Several recent stories in the news have revealed that, despite the long odds of making a living as a professional musician, many parents are encouraging their children to major in music in college.
These stories concern me because the encouragement is so often based on the students' desire to major in music, regardless of their actual level of talent. Believe me, I understand the desire part; when I was in high school, it was a desire I shared.
But these well-meaning parents and teachers may not know what the experience of majoring in music performance is actually like at a university or conservatory.
As a French horn performance major at Northwestern University, I spent most of my time in the company of people who were striving for one thing: Namely, careers as performing artists. We knew our odds of succeeding in such a competitive field were not high, but most of us thought we'd find a way to overcome those odds.
(Cue music: "The Impossible Dream.")
It's hard to resist getting caught up in the dream--of wanting a career in music and an artist's life.
For those musicians who are very good but not great, this can lead to false hopes. After they've given their all toward playing professionally, urged on by teachers who encourage them to be the best they can be, the day will come when they graduate with a fancy music degree. And then they're supposed to enter some regular line of work? And it will somehow magically be all right?
That isn't what these students have been shooting for. They have gotten used to living a musician's life while in college. They will find that a full-time job doesn't leave them enough time and energy to play an instrument at the level they had achieved while in music school.
Or they could do what I did, work full-time at the Ravinia Festival while also playing gigs in the evenings and on weekends. I was always trying to find more time to practice, constantly on the run between work and rehearsals and the concert hall, and burning the candle at both ends.
And then I became severely ill.
I won't go into the details, and I eventually got better, but the experience taught me that I couldn't have both a full-time job and play classical music at a professional level. Something about adding the acute stress of performance situations to the chronic stress of a day job.
But we all have our different threshholds of stress and what is manageable.
There are people who manage to play professionally while holding down day jobs, and more power to them. But others are eventually forced to choose the day job, which I can testify is a wrenching adjustment to have to make.
I'm not saying that students shouldn't study music in college. There are more than enough ways to study music in college without majoring in it.
Most colleges have non-major music ensembles. It's possible to take private lessons, if not with the music faculty, then with the grad students.
And, of course, those students who are truly gifted in music should be encouraged to major in it.
It's a tough call to make, but these are issues I wish more parents and students would consider when making that decision about music school.
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