Too many music degree programs

robcat2075 · by **robcat2075** » 2025-08-07 4:16 p.m.

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

<LINK_TEXT text="https://slippedisc.com/2025/08/just-in- ... -programs/">https://slippedisc.com/2025/08/just-in-renee-fleming-lashes-out-at-criminal-us-voice-programs/</LINK_TEXT>

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 · by **ghmerrill** » 2025-08-07 4:58 p.m.

[quote="robcat2075"]Renee Fleming, speaking specifically of voice programs, but could just as well be speaking of music performance degrees in general:[/quote]
Or a disturbingly large number of other degrees in general -- and it's actually been going on, and increasing, for 50 years.

Burgerbob · by **Burgerbob** » 2025-08-07 5:04 p.m.

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 · by **norbie2018** » 2025-08-07 5:30 p.m.

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 · by **norbie2018** » 2025-08-07 5:31 p.m.

Also, music programs are essentially trade school programs.

BGuttman · by **BGuttman** » 2025-08-07 6:18 p.m.

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 · by **tbdana** » 2025-08-07 6:52 p.m.

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 · by **officermayo** » 2025-08-07 7:01 p.m.

[quote="norbie2018"]Also, music programs are essentially trade school programs.[/quote]

And all symphonies are cover bands?

Burgerbob · by **Burgerbob** » 2025-08-07 7:02 p.m.

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 · 2025-08-07 7:09 p.m.

[quote="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.[/quote]

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 · by **robcat2075** » 2025-08-07 7:37 p.m.

[quote="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.[/quote]

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 ~~[url=https://www.reddit.com/r/classicalmusic/comments/1kxu4o2/47_of_us_orchestra_musicians_are_from_just_4/]~~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 "~~[url=https://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/12/arts/music/the-juilliard-effect-ten-years-later.html?unlocked_article_code=1.cU8.XpU9.l6Wb35wYIuYo&smid=url-share]~~The Julliard Effect"noted that 20 years ago.

JohnL · by **JohnL** » 2025-08-07 7:50 p.m.

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 · by **robcat2075** » 2025-08-07 7:57 p.m.

[quote="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"[/quote]

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

mbarbier · by **mbarbier** » 2025-08-07 7:57 p.m.

[quote="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?[/quote]

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 · by **tbdana** » 2025-08-07 10:06 p.m.

[quote="robcat2075"]<QUOTE author="tbdana" post_id="283024" time="1754607168" user_id="16498">
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.[/quote]

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 ~~[url=https://www.reddit.com/r/classicalmusic/comments/1kxu4o2/47_of_us_orchestra_musicians_are_from_just_4/]~~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 "~~[url=https://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/12/arts/music/the-juilliard-effect-ten-years-later.html?unlocked_article_code=1.cU8.XpU9.l6Wb35wYIuYo&smid=url-share]~~The Julliard Effect"noted that 20 years ago.
</QUOTE>

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 · by **tbdana** » 2025-08-07 10:09 p.m.

[quote="mbarbier"]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...[/quote]

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 · by **ghmerrill** » 2025-08-07 10:23 p.m.

[quote="Burgerbob"]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.[/quote]
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 · by **Burgerbob** » 2025-08-08 12:44 a.m.

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 · by **BGuttman** » 2025-08-08 3:21 a.m.

[quote="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.[/quote]

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 · by **LeTromboniste** » 2025-08-08 5:39 a.m.

[quote="BGuttman"]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.[/quote]

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.

[quote="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?[/quote]

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 · by **Matt_K** » 2025-08-08 6:54 a.m.

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 · by **ghmerrill** » 2025-08-08 7:36 a.m.

[quote="Matt K"]I have experience in both worlds. ...[/quote]
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 · by **BGuttman** » 2025-08-08 8:49 a.m.

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 · by **LeTromboniste** » 2025-08-08 9:01 a.m.

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 · by **JohnL** » 2025-08-08 11:07 a.m.

[quote="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.[/quote]
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 · by **tbdana** » 2025-08-08 11:23 a.m.

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 · by **robcat2075** » 2025-08-08 2:01 p.m.

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 · by **VJOFan** » 2025-08-08 3:38 p.m.

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 · by **ghmerrill** » 2025-08-08 4:05 p.m.

[quote="robcat2075"]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?[/quote]
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. :shock:

robcat2075 · by **robcat2075** » 2025-08-08 6:05 p.m.

Violinist, living the glorious freelance life...

~~[url]~~https://www.facebook.com/reel/1032820932256622

WilliamLang · by **WilliamLang** » 2025-08-08 6:35 p.m.

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 · by **Burgerbob** » 2025-08-08 7:08 p.m.

[quote="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.[/quote]

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 · by **JTeagarden** » 2025-08-08 7:50 p.m.

[quote="robcat2075"]<QUOTE author="tbdana" post_id="283024" time="1754607168" user_id="16498">
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.[/quote]

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 ~~[url=https://www.reddit.com/r/classicalmusic/comments/1kxu4o2/47_of_us_orchestra_musicians_are_from_just_4/]~~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 "~~[url=https://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/12/arts/music/the-juilliard-effect-ten-years-later.html?unlocked_article_code=1.cU8.XpU9.l6Wb35wYIuYo&smid=url-share]~~The Julliard Effect"noted that 20 years ago.
</QUOTE>

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 · by **TomInME** » 2025-08-09 12:49 a.m.

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 · by **mgladdish** » 2025-08-09 7:11 a.m.

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 · by **harrisonreed** » 2025-08-09 7:51 a.m.

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 · by **atopper333** » 2025-08-09 9:04 a.m.

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 · by **ghmerrill** » 2025-08-09 9:25 a.m.

[quote="TomInME"]College should be where you learn to think, not to do.[/quote]
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 · by **TomInME** » 2025-08-09 10:23 a.m.

[quote="ghmerrill"]<QUOTE author="TomInME" post_id="283148" time="1754714968" user_id="17474">
College should be where you learn to think, not to do.[/quote]
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.
</QUOTE>

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 · by **tbdana** » 2025-08-09 10:39 a.m.

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 · by **harrisonreed** » 2025-08-09 12:35 p.m.

[quote="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?[/quote]

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 · by **ghmerrill** » 2025-08-09 12:52 p.m.

[quote="TomInME"]That's the problem with engineers. They think that following 100 recipes makes you a chef.[/quote]
Golly, I never though I'd be defending the conceptual abilities of engineers after all these years :lol: , 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 · by **ghmerrill** » 2025-08-09 1:07 p.m.

[quote="harrisonreed"]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.[/quote]
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 · by **JohnL** » 2025-08-09 1:27 p.m.

[quote="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" .[/quote]

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 · 2025-08-09 1:52 p.m.

[quote="harrisonreed"]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.[/quote]
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 · 2025-08-09 5:10 p.m.

[quote="LeTromboniste"]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.[/quote]

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 · by **robcat2075** » 2025-08-09 5:25 p.m.

[quote="harrisonreed"]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.[/quote]

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 · by **TomInME** » 2025-08-09 8:57 p.m.

[quote="JohnL"]<QUOTE author="TomInME" post_id="283167" time="1754749426" user_id="17474">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" .[/quote]

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."
</QUOTE>

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 · by **BGuttman** » 2025-08-09 11:34 p.m.

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 · by **NathanSobieralski** » 2025-08-09 11:49 p.m.

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.

LeTromboniste · by **LeTromboniste** » 2025-08-10 5:46 a.m.

[quote="BGuttman"]The problem is that there is a rather high cost of obtaining this degree[/quote]

Again, high tuition in some countries is not a a problen with music degrees, it's a problem with the those countries. It's a society choice to not fund higher education and require students to foot the bill, and to adopt a mercantile vision of education where the value of a field is determined first and foremost by how much money one can make. That's not a universal principle.

[quote="harrisonreed"]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.[/quote]

It's more complicated than that. Of course we want to win auditions and make connections to get into the scene. But I don't think it's true that most people go into it with an expectation that we wil in fact win auditions or get into the scene. We go in because we want to do this, and we hope we will succeed, and want to at least give it a shot. But most people I've ever known in any of the schools I studied at were also very aware that there are no guarantees and that most of us will not end up having a career in music, or not only in music. Its not uncommon to hear music students say things along the lines of "I'm giving this X years and if I haven't won a job or established a strong professional presence in that time, I'm going back to school for something else". Or for people to immediately start another degree after they graduate college to have a backup plan already in place.

It's also not entirely uncommon for people to do that, only to end up back in a music career, by the way. One of my best friends when I was at the mandatory pre-university college we have in Quebec (I'll make a separate post about that system) was accepted for undergrad in the supposedly top studio in town for their instrument, with tons of scholarships, because they were extremely good and showed a ton of promise. The teacher turned out to be really toxic and put insane pressure on their students that could really break the motivation and love of music in people. My friend ended up not even trying for auditions and not going to grad school, convinced they were not "good enough" even though they absolutely were. Instead they started an engineering degree. But they then quit that and went back into music where they now have a career in the military bands. My best friend did a bachelor and master in music, then started a law degree. Now they're probably the busiest player of their instrument in the country. I could go on and on, I know so many people who stopped and did something else, and then ended up back in music, at the very least as a part-time professional occupation.

[quote="harrisonreed"]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.[/quote]

That's normally the case, in my experience. Might not be the case everywhere, but I always had juries at the end of every year (honestly as a teacher I think having one every semester would be too much, you'd get no possibility to work out technical problems with students, because they'd constantly be preparing for an exam. Even one a year a find too much, personally). In some schools they do one re-admission exam mid-bachelor to allow to continue.

[quote="tbdana"]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?[/quote]

This. That's my biggest problem with this whole conversation. Nobody, not even Renee Fleming, gets to decide for everyone what "succeeding" and "having a career" means and whether someone who's still years away from even starting one has "what it takes" to get there. So many things can happen in those years.

This is a complex issue, a lot of it has to do with a broader vision of society, not just specifically about music programs. But one thing it's not about is a lack of musical talent and potential.

LeTromboniste · by **LeTromboniste** » 2025-08-10 6:12 a.m.

In Quebec, we have a unique structure to our education system. Compared to the rest of North America, people graduate from their Bachelor at the same age, but we graduate highschool after grade 11 instead of 12, and undergrad is 3 years instead of 4. In-between, we have to attend a pre-university college (CEGEP, which stands for "college of general and professional education) for two years*. Those schools are tuition-free. Half the credits you take over those two years are general classes everyone has to take (French and English literature, philosophy, physical education, a couple general electives), and the other half are specific to your study program. In some fields it's still fairly general (for example for STEMs it's all the stuff that everyone needs to get), for other fields it's already quite specialised (in music, it's essentially bachelor-level classes, with private lessons, small and large ensembles, ear training, analysis, music history).

*the pre-university course is a minimum of two years, but one can stretch it out over three while still being considered full-time. They also offer "technical" three-year programs that qualify you to enter the workplace directly as a "technician", or continue on to university. In that case you still have the same general education requirements, but 2/3 of the credits are specialized, hence the extra year. Where I studied, they offer an intensive technical program for jazz and pop composition, performance and recording.

It is a really good system, as it gives a smoother transition into university, at least an extra year before people have to choose what they'll do, and more flexibility in terms of transferring and changing fields. For music it gives a chance to already be immersed full-time in a music school for two or even three years before even starting your bachelor's degree. This gives a solid head-start (for example my 1st year undergrad ear training classes at Université de Montréal were at the level they do in the final, 4th year at McGill, where the programme is based on students coming directly out of 12th grade from the US and English Canada), but also this naturally already gives a chance for people to realise they might not actually want to go on, and change course before they've spent a single dollar of university tuition, who can then go to university in another field, or if switching to another specialised field, transfer to another CEGEP programme for one year to get the specialized courses they need before university.

GabrielRice · by **GabrielRice** » 2025-08-10 9:46 a.m.

Just going to put this here.

<LINK_TEXT text="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/10/tech ... =url-share">https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/10/technology/coding-ai-jobs-students.html?unlocked_article_code=1.dE8.A3ZK.1JevFqheKRnD&smid=url-share</LINK_TEXT>

Among college graduates ages 22 to 27, computer science and computer engineering majors are facing some of the highest unemployment rates, 6.1 percent and 7.5 percent respectively, according to a report from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. That is more than double the unemployment rate among recent biology and art history graduates, which is just 3 percent.

1. Live performers cannot be replaced by AI.

2. Music is a unique discipline in that it requires a balance of individual and collaborative work (with the possible exception of truly solo instruments). The interpersonal skills we develop by playing chamber music carry over into nearly any occupation we might find ourselves in.

TomInME · by **TomInME** » 2025-08-10 11:14 a.m.

I was just about to link that same article. Skills-based, market-driven "education" failing spectacularly.

The thing that makes that (and performance degrees) not OK is when the students are permitted unrealistic expectations about the final outcome. Coding majors were sold a narrative that they would have good odds of a great job after graduation, now most of them are getting nothing. This will be the same story for a lot of other fields that corporations are currently pushing trustees to promote.

And the same thing can and does happen with music performance degrees: "oh, you're getting better all the time" "you're sounding good" when in reality the student is not on a trajectory that has any chance of reaching orbit. It's fine if the student has full knowledge and chooses to continue for their own personal reasons, but it's not fair at all when they're being encouraged to double down without knowing the real score.

TomInME · by **TomInME** » 2025-08-10 11:20 a.m.

And there's a fundamental conflict of interest between the music programs (who need to maintain enrollment or lose their jobs) and the students' need for a clear perspective on reality.

TomInME · by **TomInME** » 2025-08-10 11:32 a.m.

[quote="GabrielRice"]1. Live performers cannot be replaced by AI.[/quote]

True, but they can and have been replaced by synthesizers and compositions re-scored for fewer instruments (musicals,etc). It's only in the luxury market (and/or volunteer organizations) that we see full orchestras anymore.

Compare today's performance market for trombone players with that of 50 years ago. This market contracted, while the supply side increased. Hence: too many performance degrees.

I'm not saying these degrees are worthless - I've enjoyed great benefits from mine - today I get to play in a brass ensemble made up of many individuals with performance degrees and it's a great-sounding, fun-to-play-in group.

But financially, the benefits are far out of proportion to the expenditure. The market considers most of these degrees worthless monetarily.

JohnL · by **JohnL** » 2025-08-10 11:42 a.m.

[quote="TomInME"]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.[/quote]
In my experience, giving people with a predisposition to question experts more information doesn't do much good. After all, that information is coming from the experts that they think they know better than. They just go their merry way, doing whatever is expedient for them at the moment.

Note that this attitude is EVERYWHERE. You made reference to the culinary field a while back. Have you ever read through some of the restaurant inspection reports from you local health department? Most places do pretty well, but there's a few that can be "troubling". What worries me the most are the establishments that have the same violations over and over again.

ghmerrill · by **ghmerrill** » 2025-08-10 11:46 a.m.

[quote="LeTromboniste"]Again, high tuition in some countries is not a a problen with music degrees, it's a problem with the those countries. It's a society choice to not fund higher education and require students to foot the bill, and to adopt a mercantile vision of education where the value of a field is determined first and foremost by how much money one can make. That's not a universal principle.[/quote]
Here's the universal principle: "To each according to his desire. From each according to the ability of others to pay." That's a mild re-phrasing, of course. :)

tbdana · by **tbdana** » 2025-08-10 11:54 a.m.

Are we selling kids short in this? Does any music student really think that a performance degree is going to get them a gig and a career as a performer? Surely students are aware of the odds, and they go into it anyway, with faith in themselves and a drive to succeed.

A parallel with even worse odds is theater programs. The unemployment rate among actors is worse than musicians. Yet all those kids go to theater school knowing the odds, because they simply love doing it and they're willing to bet on themselves, so they take their shot. "You miss every shot you don't take," as Michael Jordan once said.

Speaking of which, should we limit the number of schools that can have basketball programs because the odds of landing an NBA career are infinitesimal?

Lots of restaurants fail. Should we limit the number of licenses to open restaurants because most fail?

Even when I was young, back in the dim reaches of time, every student contemplating a career in music considered whether or not they ought to study something else to "have something to fall back on." It's not like these risks are unknown. And it's not just the myopic notion of symphony auditions and seats. Someone goes on to have a hip-hop career, or become a pop star, or create music for video games (which is <B>extremely</B>[/b] lucrative, by the way).

If there is an army of kids willing to take the plunge to compete for a handful of jobs, is it correct to gatekeep them, limit opportunities, and decide which ones won't even be permitted to take a shot?

GabrielRice · by **GabrielRice** » 2025-08-10 11:58 a.m.

[quote="TomInME"]The thing that makes that (and performance degrees) not OK is when the students are permitted unrealistic expectations about the final outcome.[/quote]

I live in this world, and I do not see this happening. Everybody going to school for music knows that the likelihood of getting a single full-time performing job is very, very small.

I have 4 jobs that I can reasonably count on for annual income, and a lot more single engagement freelance work. I own a home with rental income, drive a reliable car with no loan payment, and have a reasonably comfortable lifestyle. Granted, I am old enough that my situation is more difficult to achieve for people even 10-15 years younger, but my situation also simply does not show up on job survey statistics.

tbdana · by **tbdana** » 2025-08-10 12:03 p.m.

I suggest that lots of music programs might be good for music, as it widens the pool of available talent. This high level of competition among a great many people makes for better musicians, as the ones who make it have to beat out hundreds rather than a handful. Just a notion.

TomInME · by **TomInME** » 2025-08-10 12:20 p.m.

[quote="tbdana"]I suggest that lots of music programs might be good for music, as it widens the pool of available talent. This high level of competition among a great many people makes for better musicians, as the ones who make it have to beat out hundreds rather than a handful. Just a notion.[/quote]

The same is true for professional sports. With many of the same consequences, if not more. (probably less money spent on advanced degrees, but also many lives harmed by permanent injury)

And we haven't discussed opportunity cost: the potential in other areas that people give up when they focus on a low-probability career.

tbdana · by **tbdana** » 2025-08-10 12:22 p.m.

[quote="TomInME"]And we haven't discussed opportunity cost: the potential in other areas that people give up when they focus on a low-probability career.[/quote]

I guess the question I'm asking is who has the right to decide for any particular student whether or not they should be permitted to take that risk. Shouldn't we leave it up to the student and his/her family?

TomInME · by **TomInME** » 2025-08-10 12:25 p.m.

The student, of course - but it should be a fully-informed decision. I doubt that very many music schools publish stats on the average income - and number of jobs - in the performing music field, and what percentage of their graduates are making a full-time living in that field.

ghmerrill · by **ghmerrill** » 2025-08-10 12:52 p.m.

is it correct to gatekeep them, limit opportunities, and decide which ones won't even be permitted to take a shot?

"Gatekeeping" gets done all the time. You got into law school. Many others failed to do so. Some people get into medical school , many people fail to do so. I didn't get into graduate school at Princeton or Harvard (now THAT was really unfair and limiting!). Some people become NBA or NFL players. Others don't. This doesn't really "limit opportunities" in any reasonable sense of that phrase -- or in any sense in which various other factors in life "limit opportunities".

I'm suddenly reminded of a colleague I had when I was teaching in the university. He had a Ph.D. from a (at best) mediocre school and was a specialist in "American philosophy" (a rather niche area in the history of philosophy). But he'd played football during his college days and dreamed of playing for the NFL. He somehow managed (in the early '70s) to wangle a try-out at some kind of open event held by the Chicago Bears. At this point he was in his mid-30s. He was crushed when the Bears immediately cut him from consideration. I guess that opportunity was limited. He eventually transitioned into the burgeoning area of "business ethics", transferred from the philosophy department (which had several pretty widely published and active people in that area) to the business school, and had a very successful career over there (including a long-standing stint on NPR). One gate got slammed shut on him, but another opened. Such is life.

There are over 600 music programs (college/university/conservatory) programs in the US. It's not clear to me that any gatekeeping is being done at all, or is likely to be.

tbdana · by **tbdana** » 2025-08-10 12:54 p.m.

[quote="ghmerrill"]There are over 600 music programs (college/university/conservatory) programs in the US. It's not clear to me that any gatekeeping is being done at all, or is likely to be.[/quote]

I read the premise of this thread as suggesting there should be fewer music programs available.

robcat2075 · by **robcat2075** » 2025-08-10 1:18 p.m.

[quote="tbdana"]I read the premise of this thread as suggesting there should be fewer music programs available.[/quote]

Back to Renee Fleming's original thesis... there are too many schools charging Julliard-level money to students who do not have Julliard-level talent yet graduating them as if they did even though they will never have Julliard-level prospects.

Most college majors have "weed out" courses in their curriculum that give freshman a dose of reality for what they are in for and what they have to be able to do. Something they have to pass to continue on.

LeTromboniste · by **LeTromboniste** » 2025-08-10 1:55 p.m.

[quote="robcat2075"]<QUOTE author="tbdana" post_id="283271" time="1754844876" user_id="16498">
I read the premise of this thread as suggesting there should be fewer music programs available.[/quote]

Back to Renee Fleming's original thesis... there are too many schools charging Julliard-level money to students who do not have Julliard-level talent yet graduating them as if they did even though they will never have Julliard-level prospects.

Most college majors have "weed out" courses in their curriculum that give freshman a dose of reality for what they are in for and what they have to be able to do. Something they have to pass to continue on.
</QUOTE>

Again, schools charging too much for music degrees is not a problem with music degrees it's a problem with schools charging too much. That's a society choice. You can't have education be a for-profit, semi-privatised industry where competition between schools and between departments within the same school is encouraged and an inherent part of the system, and then complain that schools are charging too much or accepting too many students or offering programs that don't realistically fill a need. You want fewer music programmes? Then have a German or French style system, regulated, publicly-funded and not for profit, where only a few publicly-run conservatories are allowed to give university degrees, with limited enrolment, and government oversight. Except that would get called "communism".

Burgerbob · by **Burgerbob** » 2025-08-10 2:10 p.m.

The logical endpoint here is:

American capitalism sucks

WilliamLang · by **WilliamLang** » 2025-08-10 2:47 p.m.

Agree with Aidan 100%. Also, nothing will change until we change. Encouraging the arts rather than looking at it as a dead end, acknowledging that we're humans and that's more important than systems and technology, and (however slowly!) helping the creation of more paying gigs is the way forward.

The main reason that I disagree with Renee's statement is that the music pedagogy industry is not yet good at building people up, especially in the singing world, which is based much more on the "natural instrument" than the cultivation of skill. The pedagogy side of the world is much better at setting up a system of sieves that people filter through, much of the time by privilege, in my humble opinion.

Floridatrombonekenneth · by **Floridatrombonekenneth** » 2025-08-10 3:02 p.m.

[quote="norbie2018"]Also, music programs are essentially trade school programs.[/quote]

Music programs are not essentially Trade School Programs, and neither, for that matter, are STEM programs.

You can use your degree program to go into that field of study, or use the degree to find other work. I know numerous peers and students with music degrees who have found rewarding careers outside of the arts, without having to get additional degrees.

Very much agree with the above statements by Aiden and William.

tbdana · by **tbdana** » 2025-08-10 3:07 p.m.

[quote="Burgerbob"]The logical endpoint here is:

American capitalism sucks[/quote]

Not to derail this thread, but...

robcat2075 · by **robcat2075** » 2025-08-10 3:18 p.m.

[quote="LeTromboniste"]

Again, schools charging too much for music degrees is not a problem with music degrees it's a problem with schools charging too much.[/quote]

a distinction without a difference since exceedingly few students enter these schools to NOT get a degree and exceedingly few of these schools want to admit students who want to NOT get a degree.

Part of the economic plan of these schools is to keep the student enrolled, and paying, for the full curriculum.

It is impossible to make such a school on the cheap. The full-program degree and the high cost are intertwined.

But in Europe the student is not charged?

Great, but someone IS paying for that. That someone is eventually going to ask, "why are we paying so much to create so many classical musicians when so few of us listen to classical music?"

The European individuals i have recurring contact with have no more interest in classical music than the average American does.

The elected governments in Europe have been questioning the expense of subsidizing classical music...

~~[url=https://slippedisc.com/2024/01/aplan-to-cut-half-of-germanys-radio-orchestras/]~~

A plan to cut half of Germany’s radio orchestras

StephenK · by **StephenK** » 2025-08-10 4:22 p.m.

[But in Europe the student is not charged?]

Certainly are charged plenty in England.

harrisonreed · by **harrisonreed** » 2025-08-10 4:44 p.m.

Didn't England leave Europe? I feel like it used to not be an island before Brexit.

LeTromboniste · 2025-08-10 4:53 p.m.

[quote="robcat2075"]<QUOTE author="LeTromboniste" post_id="283278" time="1754848524" user_id="3038">

Again, schools charging too much for music degrees is not a problem with music degrees it's a problem with schools charging too much.[/quote]

a distinction without a difference since exceedingly few students enter these schools to NOT get a degree and exceedingly few of these schools want to admit students who want to NOT get a degree.
</QUOTE>

Ugh? Tuition being expensive vs tuition being cheap (or free) is a distinction without a difference?

Certainly not the case being made here lamenting the high student debt required to get a music degree as a reason music programmes should be cut and students should not study music.

[quote="robcat2075"]The elected governments in Europe have been questioning the expense of subsidizing classical music...

~~[url=https://slippedisc.com/2024/01/aplan-to-cut-half-of-germanys-radio-orchestras/]~~

A plan to cut half of Germany’s radio orchestras[/quote]

What this refers to is one ultra-conservative party leader of one state of Germany suggesting to his own party that Germany should look into cutting some of the German radio ensembles. That's hardly "the elected governments in Europe". It's the US equivalent of the Speaker of the Texas state House of Representatives telling the GOP they should look into cutting some program in the US overall.

[quote="robcat2075"]But in Europe the student is not charged?

Great, but someone IS paying for that. That someone is eventually going to ask, "why are we paying so much to create so many classical musicians when so few of us listen to classical music?"[/quote]

The "someone" paying for students to do their job (which is to study) without actually having to pay to do it, in (some) European countries, is society. Because society has collectively decided that having an educated population is worth the investment, that opening public services like education to parasitic profit-making is perhaps not the wisest of ideas, and that society as a whole benefits more from there being no financial bar to higher education than it would by sparing the government from that spending.

Different society choices. Would the US adopt such a system? Of course not. But let's not pretend like student debt and high tuition is a problem with no solutions. The crux of the argument presented here in favour of cutting music programmes seems to essentially be "it's monetarily worthless, students go into debt because of insanely high tuition, with no career prospect, so music programs should be cut". Yet both the tuition being high (and therefore leading to high debt) and the career prospects being so scarce are both problems that are 1) not unique to music degrees specifically, and 2) the result of political and societal choices. These problems have other solutions, one just needs to have a tiny bit of imagination.

ghmerrill · by **ghmerrill** » 2025-08-10 5:13 p.m.

[quote="harrisonreed"]Didn't England leave Europe? I feel like it used to not be an island before Brexit.[/quote]
I've never thought of England as part of Europe, and I'm pretty sure the English never did either, if they were being honest (not even in the good old days when all the monarchical families were intermarried and the Houses of Hanover, Saxe-Coburg, and Gotha ruled England). And I'm also pretty sure that the Europeans haven't thought of England as part of Europe. So I think England was never ever in Europe (aside from the times they had their armies marching around in France and maybe Spain) and so couldn't have left it.

I could be wrong about this, of course, and it's true that in a certain strict geological sense England is part of Europe -- but in that sense, it certainly never left it, nor could it. Then there's Europe in the broad sense as opposed to Europe in the narrower sense ("continental Europe"). Take your pick on that one. :) But yes, apparently since Brexit, the view among Europeans as to whether England is "part of Europe" has taken more of a beating.

I'm pretty sure that it was always an island (aside from during some of the ice ages when it was still really an island, but with a really good bridge to it). This geography stuff sure is fun.

LeTromboniste · by **LeTromboniste** » 2025-08-10 5:20 p.m.

[quote="StephenK"][But in Europe the student is not charged?]

Certainly are charged plenty in England.[/quote]

Although with a programme of government-backed loans for tuition and living expenses, with repayment amounts based on income, and automatic forgiveness of the outstanding balance after 40 years (previously 30). Not a perfectly open and accessible system, but still nothing close to the insane tuition and debt in the US, and at least the contribution asked of the student for their studies is then collected after their studies over decades and proportional to their actual income, instead of collected up front.

StephenK · by **StephenK** » 2025-08-10 7:53 p.m.

That is true, the loan, or 'debt' in England really operates more like a graduate tax than a loan. However the amount of 'loan' available is means tested against parental income, so parents can be expected to make very significant contributions also.

harrisonreed · by **harrisonreed** » 2025-08-10 8:02 p.m.

[quote="ghmerrill"]<QUOTE author="harrisonreed" post_id="283303" time="1754858664" user_id="3642">
Didn't England leave Europe? I feel like it used to not be an island before Brexit.[/quote]
I've never thought of England as part of Europe, and I'm pretty sure the English never did either, if they were being honest (not even in the good old days when all the monarchical families were intermarried and the Houses of Hanover, Saxe-Coburg, and Gotha ruled England). And I'm also pretty sure that the Europeans haven't thought of England as part of Europe. So I think England was never ever in Europe (aside from the times they had their armies marching around in France and maybe Spain) and so couldn't have left it.

I could be wrong about this, of course, and it's true that in a certain strict geological sense England is part of Europe -- but in that sense, it certainly never left it, nor could it. Then there's Europe in the broad sense as opposed to Europe in the narrower sense ("continental Europe"). Take your pick on that one. :) But yes, apparently since Brexit, the view among Europeans as to whether England is "part of Europe" has taken more of a beating.

I'm pretty sure that it was always an island (aside from during some of the ice ages when it was still really an island, but with a really good bridge to it). This geography stuff sure is fun.
</QUOTE>

Come on. You think Rome *sailed* their army to England when they took it over? D-Day? It definitely *used* to be part of France geographically. How else would all those wars have happened?

tbdana · by **tbdana** » 2025-08-10 9:19 p.m.

[quote="harrisonreed"]Come on. You think Rome *sailed* their army to England when they took it over? D-Day? It definitely *used* to be part of France geographically. How else would all those wars have happened?[/quote]

I'm very impressed with the the history lessons I'm getting here.

TomInME · by **TomInME** » 2025-08-10 10:20 p.m.

[quote="robcat2075"]Back to Renee Fleming's original thesis... there are too many schools charging Julliard-level money to students who do not have Julliard-level talent yet graduating them as if they did even though they will never have Julliard-level prospects.[/quote]
And even Julliard probably has graduates that don't make a full-time living in music. And students who don't graduate.

I think there's a major distinction between educating students about music as an art form vs training students to perform music at a professional level. And it's not unlike the distinction between teaching students about sports as entertainment, recreation, and physical activity, vs training them to play a sport professionally. And it's not unlike the distinction between teaching concepts vs procedures. Education vs training. Thinking vs doing.

And there's always a limit to how many doers are needed, but I would argue that the world needs far more educated thinkers than it currently has.

Fleming is not wrong: the supply of trained performers far exceeds demand. It's not that too many music degrees are being handed out, it's that too many are focused on professional training rather than understanding music as art.

ghmerrill · by **ghmerrill** » 2025-08-11 8:09 a.m.

[quote="harrisonreed"]Come on. You think Rome *sailed* their army to England when they took it over?[/quote]
Yeah, that all makes sense now. I always thought all those reports of the Romans sailing to England were apocryphal. Why would they do that? And definitely that whole story of Agricola being deterred from invading Ireland because of the sea-crossing logistics was just an excuse to avoid dealing with the crazy Irish. Besides, anyone can see that if you start from Scotland you can just about walk across to northern Ireland. I believe I've seen reports of monks doing that (those stories of hide boats can't really be true). Not to mention that you could pretty much just swim across from England if you do a mid-way stop at the Isle of Man. So much of what we "know" about history has been distorted for a variety of reasons. :roll:

ghmerrill · by **ghmerrill** » 2025-08-11 8:13 a.m.

[quote="TomInME"]Fleming is not wrong: the supply of trained performers far exceeds demand. It's not that too many music degrees are being handed out, it's that too many are focused on professional training rather than understanding music as art.[/quote]
That sounds a bit like a lot of the students I knew, when I was in graduate school, who got degrees in art history. I always wondered what they did. I can understand a few dedicated to becoming museum curators and probably about the same number thinking of careers as international art forgers or thieves. But the rest were a mystery.

LeTromboniste · by **LeTromboniste** » 2025-08-11 11:35 a.m.

[quote="TomInME"]It's not that too many music degrees are being handed out, it's that too many are focused on professional training rather than understanding music as art.[/quote]

Sure, because musicology bachelors are not going to be labeled a useless degree that too many schools are offering and shouldn't...

ghmerrill · by **ghmerrill** » 2025-08-11 12:32 p.m.

[quote="TomInME"]I was just about to link that same article. Skills-based, market-driven "education" failing spectacularly.[/quote]
Something is failing spectacularly, but it's not what you think.

Reality check ...

I'm kind of skeptical about what's going on here -- based on my own prior experience working with computer science departments via a few internship programs for CS students I was involved in at three major universities over a period of about 15 years. Just some observations that make me wonder exactly what's up ...

As a matter of fact (and in my experience and the experience of my wife and children, including one with a CS degree who has subsequently held significant development positions with IBM, Amazon, and several othe firms, and is now a manager of development for an AI firm), CS students are not trained to code. CS students -- in my experience -- are some of the worst coders you'll come across and they they aren't trained in the best principles of software design and development, but and are expected to pick up "coding" by themselves. I had the same experience when I shifted out of philosophy into software engineering in the late '80s. The C.S. department I did my Master's in offered NO courses in coding and in fact required NO courses in software development or design.

CS programs focus on teaching a lot of underlying theory, such as database design, algorithms and algorithm design, finite state automata theory, operating system theory, etc. Just take a look at a curriculum and see if you can see any practical or "skills oriented" courses. So it's difficult for me to believe that we're seeing a failure of skills-based, market-driven "education" failing ... because that's not the sort of education being delivered to the students in this case -- at least in terms of the experience (at both the graduate and undergraduate levels) with which I'm familiar.

I can well believe, however, that students felt "gaslit" about their career prospects -- precisely because the training they got wasn't what employers need in order to drop such a student into a productive job slot. It's exactly EXPERIENCE that they DON'T have.

Having run an internship program (actually physically on a university campus) primarily for CS students at both the graduate and undergraduate levels, the first thing I had to do in each case was to teach my interns how to actually "write code" -- although what I mean by that isn't just actual writing of the code itself but the DESIGN aspects of creating a useful application, and determining things like the REQUIREMENTS for that, and how to TEST what you're doing.

As an example, when my son was part-way through his CS degree (being paid for by IBM, which was great), he was struggling with creating some things for a project. I taught him (in about an hour) how to use a debugger and program analyzer, and he was astonished! But that was NEVER covered in any of his courses. He said "Why haven't they taught us this approach from the beginning?" I said "Beat's me. That's not what they're about." I could go on at some length giving more and more examples of this kind of failure in what is supposed to be a kind of engineering program, but isn't.

Anyhow, I've rambled on long enough about this. But my suspicion is that the real issue here isn't that the students in question have been limited by a skills-based education, but that they haven't been required to learn ENOUGH (or even any?) genuine skills.

Think of going to a music school with the hope of joining a professional band (like a military band) or orchestra -- but taking only music theory courses for four years and being to told to practice your instrument on your own and maybe every once in a while play a tune for an audience. Then you apply for a job as a professional band or orchestra musician. What do you think your chances are of getting past even the first attempt to get an audition?

THAT -- I suggest -- is the situation these CS graduates are in. And yes, they're in shock when companies aren't lined up to offer them well-paying jobs.

(I would contrast this with my experience with statistics students who seemed to come out of each level of their education with an increasingly large knowledge base and relevant set of useful techniques that they knew how to apply.)

NathanSobieralski · by **NathanSobieralski** » 2025-08-11 1:08 p.m.

I always wondered how university systems at large would square the quick pace of commuter and software development with the absolute glacial pace that (in my experience) constitutes degree program changes.

JTeagarden · by **JTeagarden** » 2025-08-11 1:20 p.m.

[quote="robcat2075"]~~[url=https://www.reddit.com/r/classicalmusic/comments/1kxu4o2/47_of_us_orchestra_musicians_are_from_just_4/]~~one person's analysis, 47% of US orchestral musicians come from just four schools. Julliard alone makes for more than 20%

[/quote]

I read the underlying study, and it doesn't seem to capture whether the indicated school for these roughly 2,200 US orchestral musicians is where they went as undergraduates, or for graduate school: There are many instances of trombonists cutting their teeth at a lesser-known school as an undergraduate, and then going on to graduate school at someplace "fancier."

If this is common, then there might some statistical hope to becoming a full-time orchestral musician if you don't attend a top-10 music school as an undergraduate; if not, or if the study reflects where undergaduate study took place, then you might want to recalibrate your dreams, in light of the hefty price tag and long odds.

This could be akin to the pipeline to the NFL, where something like 96% of all players come from Division I programs, and 51% from only 20 Division I schools.

ghmerrill · by **ghmerrill** » 2025-08-11 2:16 p.m.

[quote="NathanSobieralski"]I always wondered how university systems at large would square the quick pace of commuter and software development with the absolute glacial pace that (in my experience) constitutes degree program changes.[/quote]
Well, there is that as well. But the other thing I neglected to mention is what the competition for those jobs is and where it's coming from.

Why should a company hire a newly degreed (and inexperienced) candidate right out of school when there's a global supply of degreed and experienced candidates who will work for a lot less than American salaries, wages, and benefits? Some of this "offshore" labor is, to be sure, not of the highest standard. But some of it is. And everyone pretty much "works from home" -- or from some remote location. Both of my kids do (one as an employee of a pretty small tech company and the other as an employee of a giant international insurance/risk-management company). One of the software development groups that my son currently manages is in Brazil -- and they're VERY good.

So that's another significant reason why graduates of CS departments in the US are facing some hiring headwinds -- not that the jobs aren't there, but that there is a pool of experienced and less expensive labor that's readily available. And there are other business benefits to hiring contractors rather than full-time direct employees. That's another way in which comparing the role, promise, and success of music schools to other schools isn't particularly productive.

I think that performing musicians -- at least of the sort being discussed here -- don't face this type of competition.

This also makes me wonder if the newly graduated CS majors have actually explored the contracting route, or are all focused on getting that long-term "permanent" job (you know -- sort of like shooting for tenure) with the big corporation or that exciting start-up that will shower them with cash and benefits. Often, they're just ignorant of the possibilities there. While my wife was at times a direct full-time employee of several companies (including Fujitsu for a while), she mostly did contract work for about 20 years, and loved the freedom and variety it provided -- and the ability to simply not renew a contract where she'd become dissatisfied with management.

JohnL · by **JohnL** » 2025-08-11 2:30 p.m.

[quote="JTeagarden"]This could be akin to the pipeline to the NFL, where something like 96% of all players come from Division I programs...[/quote]
Division I or just FBS? I suspect the latter.

TomInME · by **TomInME** » 2025-08-11 4:00 p.m.

[quote="LeTromboniste"]<QUOTE author="TomInME" post_id="283328" time="1754878833" user_id="17474">
It's not that too many music degrees are being handed out, it's that too many are focused on professional training rather than understanding music as art.[/quote]

Sure, because musicology bachelors are not going to be labeled a useless degree that too many schools are offering and shouldn't...
</QUOTE>

They know more about music than those of us who spent 5-10 years being taught the intricacies of making vibrations in a brass tube.

JTeagarden · by **JTeagarden** » 2025-08-11 4:02 p.m.

[quote="JohnL"]<QUOTE author="JTeagarden" post_id="283368" time="1754932809" user_id="19182">This could be akin to the pipeline to the NFL, where something like 96% of all players come from Division I programs...[/quote]
Division I or just FBS? I suspect the latter.
</QUOTE>

D1

FBS: 87.86% (2,164 players)

FCS: 8.16% (201)

Division II: 2.44%. (60)

International: 1.14% (28)

Division III: 0.28% (7)

NAIA: 0.08% (2)

Community college: 0.04% (1)

sf105 · 2025-08-11 4:19 p.m.

[quote="ghmerrill"]Having run an internship program (actually physically on a university campus) primarily for CS students at both the graduate and undergraduate levels, the first thing I had to do in each case was to teach my interns how to actually "write code" -- although what I mean by that isn't just actual writing of the code itself but the DESIGN aspects of creating a useful application, and determining things like the REQUIREMENTS for that, and how to TEST what you're doing.

As an example, when my son was part-way through his CS degree (being paid for by IBM, which was great), he was struggling with creating some things for a project. I taught him (in about an hour) how to use a debugger and program analyzer, and he was astonished! But that was NEVER covered in any of his courses. He said "Why haven't they taught us this approach from the beginning?" I said "Beat's me. That's not what they're about." I could go on at some length giving more and more examples of this kind of failure in what is supposed to be a kind of engineering program, but isn't.[/quote]

at grad school and later at a top London CS department, I briefly taught a course on how to program really. Neither course survived the intervention of the faculty, most of whom didn't know how to.

The academic CS treadmill is about publishing and papers that include implementation are much more expensive to write than theory papers, so very few departments are big enough to build real experimental systems. It's closer to a Music Theory degree than a performance degree.

One thing that's impressive about most conservatories is that the faculty are well-known performers (although, like academics, many don't know how to teach). They've proved themselves in their trade.

S

TomInME · by **TomInME** » 2025-08-11 4:40 p.m.

Be sure you're reading the percentages correctly. The original graph showed that 20% of orchestra musicians had degrees from Julliard, not that 20% of Julliard graduates have orchestra gigs. The 1980 NYT article was able to track 36 graduates and 24 of them had some type of full-time music work - a 66% placement rate. But that means fully one-third of graduates from the most prestigious school in the country didn't find work in their field. The prospects for graduates of less-prestigious schools would trail off rapidly from there.

The football stats are what percentage of current NFL players came from Division I, II, III. Rather than the percentage of players from those programs who turn pro each year. Only 1.5% of NCAA football players (who survive long enough to become draft-eligible) turn pro: <LINK_TEXT text="https://www.ncaa.org/sports/2015/3/6/es ... etics.aspx">https://www.ncaa.org/sports/2015/3/6/estimated-probability-of-competing-in-professional-athletics.aspx</LINK_TEXT>

And while that percentage is likely higher for Div I than Div II, it's far from 100%. The NFL has 32 teams with 53 players each: a total of less than 1700 players, while the NCAA has more than 77,000 players.

FBS alone has 15,000-20,000 players, but the NFL drafts less than 300 players total each year, meaning that even if you compete in the top tier of college football, your odds are somewhere around 2% of turning pro.

Total up all the music performance majors in all the schools in the country, vs the number of full-time job openings related to music performance, and it might not be quite that dark. But I would bet on it being pretty ugly nonetheless.

robcat2075 · by **robcat2075** » 2025-08-11 10:36 p.m.

What do serious schools say about their serious programs?

What is their pitch for your one or two hundred thousand dollars?

From the ~~[url=https://www.unt.edu/academics/programs/music-performance-degree.html]~~University of North Texas, the largest public university music school in the U.S., with 1600 students:

(Estimated four year cost: $140,000)

Tune your instrument at the world-renowned UNT music program.

Music Performance allows musicians to focus on violin, viola, violoncello, double bass, harp, guitar, flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon, saxophone, trumpet, French horn, trombone, euphonium, tuba, percussion, or multiple woodwinds. Current and former students have won prizes in major instrumental competitions of every genre, and are appointed to professional positions in orchestras, wind symphonies, and universities/conservatories spanning the world.

No mention of whether any have resorted to busking on the street, but In the following, I have italicized what appears to be a veiled hint:

Why earn a degree in Music Performance?

The Bachelor of Music with a major in performance and a specialization in orchestral instruments provides students with the tools necessary to develop their technique and musicianship through the study and performance of music from various periods and genres; to familiarize students with various aspects of the performance profession.

Our program also prepares students for continued study in master’s graduate performance degrees at the highest quality institutions and helps especially gifted students prepare for immediate entry upon graduation into the professional arena as performers and teachers. We encourage students to investigate an expanded array of professional opportunities in the field of music and prepare students for professional careers in music through student participation in external performances, lectures/master classes and cultural exchanges.

And what do you have when you finish your degree ?

Marketable Skills

Performance communication

Excellent memory capability

Command of music computer programs

Pattern understanding

Improvisation and analytical capabilities

Ouch.

peteedwards · by **peteedwards** » 2025-08-12 8:14 a.m.

[quote="robcat2075"]

From the University of North Texas, the largest public university music school in the U.S., with 1600 students:

(Estimated four year cost: $140,000)
[/quote]

Ouch Indeed!

35+ years ago UNT cost me ~$800 per semester on a $800 scholarship (I was from out of state but any scholarship qualified you for in-state tuition). I paid my own way working part-time, with zero student debt.

I got my worthless performance degree and now I'm an engineer (no degree). No regrets, but there's NO way I could do that now.

ghmerrill · by **ghmerrill** » 2025-08-12 10:17 a.m.

[quote="robcat2075"]What do serious schools say about their serious programs? ...[/quote]

A lot of this seems similar to the traditional bait trolled out by philosophy (or sometimes "communications", or even history) departments to attract majors: it's a great major for helping you get into law school, and you'll learn things that will help you there. This definitely works, at least on some demographic, and successful cases and testimonials can be found supporting it. And in fact there is some significant degree of truth in the added claim that the degree provides you with broad and transferable skills -- IF you actually take the right courses and avoid the easy fluff ones.

In the case of music performance programs, I remain highly skeptical of claims about broader or transferable skills getting taught.

BGuttman · by **BGuttman** » 2025-08-12 10:48 a.m.

I've talked to a few HR recruiters who old me that musicians were good candidates for computer jobs. Of course this was before the days of a glut of computer science majors.

My issue is less the number of music graduates and more the very high cost of the degree relative to the earning power of the jobs. Us old folks remember when it cost more like two to three months of the parent's salary per year of school and there were scholarships that covered most of this cost anyway. Now a year of school costs a year's salary for the parents and scholarships are fewer.

What we need is a national goal like landing a man on the moon with the government spending lots of money to train people and do research. Currently we have no such goal and the current government is totally uninterested in research to keep us technologically in the lead.

ghmerrill · by **ghmerrill** » 2025-08-12 11:29 a.m.

[quote="BGuttman"]What we need is a national goal like landing a man on the moon with the government spending lots of money to train people and do research. Currently we have no such goal and the current government is totally uninterested in research to keep us technologically in the lead.[/quote]
The government is already spending lots of money to train people and do research. Huge amounts for research in a broad variety of disciplines. Both government (and more efficiently, private business -- but often also through government grants) are keeping us in the technological lead. Just read research papers and look at the acknowledgements of support.

And I think we do have national goals, but they're not generally visible to the public. Instead, they're buried in committee and program documents and funding policy approvals. You'll see them being exposed at various levels if you attend meetings of organizations like AAAI, IEEE, ASEE, etc. Take a look at something like "The National Artificial Intelligence Research Institutes program and its significance to a prosperous future" (<LINK_TEXT text="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/ful ... aaai.12153">https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/aaai.12153</LINK_TEXT>) and you'll see just one recent example of this in just one field -- describing "the keystone program implementing the U.S. federal government research and development (R&D) strategy to advance a cohesive approach to studying AI-related opportunities and risks." That's just one example. Search for other things like "Recent federal research grants for space and space travel research." and you'll see similar research support programs.

There really isn't a dirth of grants from the US government for either fundamental or applied research in a broad range of areas. Don't worry. Your tax money is being spent in those areas.

JTeagarden · by **JTeagarden** » 2025-08-12 12:18 p.m.

Truly dediciated musicians would make good anything: If you are familiar with the concept of the Big Five personaility traits, musicians would tend to be high in Openness, Conscientiousness, and Agreeability, which are great qualities for most careers.

robcat2075 · by **robcat2075** » 2025-08-12 12:38 p.m.

[quote="peteedwards"]Ouch Indeed!

35+ years ago UNT cost me ~$800 per semester on a $800 scholarship (I was from out of state but any scholarship qualified you for in-state tuition). I paid my own way working part-time, with zero student debt.

I got my worthless performance degree and now I'm an engineer (no degree). No regrets, but there's NO way I could do that now.[/quote]

When I entered UNT as a graduate student in 1983 the tuition was $4 per credit hour! There were extra fees for things like ensembles or private lessons or "labs" but it was still astonishingly cheap compare to the private college i had graduated from two years earlier.

I could pay my tuition from the interest in my checking account :D

There were problems, like TAs assigned to teach classes who had no teaching skills or even English language skills.

peteedwards · by **peteedwards** » 2025-08-12 12:44 p.m.

They were fat on oil money back then.

I guess I got in on the tail end of the gravy train.

ghmerrill · by **ghmerrill** » 2025-08-12 3:44 p.m.

[quote="JTeagarden"]Truly dediciated musicians would make good anything:[/quote]
You'll have to excuse me for not wanting to conflate dedication with either skill, quality, or usefulness -- I mean, seeing as how I'm dedicated to rational reasoning and thought.

JTeagarden · by **JTeagarden** » 2025-08-12 4:19 p.m.

I mean if given the oportunity and training, not just 'cause.

sf105 · by **sf105** » 2025-08-12 4:58 p.m.

[quote="ghmerrill"]<QUOTE author="robcat2075" post_id="283423" time="1754966164" user_id="3697">
What do serious schools say about their serious programs? ...[/quote]

A lot of this seems similar to the traditional bait trolled out by philosophy (or sometimes "communications", or even history) departments to attract majors: it's a great major for helping you get into law school, and you'll learn things that will help you there. This definitely works, at least on some demographic, and successful cases and testimonials can be found supporting it. And in fact there is some significant degree of truth in the added claim that the degree provides you with broad and transferable skills -- IF you actually take the right courses and avoid the easy fluff ones.

In the case of music performance programs, I remain highly skeptical of claims about broader or transferable skills getting taught.
</QUOTE>

I'm assuming that Philosophy helps people analyse and clarify arguments, and history teaches one about handling large amounts of data and understanding evidence. Both should be valuable skills in all sorts of fields.

I found that a performance degree helped me learn about how to develop skills, how to collaborate, and how to cope with reality (nowhere to hide in a section). Not everyone I work with can cope with the idea of constant improvement.

[Before computers, the two cheapest departments in the University were maths and philosophy. For maths, you only needed a pencil and eraser, and for philosophy you didn't need the eraser.]

sf105 · by **sf105** » 2025-08-12 5:01 p.m.

[quote="BGuttman"]I've talked to a few HR recruiters who old me that musicians were good candidates for computer jobs. Of course this was before the days of a glut of computer science majors.[/quote]

If you throw a brick into a London amateur orchestra you'll hit someone who works in IT. There's the long-standing connection between maths and music, it's a job that suits people who are used to precision and discovering structure, and for a long time it was an excellent way to make a living.

ghmerrill · by **ghmerrill** » 2025-08-12 5:46 p.m.

[quote="sf105"]I found that a performance degree helped me learn about how to develop skills, how to collaborate, and how to cope with reality (nowhere to hide in a section). Not everyone I work with can cope with the idea of constant improvement.[/quote]
So -- aside from the music performance part itself -- a performance degree provided you primarily with several personal psychological "coping mechanisms" to get through life? I can see that this would be beneficial, but I'm not sure about putting it on a job application or how to characterize it to a potential employer.

LeTromboniste · by **LeTromboniste** » 2025-08-12 6:09 p.m.

Man, with all the condescension going here I had to double check that this wasn't the trumpet forum...

and here I was naively thinking people on a music forum would see the point and value in, you know, music.

Guess I'm just going to need to take a long break from this place and go spend that extra time on my worthless career and useless skills, and go dupe my students into following the path of ruin and despair.

tbdana · by **tbdana** » 2025-08-12 6:25 p.m.

[quote="LeTromboniste"]Man, with all the condescension going here I had to double check that this wasn't the trumpet forum...

and here I was naively thinking people on a music forum would see the point and value in, you know, music.

Guess I'm just going to need to take a long break from this place and go spend that extra time on my worthless career and useless skills, and go dupe my students into following the path of ruin and despair.[/quote]

Yeah, it’s very disappointing.

sf105 · by **sf105** » 2025-08-13 10:31 a.m.

[quote="ghmerrill"]<QUOTE author="sf105" post_id="283489" time="1755032283" user_id="173">
I found that a performance degree helped me learn about how to develop skills, how to collaborate, and how to cope with reality (nowhere to hide in a section). Not everyone I work with can cope with the idea of constant improvement.[/quote]
So -- aside from the music performance part itself -- a performance degree provided you primarily with several personal psychological "coping mechanisms" to get through life? I can see that this would be beneficial, but I'm not sure about putting it on a job application or how to characterize it to a potential employer.
</QUOTE>

This is rage bait?

officermayo · by **officermayo** » 2025-08-14 1:42 p.m.

[quote="sf105"]<QUOTE author="ghmerrill" post_id="283494" time="1755035211" user_id="2941">

So -- aside from the music performance part itself -- a performance degree provided you primarily with several personal psychological "coping mechanisms" to get through life? I can see that this would be beneficial, but I'm not sure about putting it on a job application or how to characterize it to a potential employer.[/quote]

This is rage bait?
</QUOTE>

Too many people going underground

Too many reaching for a piece of cake

Too many people pulled and pushed around

Too many waiting for that lucky break

That was your first mistake

You took your lucky break

And broke it in two

Now what can be done for you?

You broke it in two

Too many people sharing party lines

Too many people never sleeping late

Too many people paying parking fines

Too many hungry people losing weight

That was your first mistake

You took your lucky break and broke it in two

Now what can be done for you?

You broke it in two

Too many people preaching practices

Don't let them tell you what you wanna be

Too many people holding back

This is crazy and baby, it's not like me

That was your last mistake

I find my love awake and waiting to be

Now what can be done for you?

She's waiting for me

Yeah, oh, whoa

VJOFan · 2025-08-14 2:57 p.m.

As long as the education system in the U.S.is primarily structured on a for profit model and the public mostly sees education’s primary outcome to be job training, ideas like the one quoted in the OP will be common.

Education is one sector of a society where a socialized system does and has worked. If taking a degree doesn’t mean mortgaging your future and it’s possible to start something and switch to something else without having “wasted” the time and spent all your money, the harm to the individual and society of studying something less marketable is greatly reduced or eliminated. On the other side, the school doesn’t necessarily need to feed itself by constantly expanding student numbers.

My reference for this has always been Denmark. Traveling through there in the 1990’s I had a great chat with one of the BnB owners about “free” university. They have debates for improving their system, but the broad strokes of maintaining education as a public good enjoys wide support. The system persists today. <LINK_TEXT text="https://denmark.dk/society-and-business ... -education">https://denmark.dk/society-and-business/lifelong-education</LINK_TEXT>

tbdana · by **tbdana** » 2025-08-14 3:06 p.m.

Excellent post.

Bach5G · by **Bach5G** » 2025-08-14 6:12 p.m.

A fellow recently told me about his son, a bass player, who attended N Texas before ending up in NY via Cincinnati. He worked as a bassist in NYC but eventually retrained in IT. Now given the state of IT, he’s thankful he has music to fall back on.

sf105 · by **sf105** » 2025-08-15 6:29 a.m.

This just popped up on another list I'm on:

“One of the most important things that I discovered about a university education was that it isn't there to teach you things: You can do that yourself and will need to throughout your career. It's there to give you a guided tour of your ignorance.”

harrisonreed · 2025-08-15 12:06 p.m.

[quote="sf105"]This just popped up on another list I'm on:

“One of the most important things that I discovered about a university education was that it isn't there to teach you things: You can do that yourself and will need to throughout your career. It's there to give you a guided tour of your ignorance.”[/quote]

I'm not here to knock the act of going to music school or getting a performance degree to the extent of some others, but in terms of getting a dose of reality, outside of the conservatories that are being highly selective, I have not found this to be the case for the vast majority of people I have worked with who are performance majors. They generally do not feel like their teachers were doing that. I do have just a slice of the population of graduated performance majors that I get to work with and are my friends, but yeah, the conversations I've had with them do not paint that picture.

They like their teachers, learned a lot, but many feel like their teachers should have been, I don't know, harder on them. Or more realistic with them.

*Edit sp.

atopper333 · by **atopper333** » 2025-08-15 5:03 p.m.

[quote="sf105"]This just popped up on another list I'm on:

“One of the most important things that I discovered about a university education was that it isn't there to teach you things: You can do that yourself and will need to throughout your career. It's there to give you a guided tour of your ignorance.”[/quote]

Well, that is an interesting concept. I think that could be applicable to some…and I’m not here to argue that as an absolute, but I do think that approach in itself is indicative of a certain mindset that can be…institutional.

If a university education is not there to teach you things, then I strive to understand the purpose. Real life experience can give you a harsh tour of your ignorance. The opposite of ignorance is knowledge. Shouldn’t the university education be there to help teach you how to learn after identifying ignorance? Maybe give you the tools to understand that there is knowledge out there that you may not even have considered? Or possibly teach you an approach to find your blind spots and develop the resources needed to shrink them as much as possible?

Not a music degree holder or anything, just someone who has spent time on the other side of this. Self introspection is a useful tool, it can help to reduce arrogance and promote growth. If all it is is just a guided tour of your ignorance, then what exactly does it do for growth from that ignorance?

These questions aren’t ment to be a counter point, I’m just seeking an understanding of this is all.

Macbone1 · by **Macbone1** » 2025-08-15 7:29 p.m.

[quote="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.[/quote]

Great points. I took a music degree for the reason most of us did (passion for music). Also because l'm from a sleepy backwater town where Lawrence Welk was considered the musical pinnacle. I had much to learn.

Yes, music school is trade school, at least the music classes. For proof, military bands treat musicians as enlisted tradespeople no matter how many degrees they have. Many soldier, sailor, marine and airman musicians have more education and higher GPAs than some of the officers around them.

Macbone1 · by **Macbone1** » 2025-08-15 7:37 p.m.

It's past time to stop kidding ourselves and our young college bound people. Review every college music performance major program and shut down each one that doesn't place at least 1/3 of graduates in a performing career within 1 yr of graduating. That will help balance supply with demand. Kidding/not kidding.

officermayo · by **officermayo** » 2025-08-17 9:49 p.m.

Popped up on FB......

"The following may come off a bit strong, but it’s just my opinion that anyone teaching or performing music is welcome to poke holes in.

I have a complicated stance on music school; whether it be for education or performance. While I think the premise is great, I have many friends/students who feel they didn’t get their money’s worth, are in an insurmountable amount of debt, or that have left the industry completely.

Though I had great experiences with my degrees, when I think about my time as a student, or my current situation working in music education with college-aged students, it has opened my eyes to some bigger picture things that would be part of my “TED Talk” if I was ever thrown on stage. These things are certainly part of my rehearsed spiel to any student asking for advice.

The worst thing a college music student can do is: only what they are supposed to do in their syllabi. Things like… go to class, study for that class, and get good grades until they graduate, hoping for the world to great them with that dream job. This is how you get Julliard performance graduates serving coffee as they wait for jobs to open up, and suddenly decades go by. (Listen, the world needs exceptional coffee makers, this is not a dig on that industry… a good latte is $6 now, the joke’s on us.)

The best thing a college music student can do is: everything they possibly can outside of class. You have been given four years to be mentored by professors, surrounded by blossoming musicians looking to collaborate, and time you’ll never have again before life gets more complicated.

School should be used as the well of support, or the launchpad to projects; not the only goal. You’re not going to school to go to school… (or maybe you are, if this is you stop reading) You’re going to school to begin building a career in music, which relies on community, exposure (the good kind), and trying/failing at things to build wisdom.

I guess what I’m saying is, play in that quintet. Form a band. Write music and have your friends play it. Conduct a high school musical pit band. Make weird social media music videos. Learn another skill/hobby outside of music so you can diversify your serotonin (and income).

You never know what any side project will lead to. Say yes to everything; you’ll learn how to say no eventually. (Or so I’m told <EMOJI seq="1f605" tseq="1f605">😅</EMOJI>) Nearly all of my friends that have a musical job that is fulfilling/pays the bills (which may not always be the same thing) ended up there after a series of being in the right places at the right times. Seek out being in rooms doing cool things with people that are doing cool things, even while in school.

You’ll hit the ground running after graduation. While nothing is guaranteed in this insane industry, you’ll certainly give yourself a fighting chance, meet some rad people, and hopefully have a blast doing it.

TL;DR: music school should be the foundation, not the destination."

sf105 · by **sf105** » 2025-08-18 5:00 a.m.

[quote="officermayo"]TL;DR: music school should be the foundation, not the destination."[/quote]

very much so.

JTeagarden · by **JTeagarden** » 2025-08-18 8:05 a.m.

[quote="sf105"]<QUOTE author="BGuttman" post_id="283446" time="1755010104" user_id="53">
I've talked to a few HR recruiters who old me that musicians were good candidates for computer jobs. Of course this was before the days of a glut of computer science majors.[/quote]

If you throw a brick into a London amateur orchestra you'll hit someone who works in IT. There's the long-standing connection between maths and music, it's a job that suits people who are used to precision and discovering structure, and for a long time it was an excellent way to make a living.
</QUOTE>

I think it's more "the kind of things people in the educated middle classes tend to focus on."

sf105 · by **sf105** » 2025-08-18 10:19 a.m.

[quote="JTeagarden"]<QUOTE author="sf105" post_id="283490" time="1755032482" user_id="173">

If you throw a brick into a London amateur orchestra you'll hit someone who works in IT. There's the long-standing connection between maths and music, it's a job that suits people who are used to precision and discovering structure, and for a long time it was an excellent way to make a living.[/quote]

I think it's more "the kind of things people in the educated middle classes tend to focus on."
</QUOTE>

Neither of us have the data but the proportion seems significant to me. My take is that there are a lot of ex-musicians in London and IT has been a good industry to retrain into. Maybe all the PR people were partying at the relevant stage of their lives. <span class="emoji" title=":wink:">😉</span>

sf105 · by **sf105** » 2025-08-18 10:26 a.m.

[quote="atopper333"]<QUOTE author="sf105" post_id="283665" time="1755253750" user_id="173">
This just popped up on another list I'm on:

“One of the most important things that I discovered about a university education was that it isn't there to teach you things: You can do that yourself and will need to throughout your career. It's there to give you a guided tour of your ignorance.”[/quote]

Well, that is an interesting concept. I think that could be applicable to some…and I’m not here to argue that as an absolute, but I do think that approach in itself is indicative of a certain mindset that can be…institutional.

If a university education is not there to teach you things, then I strive to understand the purpose. Real life experience can give you a harsh tour of your ignorance. The opposite of ignorance is knowledge. Shouldn’t the university education be there to help teach you how to learn after identifying ignorance? Maybe give you the tools to understand that there is knowledge out there that you may not even have considered? Or possibly teach you an approach to find your blind spots and develop the resources needed to shrink them as much as possible?

Not a music degree holder or anything, just someone who has spent time on the other side of this. Self introspection is a useful tool, it can help to reduce arrogance and promote growth. If all it is is just a guided tour of your ignorance, then what exactly does it do for growth from that ignorance?

These questions aren’t ment to be a counter point, I’m just seeking an understanding of this is all.
</QUOTE>

This is getting a bit philosophical. I'd argue that learning about things you didn't even know you were missing is still gaining knowledge. And, yes, lots of higher education institutions are not very good at educating. The equivalent of the top soloist who can't teach is the top researcher professor who can't teach (seen a few of those).

In my day job, I seem to be in a minority who think that a specialist degree is a good thing, partly because there are a lot of bad ones and inadequate faculty. What I look for in a graduate is not the ability to jump into a job unsupervised, because almost none of them are ready, but an awareness of skills they need to work on.

Unfortunately, the explosion in costs has meant that students now need to focus on paying off their debts in the short term, rather than learning for the long term. Money corrupts the system.

tbdana · by **tbdana** » 2025-08-18 2:48 p.m.

Should we limit theater arts degrees because unemployment among actors is so high? How much do we really need to police what people study?

Seems to me that, if anything, it's the cost of such an education that should be discussed, not whether or not people should have access to it.

harrisonreed · by **harrisonreed** » 2025-08-18 9:16 p.m.

It's true. With the number of qualified candidates produced each year and the number of programs, supply and demand should ostensibly be pushing down the cost of a performance degree to pennies on the dollar.

But that isn't happening. There are a lot of programs but I don't think the number is growing together with the number of students produced. The whole "not enough gigs" things. But also as we've discussed, people go into these degrees and then don't get a career in that field, at a pretty high rate. I think this is part of why the cost can keep going up and up.

There is some sweet spot where you have a lot of programs but not an excessive amount, and these programs can take on a lot of students but not everyone, and then people get their degree and then do something else instead for their career. So the cost can stay high.

Some of that probably comes down to a degree from "Steve out by the river", even if Steve is the best teacher in the world, not being seen as valuable as a UNT degree.

tbdana · by **tbdana** » 2025-09-10 10:44 a.m.

Sorry to resurrect this thread, but I just came across this and thought it was funny and apropos to the thread, so thought I'd share.

Wilktone · by **Wilktone** » 2025-09-10 11:25 a.m.

There are some very interesting instruments there, where can I get one?

Reminds me of the Shew Horn.

<YOUTUBE id="voicFz6sd-w">~~[media]~~https://youtu.be/voicFz6sd-w?si=5tn0ro9uwtzF8u9h</YOUTUBE>

BGuttman · by **BGuttman** » 2025-09-10 2:44 p.m.

I don't think that's a double belled trumpet -- it's more a trumpet with a mouthpiece for tuba players ;)

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Too many music degree programs