Music career?

[titchy]

Hoping some pro or semi pro music folk can advise....

Dd plays an instrument (fairly common orchestral one) pretty well, but she is by no means gifted. She enjoys it and is always happy to practice, plays in groups etc. she is likely to do grade 8 in the summer of year 11 (that'll be a nice stressful term.....)

Is a career as a musician possible with that level of ability? She is also quite academic. (maths and science particularly).

She is only a teen so there is no rush to decide on future career obviously - however if (and it's a big if of course) a music career is possible does she need piano? In which case I need to get her some lessons ASAP! Hence me asking....

Thanks!

maggie the music course beginning with a G being referred to is most likely a Surrey county council course which runs in the week up to Easter and is residential and held at a boarding school in the county. If you go on the County Council website, without giving too many details away as posters DCs will be there and lets keep this non specific, it rhymes with the stick a conductor uses and has a double letter in the middle!, so search that word and it'll come up....

I am a self-confessed 'Muso' OP. I was grade 8 sax / grade 5 piano / grade 7 trumpet by 1st year of 6th form and played in so many ensembles/youth orchestras I was out of the house almost every weekend.

I chose to do music with a language at university and went the academic route. For me, this was the best choice as the bit I loved most about music was the ensemble playing (orchestras/wind bands/brass bands/etc). I was a wimpy soloist and my A level teacher suggested I wouldn't feel comfortable at a conservatoire (I agreed). The academic route meant I could still indulge my passion and interest but without the intense pressure of having to be the best soloist. I had a close friend who went to one of the London conservatoires and her entire existance was about being 'the best' in her year, she was under a lot of pressure. The language part of my degree gave me a lot of transferrable skills for work (presentations, communication, linguistic skills, reading body language, writing essays, researching etc). Plus I got to study for a year abroad.

I now work in a completely un-related profession (engineering) as a project manager. I use all my skills from my degree and keep my music going at the weekends in numerous enembles. I decided in my first year of my degree that as long as I had music in my life I would be happy, and that for me, a job in the musical profession wouldn't give me the lifestyle I wanted.

Many of my friends and student peers got jobs in the music field:

Secondary teaching
Primary teaching
Private music lessons (they work long unsociable hours and being self-employed don't get paid annual leave, sick pay, etc)
Publishing assistants for the companies that publish sheet music
Event management (for a major professional orchestra in London, nightclubs, jazz bars, etc)
Ensemble musician on cruise ships (irregular work, but when you are working free board and lodgings and a chance to visit lots of the world!)
Sound technician for theatres/concert halls (if this is the route I would recommend doing the Tonmeister course - it is only run at a handful of universities, competition is high, you need A level maths, but it puts you in the top 10% of sound technicians in the industry)
Marines or military - you can join as a professional musician and you are a paramedic in combat

Other careers taken by my musician colleagues:

Head of IT department for a government dept
Police
Nurse & Doctor (obviously did different degrees, but of 'professional' performing standard, still perform regularly in London)
Actuary
University administration/management
Paramedic
Jewelery business owner
Solicitor (did the 1 year law conversion course after music degree)

I think your DD needs to decide if she wants to do music as a job, or whether she wants to keep it as a hobby. She can still perform at a very high level at the weekends and do another job.

Sorry for the long post!

Thanks Gettingalife. Not sure if dd falls in between the groups - she's grade 4 level but is 8 (think they say 8-11 year olds would be in the grade 1-3 group) and beyond this level would be the over 11s.

Need to look at this plus any other courses for summer - have been putting off dealing with it.

I wouldn't get hung up on when a child takes an exam. I was a very average musician and then in 6th form something just clicked and I got grade 8 in 3 instruments and went to a conservatoire for uni. I knew plenty of people I went to school with who peaked far earlier and didn't get in. It was all about how good you were in the April the year before uni (audition time) - no-one cares that you have been at that level since you were 12. What if you don't improve much or develop any flair as a performer?

What I would say to someone who wants a career in music is diversify. Be able to play by ear and sight read flawlessly. Learn several instruments. When work dries up for one, there may still be plenty ticking over for the others. Don't pigeon hole yourself into playing only classical piano - you might make a lot more playing show tunes in a hotel bar. Just learn everything and don't consider yourself an artiste who can't be corrupted into playing things you don't love.

I never completed my music degree - I switched to law, but I have made a living from music ever since and was able to teach music to little ones throughout uni because my theory was solid. It didn't make sense to drop back to a graduate salary when I graduated (I was making more teaching freelance) and then I had children and being self employed has been a God send. I'm not saying I'll do music forever - I still really want to use my law qualifications one day - but it is perfectly possible to make a living from it without being grade 8 at 11 years old. Anyone who tells you otherwise is wrong.

Getting - Whats with the secrecy about the course? Or is it a Harry Potter thing? You know - The Course That Cannot Be Named.

I know the course - gatton isn't it? I only know because i live in surrey. Goodness know why no-one will say it

The only reason I didn't say it is cos a poster upthread had already said their child would be there and had referred to it obliquely herself - I didn't feel it was up to me to say out loud where her child would be staying that week.

Not a secret, obviously. That was my attempt at discretion whilst trying to keep a distinction between MN and RL.

Oh if you want my post deleted that's fine. Not exactly hard to find from the description as only residential music course run in Surrey over easter!

True, schlike, very true

I loved music when I was at school - 3 grade 8s by 6th form, spent most of my spare time playing and practising and at music school (county) and Youth Orchestra, or playing in local performances.

I chose to do a music degree at a University. And I specifically chose not to do an Oxbridge one as neither of them offered the choice and flexibility that some other 'redbrick' universities did (at the time at least)(and I didn't want all my degree resting upon a week's worth of exams at the end of three years).

I came to realise that I wanted more flexibility than a music career would be likely to give me - I wanted to be able to play pieces (or opt out) because I wanted to, not play Beethoven's 5th for the 8th time that year just because the audiences like to go to hear it. I also met a friend from school who was older than me and she just didn't want to play for fun anymore - all the enjoyment from playing chamber music was gone and she wanted to give up completely.

Because I got a traditional degree from a normal university, I was able to get a postgrad place doing something completely different (that I part financed by teaching, having also got the instrument teaching diploma). I now do that profession as my job and sing and play a lot. I have no regrets from having done the degree, or for having chosen not to follow a music career.

However, if you're going to do it at university, Piano skills would be good.

Orm - why is he doing just grade 2 - why not straight to grade 5? I only did grade 5 theory as that is the only one you needed for your instrumental grades. Did it when I was 10 so it can't have been that bad!

Just to play Devil's Advocate - I was ALWAYS going to be a pro musician and was pushed by parents and teachers and possibly even slightly brainwashed!! No other career was even mentioned as a possibility. I went to RCM and played professionally right up to having children. Then I started teaching instead.
I was grade 8 at 13.
DH muso too and we live ok. I can be a good life!!!

1805 you've offered very constructive insight throughout this thread

theatasigma I think a field is the perfect venue for a garklein!!

We're not doing the summer course,the dates clash horribly with various singing events for her.

Maggiethecat (love the name!) "many paths to a destination" is so true. Eldest is now wondering if she can take her music further after her 1st degree (not music) as she's loving her choral scholarship so much.

Coming back to this thread belatedly to give an answer to Pushing's question without being too specific and identifying myself.

He is able to be a professional musician (both composing and performing live) because he play several self-taught instruments by ear (including guitar which is the only one he'll play live) but he writes almost entirely on a computer, using Logic. His skills were entirely built by self-discovery and dedication. He has a very high aptitude for maths and technology, which I think helps. He doesn't teach, so no need to worry about that. We have discovered that he does actually 'know' a lot of music theory - it's stuff that he's internalised through discovery not education.

The qualities that allow him to be successful in his field are innovation, enormous amounts of persistence and the ability to mentally and emotionally withstand an incredibly frustrating, fickle and increasingly risk-averse music industry. These are personal attributes, not classical skills.

He finds an enormous amount more joy in music (making and playing it) than I do having been hustled through grades on various instruments as a teenager. Not to say that classical music skills aren't a great attribute in later life - I'm just trying to point out that in today's world a career in music needn't depend on them at all.

1805 and Everyone,
This is a very practical topic.Thank you OP for starting it!
'I was grade 8 at 13'
How much does the age you got grade 8 matter?
A child achieved grade 8 at age 8 means he is more _ than a another child achieved same at age 13?

Maggie - [:0] Thank you.

I'll try again.

Maggie :)

Curious, I was just trying to show the other side to being a self taught, non-reading-music musician.
I showed promise early on and was 'guided' into a musical career.
That way can work too.

All ways can work. It doesn't matter which route you take.

Contacts however I believe ARE essential, so you need to get out there and show what you can do and meet people.

If your child wants to take a particular direction, I believe there is always a way to get there, no matter from where you start.

Curious - I would agree about the age and grades. I started piano at 6. Its never felt 'natural' but I persisted and got Grade 8 eventually (luckily the examiner didn't listen to all the piece and I didn't have to play the horrendous bit in octaves that I found really difficult). To me its always felt like a bit of an alien thing that, if I poked it, it made a noise.

I started violin when I was 10. Took grade 4 just 18 months later - but that still put me 'behind' people that had started a lot earlier. I didn't take up viola until I was 14 - passed grade 8 just 18 months later, and only took two exams on that (same mark for both .

I'm so glad that my parents didn't view my lack of real ability on the piano as a reason to not let me play a second (and later third) instrument as otherwise I wouldn't have found the string family. When I play them they're an extension of me - not just something to prod like the piano and hope for the best.

Theas not having a music degree isn't a problem. It depends how far she wants to go. I sing in a choir that has people singing in it who regularly perform solos for other events and are hired in a 'professional' capacity - at least one of those does a non-music job as well.

Can I just add another comment re the Grades. A lot of people think that Grade 8 is the 'final stage' in proving your skills as a musician. It absolutely is not. It is more the starting point for beginning to learn the really technical stuff needed to be a professional performer, which will happen at music college or university, where you tend to come into contact with really good quality teaching at a time when you are mature enough to really 'get it'.

(And yes, I know people that did uni degrees and still went on to be performers - they often did post grad at music college, rather than whole degree at college).

I think it is almost irrelevant what age you are when you do Grade 8 if you have enough innate ability and enough determination to make it.

Likewise, it doesn't matter how hot-housed you are from a young age, if you don't have the musical bones in the first place, you won't make it as a player.

Just wanted to put forward a different kind of opinion!

Being a musician whether professionally or not, can become a way of life for many people. I know many semi-professional musicians who make part of a living from playing alongside other business ventures. Semi-pro musicians make up a large part of the market and are generally the type of people to enjoy running their own businesses, sometimes in teaching, sometimes completely unrelated. There is also a third kind of musician who works full-time in a completely unrelated field, but spends many evenings and weekends playing on local amateur orchestras, wedding quartets etc.

In my experience, being a musician and nothing else is a dying bread. If you play a string instrument to Grade 8 standard my the age of 18 it is perfectly reasonable to make some income from playing and/or teaching music. We only have a couple of professional orchestras that employ people full-time left!

My advice is to let her follow her love, but not to the exclusion of everything else. Musicians are generally very independant people with a reputation for making things happen which is as a fantastic thing for a small business of any description.

I have a music degree, DH has a Maths degree (we are both musicians, he better than me but has an office job) - I can tell you now that although DH earns most of the money I definately have more fun!

A bit late reading this one, but thought I'd add my own experience. Both my DH and I have two grade 8s and we both did science/maths at university. We both now have different well paid professional jobs, but both continue with our musical activities as amateurs. He plays in a number of orchestras (he does over 20 concerts a year) and I (as my mn name suggests) sing in a number of choirs (10 or so concerts). We both love it with a passion and can pick and choose what we do because we have our day jobs. My DH is a very good violinist, but would never have been more than a rank and file if he played professionally. I probably don't have the real musical talent to be a professional. If we'd have been dependent on our passion for our living I don't think we'd be as happy with it as we are. It's a wonderful hobby to have.