<p>S looked into the DMA and I will share what I learned. DMAs are relatively new degrees (came about in the second half of the 20th century). They do not take as long as a PhD (3 years if already have master’s degree) and the dissertation seems to be much less complicated than a PhD. Most seem to take candidates that already have a MM or MFA. They vary in terms of the foreign language requirement (PhDs usually require reading competency and test for this midway through the grad program-I spent much of a summer relearning French many years ago). The DMAs and music PhDs usually want German or Italian (makes sense).</p>
<p>Music PhDs are usually for those going into musicology, history, theory and, often, composition. One’s academic skills (liberal arts courses, music theory and history) are given the most consideration in the music PhD candidate selection. The GRE also becomes much more important (though the math is weighed less). For the PhD candidate, performance on the instrument is less of a concern or not considered at all. Several of S’s classmates went into to music PhD programs. Most of S’s cohorts choosing this route were not the stronger players at his school but were academically quite sharp-they did not live in the practice rooms as undergrads. The denizens of the practice rooms seemed to head off to the MM programs.</p>
<p>S played in five regional orchestras as a sub while an undergrad (his weekends were very busy-very little social life this past year). These orchestras were heavily populated with young MM grads from schools such as Julliard, Eastman, CIM and CCM who were working on DMAs at the flagship state U. Most had ended up in the middle of the south as they were married and balancing needs with a spouse who was attending grad, law or med school so I do not want to imply anything negative about these schools. They had healthy stipends and, combined with the sub monies, did not seem to be going into debt.</p>