 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: Wisco99
Date: 2015-03-18 23:44
Does a clarinet performance degree actually have any value today in terms of earning a decent living playing clarinet? I pose this question after 40 years in the music business, with much of that time being spent as an orchestra contractor, and understanding the cold, harsh reality of jobs available playing clarinet.
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Author: GBK
Date: 2015-03-19 02:10
Sounds like you've answered your own question.
...GBK
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Author: Hank Lehrer
Date: 2015-03-19 02:34
Hi,
I made a decision over 60 years ago to not fail. I knew that trying to be a professional musician was a long, hard, and often cold road. I could not see that the odds were in my favors to succeed in this area although I was a very good musician. So, I chose to be a teacher and got a degree in music education.
Fast forward: Today I look back with much joy at over half a century of guiding young people along in several different careers including music. I was very successful in my career and still play about as much as I want to at my age. I may have lost a few steps of metronome speed here and there and too many notes on the page slow me down a little bit in sight reading but I can still hold my own with most youngsters.
It has been a great ride. OK, not a lot of sizzle but I have had plenty musical thrills along the way.
Many times "less is really more."
HRL
PS I'm still going strong on woodwinds and with many neat academic pursuits.
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Author: Wisco99
Date: 2015-03-19 02:45
Glen,
I would not have asked the question if I had the full answer. I can only see things as I have experienced them in life.
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Author: GBK
Date: 2015-03-19 02:59
Like Hank, I also got a performance degree but chose to teach (until I retired) and play on my own terms, where I want and when I want.
I still play in numerous groups, both classical and jazz, and have done more freelance gigs over 50 years that I can remember.
Never once has anyone asked if I had a performance degree. It's all about your playing ability and reputation. Thankfully I'm one of the first call clarinet players in the area and like being a big fish in a little pond, so to speak.
Unfortunately, more than ever before a performance degree is a dead end as far as full time money making. I try caution my students against doing a performance degree in college since it rarely offers anything more than just self-fulfillment with little potential monetary reward.
Music performance is a great hobby. Not a serious vocation in the real world.
...GBK
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Author: Paul Aviles
Date: 2015-03-19 04:33
I like to be a bit more optimistic about the degree. It is the PROCESS of the requirements that you garner, such as the required recitals and the emphasis of your time being geared around playing. The DEGREE won't do a thing for you, but having the time and training may help.
That said I liked Ed Palanker's past advice on the topic. At very least you should double major in something more practical so that you have a degree in something where the degree itself will count for something.
............Paul Aviles
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Author: kdk
Date: 2015-03-19 04:43
I will answer your specific question at the end of this, but first I need to get another angle off my chest.
I also took a performance degree. I had two reasons. (1) I didn't like the conditions I saw my own music teachers working under in the schools I went to. Too little support, too many frustrations, and as an adolescent, I wasn't ready to accommodate the frustrations. (2) There was a small conflict going on in Southeast Asia, to which nearly half a million of my age cohort had already been sent. The only two realistic ways to avoid being drafted into the war were to be in an accredited degree program or run to Canada. I chose a degree and, since I didn't think I wanted t teach, auditioned and was accepted for the performance major.
I also eventually wound up teaching in a public school program and had a very rewarding 30 years as teacher and administrator. I went back to earn a teaching certificate after a 3-year enlistment in the Army Field Band (which kept me out of Vietnam) and then finishing a Masters, still in performance. But by then I was older and had a much different attitude toward dealing with the problems that I had seen as unsupportable as a late adolescent. As an adult among other adults (I was now pushing 30 years old), I could handle those frustrating conflicts that as a child (in high school) or even a younger adult (college graduate) I couldn't have.
(Here comes the sermon.) I don't believe even to this day that my performance training, which was much more intensive than I would have gotten as an education major, was wasted. IMHO music ed majors get too little music training in their college programs and spend too much time "learning" to teach. As an administrator I always looked to hire skilled musicians who also seemed to have the intuitive and the learned skills to be good teachers. Too many of the music teachers I knew were no more qualified to teach music than I am to teach French (I had four year of high school French but today can remember very little of it). Again, IMHO, music ed majors should qualify for and take a full performance program for at least 3 years, then add the teaching skills at the end if they make it that far as musicians. The only thing worse (IMO) than a teacher in any discipline who has no aptitude for teaching is one who has no depth in his content area.
So, having digressed so far into what I strongly consider the benefits of performance degrees for prospective teachers, I will answer your original question by saying that I don't think the degree today has much to do with building a career in performance, except possibly the advantage an influential teacher can offer in providing contacts and recommendations. The military draft is no longer an issue and the best way to reach a level that will provide a living income, assuming you have the talent to begin with, is to play. They don't ask at auditions for your academic credentials.
Karl
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Author: fskelley
Date: 2015-03-19 04:52
I am reminded of someone who I was told took college courses in how to teach physics in high school... but not in physics itself (not considered necessary). I always hoped that wasn't true.
Stan in Orlando
EWI 4000S with modifications
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Author: WhitePlainsDave
Date: 2015-03-19 05:16
"Does a clarinet performance degree actually have any value today in terms of earning a decent living playing clarinet? "
For the few among us who are truly the Stanley Drucker's, the Julian Bliss', the Sabine Meyer's, the top of the top of the top....
and I submit them as rare as winning lottery tickets, isn't being affiliated with the right institutions and teachers an important part of, in addition of course to boatloads of talent/virtuosity, being able to make a living at playing professionally? Or to perhaps rephrase Karl's point on this, given two crazy amazing virtuosic players, is the one that goes through academia or the "name teachers" likely to get their financial return on investment?
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Author: Wisco99
Date: 2015-03-19 07:35
After reading the postings so far, probably the biggest thing to hit me is how much things have changed since I graduated in 1973 with a degree that included a teaching certificate, even though I had no desire to teach. I tried it and it was not for me, but times have changed. Moving from clarinet to classical saxophone, I thought of a local Milwaukee boy who made good, but received a degree in teaching from UW-Milwaukee, and whose initial job was teaching junior high school. He went to Paris for a year, won a prize there, and teaches at Northwestern, and I believe is now the dean of the department. He also had a fantastic performing career, and his name is Dr. Fred Hemke. Here are his accomplishments, keeping in mind his first degree was in music education. An amazing career.
http://www.fredericklhemke.com/biography.htm
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Author: Chetclarinet
Date: 2015-03-20 18:06
I have a mixture of Performance and Music Education majors in my clarinet studio at the University of Houston. All clarinet students have the same performance requirements. Several of them have a double major in Performance and Education. I do require all of my Performance majors to have an additional academic major . I currently have double majors completing degrees in Business Marketing and Music, Journalism and Music and computer Science and Music. Recently, student of mine graduated with a double degree in Engineering and Music, went on for a Masters in Acoustical Engineering, and now has a successful start up company which produces software to assist energy companies in quick detection of possible fire issues. His company is extremely successful, and he states often that his musical training and expertise helped him "think out of the box" when this software was developed.
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Author: kdk
Date: 2015-03-20 18:40
Would that all Music Ed programs had these requirements. Whatever a graduate does in a musical field, a strong musical background is a huge advantage. For a *music* teacher, a strong *musical* background and training are, I think, essential. Unfortunately, it isn't universally the case in my area of the U.S..
Such programs would probably eliminate any need for degree-granting programs in performance. And music education in the U.S. would be much the stronger for it.
Karl
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Author: DavidBlumberg
Date: 2015-03-20 21:44
The Degree itself doesn't do jack ****.......
It's the work to get the degree, and the people you came in contact with. If you can't get a job with it, it's on you.
But the deck is seriously stacked against you in the job market, and has for 40 years probably.
http://www.SkypeClarinetLessons.com
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Author: William
Date: 2015-03-20 22:28
Worthless, unless you have a bare spot on your wall that needs covering.
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Author: Wisco99
Date: 2015-03-21 03:35
Chester,aka Chetclarinet,
As a former saxophone student of yours at UW-Stevens Point many decades ago I still remember my first lesson with you. You spent most of it talking about all the different jobs one can do in the field of music, and not just play jazz saxophone. That was probably the best lesson I ever had. I wore many hats over the years so to speak in the music business, ran my own corporation, and I took to heart your lesson that day. My degree never had any value since I chose not to teach, but being able to get experience in different areas and exploiting those served me well.
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Author: Chetclarinet
Date: 2015-03-21 17:31
Wisco99----thanks for that reply. It certainly is more about what a person does with his training and experience , not just the experience. I taught at UW for one year many years ago , made a career change that actually did not directly use my degrees and managed to survive! Music Performance and Music Education majors seem to still be viable degree options for many.
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Author: Wisco99
Date: 2015-03-22 16:14
A friend just mentioned he got hired for the woodwind section to back up Johnny Mathis. The 2nd alto chair requires alto sax, clarinet, piccolo, flute, alto flute. Being able to play all those instruments and others is called survival. I worked with Mathis many times, and was a contractor for him working with his conductor Scott Lavender. I just checked Scott's background and it includes a performance degree in piano, and a master's in conducting, so there is value to a performance degree. He is a great guy and very talented. Being able to do more than one thing either as a musician or a conductor is almost essential to survival in the music business, especially if you want to make a living actually playing music.
http://lavendershell.com/bio.html
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Author: WhitePlainsDave
Date: 2015-03-22 18:33
Perhaps some levity is in order, even though the original poster was quite clear about valuing a performance degree as it relates to musical performance, not other avocations.
Alan Greenspan, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Greenspan, former Chairman of the Federal Reserve, did his undergraduate studies at Julliard. ![[wink]](http://test.woodwind.org/clarinet/BBoard/smileys/smilie3.gif)
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