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

I am a strong advocate of all undergraduate music students being the best possible performers. However, I wonder, are we really doing them a favor encouraging so many to be what is generally referred to as "performance majors"? We then continue with this encouragement by suggesting they pursue their master's in performance or the ultimate--the D.M.A. These students hone their craft to become outstanding performers by 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 honest. Many pianists will be supremely grateful to get 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 most challenging)--class piano. As Janice Meyer wrote in her article "Group Teaching in the Real World," "Many of these pianists who get these jobs have never set foot in a piano lab, faced a classroom of students, suffered the humiliation of headset hair or the pain of a headset headache." This, of course, is for the lucky 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

So, I must ask all of us in academia to truly answer the question: are we really preparing our students for the true and total life of being a musician? We all know that most of us want and need to do many different professional musical activities as part of our career. Yet, how many of these activities were we really prepared for by our institutions of higher learning?

Yes, we can be successful without lots of training, but couldn't we serve our students 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 need to change the emphasis of the undergraduate music student to incorporate courses that will enable them to be a successful musician, not just a performer. We need to include in our courses topics that will help students 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 levels (preschool through adult), arts management positions and so forth. Students also must be given some 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 Prelude and Fugue, Beethoven Sonata, Chopin Ballade and Prokofiev Sonata every semester of their lives? Highly unlikely, but even those top performers, probably one day, will perform in community concert series, teach students of all ages in groups or private lessons, accompany, adjudicate, play chamber music, belong to teacher organizations and present workshops. They maybe even will write books and, perhaps, be asked to write articles for music journals. They, therefore, need training about how to talk to an audience about music, address a group of music teachers in an organized, informative and entertaining manner and have the business sense to run a teaching studio. They need pedagogy instruction on teaching private and group lessons at all ages and levels and also the knowledge to write and talk about pedagogical subjects.

So what should we be doing differently in our curricula? In addition to performing, I'd like to see us incorporate more topics that prepare students for the practical parts of our profession and the other aspects of their lives that will be their reality. I must stress again, in no way do I want students to be any less prepared as performers. I ...