Interesting reality check for singers

musicprnt
Wed, 04 Jan 2012 16:18:57 +0000

SRW, nicely put, succinct and to the point. One of the reasons I have been posting what I do is because I know how little information there is about music and getting into it is out there, even people who supposedly know about the ‘reality of music’ often don’t have a clue as to the reality, and I have seen enough music students who are studying music in college who quite honestly went into it with eyes closed, assumed because they had a degree in music that they would be able to work as a musician and be successfully…and also saw what happened to these kids as young adults, and it is sad because many of them end up bitter when they hit reality. I have a good friend who went to IU majoring in music, and in the middle he realized seeing the level of the top kids in the program was nowhere near the level these kids were at and that he wouldn’t have the chops to make it, and went on another track. He and I once talked about it, and he said if he had gone to another program, where many of the kids were the same as himself or maybe even less talented, he might have gone through, gotten the degree and then been wiped out…

The other factor is that there has been a seismic shift in music in the past 15-20 years, the recording industry has collapsed and much of what used to be grist for the working musician, the ‘good but not great’ players has dried up, and not to mention that at a time when professional music has been contracting/changing, the level of competition has gone skyward, the level of playing of musicians has increased exponentially from where it was 30 years ago. One of my kids prior teachers is a principal player in a fairly high level orchestra, one that pays a decent salary and benefits, they got into the orchestra right out of conservatory after having ‘gotten serious’ in college, but if they had to audition today with the skill set they had coming out of college, they would admit quite freely that they wouldn’t get a position based on the competition today, and the competitition is such that top level players are taking the kind of jobs ‘average’ musicians once would take.

I think part of the problem is we all love the story about the ugly duckling who talks into a swan, we love stories like Susan Boyle or the person who ‘makes it’ through hard work and passion and determination and love to believe that opportunity is there for whoever wants it, and that isn’t always true, and the exception doesn’t prove the rule