Too many music degree programs

[robcat2075]

Renee Fleming, speaking specifically of voice programs, but could just as well be speaking of music performance degrees in general:

https://slippedisc.com/2025/08/just-in- ... -programs/

Given the climate right now for opera and classical music performance—which is what I know—I think there are far too many universities and colleges taking money from young people who shouldn’t be. I’m sorry, but it’s true. And what’s criminal about it is that . . . I mean, somebody recently said to me there should be an antitrust suit. These kids will all have debt—terrible debt—when they get out of school.

[ghmerrill]

Renee Fleming, speaking specifically of voice programs, but could just as well be speaking of music performance degrees in general:

Or a disturbingly large number of other degrees in general -- and it's actually been going on, and increasing, for 50 years.

[Burgerbob]

College is not trade school. Getting a degree in something does not mean you are stuck with that as a career option forever and ever. That's literally the point of the liberal arts. Let's please have more people with arts degrees that go on to other things rather than an entire population of STEM majors.

[norbie2018]

Music degree programs are by and large not liberal arts degrees, they are specialized programs. Perhaps a student takes general classes that are liberal arts, but they are not liberal arts programs per se. The expectation is that they prepare you for a career in music and they are costly, sadly going people with a lot of debt in general, with pit this students finding their careers in music. Some are successful, but not all.

[norbie2018]

Also, music programs are essentially trade school programs.

[BGuttman]

If college were not that expensive, a "fun" degree would be fine. There are actually some jobs (sadly not many) for people with degrees in fine art (painting, drawing, etc.), music, dance, Medieval European History, etc. The colleges should be more selective in the students they admit to these programs. On the other hand, STEM, Business, and Education are fields with lots of opportunity. College should be a place to learn something that can be a lifetime career, not a route to the poorhouse.

[tbdana]

As one who is both old and who did not attend a music conservatory, I wonder how a performance course and degree are advantageous, at all, for a performer. No one is getting hired to play based on their academics, are they? I would think that it's strictly about how well you play, at least in the ideal, though of course "who you know" is always a huge consideration. But it seems to me that a performance degree is never, ever a consideration in getting hired to, you know, perform.

Or is that incorrect?

[officermayo]

Also, music programs are essentially trade school programs.

And all symphonies are cover bands?

[Burgerbob]

Absolutely a degree is important, in all the same ways it's important in any other line of work. It's about the connections you make, the soft and hard skills you learn, the basics. Not everyone grows up in a giant metro area full of pros.

[robcat2075]

College is not trade school. Getting a degree in something does not mean you are stuck with that as a career option forever and ever. That's literally the point of the liberal arts. Let's please have more people with arts degrees that go on to other things rather than an entire population of STEM majors.

With the difficulty of a real STEM degree, an entire population of them is unlikely.

However, Ms. Fleming continues...

...And then I hear people who really have no business majoring in voice—but the schools take them anyway. I once asked someone at a major conservatory, “How do you sleep at night?” I know that was a bit harsh. But he said, “Well, you know, a lot of people use that degree to go on and then major in something else.” And I thought, Wow. Given what secondary education costs, that’s a bit rich.

The extreme cost of the specialized degree that will have little direct application to a career-wise is what she is particularly doubtful about.

In a vibrant, expanding economy such as the US had post-WWII, failed classical musicians might well land on their feet to go on to other interesting things. That environment is gone.

[robcat2075]

As one who is both old and who did not attend a music conservatory, I wonder how a performance course and degree are advantageous, at all, for a performer.

And how has that worked out in your current career as an orchestral musician?

No one is getting hired to play based on their academics, are they? I would think that it's strictly about how well you play, at least in the ideal,

I presume that too, but how does one get to be heard playing, when hundreds may apply for an opening?

though of course "who you know" is always a huge consideration. But it seems to me that a performance degree is never, ever a consideration in getting hired to, you know, perform.

Or is that incorrect?

I suspect that a combination of taking the best students and tasking them with the best instruction has something to do with the students of elite schools having better outcomes.


According to one person's analysis, 47% of US orchestral musicians come from just four schools. Julliard alone makes for more than 20%




However, even the elite schools do not place all their graduates. A famous NYT article "The Julliard Effect" noted that 20 years ago.

[JohnL]

What has always bothered me is students pursuing a performance degree who think they're going to work hard, get a degree, and have a career as a musician - but they're actually musical cannon fodder, filling out ensembles for the benefit of the truly promising (in the eyes of the faculty) students. I call it "feeding the beast".

Part of it is that, in most fields, being "good" is enough to have a solid, maybe even exceptional, career - but music is one of those fields where, like sports, being good isn't good enough.

[robcat2075]

What has always bothered me is students pursuing a performance degree who think they're going to work hard, get a degree, and have a career as a musician - but they're actually musical cannon fodder, filling out ensembles for the benefit of the truly promising (in the eyes of the faculty) students. I call it "feeding the beast"

And... they are income $$ for for the many teachers who would not make a living from teaching only the truly promising.

[mbarbier]

As one who is both old and who did not attend a music conservatory, I wonder how a performance course and degree are advantageous, at all, for a performer. No one is getting hired to play based on their academics, are they? I would think that it's strictly about how well you play, at least in the ideal, though of course "who you know" is always a huge consideration. But it seems to me that a performance degree is never, ever a consideration in getting hired to, you know, perform.

Or is that incorrect?

It makes a huge difference - like yes you can do it without a music degree and people like yourself and Alex Iles have, but that's an extreme minority. And, as Alex was really clear about when I studied with him, it took him a ton of work to plug the holes left in his education from not taking the classes. Obviously one has to put in the work and be great, but that is a lot easier to achieve when in the structure of a music school. I've had a number of students (and also people I went to school with) decide to drop just take lessons and play and, generally speaking, it hasn't worked out.

The connections from school are one of the biggest things, but also just being around great students makes a huge difference. When I started my undergrad at CIM I was around a lot of folks who didn't finish the year because the won jobs and sat in sections with them for the orchestra concerts we did every Wednesday. Plus addition playing for chamber music, repertoire classes, early and new music groups, and lessons. Pretty regularly played as much as my busiest weeks professionally and really learned how to play, how to behave, and how to care for my face. Similarly for my MFA at CalArts I was playing 4+ rehearsals a day and performing multiple days a week. I know those are outlier numbers for most music schools (which I think the limited performance at other places is a major issue), but that prepared me for the professional world in a way that I just can't imagine happening any other way, even as a person who is a pretty intense self starter.

I also found the academics mostly helpful- they introduce students to a HUGE range of repertoire, theory knowledge, performance practice, etc that, yes you can find on your own, but is significantly more difficult to find. There are always exceptions, but those folks tend to be uncommonly talented and uncommonly motivated. Most folks need that structure.

But as a teacher at an expense school, jfc do I agree that schools are WAYYYY too expensive and it all seems to go to administration...

[tbdana]

As one who is both old and who did not attend a music conservatory, I wonder how a performance course and degree are advantageous, at all, for a performer.

And how has that worked out in your current career as an orchestral musician?

No one is getting hired to play based on their academics, are they? I would think that it's strictly about how well you play, at least in the ideal,

I presume that too, but how does one get to be heard playing, when hundreds may apply for an opening?

though of course "who you know" is always a huge consideration. But it seems to me that a performance degree is never, ever a consideration in getting hired to, you know, perform.

Or is that incorrect?

I suspect that a combination of taking the best students and tasking them with the best instruction has something to do with the students of elite schools having better outcomes.


According to one person's analysis, 47% of US orchestral musicians come from just four schools. Julliard alone makes for more than 20%




However, even the elite schools do not place all their graduates. A famous NYT article "The Julliard Effect" noted that 20 years ago.

That's informative, thanks. But for the record, I'm not an orchestral musician. I had a freelance career in L.A. before taking a 30-year break, and now I do a little bit of everything. I never did the symphony audition circuit, and the best orchestra I ever played in (other than studio orchestras) was the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra, which is kind of the pops orchestra of the LA Phil. I currently sub in a couple symphonies, but most of my work these days is jazz.

[tbdana]

It makes a huge difference - like yes you can do it without a music degree and people like yourself and Alex Iles have, but that's an extreme minority. And, as Alex was really clear about when I studied with him, it took him a ton of work to plug the holes left in his education from not taking the classes. Obviously one has to put in the work and be great, but that is a lot easier to achieve when in the structure of a music school. I've had a number of students (and also people I went to school with) decide to drop just take lessons and play and, generally speaking, it hasn't worked out.

The connections from school are one of the biggest things, but also just being around great students makes a huge difference. When I started my undergrad at CIM I was around a lot of folks who didn't finish the year because the won jobs and sat in sections with them for the orchestra concerts we did every Wednesday. Plus addition playing for chamber music, repertoire classes, early and new music groups, and lessons. Pretty regularly played as much as my busiest weeks professionally and really learned how to play, how to behave, and how to care for my face. Similarly for my MFA at CalArts I was playing 4+ rehearsals a day and performing multiple days a week. I know those are outlier numbers for most music schools (which I think the limited performance at other places is a major issue), but that prepared me for the professional world in a way that I just can't imagine happening any other way, even as a person who is a pretty intense self starter.

I also found the academics mostly helpful- they introduce students to a HUGE range of repertoire, theory knowledge, performance practice, etc that, yes you can find on your own, but is significantly more difficult to find. There are always exceptions, but those folks tend to be uncommonly talented and uncommonly motivated. Most folks need that structure.

But as a teacher at an expense school, jfc do I agree that schools are WAYYYY too expensive and it all seems to go to administration...

Informative and a very good argument. Thanks. Yeah, I didn't have the benefit of a music education, so I'm pretty ignorant about all that.

It's funny you mention Alex. He and I were both taking lessons from Roy Main at the same time, and Roy actually discouraged me from going to music school. He said I was already playing with the best musicians in the world, and that was my music education. I wonder if he said anything similar to Alex?

[ghmerrill]

That's literally the point of the liberal arts. Let's please have more people with arts degrees that go on to other things rather than an entire population of STEM majors.

That WAS the point of liberal arts. I'd argue (from my own perspective of having been in that environment over quite a few years, both as a student and faculty in the "liberal arts") that that vision got lost. It doesn't mean that you can't live that vision and benefit from it. But it's become very easy to go through college and not get what the liberal arts were originally and historically intended to provide (there are several reasons and forces at work in this) -- and way too many people do that.

And, by the way, the original concept of the liberal arts always included the sciences (what we now more casually refer to as "STEM"). Of course, a student with a good liberal arts education would know this. (That's not intended to sound snarky -- but perhaps ironic.)

[Burgerbob]

To be clear, I think there is an issue with the business of college at complete odds with the actual education and furthering of young students today. But hearing a bunch of people who did not get music degrees saying that too many people get music degrees is a bit rich.

[BGuttman]

To be clear, I think there is an issue with the business of college at complete odds with the actual education and furthering of young students today. But hearing a bunch of people who did not get music degrees saying that too many people get music degrees is a bit rich.

I chose not to go to a conservatory. I looked at the job market, my abilities, and the lives of some of my friends and acquaintances. Then I decided to become an engineer because I wanted to eat. Engineering provided a nice income and music became a nice hobby (and sometimes a source of a bit of income).

I don't think nobody should get a music education -- there need to be a few people to fill the jobs there are. It just hurts me that so many young people incur huge amounts of debt getting a music degree who can't find a job that will enable them to pay back that debt.

[LeTromboniste]

I don't think nobody should get a music education -- there need to be a few people to fill the jobs there are. It just hurts me that so many young people incur huge amounts of debt getting a music degree who can't find a job that will enable them to pay back that debt.

Instead of having a bunch of people say "the poor kids, they shouldn't go/shouldn't be able to go to music school so that they don't end up in debt", could we actually hear from those who did study music and ended up doing something else? I have known many, many over the years, who went on to retrain to do something else. Some dropped/transfered out of school, some graduated and immediately went to do something else, some worked in music for some years and eventually stopped, or decided to make playing a side-job to something else more lucrative. I have not once heard any of them say they regret studying music, or working in music for a while. So please, if we're going to have that argument, let's have statistics of former music students who got screwed up for life, or who regret having tried. Or at the very least compelling anecdotal accounts.

As one who is both old and who did not attend a music conservatory, I wonder how a performance course and degree are advantageous, at all, for a performer. No one is getting hired to play based on their academics, are they? I would think that it's strictly about how well you play, at least in the ideal, though of course "who you know" is always a huge consideration. But it seems to me that a performance degree is never, ever a consideration in getting hired to, you know, perform.

Or is that incorrect?

Adding to what Mattie said about your being in an extreme minority of people who had good careers without a degree, I would also say that you started that career several decades ago. The landscape had changed quite a bit since then. There are still maybe some corners of commercial genres where one might be able to do that, but the reality for the vast majority of professional playing opportunities is that even though a degree is not usually technically required*, in practice it's nearly impossible to have the adequate level without having studied and had the experiences and opportunities that come with it.

*degrees are increasingly actually required. A lot of European orchestras now ask for a CV and cover letter first, plus examples of playing (but not an audition tape with specified rep), before they choose who to invite to audition. Good luck getting invited without a performance degree on that CV

____

With all that being said, I don't necessarily disagree with Renee Fleming's point, especially in North America. I do think there are too many schools offering university degrees in music in the US particularly, relative to population as well as opportunities. If you look at Germany, they have only 24 music universities for a population of 84M and – just in terms of mainstream orchestral and opera opportunities, let alone ensembles in other genres, or freelance, or self-created opportunities – 129 professional orchestras and 80 opera houses. In North America everything is inverted and you have hundreds of music programs, with just a few orchestras that pay living wages. That's not really sustainable.

Even in Germany, not every music student has a career in music. But that in itself is absolutely okay. Students don't go study music thinking they have a guaranteed (or even just likely) career ahead of them. They are well aware that it is an incredibly competitive field and that a minority of them will actually have a full-time career in music. Absolutely nobody goes in thinking they'll just "work hard, get a degree and have a career".

[Matt K]

I have experience in both worlds. I have both a BM in Music Education and a BS in Information Systems. (And half a masters in performance and half a masters in Business Administration with an emphasis in data science, FWIW). I also coincidentally am a fifth-generation student of the same institution (my great-great-grandfather, great-grandfather, grandfather, both parents, sibling, and spouse all attended the same college), so I have a unique perspective on how the institution has changed over time.

This is anecdata: I am pretty close friends with most of the players in the trombone studio at the time. Of the seven people that I am aware of who graduated at the time (all in music education), I am aware of only one of us still being in music as our profession. I don't know if any of us explicitly "regret" the degree per se, but some of us would definitely not make that choice again with the benefit of hindsight.

I had pretty serious criticisms of the Music Education degree at the time, Music programs generally, and the idea of a university. I still have many of those criticisms, though they have been shaped now by the additional post-graduate work and then employment at academic institutions for the better part of five years after that.

I think there is still value, but it's certainly not in the Platonic ideal of a liberal arts degree, particularly at the bachelor's level. It seems to me that as degrees have become more ubiquitous, they have served to significantly water down the quality of the content. The specialization still serves a purpose, though it does not mean what it meant 40 years ago.

The rigor was palpably higher in the STEM degree that I had, and significantly more cohesive. The college within the university offered specialized electives, including alternative statistics courses that applied contemporary data science methods, as well as math courses that integrated calculus into finance specialization. In contrast, the university at large generally had enormous "general electives" classes, often with 400-seat lecture halls. Essentially, these were no different than taking a course or watching a YouTube lecture series, with the exception that they cost around $1500 a semester per class, and one had to be physically present, which was always around 80% of the grade itself. If there were tests or homework, they were ludicrously easy multiple-choice tests, which, of course, you had to pay $400 per course for a "textbook" to take the tests and were graded by the textbook company anyway.

Interestingly, given that my family has a history at this same institution, we have coincidentally taken many of the same electives, sometimes in the same room! For example, my grandfather, both of my parents, my brother, and I have all taken Psych 101. Back when my parents and grandparents took it, they were required to do fairly extensive amounts of writing and covered much more content. In contrast, I had a class of 80 people, and most of our grade came from answering multiple-choice questions from a PowerPoint slide via a special remote (low, low cost of $50!).

I think one of the issues is that there are actually three types of people who attend universities, particularly bachelor's. Some people want a quality, liberal arts education purely for their own sake. I think this number of people is fewer than one might expect, though often touted as the primary reason for a university to exist. There are others, like myself, who pursue a liberal arts degree because we want to reach a point where we have a career and the degree is a means to that specific, well-defined end. I personally think this is somewhere close to the majority of people, but that's totally speculation. Then there are the people who will do it because they want to be around other people their age and party, and will put up with it being a liberal arts degree and do as little as possible so they can enjoy life while they're young.

Inasmuch as the third category exists, I think that virtually everyone in this category is an "excessive" amount of people. It seems to me that this group of attendees is one of the main reasons that universities water down their curricula. Though I don't personally see music degrees as having many of these people, I did know of at least a few who I would put into this category.

I have thoughts on music ed degrees, too, but I've already written too much here, so maybe I'll share later.

[ghmerrill]

I have experience in both worlds. ...

What he said. It matches my own experience from the time of being a freshman, through my B.S. degree, my M.A., and Ph.D., becoming tenured faculty, associations with several different universities, and my wife's (also a faculty member for some time in the humanities) and children's experiences in colleges and universities.

I think one "class" of undergraduate student got left out: this is the class that from the beginning (or early on) is focused on a career path, sticks with that focus, and uses a "liberal arts degree" (or something like it) intentionally as the first step (perhaps "prerequisite" is often accurate) in that process. Typically, these students are intent on becoming medical doctors, dentists, or lawyers, and the B.A. (or B.S.) is intended as a springboard for a successful application to medical, dental, or law school. For this purpose a "liberal arts" degree (and I'm not sure exactly what we mean by that, though typically it means choosing a major somewhere in the humanities or social sciences) can be a good practical choice. You know that degree isn't going to "get you a job", but it may get you into the professional school you have your eye on because it will be easier to run your grades up in such a (less demanding/competitive) program while permitting you to also participate in activities that demonstrate that you're a "well-rounded person" and not just a STEM geek, and devote time to preparing specifically for the entrance tests you'll need to take (LSAT, MCAT, NATA, etc.).

And of course there are the programs devoted to producing teachers in the lower and middle grades and high school -- which is often what many people think of as a "liberal education", but with a concentration in teaching one subject or another.

Aside from that, I can't tell you how many students in liberal arts programs I've spoken to (particularly more recently) whose goal in life is to become a "social worker" or "counselor" or "community worker" of one sort or another, and are pursuing an undergraduate degree (again, often resembling a liberal arts degree in overall aspects) for entry into such professions. In some ways I think this may reflect attitudes among aspiring musicians -- but our society seems much more anxious to support social workers than musicians.

[BGuttman]

My wife was an advisor at a college where she had a bunch of evening students who were going for a degree because their companies had gone on a "bachelor's or fired" binge. Most of these people did not need a college degree for the jobs they were doing, but the company had adopted a policy that for a particular job a college degree was necessary. The school made a lot of money on these people, but they treated college like extended high school and really did not develop the kind of analytical skills that a true liberal arts major would require.

As to music majors who wind up in different careers, one person I know wound up as a technical writer for a major tech company. When that company folded he wound up working for the Post Office. Neither job paid well enough to pay back a $100,000 student loan. Fortunately for him he went to a state school and didn't have that much in debt when he graduated.

I still feel that college has gotten so expensive that you really have to use it to train for a high paying career if you have to pay for it (or have rather well-heeled parents). A degree in something like music, painting, or Medieval English History might be fun for some, but it doesn't prepare you for many of the types of jobs out there.

[LeTromboniste]

I know the last few comments were more generally about "liberal arts" and not music, but since we're discussing music programs...I can't talk for all schools, but I studied music at the tertiary level at 5 different schools, teach at a 6th and have visited many others in different capacities, and I've never, ever encountered classes with 80 students aside from university orchestras (where that's a good thing). In my own training, I have only had two with more than 25-30 people – one was a very interesting and therefore popular class on acoustics, which I believe was mandatory for students of the "digital music" programs, and an optional class in the theory module for the rest of music students; the other was history of film music, an also very interesting and popular class that obviously also appealed to cinema majors too; point is, they were bigger classes because they were popular, not because the school crammed the program with low-value classes. The vast majority of classes I have taken or taught had fewer than 15 students and delved deep in content. My experience is I received very high quality, highly tailored and specific education, probably a lot better than what many people get in other fields. It wasn't perfect and could certainly be more rigorous, but overall it was very good quality, and there is absolutely 0% chance I would have any kind of a career if I hadn't done it.

I suggest that if the reality is different in certain schools, it is not indicative of too many music students per se, or problems with the concept of university music degrees, but rather of those specific schools offering bad programs that they should simply not offer, and of broader problems with how education is funded in certain specific countries (i.e. yeah, degrees are expensive in the US. That's not a problem with degrees, that's a problem with the US).

I also take issue with the idea, implied in Fleming's argument and some of the comments earlier in this thread, that music schools are full of students who don't have talent, "have no business majoring" in music, are "musical cannon fodder". I'll let you in on how the admissions committees I've been on actually work: how a student plays before they study is indicative of past performance, yet admission is not a reward for past performance, it's an investment in perceived future potential. I can't count the number of time during my studies I saw someone who was really not very good suddenly take huge steps and become extremely good later in their undergrad, or even in grad school. Or someone who was really good to begin with stagnate and end up quitting. There's also so many people who for one reason or another don't fit the mainstream music world's insanely narrow definition of what "good" is, are "not good enough to win a job", who then find their own artistic voice and a career outside of that mainstream, where they have skills that make them better than those who might win orchestra jobs. I'm probably one of these people, and so are most of my colleagues making a living in my field. In many ways the problem with university music degrees is that many of these programs are still obsessed with "placing students" and therefore only or chiefly encourage students to aim for these rare jobs and not question the status quo, instead of encouraging artistry and individuality and finding one's own path in music. The solution is certainly not to make that focus even narrower.

[JohnL]

To be clear, I think there is an issue with the business of college at complete odds with the actual education and furthering of young students today. But hearing a bunch of people who did not get music degrees saying that too many people get music degrees is a bit rich.

To be clear, I've got no trouble with people getting music degrees in general. What bothers me is the fostering of unrealistic expectations

And no, I don't think everyone should major in some sort of STEM field. Not everyone is cut out for that sort of thing (IMNSHO, MOST people aren't cut out for that sort of thing). Heck, not everyone is cut out for college.

[tbdana]

See, I don't think we have too many performance majors. I think we have too few gigs. The solution isn't to eliminate music programs, it's to expand music performance across the nation. Start with Germany's model on steroids. It's time our country began supporting the arts that make our culture something to be proud of.

I'm sure this is an unpopular opinion, these days.

[robcat2075]

Back when Facebook was new and I naively accepted a "Friend" request from anyone who sent me one, I ended up following several bass trombone students at $ignificant in$titution$.

They would frequently post impressive clips of their impressive trombone activities. You're doing "Rite of Spring" in your college orchestra? That is very impressive!

But after they graduated, things slowed down quite a bit. A freelance gig here, subbing at a rehearsal there... they were out looking but not finding much

I rarely see a trombone-related post any more.

They seemed to be very solid, capable players, but a real career of any sort hasn't happened.

I recall on the old Trombone forum there was a guy attending NEC who made the usual all-excited-about-trombone-playing posts. Then he graduated and maybe a year later he posted about his realization of how dim and hopeless the prospects really were.

And he was never heard from again.

Was it proper for the schools they went to to admit them, school them for four years, and charge them a bucketload of money to do it when the avenues of success are so slim?

[VJOFan]

With the collapse of tech jobs the last two years I was recently musing that I would have rather my son had taken a degree in classical guitar. At least he would be having fun while learning an outdated skill. And every liquor store doorway would be a money making opportunity!

Further to the main discussion, there is definitely something in the process of becoming a better musician that trains a person to be a great learner in general and builds a confidence that lets one pursue other opportunities.

Berkeley College of music surveys it grads regularly. A lot of them work in music, but a lot of them become successful doing other things too.

[ghmerrill]

Was it proper for the schools they went to to admit them, school them for four years, and charge them a bucketload of money to do it when the avenues of success are so slim?

That would be okay if they were entirely and straightforwardly honest about it. Then it's on the student to make the decision. This leaves us with the question as to why there seem to be so many students nowadays who are apparently willing to fly headlong into a career path where the likelihood of their success (and remaining on that path in any reasonable way) is so obviously unlikely, and (in the case of a concentrated music program), their education may be so narrow (which I think is the point that some of the people talking about liberal arts are getting at).

An alternative question is whether it was proper/reasonable/responsible for that "school" or department itself to have been created. The answer, I think, is pretty clearly "No" -- but the question opens up a rather twisted can of worms having to do with the organization, goals, and support of academic institutions generally, and how they compete with one another for students (and hence income and funding, not to mention prestige). If you haven't sat on faculty committees about planning, expansion, admissions, hiring, promotions, tenure, grants, etc., you have no clue about what goes on. And I can't recommend that you should want to. Nothing is much more terrifying to faculty with tenure than the prospect that the department they're in may begin to shrink or to be flushed entirely (which I have seen happen). A great deal of effort (in various ways) will be oriented towards preventing that, and often the size of the department and number of students served play a central role.

One of my children once remarked that my problem was that I loved the noble abstract idea of the university and university community, but just couldn't tolerate the reality once I was fully immersed in it. A case of severe naivete.

[robcat2075]

Violinist, living the glorious freelance life...

https://www.facebook.com/reel/1032820932256622

[WilliamLang]

Having taught at a few schools, in larger universities I believe there should be a serious check in after the second year of study for students wishing to pursue a performance track. Teachers should be up front about the difficulties of the industry, and give anyone who wants a chance to really get the work in. At OU they had a barrier system, which was a double length jury, in order to take upper level lessons. I thought that was a relatively solid idea for most people involved.

[Burgerbob]

Having taught at a few schools, in larger universities I believe there should be a serious check in after the second year of study for students wishing to pursue a performance track. Teachers should be up front about the difficulties of the industry, and give anyone who wants a chance to really get the work in. At OU they had a barrier system, which was a double length jury, in order to take upper level lessons. I thought that was a relatively solid idea for most people involved.

We had barriers at my undergrad as well. The problem is there is huge financial incentive for a school (or studio teacher) to not fail anyone, ever. This is a different discussion, though IMO.

[JTeagarden]

As one who is both old and who did not attend a music conservatory, I wonder how a performance course and degree are advantageous, at all, for a performer.

And how has that worked out in your current career as an orchestral musician?

No one is getting hired to play based on their academics, are they? I would think that it's strictly about how well you play, at least in the ideal,

I presume that too, but how does one get to be heard playing, when hundreds may apply for an opening?

though of course "who you know" is always a huge consideration. But it seems to me that a performance degree is never, ever a consideration in getting hired to, you know, perform.

Or is that incorrect?

I suspect that a combination of taking the best students and tasking them with the best instruction has something to do with the students of elite schools having better outcomes.


According to one person's analysis, 47% of US orchestral musicians come from just four schools. Julliard alone makes for more than 20%




However, even the elite schools do not place all their graduates. A famous NYT article "The Julliard Effect" noted that 20 years ago.

At least University of Texas at Austin made the list, I am relieved! When I attended it, in the early to mid 80s, it cost four dollars per semester hour, my father was faced with staggering bills from the university of $260 or so per semester

[TomInME]

College should be where you learn to think, not to do. In that respect, yes there are too many performance degrees. But there could never be too many people who really understand music as an art form.

And colleges taking the STEM / "workforce training" route are doing a disservice also. Those "skills" will be useless in 10-15 years (or less!), and the students who learned a lot of how-to without any of the why will be dead in the water.

(Context: this from a person with multiple performance degrees who still plays quite a bit, but got some training and went into IT until those skills were obsolete, and now teaches community college math to people who "know the steps" for some math problems but haven't the faintest understanding of quantity and numerical relationships - and that includes the ones in STEM tracks who don't see why they have to take a math class when apps do all that. God save me if I ever have to drive on one of their bridges... See: JAL flight 123 for an example of what happens when people have great technical skill but lack critical thinking.)

[mgladdish]

I think I have some relevant experience here. I took a degree in computer science and then a postgrad in jazz performance. Here's a long post I wrote a few years back that I still stand by:

It'll come as no surprise that, like the rest of my facebook feed, I'm aghast at the prospect of yet more funding cuts to arts education. But as someone who's been a professional software developer for over 20 years I think I object for different reasons.

Yes, there's a real skills shortage in tech. Hiring is difficult at the best of times - I don't think I've ever managed a better rejection rate than 90% of applicants, even when using agencies that pre-vet candidates. And even just the hiring process alone is costly, both in monetary terms for agents fees but even moreso for the internal opportunity cost of all the people involved in screening and interviewing when they could be doing much more productive work instead.

But funnelling more people into computer science at higher education won't solve this. Above all, the most valuable skill on a technical team is rigorous logical thought. You'd be amazed at just how few people are good at it. I think I saw a study that suggested only ~10% of the population can do it sufficiently well to become scientists, and we need exactly that same level of mental rigour in our field.
But we also need more than just that - we need people who can understand the very human side of it too. It's vanishingly rare to work on a project that's purely about the technology, it's always about solving or improving upon a human need. Being able to empathise with the people using what we build is crucial. Understanding its wider impact (see social media companies, passim), or even just effectively communicating what it is your tool does, are critical skills. If you can better understand the problems your end-users have, then you can make better decisions when building those tools to help them. More computer science training won't fix this - diverse teams will. A solid understanding of a seemingly unrelated field brings new ideas and perspectives into teams and helps prevent blindspots where opportunities are missed. Actively preventing a monoculture isn't just some woke wishy-washy idealistic goal, it's a competitive advantage.

The general point here is that reducing this complex problem down to the reductionist "more tech degrees" solution misses the point entirely. A computer science degree is not good training for how to program, that comes with a few years of on-the-job training and experience. So cutting funding for the arts is actually going to harm our country's professional and technical skill base.

So, like every other "common sense" solution to a hard problem, cutting funding for "non-strategic subjects" is going to do more harm than good to the very fields that they aim to support. Slow hand claps all round.

And I should correct a couple of misconceptions about STEM/Computer Science, too. These courses are only vocational if you're going into further research in those subjects. What to be a researcher in CERN? Cool, you'll need a physics phd before they'll even look at you. Otherwise they largely fullfill the same employment need as any other degree - are you reasonably bright and can you think logically? My computer science degree has not been directly relevant for my 25 years of programming, consulting, running dev teams and now runnnig a software company. But it hasn't fallen out of date either - it was about the underlying _science_, not about learning the ins and outs of the current favourite programming language in corporations. I've interviewed countless graduates of vocational programming schemes and every single person needed a few more years of on-the-job experience before I'd trust them unaided on a codebase that did anything meaningful. Have I needed to know how to calculate Chomsky Grammars for languages I've worked with? Of course not. But has the underlying knowledge that too all intents and purposes all programming languges are capable of expressing all the same things? Yes.

But underlying all of this is a short-sightedness and reductive reasoning that I have very little patience with. What's the point of us being here if we can't explore our interests? Being employable isn't enough of a reason to be on this earth in the first place. Even if it were, all the data we have shows that:
a) more education == greater economic output
b) more diversity == greater economic output
so the more people we can give more education to, from more backgrounds, in more subjects, is a net win for everybody.

Not everyone who studies at music college goes on to perform music as a full-time career. Not everyone who studies physics goes on to be a full-time physicist.

The problem isn't the subject matter, it's the batshit economics of how the US chooses to run further education. Other countries do this much, much better and are on the whole happier, healthier, and with a stronger economy.

[harrisonreed]

Well, they become music teachers, some of them. That's why there are so many programs. There is a constant demand, so they can keep hiring teachers in colleges, or filing vacancies. I imagine with so many qualified candidates, they don't need to really pay the teachers all that well either.

The more students you produce, the easier it is to keep the programs going at the collegiate level.

This is all easy economics, but what doesn't make sense is why so many people are going into programs in the first place that aren't on that list, expecting to get orchestra jobs. They either already know they will go into some other field after they graduate, or they think they'll win the lottery, or they are just not thinking logically about the future. I'm guessing that most just know they'll end up going into some other field.

[atopper333]

STEM programs are useful…just as certificates are useful in the fact that, like all things, personal initiative is a primary driving factor. If you want to learn how to do something and go and work, STEM 2 year degrees are meant for you. If you want to figure out why, how and how to progress things further, then it’s going to be a four plus year program. The guys making bridges…they aren’t certificate guys.

This whole premise…it’s a bell curve. 80 percent of society is going to fall within on side of the curve or another, more or less proactive…more or less personal initiative, mostly mediocre but some more mediocre than others. It’s those 10 percent on the outliers that we spend the most attention on.

Maybe there are a lot of music degree programs cause they aren’t around for those who become the greatest players in the business. Maybe they are around to bring forth more teachers to teach the next generation of players who will bring up the next generation of players who will play in various community bands, community level orchestras, local jazz and swing bands to keep at least a bit of interest alive, and they will in turn bring forth the next generation of great players playing in the major bands and symphonies. You get the opportunity to swing the bat to make it to the ‘big leagues,’ but it’s the actual love of the music that keeps us around in the field.

[ghmerrill]

College should be where you learn to think, not to do.

I think you'll get an argument about that from pretty much any engineering school or department. And probably an argument from any poetry professor. And definitely an argument from any applied mathematics department. And any from any instructor in a course that requires laboratory work (which includes architecture schools). And ... well, you get the idea.

Very often, doing is part of learning to think.
And colleges taking the STEM / "workforce training" route are doing a disservice also. Those "skills" will be useless in 10-15 years (or less!), and the students who learned a lot of how-to without any of the why will be dead in the water.

No they won't -- because those skills are transferable and generalizable. Again, learning those sorts of skills is part of learning to think.

See: JAL flight 123 for an example of what happens when people have great technical skill but lack critical thinking.)

Critical thinking appears to have had no immediate role in this incident since both the Japanese and U.S. investigative agencies found that the cause was a faulty repair by "technicians" that didn't conform to Boeing's required methodologies. Repair techs simply didn't follow the specific rules for the type of repair required after a previous tailstrike involving the plane. It's hard to characterize this as a failure or lack of critical thinking when it was a simple case of ignoring a standard required procedure. I'm not disputing your view that technical skill isn't a substitute for critical thinking -- but that (ironically, as a matter of critical thinking) you'll need a different example to make the point.

[TomInME]

College should be where you learn to think, not to do.

I think you'll get an argument about that from pretty much any engineering school or department. And probably an argument from any poetry professor. And definitely an argument from any applied mathematics department. And any from any instructor in a course that requires laboratory work (which includes architecture schools). And ... well, you get the idea.

Very often, doing is part of learning to think.
And colleges taking the STEM / "workforce training" route are doing a disservice also. Those "skills" will be useless in 10-15 years (or less!), and the students who learned a lot of how-to without any of the why will be dead in the water.

No they won't -- because those skills are transferable and generalizable. Again, learning those sorts of skills is part of learning to think.

See: JAL flight 123 for an example of what happens when people have great technical skill but lack critical thinking.)

Critical thinking appears to have had no immediate role in this incident since both the Japanese and U.S. investigative agencies found that the cause was a faulty repair by "technicians" that didn't conform to Boeing's required methodologies. Repair techs simply didn't follow the specific rules for the type of repair required after a previous tailstrike involving the plane. It's hard to characterize this as a failure or lack of critical thinking when it was a simple case of ignoring a standard required procedure. I'm not disputing your view that technical skill isn't a substitute for critical thinking -- but that (ironically, as a matter of critical thinking) you'll need a different example to make the point.

That's the problem with engineers. They think that following 100 recipes makes you a chef. Of course doing has value in demonstrating concepts in action, but it's no replacement for that conceptual understanding.
The techs who did/inspected that repair (all of whom had training, some of whom were engineers) had done dozens of other repairs, without ever knowing why the repair had to be done that way. And they thought their experience was more valuable than the book-learnin' that created the procedure. THAT is why they did it wrong. THAT is the gaping flaw in "skills-based" "learning" .

[tbdana]

Not everyone gets a degree to have a career in that area. Sometimes people go to school just to learn something they love. Why try to gatekeep that? What should any of us care if someone pursuing a performance degree has what it takes to have a career in music? And which of you is enough of an arrogant fool to think you can judge that?

[harrisonreed]

Not everyone gets a degree to have a career in that area. Sometimes people go to school just to learn something they love. Why try to gatekeep that? What should any of us care if someone pursuing a performance degree has what it takes to have a career in music? And which of you is enough of an arrogant fool to think you can judge that?

I think the issue, Dana, is the expectation for placement in occupations going in. Or the perception, true or false, that teachers might be stringing students along.

I don't think many people initially go into music performance with a pure desire to pursue learning for learning's sake. Or to take on that much debt to learn a hobby. They go in because they want to win auditions or make connections to get into the scene. Schools that aren't Juilliard are not going to advertise a .07% placement rate into pro orchestras. If they did, that probably would change the enrollment rate. Would that be good or bad? Who knows.

Obviously you need to go to school to get better. So you can't be so selective or exclusive for people just getting into college. The issue might be solved if an entrance audition was required every semester, and the standard kept going up each semester. Is that something that happens at conservatories?

I think the Conservetoire in Paris does juries that basically can fail you out of the school if you haven't progressed enough.

[ghmerrill]

That's the problem with engineers. They think that following 100 recipes makes you a chef.

Golly, I never though I'd be defending the conceptual abilities of engineers after all these years , but ...

This makes me wonder what kind of engineers you've known. I went through four years at an engineering school (though not in an engineering curriculum), and characterizing the courses the engineers went through (including, of course, the "liberal arts" courses they went through) doesn't support the "following 100 recipes" model you suggest. Maybe you're conflating engineers with some broader class of less well-trained "technicians". I don't know.

And they thought their experience was more valuable than the book-learnin' that created the procedure.

I do see the axe you're trying to grind here. I just don't see that it needed grinding in this incident, or is supported by how you want to see the cause of an aircraft accident -- or that such an incident (even under the most extreme interpretation you'd like to give) is fully generalizable to all "engineers" or engineering educations -- which in fact provide a MUCH broader and theory-based education than what you see as "skills-based" "learning" .

I know because for four years I sat through a variety of classes (in mathematics, chemistry, physics, philosophy, psychology, poetry, and anthropology) with a number of those engineering students. Two of them went on to get Ph.D.s in philosophy -- one a DPhil from Oxford. But all of them were taking what most people would regard as both a heavy-duty dose of liberal arts courses (there were requirements for taking these) and a heavy-duty dose of heavily theory-based science, math, and engineering courses. We all had those same courses and took those same tests. You really can't do well in something like special relativity theory or (even basic) quantum mechanics without a lot of "conceptual" understanding. The model of "Yesterday I couldn't even spell 'enguneer' and now I are one." isn't really accurate.

[ghmerrill]

Schools that aren't Juilliard are not going to advertise a .07% placement rate into pro orchestras. If they did, that probably would change the enrollment rate. Would that be good or bad? Who knows.

It might very well (I'm tempted to say "It would likely") mean the death of that program at that school. Untenured faculty would simply be released, some tenured faculty might be offered transfers (with tenure) to other departments, and everyone else would be out the door -- tenure or not. (This isn't speculation. I saw it happen to a linguistics department when I was a graduate student. I know of one other case -- sociology department -- where it happened as well. The departments in question simply didn't have enough "recognized" high-profile faculty to attract the needed number of students. And the administration decided that they just weren't "up to the standards of the university".

I think the Conservetoire in Paris does juries that basically can fail you out of the school if you haven't progressed enough.

I thought they all did that. I had a friend, when I was in graduate school, who was a student at the U of R. While there she took lessons from someone at Eastman (I don't know who). Every semester she had to play for a jury in order to continue with that. But maybe for their own students they didn't enforce things so rigidly. (Later in life the friend got a Ph.D. in philosophy and then an MD and turned into a hematologist -- how's that for career progression?)

[JohnL]

That's the problem with engineers. They think that following 100 recipes makes you a chef. Of course doing has value in demonstrating concepts in action, but it's no replacement for that conceptual understanding.
The techs who did/inspected that repair (all of whom had training, some of whom were engineers) had done dozens of other repairs, without ever knowing why the repair had to be done that way. And they thought their experience was more valuable than the book-learnin' that created the procedure. THAT is why they did it wrong. THAT is the gaping flaw in "skills-based" "learning" .

Sometimes, the answer to "Why does it have to be this way?" is "Because we know for sure that this way works and does not kill people.". Sadly, for a lot of people, that justification doesn't seem to be enough. Another way MIGHT work, but it also might result in a mass casualty incident. That's why any changes to designs and procedures are supposed to be (MUST BE) subject to engineering review. I spent a lot of time over the years listening to people ask some variant of "How do you know this new way won't work?" to which I would answer "We don't know for sure that it won't work, but we also don't know for sure that it will work - and we have to know for sure before we can make a change."

[JohnL]

I don't think many people initially go into music performance with a pure desire to pursue learning for learning's sake. Or to take on that much debt to learn a hobby. They go in because they want to win auditions or make connections to get into the scene. Schools that aren't Juilliard are not going to advertise a .07% placement rate into pro orchestras. If they did, that probably would change the enrollment rate. Would that be good or bad? Who knows.

Yeah, that debt monster is one nasty customer. It wasn't nearly so big and ugly (and HUNGRY) when I went to a state university back in the early-mid 1980's.

As for enrollments dropping if students knew the placement rates? I dunno - we humans seem to be predisposed to thinking that those numbers apply to other people, not us.

[robcat2075]

I do think there are too many schools offering university degrees in music in the US particularly, relative to population as well as opportunities. If you look at Germany, they have only 24 music universities for a population of 84M and – just in terms of mainstream orchestral and opera opportunities, let alone ensembles in other genres, or freelance, or self-created opportunities – 129 professional orchestras and 80 opera houses. In North America everything is inverted and you have hundreds of music programs, with just a few orchestras that pay living wages.

Google tells me there are 628 accredited "higher education" (university level) music schools in the US. Ouch.

Many of those will not be focusing on classical performance degrees... "music education" is a common major along with modern notions like "music production" or "film music"... but I expect every one of the 50 states has at least one school in its university system offering a performance degree as will numerous private colleges and universities.

Meanwhile Google suggest there are between 26 and 50 "full-time" orchestras in the US, ensembles that pay musicians on a 52-week season.

There is a spectrum of "regional" professional orchestras below that that may be active for many months or for as few as four concerts per year. I was once in one!

[robcat2075]

Schools that aren't Juilliard are not going to advertise a .07% placement rate into pro orchestras. If they did, that probably would change the enrollment rate. Would that be good or bad? Who knows.

One of the straws-on-the-camel's-back that was the beginning of the end of for-profit art schools and for-profit vocational schools was the Obama-era requirement that they publish accurate placement rates of their graduates and that they achieve certain rates to for their students to be eligible for certain tuition loans.

the Art Institutes chain collapsed a few years ago. I attended one in Dallas (on my company's $) for a few quarters and I found the standard art courses to very useful and the standard art teachers very competent, but there was a lot of nonsense in the larger curriculum.

AFAIK our nation has survived the shortage of fashion designers and digital marketing creatives their closure has effected.

[TomInME]

That's the problem with engineers. They think that following 100 recipes makes you a chef. Of course doing has value in demonstrating concepts in action, but it's no replacement for that conceptual understanding.
The techs who did/inspected that repair (all of whom had training, some of whom were engineers) had done dozens of other repairs, without ever knowing why the repair had to be done that way. And they thought their experience was more valuable than the book-learnin' that created the procedure. THAT is why they did it wrong. THAT is the gaping flaw in "skills-based" "learning" .

Sometimes, the answer to "Why does it have to be this way?" is "Because we know for sure that this way works and does not kill people.". Sadly, for a lot of people, that justification doesn't seem to be enough. Another way MIGHT work, but it also might result in a mass casualty incident. That's why any changes to designs and procedures are supposed to be (MUST BE) subject to engineering review. I spent a lot of time over the years listening to people ask some variant of "How do you know this new way won't work?" to which I would answer "We don't know for sure that it won't work, but we also don't know for sure that it will work - and we have to know for sure before we can make a change."

Unfortunately that sounds too much like "trust us, we're the experts" for the average American. I get why someone who has done literally thousands of rivets in an airframe might think they know more than someone who spends all day in the office, but it's the lack of conceptual understanding of things like metal fatigue and pressurization that lets them think that. They have training and skills but little knowledge.

[BGuttman]

Tom, you are a master at Monday Morning Quarterbacking. Sure. The assembler, who may have had a 2 year Tech degree is responsible for realizing that a piece of metal had internal fatigue, even though it may not have been visible. Give me a break. The assembler follows procedures written by an Engineer, who may or may not have taken into consideration the fault you mention.

By the way, those of us who went to Engineering college programs were not taught how to follow recipes. We were taught how the recipes were developed. Much like how a lawyer is taught how laws are crafted so they can interpret them.

Note that I don't think we should denigrate Music Performance programs. They do teach a lot of the background that can make for a more informed performance than I, who simply took some lessons on how to make a less objectionable noise on this piece of plumbing. The problem is that there is a rather high cost of obtaining this degree and not many opportunities to earn a salary high enough to repay any student loan. I've always told young people who are interested in a Music degree that you should be driven to play more than eat. Those driven students might be able to earn enough money to manage to pay back the student loan.

[NathanSobieralski]

Regarding the aircraft accident, the repair did not follow the procedure outlined by Boeing for a ruptured bulkhead. The repair technicians deviated, and the incorrect repair failed. The engineers devised the correct repair that was not followed.