I have doubts...

musicprnt
Mon, 25 Aug 2014 02:01:57 +0000

It is very, very easy to feel uneasy about music, question it, because it is so difficult, and it seems to hit most students, M S has friends who already have achieved a lot on their instruments, major studios, won some big competitions internationally, etc, and they have doubts, it comes with the territory. You are going to hear people saying ‘studying music is a waste’, but quite honestly are mistaken, in large part because people see college as this job training program, which outside some fields is misguided to say the least. I know of one parent who refused to let their kid study music, who went to an ivy league school, and studies history as a major…with the parent’s blessing! Nothing wrong with history, but they though somehow that a history degree from an ivy ‘guaranteed’ a good job out there, which is silly (not saying studying history is silly, but rather that it won’t mean much in terms of getting a job other than going on to getting a PHd and teaching history). There was an interesting article on Linked in about getting jobs, and one of the things it points out is that success in the workplace is predicated on a lot more than a degree or how hard you work; that things like interpersonal skills, navigating politics, being self disciplined, self driven, navigating through tricky waters, all add up, and music IMO probably gives you better skills with a lot of that than a standard academic course (put it this way, studying academic courses is pretty straightforward, other than maybe how much to study, most of it is pretty well scheduled/rehearsed out, music requires self drive, self discipline, because so much of it is not in thte same mold as academic classes. How much to practice, what to practice, in what way, is all worked out by the student, whereas studying for most academic classes is pretty cut and dried.

BTW, a lot of very visible companies are looking for non traditional students, Goldman Sachs, that used to recruit almost entirely from the ivy or a few top business schools, is looking at non traditional students (music students were mentioned), Google has thrown out some of their (IMO idiotic) hiring practices and is looking at non traditional students who may not be 4.0’s from an ivy but actually have done things, and so forth.

My S is starting his second year, and he feels this, and I just had a long talk with him, that have confidence in yourself that if music doesn’t happen, you move onto something else. Most people reinvent themselves during their lives, few people do what they started out to, some in totally different fields, the guy who founded my company had a degree in chemical engineering from the creme de la creme school, but went into energy trading, founded this company, sold it, and last I heard, was investing in movies or something…and so forth.