My career path in music and job outlooks O_O

[snazzypadgett]

I am a senior in high school, looking at mainly 4 schools of music right now:

-Indiana (Jacobs)

-North Texas

-Belmont (in TN where I live, it is a pretty great mid-small music school in Nashville)

-Miami, OH

I don't really know what I should major in. I keep flipping back and forth between Composition and Jazz Studies. Here's what I'm like as a musician:

-I've played piano for 8 years, I play by ear very well and have experience in jazz bands and accompanying, etc. I also have a classical repertoire that I am using for college auditions, including Ballade in G minor by Chopin, a prelude/fugue by Bach (in C#), Prelude #3 by Gershwin, and a classical piece (probably beethoven) that i have yet to learn O_o

-I compose music sporadically but I really enjoy it. I've used Finale quite a bit, I think I've made 3 or 4 truly complete songs for ensembles and like 15 unfinished half-done things. Used sibelius a good bit, too.

-Aside from composing with notation software I like to sequence and use Reason 3 a lot. I've made about 10+ decent songs of electronica, jazzy/fusion, and pseudo-film-score type genres.

-I also play percussion well, I made all-state for percussion last year and I hope I can do it again this year. I don't know if this'll really help me with college though, kind of random

So now that i'm done inflating my image, what is the best path for me to take? I can't be a piano performance major, I have too much outside interest from classical, but on the other hand I don't want to give up piano by taking Composition...but I don't want to give up composing and just learn to play in a band, as I think the Jazz Studies programs emphasize.

Here's my ideal future, completely unlikely as it may be in today's market: I really would like to work with a media company (games, films, television, whatever) as a contracted composer and get to create music of varying styles and maybe even contribute in the production process as well. But I know this is pretty unreasonable today. What is something I can do with my talents that will give me my best possible job outlook? I don't want to get a music education degree, BTW, so please don't recommend that unless you really want to persuade me.

I feel like with my fairly rounded musical background I should have some kind of advantage over the 'talented composer' or 'fantastic pianist' that is simply one dimensional. But hell, what do i know. Anyone want to give me some advice that knows about this first-hand?

THANKS for replying to a ignorant and naive little 17 year old who will probably be poor but hopes otherwise

[Mustin]

I don't know if Denton has a music business program, but make sure you go to a school that offers business classes along with music classes.

If you don't take business classes along with your music classes you'll be in for a big surprise when they hand you your diploma and say, "Go get 'em, Tiger," and you have NO CLUE what to do from there.

BUSINESS.

[Azureye]

I know Belmont University has a pretty big-deal music / business program. Since they're located in Music City, there's lots of opportunity to learn about the business side of things.

[SLyGeN]

Make sure that if you major in music, that it's going to be your career for 100% sure. If you have other hobbies, you might consider going into that field instead since you're not very far in school yet.

My dad majored in music composition, but ended up going back to school to study programming. Since he flip-flopped, he didn't get the dream job he was hoping for.

When you say you'll probably be poor, even though it's tongue and cheek now, you should still take it into consideration.

Not the kind of advice you expected from a musical website, huh?

Then again, to be honest, no matter what field you want to get into, there will be people telling you that you're digging your own grave. People tell me there's no work in the audio field (technician stuff), and others tell me that the technology aspect of it is a great aspiration.

[Blue123]

This topic is pretty interesting to me, seeing as music is what I really want to study at University/wherever when I'm older... I've heard music can be a pretty unstable career, so I'll probably end up eating 5 pence ramen three times a day and writing on a cardboard box. Yay.

Unfortunately, being a year junior, I don't have any advice to say. Well, there's one thing. Many, many people have told me to join mod developers/indie game teams to get experience and show that you're able to produce music to a specification and to good standard. Seems logical.

[Olarin]

Funny you should mention composition and jazz studies - I majored in both of those, so perhaps I can be of a little help. Unsurprisingly, then, my advice is to consider doing them both. Some schools are more amenable to this sort of thing than others, but most should allow for the possibility in some way. Check out the curriculum for both majors - chances are there's a lot of overlap in GEC courses and low-level required music courses, so if you're willing to take a few extra credit hours to get both, it'll give you that much more bragging rights on your resume down the road (and hopefully a little more maturity and well-roundedness as a musician too). They're both useful majors, although how much so is largely dependent on the specific curriculum and faculty of the school in question (and also of course how much time you put into it).

If you do end up forced to choose one or the other, though, due to the setup of the school, or one of the departments rejecting you, or simply time constraints, it's not that big a deal. You're a musician either way. If you end up in composition, go ahead and play in as many ensembles as you can. If you end up in jazz studies, you should still be able to take extra courses in arranging, orchestration, etc. to expand your compositional toolset. Really, in most instances a composer *ought* to be a good performer anyway, and a performer who doesn't have the theoretical understanding of music required to compose is going to be awfully limited - especially as an improviser! I imagine you probably understand that already.

Despite how many people will suggest it, I don't think getting Music Ed as a backup major is always a good idea. I don't really think doing anything as a backup is a good idea, actually. Teaching is a noble and admirable profession, and if you encounter it and find you like it then by all means go for that pedagogy degree, but otherwise you don't want to end up making yourself (and your potential future students) miserable because you feel like failure in what you really wanted to do cornered you into a teaching career (or any other 'backup' career) that you didn't really want. Mind you, I pursued a computer science degree as well as a music degree, but never as a backup - just as another thing I like to do.

Of course caution is justified - low wages and high competition for jobs are economic forces telling us that there simply isn't enough demand in our society for music to employ everyone that comes out of school with a degree. Is that a bleak commentary on our society? Not necessarily - there are simply an awful lot of us musicians out there nowadays! But that doesn't mean it's impossible to do what you want to do, and you sound like you have a good base set of skills to work from. If you want to compose scores for other media, though, get into audio production sooner rather than later. Get some cheap audio software and start messing around with it as soon as possible.