So you want to be a professional musician... so did I. I'm sure many of you out there are asking yourselves, should I go to music school? Your parents and your teachers and even some of your friends are no doubt counseling you against it, which at times can make you want to go to music school that much more... just to prove to everyone that you are in charge of your own life. I myself have a Bachelor's and a Master's in music from two different universities. Parents, friends, acquaintances, and probably even some strangers told me not to. But I went anyway, mostly because I really wanted to do it, but also partially out of spite. The purpose of this article is to give you some information that you can use as you make your decision about whether or not to attend music school.
I had a wonderful time and learned a lot about myself and about what it takes to be a professional musician during my six years in college and grad school studying music. There are some things, however, that I didn't realize until long after I had graduated. I present these insights as food for thought as you consider your options and make a decision about your music education:
Some hard truths about being a musician:
- You need to be in the top one percent to be even remotely successful - Probably more like the top one hundredth of one percent. For comparison purposes, with just mediocre business skills it's possible to rise to middle management and carve out a decent life for yourself. Not so in music. You need to be spectacular at what you do to even get a whiff of success. It's simple economics. There's a much greater supply of people who want to be musicians than there is demand for music. You will need to work harder than non-musicians in order to make less money than they do.
- Music school won't make you a musician - It will only help you refine the musician that's already inside you. This was a hard lesson for me. I truly believed that I could go to music school as unmolded clay and emerge as a musician, shaped by my instructors, but it's simply impossible. Wanting to be a musician is not enough. Having a music education does not equal being a musician.
- Life as a musician can be an emotional roller coaster - When you're a musician, your music defines you. You and your music share an identity. When your music is bad, you are worthless. When your music is good, you're a god on earth. Since we all have good days and bad days, this can lead to an emotional roller coaster ride that is at best mildly depressing, and at worst the beginning of serious long term emotional issues. I didn't realize that I had become so emotionally fragile until I changed professions and separated my job from my identity. It was only then that I could look back with a clear head and understand what had happened.
- Being a musician can be incredibly lonely - As an audience member, this seems unlikely, if not impossible. All the applause, the adulation, how can that possibly be lonely? It's not. But you're only seeing a fraction of one percent of the time devoted to making that performance possible. The rest of the time is typically spent locked in a room... alone... practicing.
- You will need to have a second source of income - As mentioned above, the economics of music do not favor the musician. They favor the consumer of music. Countless hours of blood, sweat and tears can go into the creation of a recording or a live performance, which a consumer of music can typically see/hear for between ten and twenty dollars. Plan on having a second source of income as a teacher or office worker. This is a delicate balance, though, since every hour you spend earning money elsewhere is an hour that you can't spend improving at your chosen instrument.
- You need to be doing this for the right reasons - There is only one reason to be a musician, and it is that you can't possibly be anything else. If you're on the fence about whether you want to be a musician or not, you don't really want to be a musician.
- You will have to learn business skills - One of the perceived benefits of being a musician, as far as I could tell, was that I could just focus on being good at the guitar. I was shocked to find out that I had to market and sell myself the same way I would have to market or sell a product or service as a non-musician. It doesn't matter how good you are if you only play in your bedroom. No one's going to knock down your door and demand that you perform (and get paid). The economics of being a musician mean that you not only have to be as good or better than everyone else, but you also have to market harder and sell harder than everyone else. If you don't, someone else will, and they'll get the gig you wanted.
- Music school is not required - Music school is a means to an end, not an end in itself. The music you make and your ability to market/sell yourself will determine how successful you are. There are plenty of ways to learn music. The internet has tons of free information. Local teachers can give you lessons for a fraction of what it would cost to attend a big time music school. In other words, educating yourself about music and going to music school are not the same thing.
These points are not meant to scare you, but to help you understand certain aspects of music school and being a musician. There are too many romanticizations of the life of an artist out there and not enough truth, and here's the truth about me: after I finished school I didn't last a year before switching professions.
Just because I didn't last doesn't mean you won't, though. There are definitely positives about going to music school:
- Community - There's something infectious about getting into an educational environment where everyone is eating, sleeping and breathing music. You'll befriend other musicians, and the topic of conversation over meals, over drinks and even at parties will be music. Try to achieve that kind of immersion anywhere else... won't happen.
- Institutionally established goals - Nothing motivates like goals, and some of us are not all that good at setting them. The institution will set goals for you... tests, papers, recitals, etc. It's a lot easier to put down your instrument and pick up the remote when there's no recital on the horizon.
- Finding out how good you really are - This only works at a top-flight institution. During my undergrad years I was a big fish in a small pond. The music program was fairly small and I was the only guitar major. As a result I had an inflated view of how good I was. In grad school all that changed. I was accepted into one of the top classical guitar programs in the world, and it truly opened my eyes. The best students were already concert-level musicians, and I gained a (painful) understanding of how good I really had to be to have a career as a professional classical guitarist.
- Making a statement to yourself and everyone else that you're "all in" - Sometimes you just have to jump in with both feet. The way I looked at it when I decided to take the plunge was that at the very worst I was preventing a midlife crisis. I was going to take my shot, and if it didn't work out, at least I wouldn't spend the rest of my life wondering if I could have been a music legend.
Looking back, despite the fact that I did not end up as a professional musician, I'm still glad I went to music school. I learned things about myself that I would not have learned anywhere else, and I would not be the person I am today without it. I hope that my experiences will help you as you consider whether music school is the right choice for you.