Where can a degree in double bass performance actually get you?

[moopants]

I'm considering getting at least a master's degree in upright performance, but after hearing people discouraging any performance degree, I'm having second thoughts. My ultimate goal, as of now, is to teach at a university. What should I do?

[Sam Sherry]

Originally Posted by moopants

I'm considering getting at least a master's degree in upright performance, but after hearing people discouraging any performance degree, I'm having second thoughts. My ultimate goal, as of now, is to teach at a university. What should I do?

Just to double-check:
* You're in high school right now.
* You play both basses but focus more on electric.
* You must be a junior because otherwise you'd have a real clear picture of where you were heading for college by the end this weekend.

As the parent of a high-school senior who is a pretty talented kid-musician, my advice to everybody all the time is to try to study in a setting where they can change their mind without bailing on school. What if you go to, say, Curtis and find that you really want an education degree? What if you go to NEC and decide you want to work in computers? You have to leave is what. People change their mind an awful lot, Moo. And peoples' minds are SUPPOSED to change when they're college-age. (Heck, my perspective on this question has changed a bunch FWIW.)

Last but not least, my advice as somebody who plays some and has a separate career, and as somebody who is getting ready to sign on as a parent for a bucket-load of college loans, is that you should study music if you love playing so much that YOU HAVE NO OTHER CHOICE. If you aren't ready to commit to it on that level then find out what else stimulates you to that degree, and try to play and grow while you do it.

Good luck. Let's see what smarter people say here . . . .

[Chris Fitzgerald]

What Sam said. Here at UofL, I give incoming recruits "the speech" about how difficult it is to make a living doing only music, and how smart it is to have a plan to have a day gig of some sort (music related or not) to supplement and/or enable any performance/creative aspirations a person might have. Just recently, we as a faculty have decided that it's a good idea to have all guest performers address how they dealt with these issues in their own careers to the students so that the students can get a better perspective on things. It's one (or many) of the most important decisions a person will ever make, which means several things to me:

1) It should be considered very seriously and carefully; and
2) Room should be left for experimentation and mind-changing.

Honestly, if someone had told me 20 years ago that I'd be doing what I'm doing now, playing with who I'm playing with, or even that I'd be a double bassist, I'd have told them they were insane. Yet here I am, and standing here and looking back with 20/20 hindsight, it all seems organic and makes perfect sense: I followed my heart, which caused me to zigzag a lot, but also justifies all of it in the end.

[moopants]

Originally Posted by Sam Sherry

Just to double-check:
* You're in high school right now.
* You play both basses but focus more on electric.
* You must be a junior because otherwise you'd have a real clear picture of where you were heading for college by the end this weekend.

I actually focus on double bass more now. I started out on electric, and I still play it, but I hardly even practice on it anymore. The majority of all my playing is on double bass. Anyway, in your situation, I see that you still play gigs, but you have a different career. I love music and I want to keep playing outside of high school and hopefully for the rest of my life, so I wanted to find out if it was worthwhile to have music as both a daytime and nighttime job and get enough money so that I won't be breaking my back paying bills every month. I do very well in school, and I could pretty much do whatever I wanted in college, so it would be disappointing to get a degree that won't get me very far financial-wise.

[MonetBass]

Originally Posted by moopants

My ultimate goal, as of now, is to teach at a university.

If that's what you really want to do, then get ready to get a PhD (in music history, performance, theory, pedagogy, or what have you). Most universities require it of their professors. If you simply want to keep playing after college, then get a degree that will pay the bills, then play for one of the local symphonies on the side.

[frichter]

I am currently getting a masters in Jazz Performance at DePaul University in Chicago. There is a motto around here when professors are dealing with prospective students: "only become a music major if you can see yourself doing nothing else." You don't need the degree to be a great musician.

That being said, I have loved every minute of my degree thus far and I can actually see myself doing something else down the line -- sh!t happens, things change and I'm all for taking another road if thats the way things work out.

BTW, I have a BA in History from a liberal arts school (with a music minor) so if you do someday want to get a Masters in Music with a BA in something else -- its possible. My advice: keep your options as open as you can willingly allow.

[jgbass]

I am currently working on a Performance degree in double bass. I am a lot older than you, and I can afford to do this because I have another career that pays the bills. I am taking time out to be a full-time student for several years. But, I am also double majoring in music education. Since I love music, I think the music ed degree component is totally worthwhile as far as future employment. Many have suggested this to me, and, all it means is taking some extra courses, and, if I choose and working harder. Other students are doing this too. Why not? It does not compromise my performance goals. I can go for a teaching credential later too.

I absolutely love going to a university and doing this. This is following my heart and doing what I really really want to do. Funny, I tried this at age 18, and went in other directions, but I still came back to music. My bass teacher is a graduate of Eastman, and he was talking about how only about 7-8% of his college peers are still in music. That's a really low percentage.

If its in your heart, go for it. Really, having any degree and going through the college university experience will help you in life, whether if it is because of your experiences there, or because, if you do go looking for a job after you graduate, you at least have a degree, and have learned skills that can to applied to many other work settings. Another thing you can do is minor in something else for the purpose to have some practical employment, i.e. computer programming, which, I understand, uses many of the same skill sets as music.

Best of luck, and its great that you are giving thought to this already.

[moopants]

Do upright bass professors make good money? I want to be financially stable or better when I get older. I know everyone just wants to be stable or rich, but I know if I wanted to, I could do it. I love music but I also don't want the thing I love to hold me back from things I could be doing in life. I'm aware that I could get a different career and join an orchestra or play gigs at night, but if I could get a career in music and still live the life I want, then that would be even better.

[Uncletoad]

The question you ask has little meaningful answer to you. It is irrelevant in the choices you face. The questions you must ask, you must ask of yourself. Another's path, an outsider's opinion can be of assurance or add to your fear but in the end cannot help you. Your answers are within.

What is your nature? What are you compelled to do? What gifts have you been given that call you to do certain things? Are you compelled as a musician, a teacher, or something else? You will have some sense of your drive by now if you are compelled as an artist regardless of how terrifying the prospect is.

You only live the life of a musician because you are compelled. It is an art. For those that are driven to any art we find that they have no other choice but to do their art. There is nothing rational about being an artist. Most artists myself included say "it chose me".

Most Double Bass instructors on any level end up there but don't really choose it, certainly not from the vantage point you are now looking at life from. Instruction may become the last thing you do, it may not. Even if you start out there you may never do it; Or you may head somewhere else and end up there anyway.

If making the money required to comfortably support a family is your first or only consideration then doing anything artistic is as tough a road as you'd ever want. If you are compelled by money, you won't last long in any art. You'll end up in business.

But, heed this, If you are compelled by the bass, if you are compelled to an art, then it has chosen you and you must follow the call or live miserably without it.

That can manifest itself in different ways across a lifetime. It changes and matures as you grow. The things that are important to an artist at 20 are entirely different than at 40 or 60. You grow and change in response to your muse. Your art changes, your tools change. You wouldn't believe some of the music I've played in my life. It's all been part of my path. Looking backward it all makes sense.

It can support you, it may not support you. It doesn't matter. Over the course of my life as a musician so far my art has supported me for about 1/4 of it. It contributes a portion of it now. My skills in other arts and business have carried me much further financially. That's very common in the life of a musician. There are no rules, there are no guides, there are no absolutes.

There are many ways to live a life and only one uniquely your own. You cannot choose your lifepath from the beginning, you can only see your next step. Take the one that feels right. Then take another. Pretty soon you'll be 45 and you'll never believe where you end up. No way you can predict it from where you are. It will always be right if you are true to yourself.

Enjoy it.

[bopeuph]

Some very wise posts here.

I'll give it to you from a finished student's point of view:

When I was in high school, the extent of my bass playing was the school musical because the bass player in the orchestra wasn't responsible enough. I played cello in the orchestra, and euphonium in the band.

I auditioned into FSU on euphonium. I REALLY wanted to be a cellist, but I knew I had a better shot of making it on euphonium and I had a much higher chance of making scholarship money. My band director told me that it would be a wise decision to do education, not performance, because you can't do anything with a performance degree that you can't do with an education degree.

So, I started my career at FSU pursuing music education while studying euphonium. I wanted to switch to cello, so I approached the cello professor (Prof. Georgiev). He would allow it, but he was giving me too many hoops to jump through first. I threw that idea away.

I wasn't practicing euphonium as much as I should have. Juries came around at the end of the year, and I couldn't play my solo as well as I wanted to (which, interestingly enough, was a transcription of the second and third movements of the Capuzzi). My teacher told me not to worry about a note here and there; I'm an education major and will be graded accordingly.

That really bugged me. I felt as if education majors were being treated like the "special ed kids" that get handed empty compliments. I went around the practice rooms for a listen. Sure enough, if there were even any education students in the practice rooms, they were the ones that sounded absolutely horrible. After the second year I started practicing upwards of two to four hours a day. I was meeting resistance by other education students telling me that I'm giving them a bad name. Can you believe that?! I told one that I am not doing anything but improving my chops and the only person giving you a bad name is yourself. She did not like it. Woe was me that I now realized I would never get a date from her for that statement. Oh, well, it was the number one party school at the time, anyway!

It was at this point that I heard of Rich Matteson and his Tuba-Jazz Consort along with Harvey Phillips, which the legacy was later carried on by R. Winston Morris and the Modern Jazz Tuba Project. I met a euphonium player in the group who followed in Matteson's footsteps. He was the low brass professor at the University of North Florida.

So I transferred there, after taking a break from school for a year. I was now pursuing a jazz degree instead.

Two semesters into it, the bass professor heard me slosh through a blues at a jam for fun. He came up to me after the tune and told me to meet him in his office tomorrow. He talked me into studying bass with him on the side.

Long story short (or is that too late?), my bass chops improved very quickly and I changed my principal instrument to bass with a euphonium performance certificate. This improved my chances of being put into an ensemble on bass, since I would now be required to play bass in an ensemble. I had enough euphonium chops to be able to make whatever I wanted through auditioning.

All in all, I was MUCH happier as a jazz/performance major. I learned SO much more than I would have as an education major. School took me seven years because of that, and the fact that I was pretty bad in my academics, but I wouldn't have it any other way. I got LOTS of instruction over the years and I took every advantage of it.

If you want to play, get a performance degree.

After this long, long post, I'll leave you with what my first euphonium teacher at FSU, Paul Ebbers told me:

"With a degree in music education, a cup of coffee costs fifty cents. With a degree in music performance, that same cup of coffee costs you...fifty cents."

Nick

[Heifetzbass]

I teach a number of talented bassists and only to a handful of them would I suggest getting a performance degree as an undergraduate. You do not need a piece of paper to make you a great bassist. No degree will get you a job by itself.

The trick to being a successful professional musician is to be marketable. In this society, and the way the economy is headed, you will need to be versatile. You may be teaching a private lesson at 6:00 and playing a jazz gig at 8:00. Tomorrow you may be playing with the symphony 50 miles down the road, and the next day recording a jingle in the studio. Is there any single piece of paper that can prepare you for that?

I suggest all of my junior and senior private students to get a Music Ed. degree as an undergrad. There is a shortage of music teachers in this country and you will find a job when you graduate if you so choose. If not, then go to grad school and get a master's in performance. Just because you are MUED undergrad doesn't mean you can't get the same opportunities to perform and lessons that the performance majors get. Your master's will help you fine tune yourself as a performer. Then if you can stand 2 or 3 more years and want to teach college, get the DMA. You can't get a job other than adjunct professor at a college without one. (Unless you play in Philly, or Chicago, or another big orchestra...)

If you get the combination of these three degrees, you will have the combination to do whatever you want. If you do end up teaching school, you will be at the top of the pay scale. Want to teach at a college? You can teach basses, pedagogy, coach ensembles, etc... Want to play? Take auditions, play on the side, etc... You can do anything in music with these degrees under your belt, but you still have to play.

Yes. This is me. I am 2/3 of the way to these degrees and applying for DMA- MUED programs as we speak. I teach school, have taught on the college level, play professionally in regional orchestras, and have a big private studio. I am above all- Happy. We own a house, good cars, etc... no worries.

Pick a good school. Play in every situation you can get yourself in, and if nothing else- Practice. Even the crappiest of playing situations will prepare you for your career. Until you are 25, every playing situation is "on the job training". And maybe after that, too...

FWIW,
Brian

[dar512]

Even if you decide to pursue some other kind of degree, you are not required to put down your instrument the moment you graduate high school. You can major in whatever and minor in music. For that matter you can take private lessons outside of formal schooling.

And, as others have pointed out, life is a do-over. My first degree was in education. Wandered about in a number of jobs and went back and got a degree in Computer Science.

I write software during the day and practice and play in the evenings and weekends. That's enough for me - and I prefer the steady paycheck. As UT said, your job is to discover what will satisfy you.

[moopants]

Thanks for all the replies. I've still got another year of high school to sleep on all this. If I don't major in music, then I'll definitely still keep playing. My teacher told me it would be a shame if I didn't do something with music, and a compliment like that sticks in your head and doesn't leave. When I get older, I'll try to join an orchestra so I won't have to quit playing with other people. If anyone is a bass and/or music professor or just a teacher, if you don't mind telling me, what is your salary and what degree do you have?

[jgbass]

In response to the most recent comments...

Absolutely. Today's musician has to get involved in doing multiple things and often has to have a few pots on the stove at one time. It is simply economic reality. And, I do not know any successful musician who does not include teaching as part of their repertoire.

I think it is then essential to find a music program that is as respectful towards music ed students as it is to the performance majors, and gives both areas equal opportunity to particpate in whatever ensembles they would like to audition for and also calls for certain levels of performance. I am getting that this is not true at all schools, and, in my experience playing jazz in various groups, some of the music ed majors who auditioned for our groups had awful performing skills. On my path of being a double major, I am holding myself to high performance standards and hitting the practice room or home practice for at least several hours a day, every day.
__________________

[Stan Haskins]

Originally Posted by bopeuph

"With a degree in music education, a cup of coffee costs fifty cents. With a degree in music performance, that same cup of coffee costs you...fifty cents."

This is true, in places where one can still buy coffee at 50c a cup.

My retort: "With health insurance, a necessary medical procedure may cost a few hundred dollars in co-pays and expenses.

Without . . . "

[bopeuph]

The other side of the coin, by the way:

I don't know about other states, but here in Florida, many of my friends got a BM and later would get an education certificate. This way, they got the performance education they wanted, and they could still teach afterwards. In Florida, as long as you have a Bachelor's degree, you can teach (but I understand it might be harder to get the same job), but, you have a limited grace period to finish the required courses and pass the test for certification. I have a bunch of friends that went that route and became very successful music teachers. One in particular is in high demand in the state.

I think to be a good music teacher, one has to be a good musician. That doesn't mean you have to be a great player, but at least understand the language of music well. However, you don't have to be a good teacher to play well, either. And, just because you're a great player doesn't make you even a decent teacher.

Nick

[moopants]

In terms of joining an orchestra, do members with higher degrees or at least a degree at all get paid more than members without degrees? Would a full-time period with a big orchestra, like NY Phil, be enough to not have another job?

[bopeuph]

As far as I know, you get paid according to the description of the job; not as to what a piece of paper says. Music is one place in life where when it's all said and done, you don't really need the piece of paper...but it's damn hard to get the level of music education needed without going to college. So, from what I understand, it doesn't matter if you even have a high school diploma, as long as you can play the crap out of your instrument and read just as well.

That being said, most professional metropolitan orchestra members, like the ones in the NYP, have postgraduate degrees, because, like I said, it's the studying that went INTO that piece of paper that matters, not the other way around.

Also, I understand that opera pit members get paid more than symphonic orchestra members. A good friend of mine is an amazing bass trombone player. He was invited to the bass trombone audition with the New York Met. He made it to the final round. That spot pays 250k for a 32-week season. So you get four months off every year, and still make that kind of money.

He only has a BM, but he's almost finished with his second contract with the Jazz Ambassadors.

Nick

[moopants]

So, technically, if I was good enough, I could just graduate high school, keep getting lessons for DB and practice until I can hardly breathe, then upon graduating college for a major other than music, I could try out for an orchestra without a degree? Would I get paid more in the orchestra, opera pit, etc. with a degree, or does that even matter?

[bopeuph]

Actually, one of the best trumpet players to go through UNF while I was there majored in business. He can play the hell out of his horn, and has been called for gigs with Nick Payton (if I remember correctly). But he also has just BOUGHT his own house, and he's under 30.

Makes you think, doesn't it?

But I would definitely take at least the theory classes. And maybe history and music literature.

Nick