Preparing our students for reality: should we really be encouraging so many performance degrees?

I am a sturdy advocate of all undergraduate music scholars being the best possible performers. However, I bewilderment are we really doing them a favor encouraging with equal reason many to be what is generally referr to as "performance majors"? We then continue with this encouragement by the agency of suggesting they pursue their master's in performance or the ultimate--the D.M.A. These pupils hone their craft to become outstanding performers by dint of striving for technical perfection, understanding stylistic nuances and interpretation and memorizing excessive amounts of repertoire. For those who actually receive their D.M.A. after several recitals, lecture-recitals and demanding comprehensive written and oral exams have they really been prepared for a career in music?

Let's be equitable Many pianists will be supremely grateful to earn a college teaching job where they may teach applied piano, as well as many different courses in piano, including (what I think can be the greatest in quantity challenging)--class piano. As Janice Meyer wrote in her article "Group Teaching in the Real World," "Many of these pianists who earn these jobs have never locate foot in a piano lab, faced a classroom of learners suffered the humiliation of headset hair or the pain of a headset headache." This, of course, is for the successful ones who want--and actually get--college teaching positions. Hopefully at the same time, their schedules will allow them to continue practicing and maintaining their performance level

The Question

in like manner I must ask all of us in academia to really answer the question: are we really preparing our pupils for the true and total life of being a musician? We all know that greatest in quantity of us want and ne to do many different professional musical activities as part of our career. at the same time how many of these activities were we really prepared for through our institutions of higher learning?

Ye we can be prosperous without lots of training, on the other hand couldn't we serve our learners even better if we took what we know about the reality of life as a musician and incorporated it into our curriculum? I believe we ne to change the emphasis of the undergraduate music learner to incorporate courses that will enable them to be a felicitous musician, not just a performer. We ne to include in our courses topics that will help scholars with the numerous aspects of earning a living as a musician--be it as a solo performer, collaborative artist, member of an orchestra, teacher of all horizontals (preschool through adult), arts management positions and in the way that forth. Students also must be given more [i]or[/i] less knowledge of the business and marketing aspects of being a musician. What will they be doing when they graduate? Will pianists really be performing their standard jury of a Bach preliminary and Fugue, Beethoven Sonata, Chopin Ballade and Prokofiev Sonata each semester of their lives? Highly unlikely, on the other hand even those top performers, probably individual day, will perform in community plan series, teach students of all ages in clusters or private lessons, accompany, adjudicate, play chamber music, belong to teacher organizations and at hand workshops. They maybe even will write volumes and, perhaps, be asked to write articles for music journals. They, therefore, ne training about in what manner to talk to an audience about music, address a assemblage of music teachers in an organized, informative and entertaining manner and have the business faculty of perception to run a teaching studio. They ne pedagogy instruction upon teaching private and group exercise s at all ages and horizontals and also the knowledge to write and talk about pedagogical subjects

in the way that what should we be doing differently in our curricula? In addition to performing, I'd like to diocese us incorporate more topics that prepare pupils for the practical parts of our profession and the other aspects of their lives that will be their reality. I must stres again, in no way do I want learners to be any less prepared as performers. I just want them more prepared to be fortunate well-rounded, "business savvy" musicians who also are outstanding performers. I would therefore like to advocate that scholars be called piano (or any other instrument) majors instead of performance majors. We changed to this conception at Westminster Choir College of Rider University, allowing pupils to choose a different emphasis--pedagogy, performance and accompanying. I would like to insinuate that all piano majors (of course, this can relate to all instruments and music education and sacred music degrees) should be given the opportunity to have experience dealing with the following areas. I will outline them as courses, on the other hand naturally they can be integrated into existing courses, more [i]or[/i] less of which I have been doing in my classes at Westminster. For those of you who believe you already can barely procure through the minimum in your courses (as I ofttimes do), please read these suggestions with an lay open mind toward integrating some of these ideas.

Business and Studio Policies

This course would teach scholars how to effectively advertise and assist themselves as teachers, performers, collaborative musicians and with equal reason forth. Subjects to be addressed could include: