Music and Business double major

ScreenName48105
Sat, 06 Feb 2016 15:32:11 +0000

You’ve gotten some great advice above. One thing I will say, though, is to not go blindly into an undergrad “business” program without really understanding what kind of course work is involved. IMO, most of them have very little correlation with becoming an industry “leader” in any field, much less music. There’s a reason why many of the top schools consider “business” a graduate school field and not an undergrad one. Companies will hire graduates from top schools for their business side because they have confidence in their potential; they don’t actually expect grads to have acquired the needed skill-set in college as undergrads.

It may be worth doing a survey of the kind of industry leadership roles he’s interested in pursuing and looking up bios of people who’re in those roles today. Is he thinking, let’s say, Dean of a conservatory? President/CEO of audio companies? Entertainment producer? Artistic director? For these types of roles, my guess is that many have performance backgrounds plus advanced degrees.

I work for an audio company and what I see is that the leadership team comes either from domain expertise (i.e. music and engineering) or, if they don’t have that background, they tend to have MBA’s or law degrees. Quite a few MBA’s with a music undergrad degree. I think that demographic is quite common in music-related industries.

Btw, if finances are a significant factor, keep in mind that the application process is not free. From application fees to the cost of pre-screens to the cost of auditions – they really add up. So, budget accordingly because there’s enough stress involved without worrying about how to pay for applying/auditioning. There is also the significant time factor. More isn’t always an advantage, imo.