TubeNet

question is, why weren't we informed of this at a much earlier time?

Just a small, wandering thought.

Peace.
Roger

Well, ask the same thing to an MBA graduate or any other field (except, possibly, medicine). There are no certain jobs for college graduates. IMHO, "go to college and get a job" is highly over sold and has only a vestige of truth. Why should it be different for tuba players?

If you go to a trade school, you might have a gripe. But those schools are usually more sensitive to the job market and change to accommodate the economic force.

If you want to work as a tuba player, make the job! Start a group! but be sure you have a "straight" job to support the tuba monkey on your back.


It is simply not realistic to assume a college degree will get you a job. I was talking this over with Dr. Jenkins, my garbage man, the other day.

I would never advise anyone to become a professional musician unless they have to.

Have to?

If you know you must for your own happiness. That's the only real reason to do so. The odds of "making it" are infinitesimal. Being privileged to make a substantial portion of my income as a musician, I still say that - since it ain't much income.

What is it... 50 full time, full paying gigs for tubists in the US, not including military? Another, what, 150 of those? The lotterey's a better bet.

To make it into college, let alone through college, without SOMEONE telling you this is a criminal act. Being supportive doesn't absolve a teacher from being honest.

J.c.

It doesn't stop at tuba. How many concert pianist jobs will open in the next 5 years? How many composition jobs? And how many musicologists won't be teaching!?

In this field, you need to make your own career path, and just as in every field of endeavor, you gotta pay your dues before you sit in the board room (unless you're cleaning it).

Now's a little late to start, but you're still leading those who haven't realized it yet.

And as an aside, I wouldn't have traded my musical training for anything, and in my first non-musical job, being a musician was a plus to getting hired. Why? They knew that you understood discipline, but were creative, too.

I play the tuba because it love it. Period. I going to work my hardest to get a job and one day I WILL! Anything that stands in my way, I will just work harder and harder. Sure it's not going to be easy, I knew that when I decided I wanted to do this in high school. I do it because I love it. Plain and simple.

sedlawston wrote:this is a really stupid question, but i have to know some answers.. I'm a senior in college and i play the tuba.. I just read a form about job openings in the next 5 yrs.. As a musician, who we are, why did we pick a field that is not garantee that we will have a job after we finish school or other aspect in music?????

The big lie that we have bought into is that college = job training, especially at the undergraduate level.

Others have expanded the question to those about composers, etc. But even that is too narrow.

For example, do you know any professional historians? I don't, though I do know several people with history degrees. Do you know any professional astronomers? Neither do I, but I know a couple of people with astronomy degrees, one of whom has a doctorate. Do you know any professional interpreters? Nor me. But I know a number of folks with degrees in one or another foreign languages.

All of these folks are well employed and live good lives according to any reasonable measure, and all of them have benefited enormously from those educational pursuits in a variety of ways. But they don't earn their daily bread doing the thing they majored in.

Over the weekend, I was entertaining one of my good friends who is a civil engineering professor in Texas. He was describing the pressure being put on college programs by industry to add more and more courses aimed at daily engineering practice. Competing with that was ABET accreditation, which is specific about what materials must be taught as part of engineering degree. And then the state legislature, in response to pressure from parents, has made it a law that Texas state universities must not design an undergraduate program to require more than 120 credit hours.

These three influences result in zero solution space. Finding a balance means that not all the job-training classes industry wants can be included. Thus, universities focus more on underlying theory to provide the strong foundation for future job training, which industry should provide.

But we do this to ourselves. The assumption that college = job training leaks out from every edge. The consulting industry wants fresh graduates to be billable to clients at 100% from day one (which is why fresh grads should NOT be allowed to become consultants and should be required to work for a direct mission organization first). The clients of consultants (who are those mission organizations) refuse to pay for learning time. Mission organizations don't provide training programs, don't have a philosophy of mentoring, and don't give their senior people time to provide training or mentoring. Quality has been steadily declining even as "productivity" has been increasing as a result.

And that's the state of engineering, one of the most employable of major courses of study in college.

Performing musicians earn their gigs by audition, either formal or informal. So, they get work largely on the basis of how well they play. College's contribution to performing ability is limited by the time required for a good, general education.

50 or 75 years ago, playing music professional was not considered an educated pursuit. Most people didn't go to college to learn how to do it, and practitioners were considered more craftspeople than either artists or professionals. They learned it through some variation of the method by which craftspeople have been trained for centuries: Apprenticeship. Jacobs, for example went to Curtis. But Curtis at the time was new, not only new as an entity but new as a concept. He started there at age 15, and spent most of his time there studying musical performance with various performer/teachers, like Tabuteau, Donatelli, Reiner, and so on. Every description of that experience he has provided demonstrates that it was a job-training program of high quality, not a general education at all. And afterwards, the work that he got always required some coordination with the local union, which is a labor organization designed for the working trades.

There is a reason why musicians in the military, though they nearly all have college degrees and many of them have advanced degrees, still for the most part hold non-commissioned ranks.

So, if your college has provided you with a good, general education, then it has done what it's supposed to do, and it will serve you as well as any good, general education. But it's not a job training program and provides no guarantee of a job.

When I graduated with an engineering degree, I started my career in a public-sector agency (consistent with my "mission organization" from above). A year later, I started a master's degree at night, and I worked closely with senior people at my job to learn from them. Those things were my job training efforts. I estimate that school provided no more than 10% of the training I needed to perform my job successfully, though that 10% was foundational. I can't even get a license to practice engineering as a professional based on a college degree alone. All engineering licensure requires at least four years of closely scrutinized experience.

Graduating from college is a beginning, not an end.

Rick "who 'wasted' three years in architecture school prior to engineering and doesn't think it was a waste at all" Denney

Rick Denney wrote:And then the state legislature, in response to pressure from parents, has made it a law that Texas state universities must not design an undergraduate program to require more than 120 credit hours.

That's insane. I think I had about 166 credits on my undergrad transcript whrn I graduated. (Not to mention a dozen audits.)
And, I did all but 32 of them in 3.5 years.
120 is just pathetic, must be an offshoot of some kind of lottery / scholarship thing.

Rick Denney wrote:The big lie that we have bought into is that college = job training, especially at the undergraduate level.

Which parallels another big lie that I still hear all the time...that college degree = higher pay. While the overall statistics may bear this out, my (admittedly, anectodal) experience shows that most employers don't care that you have that masters in music - you get the same pay as the guy who starts out of high school if you do the same job. There are a few exceptions, but please don't think that you just "get paid more" BECAUSE you have a degree. Certainly, the folks on the opposite side of the audition curtain don't care.

Rick Denney also wrote:There is a reason why musicians in the military, though they nearly all have college degrees and many of them have advanced degrees, still for the most part hold non-commissioned ranks.

I haven't figured that one out...what is that reason?

sedlawston (the original poster) wrote:this is a really stupid question, but i have to know some answers.. I'm a senior in college and i play the tuba.. I just read a form about job openings in the next 5 yrs.. As a musician, who we are, why did we pick a field that is not garantee that we will have a job after we finish school or other aspect in music?????

Not a stupid question at all...in fact, kudos to you for figuring this out so early in your career!

I am often quite harsh on this forum in my criticism of music schools and what I call the "self-perpetuating college degree gravy train." To be honest, I can see both sides of the problem. Music schools need students, and it's not practical to believe that they would say to their performance majors "hey, kid, give it up...there won't be a performing job for you when you graduate." They'll be more likely to extol the virtues of their new graduate program in performance/pedagogy. Of course the music schools are going to encourage students to major in music performance...they want the best players for their high-profile ensembles.

The problem lies in the oldest principle of economics...supply and demand. No one would argue that the demand for professional symphony tuba players is increasing or even staying level, yet the supply of highly qualified tuba performers, graduating from the best schools with the best teachers, is increasing year after year.

Add to the equation the new prevalent attitude of "if I want it, I should be able to get it" and the problem grows. Then you find well-meaning family members, friends, and others who lather on the praise and encouragement..."Follow your dream"..."Go for it"..."You sound great"...nothing wrong with that, and everyone loves to hear it...but it certainly doesn't guarantee you a job in performance.

I was chatting with a couple of friends the other day after their mostly every Saturday morning Dixieland gig outside of a local restaurant. As far as I know, everyone in that band is retired from a non-musical profession and don't really need the money. They've all played most of their lives and do this today mostly for fun, but for the money as well. For a 3 hour gig on a Saturday morning they make $20 a piece (there are usually 6 of them playing) and a free meal plus what gets dropped into the tip jar.

Most of what they pick up in the tip jar they redistribute to the wait staff when they go inside for that free meal.

They aren't playing off the written music. (What decent Dixieland jazz group does?). They are pretty good at what they do. They play somewhere or another several days a week. I try to listen when I know where they are. Their tuba player and trombone player (both of whom I play with in a couple of bands) can play rings around me using only one lip.

The point of this is that even a small band doesn't make much these days. At least not playing that sort of gig. Certainly not enough to live on. Pocket change at most. Hundreds of people pass by them as they play. 1 in 10 might drop a buck or two into the tip jar.

I'm sure that there are plenty of stories just like this that people on this forum can relate.

Trying to earn a decent living as a musician is tough. No matter what kind of music you play or what instrument you play.

Some do it. Most don't.

Todd S. Malicoate wrote:(in response to military musicians being non-commissioned:) I haven't figured that one out...what is that reason?

I'm sure it's because: At the time the musician traditions were being formed, musicians were considered tradespeople like carpenters and mechanics. Staff officer positions (as opposed to line command) were commissioned on the basis of whether a college degree was considered a normal professional requirements at the time it was set up.

Only recently has it been expected for a professional musician to have a college degree, in the military or out of it. And then that expectation is far more limited than in most professions for which a degree is considered a routine requirement.

I don't worry about college music majors too much. Most of them won't be professional musicians, but I think they stand a pretty good chance of successfully making their way in life, if they want to.

Rick "both of whose nieces are music majors" Denney

the elephant wrote: ...and (think about this one, now) Outdoor Personal Hygiene … !!! I have official university credit for how to properly poop in the woods!

I have a copy of the book, How to **** in the Woods.

http://www.amazon.com/How-****-Woods-En ... 0898156270

I guess that makes me self potty trained since I don't have it on my transcript. Or maybe an amateur instead of a pro.

MartyNeilan wrote:That's insane. I think I had about 166 credits on my undergrad transcript whrn I graduated. (Not to mention a dozen audits.)
And, I did all but 32 of them in 3.5 years.
120 is just pathetic, must be an offshoot of some kind of lottery / scholarship thing.

Not really. Think about it: 120 hours is 15 hours per semester for 8 semesters. 144 hours is 18 hours per semester. Most universities consider 12 hours full time, 15 hours a normal full load and 18 hours as a heavy load. Many schools require adviser approval before signing up for a heavier load than 18 hours. To be precise: 18 hours is 18 hours a week in the lecture hall. With the normal expectation of two hours personal study for each hour of lecture (someone like Dr. Sloan might have a different number to suggest), that would be a 54-hour week. That's at the outside of what one can normally expect. Most of my lecture courses required more time than that to achieve excellence, or they were labs, where that time was spent in the lab room.

It's normal for students to go home and earn money in the summers. Expecting them to attend classes in the summer just to keep up with a four-year program makes that pretty difficult.

My undergraduate program required 142 hours in the standard curriculum. Very few people finished it in four years without taking summer school every year, which most of my friends could not afford to do. The normal experience was nine semesters.

I spent three years in architecture school, and then switched to engineering when I realized it was closer to my real interests. The focus of my classes switched from sleep-depriving labs to study-intensive math and science lectures, and most of my architecture labs didn't provide credit towards an engineering degree. I graduated after 11 semesters with 192 credit hours, but a healthy dose of those hours were in subjects that required little study on my part, or that were related to my part-time research gig.

Texas schools can get a waiver by writing a simple justification for it each year. The engineering program at my friend's university requires 130 hours. But, again, that program is not a training program, and those graduates will still have to learn a lot about daily engineering practice after they graduate, assuming they go into the engineering profession.

Rick "who rarely studied, or slept, while in architecture school" Denney

CATransplant wrote:We're out of time, here. We're playing music from the past. It's beautiful music, but has a limited audience. Even the polka band is playing to the past. The military band, too.

The problem isn't so much that the music is outdated, it's that modern people in general and Americans in particular place little value on cultural heritage.

Nobody complains that a Chinese groups plays traditional Chinese music, or that the Ballet Folklorico performs every week in, for example, Guadalajara. Tourists are happy to experience what is presented to them as the traditional music of the culture they are visiting, and the practitioners of those traditions are considered to have value in those cultures.

The problem is that our culture is so pervasive that nobody comes to see it as a form of adventure or exploration, and we are so programmed to mistrust our culture that expressions of it are considered irrelevant. Thus, we admire traditional African dancers but put orchestral music and "dead, white composers" in the same sentence. People pay fortunes for Navajo blankets and Pueblo pottery but won't spend a tenth as much listening to the greatest examples of our own cultural heritage.

And then there are many who think of our orchestras as "aural museums", with the implied insult that things of the past have less value to us than things of the present.

This is the hand we are dealt. But the music itself is the best argument in its favor. The question is: Do we love it so much that we are willing to keep it alive as a hobby rather than as a job? We may have to some day.

Rick "who finds it easier to participate than to passively receive" Denney

CATransplant wrote:There are tons of musicians out there making a living with their music. Most of them are performing music that is popular with large audiences today. Some can bring 50,000 people in to hear them perform.

When you consider how many of the bands you are talking about are active and actually doing that today as opposed to how many have dissappeared completely (for whatever reasons), how many garage bands there are who will never make it, let alone play to even 500 people, and how many people are playing rock for beer money it still doesn't make much of a case for music being a viable profession for any but the super stars.

Quite a few of the "successful" rock bands are playing to the past as well.

It was always facinating to me to watch "Where are they now?" on VH1 and see what former band members from very successful bands (in their brief moments of fame) are doing now.

In rock and pop your looks count way too much for a long and successful career, Keith Richards not withstanding.

Rick Denney wrote:Most universities consider 12 hours full time, 15 hours a normal full load and 18 hours as a heavy load. Many schools require adviser approval before signing up for a heavier load than 18 hours.
Rick "who rarely studied, or slept, while in architecture school" Denney

Music ed majors at my alma mater (Lee U) typically took 20-21 credits a semester. After overpaying for a couple of credits, most ensembles after the first were then added on as audits. There was always someone behind you in line with a different major taking 12 credits, who thought it was a big deal.

Another reason military bands aren't commisioned might be, how could you operate a squardon of nothing but officers. At least we got to come in at E3 and not a slick sleeve. One tid bit that used to get tossed around the squadron was the average education of the enlisted band personell in the air force was higher than the average education of the officer core. Don't know if that was true or not, but I wouldn't doubt it.

Possibly the only hope for our profession is that we ourselves become the patrons of our art.

I always like to argue that in classical music we pay to hear the music of the composer first and the group second. In popular music, who would ever pay to hear song played by a cover band based on the song/s itself. In popular music they pay to hear the artist first, which means simply that their music is fleeting, it will die ( at least for live performances ) with the artist.

MartyNeilan wrote:

Rick Denney wrote:And then the state legislature, in response to pressure from parents, has made it a law that Texas state universities must not design an undergraduate program to require more than 120 credit hours.

That's insane. I think I had about 166 credits on my undergrad transcript whrn I graduated. (Not to mention a dozen audits.)
And, I did all but 32 of them in 3.5 years.
120 is just pathetic, must be an offshoot of some kind of lottery / scholarship thing.

I'm no Dean of Students, but I'd have to agree with Marty that 120 hours is a lowball figure. However, I imagine most students end up north of that number, and here's why:

(for the record, my school also requires 120 hours to graduate)

Using myself as an example, I have a hard time understanding how anyone could graduate with so few hours. Over the next six weeks, I'm going to wrap up my third year of college and have 134 credits. I am unable to graduate though, because I don't have enough of the right credits to equal either of the degrees I'm working toward. A big portion of that 134 is from General Ed requirements, electives, and other miscellaneous courses. Due to the right courses often conflicting with each other, I don't even anticipate graduating next year!

Someone working toward a degree in one 40-hour major (any Liberal Arts BA or BS) would have to get 40 hours' worth of the right credits, 40+ hours' worth of General Ed, and the remainder in the electives they wanted. Good luck getting those classes to line up in your schedule without ending up way over 120. The challenge isn't getting to 120, it's trying to find a way to get there without all of your classes meeting at 10:30 on Wednesday.

tubashaman wrote:Multiply that times 8 is 256 hours, however isnt the case, but im near sure if my stats are correct, music majors here, and other texas colleges can easily get 180-200 "credit hours" based on this.

Not so fast. Many of the classes you mentioned are like "labs". That means that the work of the class is all there is. Lecture classes require considerable time for homework outside the lecture. 15 hours of lecture courses should consume the same time as 15 hours of labs, at least in theory. For me, the schedules that were loaded up on lecture courses were worse than those loaded up on labs. When the lab was over, it was over. The lecture courses were never over.

Not all lectures require that additional work, of course, and not all labs are really done at the end of the period. But that's the way it's supposed to work, and when comparing, you have to consider it.

Architecture school required many more hours of physical presence in classes and labs than did engineering, but the engineering made a much bigger overall demand on my time. I didn't always put that time in, with predictable results, but that's another story!

Rick "wary of complaints about how easy others have it" Denney

Biggs wrote:The challenge isn't getting to 120, it's trying to find a way to get there without all of your classes meeting at 10:30 on Wednesday.

Look in your college catalog, and you will see for your major a list of required courses, plus requirements for elective courses. These are the requirements for graduation. At most universities, you have to follow the plan explicitly for it to even be possible, for a variety of reasons. Your scheduling conflicts are just one reason. Many elective courses are only offered once a year, and have prerequisites that are offered only once a year, etc. Those who get off the track have a hard time finishing in four years.

But there was an inflation in the number of hours required, and that inflation was what the legislature was trying to reverse.

Trust me when I say that an 18-hour load consisting of differential equations, physics of electricity, thermodynamics, fluid mechanics, environmental engineering (with lab), and finite elements structural engineering will consume more time than just about any course of study in music education. I'm not saying that to be flip or to downgrade music education--quite the contrary. It's just that courses that require the development of an abstract analytical intuition required hours of chasing rabbits down holes and starting over. When I took mathematical statistics, I attempted integrations that filled four 11x17 sheets sideways, written small, only to find after filling up that paper that I'd missed a sign early on that made all the nasty terms cancel out. Give me a history or educational theory text to read, a visit to the library, and a short essay to write ANY DAY for getting it done in time to actually sleep.

There are people for whom the math and science came as easily as does writing that history essay, but I'm not one of them. Nor were most of my mates. And the mechanical engineering students laughed at we civil engineers when we complained (and rightly so).

My easiest semester was my last in architecture. It included things like art history, architectural history, life drawing (at which I sucked but it made few demands on my time), and a building construction course on HVAC with quite simple arithmetic. It was 18 hours--as heavy as any load my whole time in college. But I had lots of time to race bikes that semester, heh, heh.

There are 18-hour semesters and 18-hour semesters.

Rick "who usually had a transportation or surveying course to lighten the load" Denney

Rick Denney wrote: .
.
Trust me when I say that an 18-hour load consisting of differential equations, physics of electricity, thermodynamics, fluid mechanics, environmental engineering (with lab), and finite elements structural engineering will consume more time than just about any course of study in music education.

Since I have both a music degree and an engineering degree, I will back Rick up in spades as to the amount of time comparison. There really is no comparison....they have such radically different demands, despite both being somewhat technical degrees (i.e., not "liberal arts") that my Rule of Scholarships comes into play: the harder it is to make a living with a degree, the more scholarship money you can get to pursue it. You get lots and lots of scholarships to study music and art, and very few to study engineering.

MA