Top 10 Things They Don't Often Tell You in Music School
Are schools connected to reality?
People spend a lot of money on music school, but do schools present the realities of the world of music making? Does the curriculum reflect the entrepreneurship and creativity that is necessary to be a successful performing artist?
Here are my top ten things that music school doesn’t teach you:
Selling tickets is important — the amount of money a musician generates is based on the ability to draw concert attendees. Also, booking agents will be more inclined to book musicians that can sell tickets.
A student’s goal should not just be getting a good grade — a better goal is to be prepared, be responsible, and play so well that the teacher will suggest the student as a sub for gigs.
Sight reading is important for making money. Most real world gigs have few if any rehearsals. The expectation is to be able to read sheet music well. Composers and arrangers need to write clear charts.
Learning easy music quickly might be more lucrative than taking a lot of time learning hard music. Similarly, sometimes, the tone/pitch/sonority of the instrument is more important in the real world than the ability to play extremely fast.
Wedding band repertoire. Many students will get hired for weddings. We won’t teach this in school, but you might in the future need to know tunes like Let’s Stay Together, My Girl, I Will Survive, Signed Sealed Delivered, …..
Instruments like drum set, electric bass, keyboard/organ, tenor sax are the instruments that get gigs. Let’s be realistic about the instruments that are being played in the real world.
You are not always the center of attention. This is a tough one because sometimes it is our job as musicians to be seen and barely heard. We have to play with dynamics and play to the situation.
Do something that is so fresh that is marketable
Be unique — blending genres, bending genres, playing a wind instrument with effects pedals, etc.
Playing instruments that other people don’t play—like a violin or oboe in an improvisational context. Pedal steel? B3 organ?
Singing — how many drummers sing on stage? Horn players singing lead or background voice?
Have a website, an album, and be easy to find. It seems obvious but you need to be easy to contact and videos and recordings need to be accessible to hear.
Your goal is to have an individual sound. Emulate recordings and emulate your teacher but you have to find your own voice. That could be an approach to playing, aesthetic choices, or decisions about repertoire.
Just to be clear, job placement is not the duty, goal, or obligation of the music school. Arts and humanities are not a trade school and the goals of the institution are to encourage and expand thinking skills and increase artistic skills. All of that said, we have to balance artistic goals with reality and practicality.