So was Kuan Cheng Lu’s DMA wasted or inflated?
Kuan Cheng Lu according to the is according to the NY Phil’s website joined the NY Phil in 2003 and got his dma long after he was playing with them. More importantly, take a look at his background, he studied at Oberlin and then at MSM with Glenn Dictorow, who was the CM of the NY Phil, and I know how Glenn Dictorow is as a teacher, he taught at Juilliard and MSM and only took very high level students, which means Mr. Lu was already at a very high level when he studied with Dictorow (not to mention that Dictorow also being in the Phil as CM, knew exactly what the orchestra was looking for, and could teach him the things needed).
More importantly, he got into the NY Phil without the DMA, so your question is ridiculous, because the DMA had nothing to do with him getting into the Philharmonic. Obviously, he wanted to get a DMA for some personal reason, which is wonderful, but it didn’t have anything with him getting into the Phil, he was playing at a high level when he got in there.
There are people with DMA degrees who get into high level orchestras and ensembles, I don’t doubt it, but I also suspect those were people who all along were high level performers, one of the things to do with any performer is look at their trail, look at who they studied with, what groups they played with, what programs they did, that gives a lot of the answers. Like I said, I don’t dismiss the DMA degree out of hand, and if someone feels they will get something out of it, that is fine, but I also see a lot of people heading to DMA degrees believing that somehow, having that DMA degree alone is gonna open doors in performance, and it won’t. Someone at a company hiring might assume a PHd means the person is the right candidate, with music performance it isn’t about the degree, it is how well you play, that’s all, and a DMA doesn’t guarantee anything, I know someone getting a DMA from the CUNY graduate center Mr. Lu got his degree from, and they are someone I guarantee wouldn’t get into the NY Phil or any high level organization (on the other hand, they are getting the DMA degree because with some programs, if you want to be an administrator, a DMA degree helps there, it is why it is important to understand what a DMA might or might not do for you). It is no different than coming out of Juilliard or Curtis, there are no guarantees. More importantly if doing performance, depends on who you are studying with and the program, if you get into a DMA program with a teacher and at a school that isn’t high enough a level to improve the playing, then the DMA is wasted, there are a lot of places out there offering a DMA on violin where the program is mediocre, so how would that help? Like undergrad and masters programs, depends on the student and their needs and what they want to do.
You are so determined to pontificate on your view of the DMA degree that you fail to provide meaningful help to OP as far as DMA programs for performance. Your response to my so called ridiculous question is exactly what I thought it would be. I used the example of Lu as opposed to another NY Phil. player on purpose because he was with the orchestra before his DMA. Of course he did not get the gig because of his DMA nor did any DMA in any professional orchestra including one of the viola players in the NY Phil… That’s not the point. But it would never occur to you to suggest to Lu that the DMA is a waste or inflated. I assume you would would not insult him in such a manner. Yet you have done that with the OP by ignoring the question and simply discussing at great length what you want to discuss. There certainly is room for a broader discussion but not at the expense of sacrificing aid to the OP. It is condescending. You may not think so but it is.
Certainly one’s experiences are a great resource to people who ask questions. Although their knowledge is far broader, both SpiritManager and Compmom are phenomenal resources regarding those interested in music composition, double degrees etc. Numerous members have beyond belief experience with VP. These folks do a fantastic job of relating the VP experience both in school and afterwards. But they make sure that they answer the OP question or ask other questions which will help provide a better answer. Nothing is sacrificed to the good of the OP just so that a long rambling diatribe can be placed on the board. I sometime think that you have a minimum length requirement in your mind or given the structure of some of your posts whether you simply cut and paste until the requisite length is reached.
That is not to say that you have not helped a great many people. You have. Far more than I. I have enjoyed your insights as to many subjects. This is just not one of them.
So yell at me in this thread if you want. But I would prefer that as othermusicdad wrote, just get back to the OP question. Your experience should be able to provide some names.
My comments about DMA’s were in response to someone else, who I happened to agree with, about the value of a DMA, Stacjip rightfully said a candidate for a DMA needs to ask themselves why they were doing it, and I agreed with that, and said why I did, that for example, there are misconceptions that somehow an advanced degree will get you performance or teaching jobs, it won’t, and the other misconception is that getting a DMA will take someone whose skills are weak and make them into a superstar, it likely won’t…like I said, it depends on why they want a DMA, if they are doing so because they fell it will drive them forward, that is fine.
In terms of performance, I would argue that it is no different than undergrad, it is about the teacher you will study with and the program. The big conservatories are one place, though they may be difficult with the financing, Yale school of music still can be done with a stipend and so forth (and is a great program), USC has a great strings program and offers a DMA, U of Michigan, Rice offers a DMA that they say is free.These are all high level programs with excellent teachers, and the key to me is that if you seriously are looking at a DMA in performance, you should have the ability to get into a high level program like this, they are all tough admits, but if you want to be a top level teacher/performer, these are the kind of programs I would recommend.
Compdad, Musiprnt is a nice guy (I know him outside of this forum.) He is thoughtful and he has a lot of expertise–I don’t think Spiritmanager (whom I also know) and Compmom would dispute that. He wasn’t being insulting, just thoughtful. I don’t see how he could be construed as “yelling”.
Internet threads have a life of their own. They are a kind of group brainstorming. If you try to police everyone to make them stay on point, the threads and then the forums will die. Besides, the OP already got some suggestions. If her daughter is old enough to be thinking about DMAs then she’s probably doing that research on her own anyway.
I think Musicprnt’s response to my last post was very thoughtful. His posts before that were not yelling and I did not mean to even imply that. I thought his response to my post might be yelling. Much to his credit, it was not.
I’m glad we’re all friends again! 
Glassharmonica - are you ready to take on the US Congress now… 
I agree with compdad that it is best to simply answer the OP’s question.
Disparaging the DMA is wrong and insulting, particularly when the insults imply that DMA students are somehow less talented performers. How in the world could you possibly know? If you don’t believe you did that reread your posts.
How I long for the days when BassDad and Violadad provided encouraging guidance when my daughter and I were newbies!
I think the guidance and encouragement here are at a very high level, especially in comparison to other internet forums. I can tell you, from what know of many of the frequently-posting individuals on this board, there is a huge amount of collective knowledge that is generously shared. Not all advice is one-size-fits-all, and there are bound to be disagreements. In my opinion, the occasional pushback or disagreement is the sign of a healthy, engaged community.
To get into the DMA program for violin at Juilliard, for example, you need to be an astonishingly high-level performer. Most high level performers don’t apply for DMA because it’s an academic degree and they are more interested in performance. Really, it depends on what you are looking for. I thought my own daughter might apply to some AD and/or DMA programs now that she is about to graduate, but she recently cancelled her auditions for these programs because she has other options to pursue for the next year. She might reassess and apply in another year or so, who knows? I have noticed that most of her friends graduating with MM degrees go on to orchestra jobs or freelancing. Those going into DMA programs tend to be looking for more academic-focused careers. That’s likely what the OP’s daughter has in mind. She’s obviously an adult, so whatever opinions other adults share with her mother are likely not to have much sway over her anyway.
“Disparaging the DMA is wrong and insulting, particularly when the insults imply that DMA students are somehow less talented performers. How in the world could you possibly know? If you don’t believe you did that reread your posts.”
My whoe point wasn’t disaparaging the DMA or the level of performance, and I clarified that. GlassHarmonica hit the nail on the head, she said that the people who go for DMA degrees at the top schools tend to be top flite performers looking to bolster their academic knowledge or in studio teaching, so no, I wasn’t disparaging the playing ability of all DMA students, and nowhere did I do that.
What i was talking about was something I have seen, real world, with violin students, and that is where students have done a BM, usually an MM, and then head for a DMA (in their own words), to get more time to perfect their technique, or to get the credentials since a DMA would make it easier to compete and get a job (and they were talking performance)., and often they aren’t good enough to get into the top programs, and end up at one of the plethora of programs out there, that have multiplied in recent years, and end up disappointed, this is not conjecture, I have seen and heard about this over the years, and it seems to be happening more frequently. Someone else commented on the DMA becoming a kind of degree inflation, and I took that thread and talked about that. what they meant.
As far as the OP goes, I also gave the names of some of the top programs I knew about, in general, if a program has a top notch strings department undergrad (Yale SOM being the exception, since they don’t do undergrad), if it is a tough admit for BM or MM, then likely the program will have a decent DMA program on the instrument.
It also would likely be different for an academic DMA, for things like music theory, or music history, or composition, I can’t talk about those with any direct knowledge, but there it could be a very different set of criteria, I was talking DMA on an instrument.
In the end, it comes down to what they want to do with the degree, if they are a top player looking to bolster the academic side, as GlassHarmonica said, it is very different from someone who sees it as a way to stay in school and ‘get better’, or have the misconception that a degree alone would make a difference with a performance job. I never said the DMA was a waste of time, I said the DMA may be a disappointment to those who go for it for the wrong reasons shrug.
I just want to clarify that I don’t think of the term “degree inflation” as having any negative connotation about the degree itself. To me, degree inflation refers to a characteristic of the marketplace. In other words, my uncle was chair of a college English department with a BA, several decades ago, then a master’s was required and now of course a PhD would be needed. I think he would have thrived doing a PhD and if he had been able to do that, the degree itself would certainly have been substantive and not “inflated.” He ended up writing a well-known book, play and poetry, some of which might have been done more easily with the funding and protective umbrella of a doctoral program. However, in those days, the marketplace did not demand such a degree. So to me, the term degree inflation simply means that a master’s now equals what a bachelor’s once was, and so on- in the marketplace.
@compmom-
Agreed with the term degree inflation, and it isn’t a negative, it reflects competition and the general state of things out there. I wouldn’t be surprised that with music teaching (talking performance, not academic, which already generally requires a DMA) that a DMA will become desirable, a generation ago many teachers had only a BM, these days a fair share of newer teachers have an MM, in the future (I am talking at the college/conservatory) it may be a DMA.
A generation ago, a lot of music students would get a BM then go out into careers, these days, in large part because of the competition, most get an MM, lot go for AD’s and such, too, because the level of playing is that high. When I hear stories on here, about how they knew someone who majored in art history then got into an orchestra, or the person who took up the instrument at 16 and ended up at a top music school then a career, it always was from people a while ago, the level has gone up so far. It is the reality of music, where opportunities are very different than they once were, competition is often a lot stiffer, so that is not a surprise that the credentials go up.
I had no idea that the world of music education was so contentious!
I am a current DMA violin student at Boston University. I’ve auditioned for six schools for DMA. (UT Austin, CCM, UIUC, Maryland, ASU, BU) . I ended up at BU because of the teacher that I wanted to study with and wanted to live in a city. Every DMA program is different, some easier than others which are more performance based. Please send me a PM if you have any questions!
Do people ever “settle” for a safety school at the DMA level?
For example, if one applies to Julliard and doesn’t get accepted…
what’s the consensus on “settling” for a safety school that approves
admission to their DMA program.(for example, Boston, Indiana, CCM)
Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that the SSD has narrowed the list down
to those 4 schools at this time. ** Julliard, Boston, Indiana, Cincinnati(CCM) **
Mostly because she has studied with teachers at each of those school
in the past 6 years.
Of course, with more than a year to go, that list will sure get bigger or smaller.