Performance Degree?

[Dean]

Like I said before, it doesn't have to be music ed!


I've got a friend from undergrad who was a very good horn player (not amazing, but very good). He got his undergrad in biology. He minored in music, and took a few extra classes on top of that. He did that with the intent of doing a master's in horn performance (which he did). It took him like 6 years, but he made it. He went on to his masters--I had left by then, so not too sure what he's up to now.

[Jarrod]

in homage to the glory days of "old tubenet"....here is an opinion on Texas schools...

http://www.chisham.com/tips/bbs/may2003 ... 31912.html

[Captain Sousie]

in homage to the glory days of "old tubenet"....here is an opinion on Texas schools...

http://www.chisham.com/tips/bbs/may2003 ... 31912.html

Wow, I had forgotten about that one. Oh for the good old days

[rmontgomery]

I haven't posted much on this forum but I do look at it once a week or so. Please forgive any speling or sintacs errors and poorly written prose, but if you want a pro's input, this is my take:

This performance vs. music ed major issue comes up a lot in my experience with private students so I thought I'd weigh in on it. As a full time performer with a music ed. undergrad degree, I've found my undergraduate music ed major to be very valuable for me, even though I've only made a living as a performer and never as a school teacher. The music ed program helped me become the performer I am today. Conducting classes, orchestration classes, jazz theory, jazz education, lessons on every orchestral instrument, student teaching, and the many other various music ed requirements helped me be a more well-rounded musician. I definitely did not appreciate every bit of it while I was in school, but looking back I am very happy to have had that education. It was definitely a lot of work, but I always practiced the tuba and if I had to slack on something because of time constraints, I never slacked on the tuba. You don't have to get straight A's in all of your classes, but it's not that difficult to maintain a 'B' average and still be getting your tuba chops together.

The idea that you will be a bad or undedicated school teacher if it is not your #1 goal in life is a bit extreme in my opinion. If you asked every school band director if they would rather play in the Chicago Symphony, I imagine you'd have a lot of "undedicated" teachers by that definition. I agree that we don't need teachers who don't want or like to teach, but it's not all or nothing.

So - I tell students that if they have an interest in teaching that they should at least try music ed. You might find that you love it.

All that said, a performance degree is not a worthless piece a paper. It's worthless if you are looking for a piece of paper to get you a performing job, but it's not worthless to a graduate school admissions officer or to various potential non-musical employers.

Anyway - those are my thoughts - I reserve the right to disappear and be a lurker again.

Randy Montgomery
Principal Tuba - Milwaukee Symphony

[Aaron]

dang randy, you are too smart. you are making the rest of us look like tuba players.

[porkchopsisgood]

OK...my turn.

My performance degree is NOT worthless. My 3.6 GPA was NOT worthless. The things I learned to become a better musician, arranger, person was NOT worthless.

That being said, you do NOT need a performance degree to perform. I performed for 12 years before I came back to get my degree. Was I in a major symphony orchestra? No. Did the tuba keep me in an apartment with food on the table? Yes.

The reason I opted for a performance degree over an education degree is BECAUSE I wanted to teach. BLOWS YOUR MIND DOESN'T IT?!?!??!?? I want to teach at the college level (applied low brass and/or as a director of bands); since this was the case, and because I have the "education" I have gained as a professional for a little over a decade, I felt that my experiences have prepared me enough to forgo a formal education degree, and pursue another avenue to get where I am going.

I am currently a Graduate Teaching/Research Assistant at Truman State University in Kirksville, MO, studying tuba performance and wind band conducting. My performance bachelors made this possible. I plan on pursuing a DMA in conducting for my next degree. I will be as much an educator as any with an education background once I have reached my goal.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with receiving an education degree. If you want to teach public school then it just about the only way to go (although I do have a friend who just graduated with a performance degree in trombone from Mannes who is currently teaching high school provisionally--he just finished his degree last May). If you want to do something different in music, however, there are different avenues to follow.

Don't ever let someone tell you that you need a performance degree to perform. THEY ARE LYING TO YOU. You need a practice room to perform: that's the only place you're going to develop the skills to be a true professional. At the same time, don't let people tell you that a performance degree is useless. I am a college graduate, and I am using my degree, and will continue to use my degree for the rest of my life. My performance degree has already opened doors that would otherwise be closed to the non-degreed. I worked hard for that degree, and I am reaping benefits from it, and I am NOT only trying to pursue a job in an orchestra!

'Wow...how can that be? But you got a degree in tuba! Doesn't that mean you want to be in an orchestra?'

Yup....but I don't have to wait around for the Snakepit Symphony Orchestra in Lower Armpit, USA to open before I consider myself a professional musician. I'm living my dream now, not later.


In summation:

1) Know why you're getting the degree you are getting.

2) Graduate, and then use that degree to get where you're going.

3) Enjoy life.

My 4 cents....

AVC

[adam0408]

First, to address the original issue: Don't worry too much about making decisions that will "alter your life" at this point. You can, at any point in college, change your mind about what you want to do. It may set you back a semester or two, but staying in college for a while longer than 4 years is not the worst thing that can happen by far.

Music and other education degrees are a pile of crap. The college curriculum that prepares the teachers of tomorrow is terrible, and is in sore need of revision. As said by others, its simply a bunch of hoops to jump through. I havent talked to a single person that has said, "wow, I am really glad that I took all those education courses. They really enriched my life." It goes more like this: "It was a bunch of pointless nonsense, and the professors were horrible." This is why I did not get an ed degree, and instead opted for performance. Also I like playing a lot, and oftentimes band directors don't get the chance to play as much as I want to- Imagine being a high school band director and having to organize 1-2 concert bands, a marching band, a pep band, 1-2 jazz bands, teach lessons and deal with parents and administrators. That doesnt leave much time during the day to practice or even play around for fun.

Remember also that the "useless piece of paper" that will be your degree will make you infinitely more employable than someone without a college degree, regardless of your chosen major.

Next...

The audiences for the types of music that one learns to play when one earns a "performance degree" are aging/dying off and/or evacuating U.S. cities...cities where one plies these "performance" trades.

The market for "serious music" in the U.S. is quickly going the way of the market for the buggy whip.

This market will never totally disappear, but the demand for this type of music will continue to lessen as the ability to fill the demand for this type of music will continue to strengthen.

' got any other ideas on ways to Pursue Happiness...??

Although I respect your opinion and admit that you may actually be right in the most pessimistic sense of the world, I have some differing theories.

I am of the opinion that there will always be the same number of major orchestras in the US. They have been going on for too long to just "disappear and die out" and have legacies to uphold.

What I can see happening in the future is a rise in the number of professional wind bands in the country. Not just service bands, but other professional wind ensembles. My reason for this is that WE music is where the excitement seems to be where new compositions are concerned. audiences will recognize this, and I think they will come out and pay to listen to a pro wind ensemble.

[tubarepair]

If you want a master's in ed., you need a bachelor's in ed. I have never heard education working like that. If so, I could do a little catch up work and get my masters in ed. Doesn't work that way. To pursue a master's in performance requires you to be able to, among other things, perform at a certain level. Many ed majors can do that. Therein lies the hook.

I'll stand corrected, pending evidence to the contrary.

Doc

Well, it worked for me...
Bachelor of Science - Fire and Safety Engineering Technology
Master of Education - Music Education

However, sitting in undergraduate sightsinging classes at age 27 is humorous, especially when you have your "classmates" as students in the classes you teach as part of your assistantship.

DLH

[Rick Denney]

It has been written on these pages in the past that if you want to get a performance gig, find the people who have those gigs, and study with them.

It has also been said on these pages that the role of a bachelor's degree in a person's life is not to prepare them to earn money, but rather to educate them. That isn't the same objective at all. When you try to turn your undergraduate education into job training, you leave out all sorts of useful things and waste time with all sorts of useless things.

If you want to be a teacher, then you'll pretty much have to study education. But studying education is not necessarily compatible with those who want only to perform, because of the time it consumes. If you don't mind spending that time, then there's no harm, even if you never teach in schools. You'll have to protect yourself from the drivel espoused by the Education Establishment, but that's another topic that has also been discussed extensively on these pages.

It has been said on these pages that well-educated and motivated people never have a problem making a decent living for themselves. Many don't work in their field, but a broad education prepares them for using their minds in whatever field they end up pursuing.

A master's degree is a job-training degree, nearly by definition. By that time, the general education opportunity is passed, and to gain a general education after a bachelor's degree requires quite a bit of personal study and devotion to learning (as I have learned the hard way).

Having a performance degree (or, really, two or three) will not get you a gig. It might get you past an initial screening, but then you'll still have to deliver the goods in the audition. And a resume full of having studied with great performers will do just as well to get you past the initial screening.

For military gigs, I suspect the college degree means more, but I'll let someone in the military confirm or deny that.

So: Get a degree in whatever interests you, and give that degree your all. Broaden your education as much as possible, and study as many different things as you can. If you wan to perform, then perform, and study with performers. They may teach at colleges, but they are also usually available directly, if you are good enough.

But if you are not consistently the best musician and performer of your age group no matter where you happen to be, then you will likely find a successful performance career quite elusive.

Rick "whose niece is a performance major now contemplating what to study in a graduate program" Denney

[tubajoe]

However well-intentioned, there is a lot of misinformation in this thread.

An Education degree is a situation similar to a middle-class corporate business situation -- where immediately after school, you can expect to find employment with an insitution that directly pays you for your services. This path is well-defined and clear, and is well understood and supported by most universities.

A performance degree (and lifestyle) is completely an ENTREPRENEURIAL situation. The path is much less clear and opportunity is completely up to YOU. For the most part, you become self employed. This path is also quite often misunderstood by many (even by many applied professors!)

This is not to say that either are more valid or valiant. Both have their place -- it's just that one just must understand the difference between them.

It also must be understood that music school does NOT teach you how to make money, they teach you how to make music! Translating music into survival and / or money is your job.


peace

[LoyalTubist]

Actually, the competition for tuba teaching positions is fiercer than the race for symphony tuba positions. All you need to do for the symphony positions is play your instrument and work well with the orchestra. For the professorial positions you have to be the master of your instrument, a counselor, a budget coordinator, and several other people the university might want you to be!

[LoyalTubist]

Let me add this, about experience: One of the nice things about going to a school where there were few instrumental majors was that for me to get the experience I needed, I had to get gigs outside of school. I got to play for rodeos, circuses, churches (other than my own), and many other venues. This helps round out your education in a way no university can match.

[LoyalTubist]

As serious musicians, tubists start late. I have known tuba prodigies--young tuba players who were almost too young to handle the big instruments they played. They played the Vaughan Williams. They played the Hindemith. They played Effie. A couple could even do Encounters II. Then reality set in. The tuba became a bore and a chore. None of these prodigies are playing tuba anymore, so far as I know. (PM me if you want names.)

We can all strive to want to play for a major symphony orchestra or even a regional one. Chances are, if there are any tuba players in the area, the position is locked. You should join the Musicians' Union local of your area to get jobs and rub shoulders with all kinds of musicians. You need to know people. You need friends in every business you can think of.

You need friends who play tuba. While they are your competition, they can also be your mentors and drinking buddies. They can also help you think through one of your brainstorms of an idea for tuba playing to see if it's feasible or not.

I took a few lessons with the late, great Tommy Johnson when I was a sophomore in high school. To be honest, I was not one of his better students. But he left me with something I have written here before:

Your chances are better to be a first string quarterback with the best team in the NFL than they are for you to have any major tuba position in the United States. You need to develop a skill to support you when you can't support yourself (and your family) with your tuba playing. That's why I became a junior high school band director. Chances are you will NEVER be the professional tuba player you want to be. I was just lucky.

[Dylan King]

Tommy said the same thing to me, but I think he mentioned multi-million dollar baseball players.

That's why I studied to be a film and television composer.

Tough luck I guess.

But luckily God has blessed me every step I take in His direction, and perhaps luckily, luck doesn't really exist.

[UTTuba_09]

No offense to Nr. Morris, but don't get a Music Ed. Degree to fall back on. We don't need any more band directors who are doing it because they couldn't cut it as a performer - we need band directors who are doing it because they truly want to teach.

A bachelors degree in any field will open a lot doors. Don't waste your time on a music ed degree when there are a bunch of more well-rounded degrees you could get.

What about a business degree and a whole lot of performance/theory classes on the side? You'll likely know early-on if if you have what it takes to be a performer. Hard work, dedication and a willingness to live near the poverty level among the traits necessary, otherwise do not apply.

DLH

I agree, I was music ed for two years out of my college career, when I decided to change to performance, it came due to the fact that I did not have the spirit of a band director inside of me, so what I'm doing is getting a performance degree knowing that I can always go back and get certified to teach. Right now, my biggest fear of doing education is not being an effective teacher because I don't have the passion to do so. Just pray about it and listen, we make it all too difficult to succeed in this life because we often get in our own way. If you want to play professionally, get a performance degree; if you want to teach, get an ed degree, if you want to do both, get a bachelors of ed, and a masters in performance, it's all up to you and what you want to do.

Bottom line...Follow your passion.

[LoyalTubist]

In California, undergraduates DON'T major in education. Education is a fifth year field of study and considered graduate education. So, if you want to be a performance major there, it's no problem to be certified as a teacher. You can have your cake and eat it, too.

As far as following your passion, I don't necessarily agree with that idea. Passion doesn't pay for tuition loans, housing, food, or medical costs. Learn a skill besides playing your horn so you can support your family.

[bigbear19]

As far as a performance degree goes, it really is pointless if it is the only degree you are goin for. Go education and performance if you really want the performance degree. I guarantee you will learn more about playing by teaching than by practicing. Bill Bell, Arnold Jacobs, Harvey Phillips, Alan Baer, etc. all taught and played. Don't believe that getting an ed degree means having to give up being a good player.

As far as schools, you should definately check out Texas Tech. I'm about to be a sophmore and the studio is nuts and gettin better every year. Email me at andy.smith@ttu.edu if you have any questions about tech or if you're planning on coming to audition or just to see what it's like.



Andy Smith

[zeign7]

You know what, why not. I'll throw in my 2 cents.

First off, REGARDLESS of what your background is, performance is NOT a useless degree. Things might be different at a conservatory, I wouldn't know, but I have been 3 music majors in my three years at Ohio University, started as education and composition and moved to euphonium, YES EUPHONIUM performance and composition.

Now, I will tell you what my classes have been like, and yes, I am including ONLY classes required for my performance major without including comp/education. This include (besides ensembles) music theory, sight singing, dictation, piano, a number of literature classes, a number of history classes, and several music electives.

For my composition major, I am required to take LESS conducting courses than for my EUPHONIUM PERFORMANCE major, and it happens to be the same amount as for education. In fact, the only things I have to take for composition that are not involved with the performance degree are composition lessons and a composition thesis. While the requirements are worded differently, I must take 3 lit classes for comp which just happens to be the same amount of lit classes needed for performance, history too. Counterpoint and Styles are specified in comp, but they make up part of the music electives (which are a large requirement) that are part of the performance degree.

Now onto music education. The differences in these degrees are learning the basics about several different instruments, which is necessary if you want to teach ensembles but if not, this is the ONLY advantage over a performance degree. I suppose you could *fall back* on a teaching job with this degree but if it is a fall back job you probably shouldn't be teaching since it isn't what you want to do and you probably didn't put enough work into preparing yourself for teaching grade school since you pursued performance first (since it was a fall back).

Wait, I did forget the useless classroom theory classes and the courses geared towards preparing your philosophy of teaching. Personally, having been through these classes (so I am entitled to say they are useless) and I would say that if you don't know how to do this without being taught it I don't know why you are here. I am sorry if this offends anyone but I can't imagine a person who would enter a career without any knowledge of how they wanted to approach that career unless they can be lumped into the crowd of "I went to college because I was expected to and couldn't think for myself."

I'm not here to bash any degrees, just sharing my own experience. In summary I feel that any music degree is about as useful as the next. If you have the determination to perform then bust your *** and do it. If you are determined to teach then "" and do it, same with music therapy, audio production, composition, or any other field for that matter. It is nice to have options, but unless you pour yourself into that second degree as much as the first and the combined effort is more than the sum of the parts, a second degree is worthless. Just do what you want.

Oh yea, and to the original poster:

Do what you think will work best for you now. A quarter/semester/year/perhaps two into your major you should know if it is for you or not. And if it is not, don't be afraid to change!!! Don't waste your money on something that you don't want to do with all your heart.

I have seen numerous people come and go. One guy actually had the gall to tell me "I could be great at performance if I had the work ethic, so I think I'll do composition." This was told to me right before he graduates (this year) and he will be pursuing a master of music in composition. Sigh. Just don't turn out like that and you should be fine, whatever major. Ed and comp and therapy majors all make great performers too, just make sure to concentrate on everything you do.

[BopEuph]

I haven't read all the replies, but here's my side:

My high school band director told me the same thing, especially since I was a euphonium player. I went to FSU. I was always a hard worker on any instrument I play (that is, after my freshman year, which I sort of skimmed through). When it came time for my jury my sophomore year, I was practicing quite a bit. Mr. Ebbers told me not to worry too much, since I'm a music education major. They won't be grading me as harshly as a performance major. In short, I didn't like to hear that. At the risk of sounding heartless, it felt like the retarded little kid everyone babies and gives and easy path so he doesn't hurt himself. I didn't want to sound good for a music education major; I wanted to sound good as a musician.

When I started the education courses, I really wasn't having any fun. The general idea was that you are not learning to play, but you are learning to teach. In my opinion, they would be one in the same. How can one teach if they are not very accomplished on their instrument themselves? But, no, you learn just enough so you can tell the kids pretty much what buttons to push.

I transferred to UNF and sought a jazz studies degree. The slightly lighter class load meant I could take a few more ensembles, and practice much more, and well before the day was out. As a music ed major, I found myself starting in the shed at 10:30 at the earliest, since my last ensemble after a full day was at that time, and going until about 2-3 am. As a jazz major, I was able to practice more and pickup trombone and bass on the side. I now have a jazz bass degree with a euphonium performance certificate, granted I can finish that last math class when I get some more money.

The thing is, you can be an ed major and still practice and get what you want, however, the performance degree gives you classes that improves you as a player. You can also go performance and if you feel the desire to teach, you can finish up an education degree in a fairly short amount of time. In Florida, they give you a three year grace period to get a teaching degree after you start working.

Nick

[TubaRay]

I didn't want to sound good for a music education major; I wanted to sound good as a musician.
Nick

I believe this sort of attitude will serve you well.