University advice to a high school senior?

[pianorama]

Hi,

I'm trying to learn about my options here for next September and I have hardly the faintest idea what to do. Here's my pressing question:

What's music university all about?

I've played classical piano with some great successes over the last ten years, and I've always loved performing. I love the idea of things such as improvisation, and composition, but these things have largely eluded me over the years. I can barely play anything by ear, but I can sight read well enough to get along with my pieces. I'm very fond of music, and in my dream life I would be a concert pianist that gave many concerts a year to people around the world, but things don't always just work like that.

To give you an idea of where I'm at, my biggest accomplishments I would say have been finishing my grade 10 RCM exam in June 2010 with a mark of 90, and learning two piano concerto movements: I played 1st mvmt Grieg in a concerto competition in 2009, and 1st mvmt Tchaikovsky no. 1 much earlier this year in a music festival.

I'm totally stressing about what I would like to do after high school. Piano has always been a huge part of my life, but there's always been this commitment conflict of music versus school -- especially now that I'm in more challenging grade 12 courses and... marks kind of matter now. I've done well in school all my life and I love math and the sciences, and I speak French great for an anglophone. There's also so much thought to Philosophy class that I love, and psychology too though there's no class for that.

The problem is it's getting to be too much to put in the effort to do a great job in both arenas, school and piano, and I feel I'm getting to a big split in the road and I have to choose one path or the other. I know I don't have to know exactly where I'm going, but I feel pretty well blind-folded in fact. Since I was little, I always sort of had it in the back of my mind that piano was my passion that I wanted to keep going with somehow. I love music and am still thinking of continuing to study music but I'm frustrated in a way because I feel that over the years the enormous amount of time society has dictated I spend at school and on school studies compared to music studies made it really hard to become the best musician I could have been.

What do students majoring in music hope to accomplish? It's their passion, but how do music students live after graduation? I'm not asking how *well* do they live necessarily, but actually how like how do they earn a living once they've followed their passion?

I've started teaching piano this year, and it's an exciting yet dreadful affair. It's dreadful mostly because I don't know a lot about teaching piano though. I've thought about training to become a music teacher, and it's an intriguing idea because I love teaching and sharing knowledge (whether music related or not) but I've never had that gut feeling that a Teacher is the thing I want to be when I grow up. Who knows, maybe there is something in me that wants to do that but... I feel in a way resigned when I say to myself "maybe you'll be a piano teacher in 5 years from now."

For uni next year, since I really would like to go to school either way and I'm sure I could make it work, I've most seriously considered the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, since I live nearby, as well as McGill in Quebec.

[musicluvr49]

Hi,

I was kind of at the same situation at the beginning of the school year, but I decided that I want to pursue music. I think you do have a choice to double major in music and another area, but if you're very serious about your music that would be very hard. Especially if you want to be a music ed major, I've heard that it's one of the most demanding. If you want to be a music teacher I think that's a really reasonable career choice. I may be wrong, but I'm pretty sure that there are plenty of jobs for music teachers out there. Hope this has helped you a bit. Oh and if you do plan auditioning I would look into it now, deadlines are fast approaching... trust me I know.

[amelialw]

if you're serious about performance you could try the Vancouver Academy of Music as well!!  yes you should apply really soon...

Give it a go, so that you know you won't regret it

[quantum]

If you do enter music at uni full time, realize that it will not be anything at all like high school.  Most of that conflict between choosing music vs school will not be present.  A majority of your classes will be music based, thus you will focus most of your academic life on music.  That academic work will just enhance your practice routine. 

As for life after uni, there are so many options.  Going through post-secondary music school will help focus the directions you may be interested in pursuing.  If you want a great salary and benifits, consider doing a BEd and entering the public school system as a teacher.  If you want to get into post-secondary teaching you will most likely need to continue studies at the Masters level. 

You don't have to be a touring concert pianist in order to make money performing.  Consider accompanying choirs, vocalists, or instrumentalists.  There is huge opportunity to tour or get professional recordings under your belt if you associate with right people. 

A church job will have you playing on a very regular basis.  You have the opportunity to play selections from the repertoire as voluntaries.  Consider studying organ and singing as secondary instruments if you wish to go this path.  Most universities require a secondary instrument along with ensemble participation anyways, might as well choose wisely. 

[pianorama]

Thanks for the responses so far. I have another question, for anyone reading this that went to a music university, what made you go down that path? Was it something you always wanted to do?

Story time?

[thalberg]

Hi Pianorama,

I went down the music path when I was 18.  I majored in piano performance and earned a bachelors, masters, and doctorate in it.  No, it was not something I always wanted to do.  I made the decision just before leaving for college (or uni as you europeans say).  I had played the piano since childhood but not considered it a career option until later.

My plan was to become a college professor.  I could not play well by ear or sight read well, but my solo performing abilities were good and teaching interested me.  I did not realize ahead of time I'd have to take ear training classes where writing down melodies by ear would be necessary and would be part of my grade.  This was stressful and I almost failed out because of it.  My poor sight reading abilities meant I had to really limit how much accompanying I took on, and this limited my earning ability as well.

When I finished my doctorate, I got a full time college position, but sight reading and accompanying were a big part of the position, so things just did not work out. 

Now I make a living teaching piano lessons to kids.  I have about 40 students and I'm getting more all the time.  I love teaching a lot of the time, but there are things I don't like about it also -- I work evenings, which hinders my social life.  And also, the pay is low, which is stressful for me.

When I was a professor, the pay was very low also, which was much more stressful than I thought it would be.  Here in America, accompanists make even less than professors.

I've heard stories of private teachers like me making good money once they get established, so I wonder if that might happen for me in a few years.  But here in America, if you don't have a doctorate it's hard to charge a lot for private lessons.  So my doctorate helps me get higher rates, but it also has taken 3 and a half years to get a studio that is almost full.  So doctorate plus a few years to build your business means I was not supporting myself well until very late in life.

I also know a woman who teaches about 30 private students and does adjunct work at colleges as well as church accompanying, and she has a very nice lifestyle with a house, a beautiful car, and an outstanding grand piano.  I wonder if she gets money from her parents though, because I don't know any other musicians who appear to do as well as she does.  She is a very hard worker, so if she earns all that money, she deserves it.

But perhaps this will help with your decision: If I would have known the financial realities of making a living in music, I would not have done it.  If I were 18 again, I would have reduced my piano practice and made it my hobby, and pursued something else for a living.  Financial struggles are just not worth it, and even though I'm "doing my passion," it's not all roses all the time.  And having very little money makes life hard in way more ways than you can imagine.

You seem to have a lot of interests.  You mentioned math, science, and other things.  My advice is this:  If music is the only thing in the world that makes you happy, then do it.  But if you think you can be happy doing something else, then do something else.  Anything else.  Because everything pays better than music.  And all the practice makes you totally unbalanced -- it's hard to exercise, socialize, and get lots of other stuff done.  People who don't have to spend all their time at an instrument have such better life balance.

[quantum]

Thalberg,

Someone of your credentials in Canada would be able to make a decent living in music.  I did not imagine that the pay for a post-secondary job in America would be as you describe it.  Over here an average private studio fee for a teacher holding a BMus hovers around $50 / hr.  People with graduate degrees charge more.  Students are willing to pay $100 / hr or more to receive lessons from highly experienced teachers or concert artists. 

You said you like teaching, have you considered entering the public school system?  How is the pay in America for this?

[thalberg]

Thalberg,

Someone of your credentials in Canada would be able to make a decent living in music.  I did not imagine that the pay for a post-secondary job in America would be as you describe it.  Over here an average private studio fee for a teacher holding a BMus hovers around $50 / hr.  People with graduate degrees charge more.  Students are willing to pay $100 / hr or more to receive lessons from highly experienced teachers or concert artists.  

You said you like teaching, have you considered entering the public school system?  How is the pay in America for this?

Private studio fees here for people with graduate degrees in my neighborhood is $65 to $70 an hour, with one or two teachers charging upwards of $80, but not many.  

Professor salaries -- expect to start around 40,000 if you're lucky, and build to maybe 60K or 70K over your lifetime.  Public school system: expect to start at 30K or 35K and build to maybe 70K over many, many years.

Depending on where you live, these amounts of money here in the US are tough to live on.  Everyone i know who enjoys a nice lifestyle makes quite a bit more.  Engineers etc.

I mean, you can survive on this amount of money, but not with children and a spouse, and you cannot save for a good retirement.  And forget about having a nice house (or possibly any house at all) and you will never drive a brand new car again.

[quantum]

Thalberg,

That public school salary sounds very low!  Especially for a professional that is trusted to nurture the future generations.  Over here I have heard of public school salaries in the 70K to 90K range. 

For contract post-secondary work over here one may expect around 16K / course for Course Director of a one term course.  Around $65 / hr for private lessons to music majors.  Incidentally the students pay a whole lot more than that for private lessons as the universities gobble up their money. 

[pbryld]

$60,000 a year, with low costs of living and low tax rate is considered tough to live on in the US?

Wow.

[thalberg]

Quantum, where are you that public school salaries are so high?  Here in the US public school salaries are quite low.  It's a national problem that gets a lot of talk.  Teachers are extremely undervalued and underpaid here.

Pbryid:  It depends on your expectations.  60,000 per year is not a lot of money here, sorry to say. 

[quantum]

Thalberg, I'm in Canada.  Public school teachers are respectably paid here.  More of these teachers are also opting to return to school after many years in the system to obtain Masters and Doctorate degrees - they are not a requirement to teach.  There is strong support for the continuing studies of our educators. 

The problem over here - from what I have been observing - is a lack of tenured post-secondary positions.  The government is pushing for more spaces to be made available to students, and that students who would be otherwise unable to afford university be given the assistance to do so.  Universities are accepting more and more students, however the number of teaching staff remains the same.  Tenured profs are taking on more grad student supervisions.  A lot of the teaching is being given to contract faculty - an excuse to pay highly educated people a low sum of money.  The number of contract faculty far outnumbers tenured positions in many cases.