I was giving a talk to a group of business people recently, and I threw it open to Q&A. (I love Q&A as it really challenges my speaking skills to come up with answers on the spot– keeps me sharp.) Anyway, one guy stood up and out of the blue asked, "what advice would you give to a student or the parents of the student who is thinking of going into music as a career?"
We were a little short on time, so my answer to him in brief was "well, be sure to take a good hard look at the numbers." But after I gave them that answer, I realized that I had never really looked very closely at the numbers myself. So here’s a quick overview, and this is directed with the best of intentions to anyone contemplating a career in music (classical or pop) and/or anybody who is dealing with high school students that may be contemplating a career in music.
First, let’s take a look at the actual numbers of the music business.
Just using a virtual pie chart here, contrary to popular belief, the vast majority of the music business in the United States is not about performing. The people who actually work full-time at performing– i.e., playing notes for paying customers– is so small a percentage that it is statistically insignificant. How many symphony orchestras employ musicians for a 52-week season, with complete benefit package? If you add them up, you get, what, maybe 2,000 people who have that kind of job? Compare that number to just one state Music Teachers Association, that of Illinois, which has 5,000 members. The state of Texas music educators' assoc. has close to 9,000 members. If you conservatively extrapolate that out, you start to get numbers like maybe an average of 2,000-3,000 music teachers per state (and that's just the school employees, never mind the people who teach private lessons), so that number times 50 states is 100,000-150,000 music teachers.
That's 50-75 music teachers for every full time professional player. And those numbers essentially give you the big picture, altho they strike me as fairly conservative, as I never took an audition that had fewer than 200 applicants.
Now granted, there are lot of "playing jobs" outside of major orchestras. This includes everything from recording gigs in cities like Nashville, LA, and NY, to playing the harp every night in a fancy restaurant, to playing "general business" gigs (weddings, corporate events, and bar mitzvahs). There are also people who make a good living playing Broadway shows in New York and on tour. (I have known people who played "Annie" eight times a week for two years at a time). And of course there is life in the "Freeway Philharmonic," which is playing in smaller orchestras that play 4-10 concerts a year. But for most musicians, "playing" gigs (if you can even get those, as competition is fierce in the freelance world) happen seasonally, on nights and weekends, and are per diem work. Even for people who get hired for freelance playing gigs, the main source of income, the steady weekly paycheck and health insurance, comes from a teaching gig.
The largest portion of the music business in United States is really the music education business. And it is a business. It’s about selling student instruments to kids from age 8 through high school; it’s about selling marching band uniforms; it’s about selling the same beginner and intermediate method books as each new class of kids comes in. It's about teaching 30 lessons a week, every week. And it’s also about recruiting students to attend bachelor and master’s and Ph.D. programs.
I am not knocking this one little bit. After all, and full disclosure here, these are the people who buy my book, Real Men Don’t Rehearse! They are also the people who rent my kid shows. And, my own financial interest aside, I’m a great believer in arts and music education, and if anything I think there should be a whole lot more of it. (In some future blog I will elaborate on that . . . but I am not referring to doing the same old same old, believe me.)
However, it is very important for the 16 or 17 year old kid who is thinking about entering the music business to understand what kind of business it is that they are going to enter. If in fact they go to music school, and get a bachelor’s or master’s degree in whatever instrument (or singing or conducting or composing), I suspect an awful lot of them think they are going to graduate and get a payign performing gig. But for most, the math does not agree with this plan. There are far more people getting graduated from music schools than there are music jobs available. The chances of getting a full-time playing gig are similar to your average high school athlete’s chances of getting into the NBA. At least, in the NBA, there is some turnover… NBA players only have careers of 10 to 15 years. When someone gets a job in a major symphony, they stay there for 40 years. The job openings for those few playing gigs are few and far between.
For the vast majority of music students, assuming they do in fact end up working in music, their career will be in some form of academic/teaching post with maybe some occasional weekend playing involved. If that is your plan, great, more power to you. I could see being a tenured professor in some bucolic setting someplace. Your college gig could include a lot of freelancing if you’re a really good player, or perhaps if you are a not-so-good player, a whole lot of teaching and no playing, or something in between.
Even in the music teaching business, competition is fierce due to the high number of people who graduate from music school. So, given the number of music school grads who are job hunting all the time, once you get a tenured teaching job, there you stay.
The other common route: A fairly sizable percentage of music majors, when they discover that they cannot make a living playing concerts, go into ancillary roles such as arts administration (a large number of orchestra admins are music school grads), fund-raising, working in the press office, or working in or running the local music store, selling, guess what, method books and lessons to the next generation of young kid students.
This is not limited to the orchestral/ classical realm. In fact, there are probably even more people involved in teaching guitar chords and rock drum technique at your local music store.
I am certainly the last person to say anybody shouldn’t pursue their dreams, musical or otherwise. But at the same time, I think it’s very important to give kids as much information as we possibly can. Sure, you may be one of the stars who wins an audition against 400 other applicants. But that still leaves us with the question of, what do we do with the other 399 audition losers? This is the question that those who sell arts education adroitly avoid. I know many people who are talented, dedicated, highly skilled players of their instruments who are constantly auditioning for orchestra gigs who never quite make it. You won't see them on the cover of any brochure. As far as I can tell, there is no correlation between the number of people who graduate from music school and the number of jobs available for people with the skill set acquired in music school. So this is something you yourself need to consider.
High school students are a vulnerable population, and it needs to be protected, not exploited. Vague promises of artistic glory are, in my view, irresponsible. And there is a hint of a ponzi scheme here. If go into music, you too will become dependent upon the student economy.
There are a whole lot of music school teachers at the university level who need to recruit students in order to survive. So I will tell you that if you are considering a career in music, bear in mind that you are a potential customer, and as such you will be wooed and romanced by people who have an economic interest in selling you their services and products. The music business is dependent upon ever more new young students who want to learn instruments, and so of course the sales department will dangle in front of you a wonderful ultimate ideal of playing beautiful music every night with glamorous people. No one mentions the scutwork and politics and frustrations, or playing the b minor mass for the 37th time on a saturday night when everyone else is watching the playoffs, so I am volunteering to be the shot-at messenger.
Now bear in mind, as I wrote in Real Men Don't Rehearse, I had a great time for a while as a professional musician. For some people, it’s a great life. It’s what they’re born to do and be, and they’re very happy doing it. Some people balance musical activities with other things. But I have known many people in that business that were truly miserable, and felt trapped because they had no marketable skill other than playing and/or teaching within the musical academia industry.
This is not to say I don’t earnestly believe in arts education. I do. The skills one learns from artistic endeavors, such as listening, teamwork, leadership, timing, and presenting, are, to some degree, transferable to many other professional endeavors. In fact, it is one of the purposes of this blog to share at least some of that information with you. And I think we should try and teach the basics to every kid we can, as (when done correctly) this makes for a more happy and productive society as a whole, and so we all benefit from that.
On the other hand, all too often there is a false hope held out to people that playing music for a living will provide some halcyon escape from the rigors of the cold cruel world, when in fact in most cases the opposite is true.
I will talk more about this in future blogs, but for the moment if you or your kid is thinking of going into music, just remember that wonderful old saying, "caveat emptor."
©Justin Locke
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