumental music ed is even more time consuming that vocal music ed, not that vocal ed is light.
I’ve written a book and probably forgotten some of what you asked. But even though I’m no longer teaching (because sometimes life takes a different path than you expect!), I’m still very interested in this stuff. Even more so now that my son is starting down this path as well. Please ask if you have other questions.
This is a question that is asked and debated about all the time. If you were into classical music/voice, the answer to your question would be that without a degree, more than likely a grad level degree these days, you would have little to no chance in that area. Usually it is a performance degree, though people who are already talented performers can study privately, get a college degree in something else, and end up in the field,but they are the outliers, not the mainstream.
Pop and other non classical forms of music are very different, as you can see in the Pop world for example you don’t need a degree in music to do it, same with Jazz. That said, people are pursuing performance degrees in Jazz and contemporary popular music and so forth, I don’t know of anyone off the top of my head who has become a major star who went this route (gaga dropped out of NYU before hitting it), but I am sure there are successful musicians who have gotten degrees in contemporary music and have gone on to careers. Keep in mind for every star, there are the studio musicians and the side people and so forth, and I wouldn’t be surprised if more than a few of them have degrees.
So why get a degree? First of all, it is a college degree, that as others have pointed out can help get a job that requires a college degree (like a liberal arts degree) rather than specific skills. As have been noted on here before, studying music, especially music performance, is a discipline that gives someone a lot of skills, the music theory and aural training and music history and analysis and other facets of it give unique skills, and employers know this, take it from me as an employer/hiring manager. Also, with an undergraduate music degree you can use that if you decide to go to grad school for something else, more than a few music majors have gone on to things like law and medical school (with med school, requires taking the science and other pre med courses they likely wouldn’t have), or in other things. Not to mention if you happen to share the view that going to college helps open up people to different things, that has some value, too:). Having a music degree also will help as another poster said, if you decide you want to teach, as many musicians do. College usually requires advanced degrees, but if you wanted to hang out your shingle to teach, or work at a music program, community music school, having that degree might help get that job, too.
There is also the networking aspect of it. Friend of mine I worked in IT with is a musician and producer and the like, he went to Berklee, and through there he got a lot of industry contacts and networked with fellow musicians, and it helped him down the road. he was only a ‘part time’ musician, but don’t underestimate what school can do for contacts and getting to know who is who, and getting gigs and the like.Sure, any working musician is going to have to do that, networking is important in almost all forms of music, but being at a hub like a school helps cultivate those links., at a school of contemporary music you likely will get to know alumni, who are working all over, and those links do work in the real world. There are a lot of benefits others have laid out that I won’t repeat. The other thing about a music degree others have pointed out, it may lead to jobs in music but not directly as a performer, there are other roles, too.
In terms of making it as a performer, there is no easy path or easier path or guarantees, so going to a music program and getting a degree doesnt’ guarantee anything other than training, and a college degree of course. In the end, the path to ‘making it’, however you define it, has no guarantees, it will come down to talent, hard work, networking, having something people want to experience, and a huge dollop of luck. I personally think getting a performance degree in any music field makes the path to ‘making it’ easier and also might make the alternatives easier, too (like getting a non music job), and also I think is a unique experience very different from simply ‘putting yourself out there’. I would look at it as getting a degree gives you a different kind of perspective, different kind of training, that in the end may make it easier to do things than doing it on your own…
As far as music ed goes, do yourself a favor and don’t go that route unless you seriously like to teach. I know it sounds harsh, but there are already a lot of ‘music educators’ out there who are basically frustrated performers ‘settling’ on being a teacher, and as teachers many of them are the stereotype of the timeserver teacher, not someone passionate about teaching the kids about music. Not to mention that music teaching jobs are not exactly all that easy a thing any more, a lot of school have cut music programs and what music teachers they often have are gypsies, teaching part time at a number of schools (my son just sent me a link, where Massachusetts was cutting arts, science and humanities spending by 50% (I guess that is aid to local districts I would assume).
I think it is understandable that you are trying to plan your future with some financial certainty, but honestly, this kind of premature planning can sometimes interfere with opportunity. It closes you off the things that present themselves. I would advise you to let life zig and zag a little.
Music major have access to the same jobs, grad school and professional schools as any other holder of a bachelor’s degree. That said, many talented musicians go to college for majors completely unrelated to music, but manage to continue as musicians.
You can certainly apply to BM programs in contemporary music (USC Thornton, Belmont, Miami Frost- I think- Berklee, maybe Columbia College Chicago, a school like Bennington as an outlier, many others if you research).
You can also do a BA in music or a BA/BS in any other subject. How are your academics and do you have any other interests?
Any degree in music will have theory and aural skills, composition, ethnomusicology as well as the kinds of course you might want. Have you done any theory? You are a natural, it would seem from your video, but academic music will require more formal study in most places.
You can also try to gig and make it with or without college for awhile. (One of mine is a dancer and did this, taking one class at a time while performing).
I think you should get yourself a teacher first and foremost, and try your hand (or, rather, voice) outside high school. Summer at Berklee, sing in the community, whatever. Not just online.
It is fine to pursue what you love in college and volunteer, intern, work along the way to help with job prospects. It is also fine to study something else and pursue your singing outside of school or as an extracurricular.
(I agree that music ed is not worth doing if you don’t really want to teach. Maybe volunteer with kids to see if you like that. Teaching at colleges requires grad study, usually PhD, not music ed. And private teaching doesn’t require a music ed degree. You can also do music ed in a grad program. You do appear to have the kind of versatility and natural feel for music that helps with that profession, however.)
One note on music teaching in colleges, with performance degrees the whole Phd thing is not the requirement it is in academic teaching (especially if you want to be a tenured professor in the academic world). There are a lot of teachers in instrumental music who have a BM performance degree at colleges and conservatories. The reason being that instrumental music teachers at the college level are usually performers who are chosen because they were performers. That said, it also reflects the reality of the music field as it existed not all that long ago, when many musicians got only a BM degree. These days, degree inflation is happening as music students hang out longer to polish their skills, MM’s are almost de rigeur for performers, as well as advanced artists diplomas, and DMA degrees are becoming a lot more common, so in the future it is likely that advanced degrees may become common, whether a formal requirement or simply the common level of training musicians attempt going down the road.
Good point musicprnt. Many of the performers I know are in grad programs including doctoral, but many performers do have BM’s. This degree inflation is happening across the arts and as more people go to college, grad degrees will serve to distinguish from the great unwashed, meaning BA holders. Music IS a little different though!
In music kids with BMs are routinely going for MM’s, and then some stay around for artists diplomans and some go for the DMA’s, in effect with music performance the MM is starting to become the de facto entry level into being a musician from what I can tell. Some of it is because of the competition out there and the level of playing, a lot of kids feel they need that extra work ot have a chance, plus of course it also is several years of being in school and not being out there, too.
When I got my music degree (in 1980s) I don’t recall performance teachers having only bachelor degrees. Many did not have PhD/DMA degrees (including my trumpet teacher, who only had BM/MM) and I agree that degree isn’t necessary. But as a music ed major I had many of the instrument professors teaching instrument classes and their training was typically discussed at some point. Plus we saw many of them in recitals from required attendence (and interest). Someone having only a bachelor would have been an odd exception and would have stuck out. There is one possible exception I can think of but he died a while ago and I can’t find that info on him. But otherwise advanced degrees were the norm.
But I also agree that advanced degrees are more common now. My S is starting as a trumpet major and we assume he will move on to a master degree at some point if he decides to continue the performance route. It seems to be the path now.
Yeah, these days it is getting more and more common to get advanced degrees. I think back in the day it also depended on the teacher, too, most performers who made it as performers until a generation or so ago didn’t bother with Master’s degrees, in part because they didn’t need to, and schools tend to hire established performers as teachers. These days, with the competition out there and the level of playing required to perform at any decent level, advanced degrees are getting to be the norm, I agree. As a result, teaching at the college level these days will likely be for advanced degree holders by default, unless someone was lucky and became a start performer with a BM, likely it will be a MM or above.
Music is a hobby.
I’m making popcorn if anyone wants to join me. 
I figured there are many truths.