Seniors, in high school and college, are currently wrestling mightily with the decision of what they'll do next, as graduation looms and application deadlines are posted throughout Instagram and TikTok (I guess? I'm too old for that garbage). And everyone who's seriously considering further study in music always wants to know: will I make it? What's the perfect cocktail of schools plus competitions plus summer festivals to make me bulletproof? I wondered the same thing as a youth in the 90s, and I looked for clues in ever single event in which I participated. Oh how I wished for a crystal ball so that I could see my own future!
Very little has changed since I was a student, except we're finally saying this aloud: what else can you do? I'm not talking about abandoning your love of music for a "practical" career in science; with the right combination of skills, you can happily earn a living as a musician. But if your plan is to lock yourself in a practice room for six hours a day, hammering away at orchestral excerpts and French Conservatoire pieces, then I hope your parents' basement is finished. But if you can juggle enough time and energy spent honing your craft with building other, complimentary skills, it's probably still worth pursuing your true love.
Here are some supporting skills I have developed over the years, and they have served me well:
- modern / avant-garde performance
- writing: marketing, memoir and reportage
- non profit leadership
- grant writing
- marketing and promo, along with basic graphic and web design
- basic accounting
- teaching (of course! But much of it was learned on the job, and supplemented with coursework from outside my major area)
- podcasting (writing script and running interviews)
- basics of writing a contract
- band management
- concert production
If I had to be 20 years old again, I might spend some time learning to competently play a wider variety of instruments and develop some solid recording/editing skills. A lot of this I've learned on my own through a combination of very naively asking people "how do you do this thing you are doing?" and trying stuff out in low-stakes situations first, but these days there are actual classes that will teach you how to start doing a lot of this stuff. I teach some of those classes! The modern world is amazing.
Your list might look different than mine. Perhaps you speak other languages, which would allow you to travel to foreign countries and work as a teacher and performer. Maybe you dabble in composition or enjoy arranging music for different ensembles. Maybe you have a good eye and are willing to invest in some professional-level photography equipment. The trick is to be true to yourself--no reason to learn how to play jazz just because it might give you another "angle" if you don't actually like jazz--and be practical about your limitations, choosing more than one skill to develop, but not so many that you become the dreaded "jack of all trades, master of none".
I'm not sure what the "ideal" list of interests will look like in another decade, and mine isn't actually that innovative, but perhaps the most important traits in a successful musician are life-long curiosity and flexibility. Avoid getting pigeonholed into one narrow kind of music (or being a genre snob! We should be omnivores!), and always fight the urge to impose a narrow definition of "legit". At the University of Wyoming, where I teach, we've just started a new B.A. in Industry Studies in an attempt to help students diversify while honing their skills. The program still has the usual aural and written theory, history, lessons and ensembles, but also includes courses in songwriting, audio production, entrepreneurship, and more. I'm not sure it's the perfect combination of skills, but perhaps the greatest value of this new degree is encouraging our students to keep trying new (related, useful) things and helping them understand from the start that they'll be doing more than one, extremely specific thing if they wish to work in music.
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